Add Capital Ships or not?

[Crazy_dog no.3]

Actaully if marines shoot at a helicopter enough they could destroy it but hiiting the fuel tanks...

[simwiz2]

The clickfest Blizzard games are IMO some of the worst RT's ever made. Calling them RTS is insulting to the RTS genre.

 

EE is IMO a horrible game. Balanced worse than the original AoE, with graphics comparable to Civ2. The fact that there are entire clans based around making custom civs with nothing but villie speed and attack bonuses, and using their start villies to rush and destroy an opponent, just highlights the fact that EE is a joke.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

No, Madrix, you've entirely misunderstood my idea.

Firstly I was saying that using canon cap ship (massive space ships) artwork to replace Air Cruiser (small atmospheric assault craft) artwork is remarkably stupid, and I gave reasons why, which I shall not repeat. Even though I kinda already did.

 

You cannot replace Air Cruisers and Cap Ships simply because Cap Ships -any ships from Corvette and Nebulan B Frigate class and above, cannot travel in atmosphere. This has been proven in novels and comics.

 

I like the idea about replacing Command Centers and Fortresses with Cap Ships, though. Then Workers could be replaced with Construction ships. Only one catch: Cap Ships are mobile. If Command Centers and Fortresses are made mobile, it will disrupt game balance. It would sound fun as a new game (sort of like Homeworld) sort of like two armies fighting each others.. except HW turned out to be a horrible game .

 

My conclusion:

1. Because 90% of the maps are atmosphere, Cap Ships would be almost unseen.

 

2. Homeworld sucked.

 

3. If Cap Ships are replaced with buildings (Corvettes are turrets, Star Destroyers are Fortresses, and a XQ Platform or something is the Command Center), they will have to be stationary. Then it'll be a good idea. However, it sounds more like a good idea for a GB mod.

[Crazy_dog no.3]

Hey Eagle, I thought u left already?

[jedi3112]

I don't think we should discuss cap ships in SWGB, simply because it's a ground assault based RTS, not space combat. I think that we need a space combat based RTS like Rebellion or St-armada. That way we could have the really big ships (SSD and DSTAR) too, if the maps are large enough. That game will also need to have some sort of counter system, EE has a pretty good system for this except you don't notice it very well.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

I just started missing y'all. I'll hang around.

[Arthur2]

hmm

i never said EE is better in anyway

EE just have some stuff like tactical heroes

and EE's got aircraft carriers and nuclear subs

the way EE does it may be some food for thought...

 

that's what i suggest

 

cauz there are some aspects that EE did do a better job

for example: the airplanes more real, and tactical heroes stop ur troops (when u order them to move forward, normally they don't stop and attack until they reach the gather point) and fight back...these are some cool ideas

 

anywayz, just food for thought

I THINK we should start listing the ideas and do some compromises...the replies and threads are really messy right now

we should blend the ideas

and make it into a game proposal...

 

we can start doing that as soon as ppl have no more opinions (well objections don't count cauz we'll compromise later)

[CorranSec]

Hmmm. That might work. Blending is always best.

Hey, Arthur, why is it that in every thread we both are in, we seem to argue about the same thing?

 

I actually did quite like the aircraft in EE, especially when zoomed in on them. They looked rather nice.

I personally don't like the idea of tac heroes, but others might. Maybe a Tac Hero will be a certain build option, and other kinds of heroes are also available.

 

Dagobahian Eagle- Er, I totally agree with you. Why did you quote me?

[jedi3112]

The tact hero was not very tactical, more of a weak warrior hero, still strong enough though. I used the tact hero in the invasion of England mission, the last 1 in the German campaign, were you can't build anything except transport ships, citizens and the German officer hero. Worked very effective.

[Arthur2]

Originally posted by jedi3112

The tact hero was not very tactical, more of a weak warrior hero, still strong enough though. I used the tact hero in the invasion of England mission, the last 1 in the German campaign, were you can't build anything except transport ships, citizens and the German officer hero. Worked very effective.

 

corranSec -- LOL yeah....hey let's get ideas together so if lucasarts staff comes to this forum, they'll see organized proposal, not scattered pieces of thoughts.

 

jedi -- hmmm tactical, i dunno, i tried a couple of times, and i was amazed by the way the hero helped...i send my army to the frontline, but all of a sudden a nasty horde of enemy infantry appeared...and the hero stopped my troops and fought the enemy...it really brought down the numbers of casualties....

and besides, the hero's attack is about 3 times a normal infantry unit...

well all i can say is that it helped, well maybe not entirely

oh wait, i forgot...the tactical hero i meant was the warrior hero in EE...

not the "tactical hero"...the "tactical hero" is meant to be strategic, i dunno why sierra gave it that awkward name

(how can the hero be tactical if the only thing it does is make ur workers work faster)

[MadrixTF]

I agree with you Arthur, i don't like Blizzard game ideas on this forum either, plus i think SWGB has enough balance as it is.

 

SWGB is a true RTS and should be compared by games of equal RTS level, not Star Craft and WC3.

 

 

Eagle: Who mentioned Homeworld? I agree with you 100% about Homeworld anyway - it was pathetic - that's what worries me about creating a true space-combat RTS - it will need plenty of development time and good technology to build a proper Star Wars game - one should be able to zoom in and out of space / ground combat modes, just like in the movies! Then we could really use the Cap Ships / Star Destroyers in their correct roles!!!

 

(i think this was Jedi3112's good idea...)

[jedi3112]

Here's my first idea about the space combat. First of all I think we should use 3 main types of weapons, the normal laser, the turbolaser and the proton torpedo, these are just classes, a fighter's laser is not as powerfull as a corvette's laser.

 

The normal laser is good vs fighters and bomber

The turbolaser is good vs corvette and bigger

Proton torpedo can penetrate shields and does major damage, only used vs frigate and bigger.

 

Corvette counters fighters/bombers, think of blockade runners for the rebellion, modified corvettes for the republic and lancers for the empire, about 4-5 lasers.

 

Frigate counters corvette, think of nebulon B, about 3-4 turbolasers, maybe 1-2 lasers to destroy a few fighters/bombers

 

Small cruisers counter frigates, think of dreadnought (republic) interdictor (empire), has about 10 turbolasers, maybe interdictor field to prefent enemy ships from entering hyperspace

 

Capital ships counter small cruisers, think of stardestroyers and mc-cruisers, about 30-40 turbolaser, expensive and slow.

 

Fighters/bombers counter ships without lasers, think of x-wing/y-wing/b-wing for rebellion, tie-fighters/interceptors/bombers and assault gunboat for empire. Fighters/bombers have normal lasers+proton torpedo, fighter better vs bomber, bomber has better proton torpedoes.

 

Any1 else

[Arthur2]

Originally posted by jedi3112

Here's my first idea about the space combat. First of all I think we should use 3 main types of weapons, the normal laser, the turbolaser and the proton torpedo, these are just classes, a fighter's laser is not as powerfull as a corvette's laser.

 

The normal laser is good vs fighters and bomber

The turbolaser is good vs corvette and bigger

Proton torpedo can penetrate shields and does major damage, only used vs frigate and bigger.

 

Corvette counters fighters/bombers, think of blockade runners for the rebellion, modified corvettes for the republic and lancers for the empire, about 4-5 lasers.

 

Frigate counters corvette, think of nebulon B, about 3-4 turbolasers, maybe 1-2 lasers to destroy a few fighters/bombers

 

Small cruisers counter frigates, think of dreadnought (republic) interdictor (empire), has about 10 turbolasers, maybe interdictor field to prefent enemy ships from entering hyperspace

 

Capital ships counter small cruisers, think of stardestroyers and mc-cruisers, about 30-40 turbolaser, expensive and slow.

 

Fighters/bombers counter ships without lasers, think of x-wing/y-wing/b-wing for rebellion, tie-fighters/interceptors/bombers and assault gunboat for empire. Fighters/bombers have normal lasers+proton torpedo, fighter better vs bomber, bomber has better proton torpedoes.

 

Any1 else

 

LOL I have ordered the Starwars Encyclopedia

guess I need to look up some of those "vocabs" before replying to your thread

Well I think it's good idea though...

even though capital ships cannot enter the atmosphere,

they can still fire some sort of cannons , right?

or maybe just disable the ground attack for capital ships

[CorranSec]

Jedi3112- I guess with the different kinds of weapons, different kinds of armours etc. you're referring to something a bit like WC3 (ie where different units had siege/melee/hero/chaos attacks which were good against fortified/light/heavy/etc. armour)?

What I ask is- why have actual different kinds of weapon when it could be simply programmed that the same weapon does different damages against different units, like in the current GB??? :confused:

You did give me one idea though- the proton torpedoes. This could be an upgrade for all/most fighters (different name for different civs, obviously) which gave them a BattleRealms-esque limited-use special power. Here's how it works: In normal combat eg. blue fighter vs. red fighter, the blue player pushes the "Proton Torpedoes" button on the command box. The blue fighter fires a proton torp for his next attack, and it does much greater damage than the normal lasers (enough to destroy a fighter with full health, and severely damage a medium ship). These may seem remarkably powerful, but they're limited in their use, so they have to be used wisely (unless you can throw away the money to get a whole new squadron of fighters cos the last ones used up their torps).

[jedi3112]

CorranSec- What I meant with the lasers is that some ships can only use a part of their firepower on fighters/bombers, also some ships wouldn't be able to fire at fighters at all, so fighters will not be blasted out of space too easy, I didn't mean any armor to counter like in WC, more like the battleship from EE can't fire at subs.

 

If the protorps are truly limited, I think 1 or several ships should be able to reload the fighters/bombers, this could work very well, especially if the bomber could carry about 12-16 torps and the fighter only 4-6. If they use special energy, I think the bomber should recharge faster or have more energy or a combination.

 

I also think the bigger ships should be able to carry fighters/bombers, cause TIEs can't enter hyperspace by themselves. This would have an impact on gameplay, since the Empire can't perform deep space strikes with only TIEs, might also be made up with the assault gunboat

[CorranSec]

I actually considered the "cap ship carries li'l ships" option, but dismissed it, for several reasons.

(Note: When I say "fighters," I mean fighter-sized ships, eg. X-Wing, B-Wing, TIE Bomber, anything that size).

First: Scale. I don't want any remarkably big cap ships (Vic SD's, Nebulon B's, etc.) in this game, because to put things into scale, they'd cover about half the map. If they were made smaller, they'd look pathetically stupid, and their abilities would have to be scaled down far too much.

Seeing as it would only be these ships which would carry fighters, I think it's fair to say that fighter-carrying ships are out.

If you need another reason, 2: plain old gameplay. If fighters actually needed a cap ship to get around (andthey shouldn't, which I'll explain later), then it'd have a severely detrimental effect on any air battle. Gone are the scouts; gone are the raids, gone are the practical uses of fighters....

 

About what you said-

There are no 'deep space strikes,' or there shouldn't be. This isn't and won't be a RoN-style galaxy-spanning game. It should end up functioning just like the current GB- bases on a planet/asteroid field/whatever battling it out, and assuming that all/most locations are within reach of fuel, food, resources, whatever.

With the lasers; I don't like the idea of ships being plain old not able to fire at other kinds of ships, but I do like the 'specific-target-lasers' idea. From what you said, this should end up working like WC3; seeing as they can only use part of their firepower, they end up doing less damage. This is represented on their stats by them having an anti-fighter laser and an anti-larger ship laser, and also different looks on-screen. I think this would actually look nice and work well.

[Arthur2]

How bout let's make capital ships another "layer" of units

capital ships cannot attack ground directly, but it can send fighters and ground troops

 

capital ships' turbolasers can only fire at other capital ships or air units

how's that?

[CorranSec]

Arthur- having 'cap ships' not able to fire at the ground seems remarkably stupid in terms of realism and gameplay. If you look at my list of ships in the Ideas for SW:GB 2 thread, it shows a bunch of cap ships which aren't too large to be real (like a Star Destroyer) and would fit nicely with gameplay.

Having ships cruising around which can't attack ground (for no apparent reason) and which can carry large amounts of starfighters (even though only about 5 fighters would fit on top of it, let alone within it) seems a confusing waste compared with the smaller cap ships which I proposed in the Ideas for SW:GB 2 thread.

 

In terms of actual Cap Ships (like Star Destroyers), however, they could be included in one way:

A certain unit would target a location for an "orbital strike," which is where an orbiting ship (eg. Star Destroyer) fires a deadly turbolaser barrage, heavily damaging everything in the area.

This idea would work a lot like the Ghost Nukes in Starcraft.

[Arthur2]

Originally posted by CorranSec

Arthur- having 'cap ships' not able to fire at the ground seems remarkably stupid in terms of realism and gameplay. If you look at my list of ships in the Ideas for SW:GB 2 thread, it shows a bunch of cap ships which aren't too large to be real (like a Star Destroyer) and would fit nicely with gameplay.

Having ships cruising around which can't attack ground (for no apparent reason) and which can carry large amounts of starfighters (even though only about 5 fighters would fit on top of it, let alone within it) seems a confusing waste compared with the smaller cap ships which I proposed in the Ideas for SW:GB 2 thread.

 

In terms of actual Cap Ships (like Star Destroyers), however, they could be included in one way:

A certain unit would target a location for an "orbital strike," which is where an orbiting ship (eg. Star Destroyer) fires a deadly turbolaser barrage, heavily damaging everything in the area.

This idea would work a lot like the Ghost Nukes in Starcraft.

 

Sorry

I guess I need to pay more attention to old replies

yeah i guess that would work

btw, add ion cannons!!!

 

how come u guys know so much about the ships and stuff

do u guys have the Starwars Encyclopedia?

[CorranSec]

I don't have the encyclopaedia; I've read a lot of books (and own them, so I reread them), and checked the website (though not much at all). Just constantly seeing technical words and information in the books kinda drills it into you. I guess it's the same with everyone else.

Ion cannons; yeah, I guess that could work, either as an attacking option for some ships or as part of the orbital strike.

As an attacking option: At some aircraft-creating building, you can research "Ion Cannons." This gives all cap ships and selected fighters (eg. B-Wing) the ability to use Ion Cannons instead of regular lasers. It works as a toggling button in the unit control panel, and has a double effect against enemy shields, but no effect on health. (It would be too hard to actually reflect powering down ships, and getting rid of shields is much more rational in gameplay).

The Ion Cannon Orbital Strike; works like the Turbolaser Strike, except rids all units in the area of the equal amount of shield points, not health points. Most useful if the enemy posseses a bunch of Shield Generators or something.

 

By the way, what is the health of a fully upgraded Fortress? I've forgotten.

 

Oh, and while we're on the topic:

Maybe in GB 2, the effects of shield generators could stack, and shields could actually exceed the unit's health. Here's how it would work: Each shield generator can provide up to the health of the unit, but each extra shield generator provides half again of the shields provided. Eg, a 30 health fighter with a shields upgrade comes near a shield generator; now it has 45 shields. Another shield generator overlaps; now it has 57 shields. And so on, and so forth.

[Arthur2]

oh , u guys read extra starwars novels? like Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy...hmm maybe i should buy some of those books....

well the encyclopedia has a lot of information, but it's sorted by words, it's kinda like a dictionary

 

ion cannons

yeah that'd be good

but the ion cannons can only damage large space ships, right??

maybe u can use auto-swapping istead of manual swapping...

btw, i read about the ion cannon, the official encyclopedia says that the ion cannon does damage to mechanical units only and paralyze them for some time.

[CorranSec]

That's what I meant by "reading books"- mainly EU stuff like the Thrawn Trilogy.

 

Where did you get the idea that ion cannons could only damage large space ships? You said it yourself about a sentence afterwards- they short out any mechanical unit's circuitry. The encyclopaedia should also say that ion cannons are also often used to knock down shields before unleashing a turbolaser barrage.

 

Auto-swapping would just be kinda lame after a while, and would basically turn it into an aesthetic difference, while actually decreasing the fun of being in there and commanding your ships to fire in certain ways. This is the same as the proton torp option- reflecting that battle commanders do change their methods of attack when they want to, not when required.

 

Perhaps ships could have a "function" bar as well as their health and shield bars...... this would give players a reason to use ion cannons instead of lasers once the shields are down, and add more complexity to the battle. Yeah, I think that'd be good.

Here's how it would work:

Every ship has a "systems" meter as well as the health and shields. It starts at 100%, and can be repaired along with health. Only ion cannons can damage it. Once it reaches 0, the ship can no longer do anything until repaired.

[Arthur2]

yeah that'd be good

btw...

DUDE WHERE DO U LIVE AND WHEN DO U GO TO SLEEP???

everytime i reply this thread like 10 minutes later i receive a mail informing me of a new reply....

[jedi3112]

You's also need repair ships if you want to repair a disabled ship, the ion-cannon is a great idea though. I think we should freeze the space battle if some1 goes to command a ground battle. Might be difficult with multiplayer though. We'd also need some sort of 'manual swapping space/surface'.

 

BTW in EP IV they say 'The fighters are too small, they're evading our turbolasers' Vader:'Let's get them ship to ship, get the crews to their fighters'. That's why I think turbolasers shouldn't bee able too fire at fighters. I was also thinking of a very big space map, with multiple planets, moons etc. on it, the bigger ships can come out of hyperspace a bit further from the planet, out of radar range. I think planetary shields should be able to withstand heavy turbolaserfire from space (battle of Hoth EP V Veers:'Admiral Ozzel came out of hyperspace too close to the planet, the rebels have raised their shield, we can't perform a bombardment' Vader:'Prepare your troops for ground assault').

[CorranSec]

Uh.... jedi, all of my ideas are based around the fact that there will be no individual battles, just a totally combined battle. This is the best way to do it, as I pointed out before.

It's because of such irritating factors as those that I decided to eliminate large-scale ships and battles from the game, and instead have an easy, focussed game where everyone can fire at everyone else, just not as well.

And about that Ep IV thing- weren't they attacking the death star, and thus evading fixed turrets, not the mobile cannons of a mobile SD?