Author Topic: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You  (Read 6770 times)

Offline djinn

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #30 on: 06-10-2010, 17:10:19 »
Ships. Please tie it to ships

Offline HappyFunBall

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #31 on: 06-10-2010, 18:10:06 »
turret defense games and first person shooters are very far apart. Not having a character in a fps games simply sucks, and players would leave the server if that option wasnt there.

Think about FH2 as a theme-park. You enter with a full-day pass and can run around and try out the different rides as you wish, the roller-coaster, the merry-go-round, the free-fall tower, the magic carpet, the radio-cars etc... What if you were stuck in the merry-go-around the whole day? you cant even exit it.. where is the fun in that? What if the merry-go-around is your least favorite ride.

So, until we have modelled all these ships and also coded so you can freely walk around on it and play with your character, (like inFH1 allthough that experience was a slippery lag show once the ships reached full speed) it will not happen in FH2. allthough im sure other games have it working just fine.

Ok, but you are no longer talking about what is possible with the BF2 engine, you are talking about what the FH2 community will support. Obviously it is a no-brainer that if a map or gaming style isn't going to be popular, we should not do it. Especially given the amount of time that would probably have to go into designing a naval combat system.

However we probably wouldn't start with full on naval engagements anyways. If/when the Pacific is brought in, wouldn't we start small? One or two simple ships on a map during an amphibious assault for example. That gives players many options outside of naval combat. If the naval combat is popular enough, expand it in follow up maps. If it is not popular, you can tell us to shut up, nobody else wants it.

Offline Natty

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #32 on: 06-10-2010, 18:10:14 »
ofcourse we can do it like other mods have, I never said it isn't possible, just that we simply don't have this planned. Just like we don't have nazi moon bases or WW1 planned for FH2.
We might very well never do any pacific stuff at all.

I am sure it could be fun, most people like the pacific and driving ships, but we are a limited team with different goals than ships right now.

Offline Dukat

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #33 on: 06-10-2010, 18:10:45 »

Think about FH2 as a theme-park. You enter with a full-day pass and can run around and try out the different rides as you wish, the roller-coaster, the merry-go-round, the free-fall tower, the magic carpet, the radio-cars etc... What if you were stuck in the merry-go-around the whole day? you cant even exit it.. where is the fun in that? What if the merry-go-around is your least favorite ride.


Don't get me wrong. Consider it an exchange of thoughts.

When I spawn on my squadleader which is sitting in a truck or halftrack, I cannot really bail at full speed as I'd risk my life. I'll have to wait until it slows down. Same with a Vosper MTB at 74 km/h. That would be probably as fast as a halftrack.

Who would want to leave a station in order to swim the sea, when there is barely anything worth to swim at? Once people sat in gun turrets of the large battleships in FH1, they never left until it drowned.

If you'd add 8 E-boats per side, each with a mobile spawn on it, you'd have 48 player slots per side. I'd consider that enough variety for everybody to spawn on. And once somebody would be shot in a station, you could switch the seat.

And, well, the guns on small boats are the same we're already using. Vickers, MG34s, 2cm Flaks, 6 pounders. Those are already made and ingame and they're pretty balanced.

All we need is a dedicated modeller for some small boats. I guess as long as we don't have that, we cannot force the devs to lay any priority on it, especially when they are not interested in it.

I usually imagine my own sounds with it, like `tjunk, tupdieyupdiedee` aaa enemy spotted, ratatatataboom

Offline djinn

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #34 on: 06-10-2010, 18:10:32 »
I think my thread has served its purpose, and any new light that could be shed has. Befor e it becomes a spamfest or flame war, I give it 24hrs from this post and then an admin should lock it for me as I cannot without a pc. 24hrs please, not immediately

Thanks

Offline Natty

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #35 on: 06-10-2010, 19:10:37 »
I think it is a healthy thread so far :)

So if I get this right... let's say we have a bunch of destroyers and carriers on a huge map with sea-only.
Every player spawns in a position in each ship, and they just sit there and wait for a target to eventually pop in to their sights? So one guy is driving each ship then, or?
So let's say a cruiser has 5 seats, a destroyer 5 seats and the carrier 6 seats, and we have 2 of each = 32 seats. These ships then drive around looking for enemies, and when they do find them, how do they position themselves so everybody can fire?
Or is the carrier static, so it can have planes on it that can bomb the other ships? (which was epic fun in fh1)? If the carrier is static, i guess it will be a game only about defending your carrier as each team will just head for the enemy carrier immediately to sink it.

I guess this could work out, but it would be rather boring those minutes when you just sit in a gun staring at empty sea. Or what if the driver of your ship is a moron and drives it to stupid places?

If you need to suicide to switch to another ship, it seems to me it will be like a minigame just hopping from seat to seat, from ship to ship looking for action.

If we had mobile artillery code working in the ships, I guess scout planes could spot the enemy carriers and you just shell it from a distant, It could be fun, and your captain would need to always move your ship to avoid getting shelled himself.
Artillery minigame of hopping between targets and adjust the dials is actually pretty fun, and I can probably see myself in a huge gun a whole round adjusting dials and hopping between targets, if in the end I could see a huge carrier go down like in FH1, it was truly rewarding moments in Midway-FH1.

The same game play layout could ofcourse be applied to an air-only map. where you spawn in a plane and need to take off to fight enemies in the sky. If designed perfectly, and with clear objectives, even noobs can enjoy it. I had very fun in coral sea in bf1942, but ofcourse there you could land on the enemy carrier and plant landmines on its deck, or snipe the AA guys from the mountain.... 8)

Offline djinn

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #36 on: 06-10-2010, 19:10:21 »
Dont forget you also playing as part of a task force.

In FHSW, each gun point had as rightmouse, a unique alarm horn so if one position spots an enemy, it alarms the rest and they, or more importantly the driver/captain/depth charger/no. 1 gun battery gunner(so i person can use a ship) can make neccesary maneouvers.

The bigger ships like the carrier as static gun platforms can have each key defense taken out and men running here n there trying to repair shit. Like the BF2 bridge it can have its flight deck made partly unusable or totally unusable with succesive hits till planes are grounded because of gaping holes in it.

The gameplay becomes creating a secure perimeter to reduce or limit enemy air, sea or ?subnaval assets gettint through.

You get scouts in the form of pt boats, scout planes in the form of floatplanes, 'snipers' in subs, infantry are aircraft fighters, bombers and torpedo planes as the varying classes and 'armor' or vehicular-roles represented by mobile ships, defensive AA and mg/ 'AT' in various calibre gun points and the objective is the carrier or static destroyer eg. Bismark, japans mother of all battleships.

And gameplay changes depending any aspect of vehicles changed: more planes, less ships, target ship or island defense, subs or no subs etc

Offline HappyFunBall

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #37 on: 06-10-2010, 21:10:05 »
I think there would have to be two types of naval maps: carrier duels and surface engagements.

Carriers can't move, so it makes no sense to put them on a map with enemy surface ships which could simply drive up to them and shell/torpedo them to the bottom.  So they should be two types of naval maps. Maps with opposing, static, carriers, and maps with opposing surface ships. (Except amphibious assault maps where the assaulting team could have both and the defending team has no naval assets)

As for the options to a player. There are really only 2 on a carrier map: AA defense, and flying. Although flying itself has several variations. Fighters (CAP and escort), dive bombing, torpedo bombing, and tail gunning. I thought Coral Sea in FH0.7 was fun so I am in favor of this.

On a surface engagement there are several options, though a player has to chose one when he spawns, and can only change it by sinking/suiciding. There is conning and manning the guns on a capital ship. It has the fun and drawback Natty mentioned. There is driving a sub. (possibly manning one too?) There are the small boats to be driven and manned. There can be aircraft and shore batteries if a small airstrip is included.

IMHO when you really get down to it, the big thing that is always missing is infantry combat. It is the centerpiece of FH2 combat, and players have to be able to get through a map once and awhile without it. With a well designed naval map, I think they could.

Oh and I think we all realize that this is just pie-in-the-sky for now. We know the Pacific Campaign isn't even on the horizon atm. However talking about is still a useful exercise, new ideas have to start somewhere.


Offline djinn

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #38 on: 06-10-2010, 21:10:36 »
The atlantic is right over the bluff though. We cant see the beach, but its there *hint, hint, nudge, nudge*

Static aircraft carriers imo wont work well mobile. The amount of work to make planes not insta-glib on deck is detering imo and the damn ship would be found in under 2minutes either way.

I think the strategy of having other large static shis defend it mobile smaller ships and then subs and alot of planes would create enough defense that enemy planes and ships need to overcome

And it needs a battle plan from a commander with a radio on that carrier or battleship.

Roles range from AA of varying calibre, mg, ships, subs and repairers for the static ship gun repair

See it as both sides having a fortress defense of ships, mobile armor, sneaky subs, scout planes and boats and air infantry With varying kits - rings of defenses and attackers
 

Offline Sgt.KAR98

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #39 on: 07-10-2010, 01:10:33 »
In a defunct mod called Desert Conflict forums,modders used to say that C-130 couldnt be open or it would crash the game.
BF 2 patch 1.5 was released,does that rumor got fixed?

Offline Daisuke Jigen

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #40 on: 07-10-2010, 03:10:31 »
Apologies if this has been touched on before, but could there be any way to adapt the Titan code from BF2142?

Offline General_Henry

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #41 on: 07-10-2010, 04:10:56 »
I think it is a healthy thread so far :)

So if I get this right... let's say we have a bunch of destroyers and carriers on a huge map with sea-only.
Every player spawns in a position in each ship, and they just sit there and wait for a target to eventually pop in to their sights? So one guy is driving each ship then, or?
So let's say a cruiser has 5 seats, a destroyer 5 seats and the carrier 6 seats, and we have 2 of each = 32 seats. These ships then drive around looking for enemies, and when they do find them, how do they position themselves so everybody can fire?
Or is the carrier static, so it can have planes on it that can bomb the other ships? (which was epic fun in fh1)? If the carrier is static, i guess it will be a game only about defending your carrier as each team will just head for the enemy carrier immediately to sink it.

I guess this could work out, but it would be rather boring those minutes when you just sit in a gun staring at empty sea. Or what if the driver of your ship is a moron and drives it to stupid places?

If you need to suicide to switch to another ship, it seems to me it will be like a minigame just hopping from seat to seat, from ship to ship looking for action.

If we had mobile artillery code working in the ships, I guess scout planes could spot the enemy carriers and you just shell it from a distant, It could be fun, and your captain would need to always move your ship to avoid getting shelled himself.
Artillery minigame of hopping between targets and adjust the dials is actually pretty fun, and I can probably see myself in a huge gun a whole round adjusting dials and hopping between targets, if in the end I could see a huge carrier go down like in FH1, it was truly rewarding moments in Midway-FH1.

The same game play layout could ofcourse be applied to an air-only map. where you spawn in a plane and need to take off to fight enemies in the sky. If designed perfectly, and with clear objectives, even noobs can enjoy it. I had very fun in coral sea in bf1942, but ofcourse there you could land on the enemy carrier and plant landmines on its deck, or snipe the AA guys from the mountain.... 8)

I don't want to post here for a while but my fingers got ichy seeing your post Natty ;)

Natty you pretty much visualized the gameplay of naval battles in a forgotten hope way, but one thing I might want to say is that in the static carrier situation, I don't see that the destroyers/cruisers would charge to the enemy carrier because they are needed to do AA duties protecting their own carrier, plus it is very likely to be sunk in a destroyer by enemy planes if you leave your main group, including all those manned flak gun on a carrier. Plus if you position your destroyers near your own carrier you could be used as a torpedo shield. So basically it is a carrier battle - noobs would drive their ships away, but soon they'll find it much safer staying together with the other ships.

This is not "just" defending carrier as it would be really fun to fly with planes, shooting AA, running around in a chaotic flightdeck... that is all the fun in FH1 right?


Also, as I have posted previously, a static carrier should allow parts to be damaged, i.e. knocking out enemy flak cannons, damaging the radar, or even allowing explosion due to being critically hit in somewhere... and finally maybe some magnificent fireball would spawn when the carrier is "destroyed". (and everyone near the carrier just got roasted) Truely rewarding when you press C after dropping that last bomb.

Offline djinn

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #42 on: 07-10-2010, 04:10:00 »
And enough bang to throw people 40ft in the air

Offline Mayhemic.MAD

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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #43 on: 07-10-2010, 13:10:00 »
I think there are basically three ways for a naval map.
Coral Sea = Static carriers combined with enough planes, lots of people liked it.
Rheinuebung = many moving landing crafts, destroyers and subs, battleships and carriers, also planes.
Midway = basically like rheinuebung but with a small island (attack target are half fleet sinking and half island capturing)

So if maps like coral sea work, the other scenarios should work as well because people have even more different things they can do.

With a moving naval fleet however, I fear if the the freedom to leave positions and run around the ship, to get into a landing craft or a catapult scout plane and go somewhere else, would be gone many people would not like it. Might be hard to solve. Not only do you need to survive walking on a moving ship but there is also the problem of attaching vehicles together.

On the contrary, I spent many rounds manning only positions on battleships or destroyers until they sank, so I would be fine without the option to leave, but then people need to spawn directly into a position of some vehicle like PdH.
(remember tdp pearl harbor map were every Jap spawned in his own plane ? can be a very nice concept)
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Re: Why walking on ships wont kill you: the engine and You
« Reply #44 on: 07-10-2010, 17:10:48 »
Pacific Theater (early):

two maps:

Guadalcanal: US vs Japan. Both spawn at bases at opposite ends of the island with planes, tanks, artillery, and transports. Covers the infantry and tanking part of the Pacific.

Coral Sea: USN vs IJN. Two static carriers each. Each side has nothing but AA and planes. Objective is to find and destroy the enemy carriers. First side to do that wins.

That's all you would need if you did the Pacific and sufficient bricks will be shat.