Do you play arcade games? Strategy games? I''m looking for the suck rating of this idea (0-10) Top down, asteroids style arcade shooter meets top down RTS game. You toggle between directing, say, 10-20 ships and your own ship. No resources to manage, but you can scavenge enemy ships and sell their parts at the end of the battle. You go wherever you please and fight whoever you want as long as you have the cash and fuel. RTS battles would be about what to attack and where. Ships have special abilities, like in Starcraft, but you could specify whether or not they could use them on their own (autonomy setting). You could control any ship in your fleet, from battle cruiser to fighter. Each would handle differently. Ships you don''t control would defend themselves based on a skill rating. So if you hopped into a cruiser, you could potentially play it better than the AI (err, or worse). I thought the arcade part would be cool because you get to be in the thick of the action. You could manuever and micromanage some ship functions like shields and power. Controls would be something like: * TAB toggles RTS / arcade mode anytime you want * Arcade mode centers your ship * right click to move to point, left click to attack (remappable); in arcade mode, right click starts your ship moving permanently, right click again to stop * In arcade mode, your ship turns to face the mouse cursor for steering. Accelerate by moving the cursor farther away, decelerate by moving the cursor closer to the ship (stealing from Swarm here). * 1-9 for grouping, work in RTS or arcade mode * Left [ for previous weapon/function, right ] for next * click ON a part of a unit to use it''s special ability (only capital ships, which would be as big a Starcraft buildings, would have special abilities, so this should be easy). In arcade mode, click on a panel representing your ship to do the same thing. Can also be hotkeyed. What do you think? (Really, I can take it!!! :D) -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

Oh, yeah, I''m sure this kind of idea could work. Of course, some people would shun it because (like I mentioned on another post) RTS''s aren''t supposed to be as fast or frenetic as arcade games. Actually, there is one game I can think of kind of like your example with the ships: on Galaxy of Games 1 or 2 (I don''t remember which one) there was a game called critical mass where you controlled one ship, and there were 4-5 AI ships which you could still give limited orders to. It''s more of a TBS than RTS, and I really think there should at least be an option for playing it turn-based, or to pause the game to give orders--at least on the 1-player game. That''s how I start out games of TA anyway--pause the game to give initial orders--and I think there are probably a number of RTS players that do the same.

Here''s a link to a review of Critical Mass, and it will probably have a link to the game... my connection is slow so I can''t get it to open right now:

http://gamesdomain.is.co.za/gdreview/zones/reviews/pc/feb/critic.html

There, if the other link doesn''t work, here''s one, and it does have a link to download the game.

http://www.softseek.com/Games/Strategy_and_War/Review_5923_index.html

What you have to keep in mind is that on arcade machines, the player should only be able to play for about 1-5 minutes per game depending on his skill. This doesn''t leave much room for strategy, so It would have to be a very fast-paced, action oriented game. Aside from that, the idea sounds very viable.

quote: Original post by Capcommunist

What you have to keep in mind is that on arcade machines, the player should only be able to play for about 1-5 minutes per game depending on his skill. This doesn''t leave much room for strategy, so It would have to be a very fast-paced, action oriented game. Aside from that, the idea sounds very viable.

???

I''m not sure I follow you. I''ve played 2D shooter games like Swarm and Escape Velocity for 1/2 hour to 2 hours. Several people I know do the same. Are you saying that that isn''t the norm?



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Just waiting for the mothership...

I think its a great idea. It could use some tweaking. What you need is massive networking. Get 20 guys. Each guy has 12 ships. Set it up like Escape velocity. Add AI. There you go.

That would be fun. FOR PC. PLEASE.




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quote: Original post by kd7ike

I think its a great idea. It could use some tweaking. What you need is massive networking. Get 20 guys. Each guy has 12 ships. Set it up like Escape velocity. Add AI. There you go.

That would be fun. FOR PC. PLEASE.

Would you settle for 16 players?

If I can get this to work it''s totally going to be EV-like! How about a death-match mode, which would be very RTS like, and maybe a open-system mode, where players could jump from system to system like in EV. Limit the number of systems, add in trade and simple diplomacy, and maybe a bit of base building, and it might be cool!

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Just waiting for the mothership...