Let's get this out of the way : a first-person MOBA ("action rts") will probably be a popular idea, but what ELSE is out there and can be done? I love the full-3d interaction that's available in FPS and the strategic depth of RTS. Also, the "RPG" side of this hybrid design is essentially just having the ability to upgrade the power of combative units in various ways(and nothing to do with story).

How could you handle these things? For example, ordering around flying units in a full-3d space as opposed to a 2d plane. Being able to control actual ALTITUDES. Or how to handle resource-gathering and management.

Good game names that should be mentioned : Savage : battle for newerth, Natural Selection 2, WARSHIFT.

Some games have rts-style mods that mess with this hybridization in various ways such as... unreal tournament, quake 2, half-life 2.

So let's discuss different ways this kind of hybridization has been done.

EDIT (other ideas) : How to handle the commander and soldiers players? Should players be allowed to choose whether to play rts-style or fps-style? Should there be one commander and many fps-style soldier players? Should there be many commanders resource-managing and one fps-style hero character?

Just some other examples of FPS-RTS--

Planetside 2 is just an MMOFPS, but at a high level it becomes an RTS. There's strict hierarchies of soldiers, squad leaders, platoon leaders and company leaders. Soliders and their squad leader use the in-game voice chat to communicate. The various leaders will then use out-of-game voice chat tools to share higher level commands. e.g. a squad leader will have one button to talk to his squad, one button to talk to other squad leaders, and another button to talk to his platoon leader. The company leaders act as a panel of generals who decide when, where and how to fight. The groups playing it in this RTS style obviously dominate regular "public" players with no organization or strategy :)

The Arma games have usually had a "commander mode" of some sort. Leaders will be regular soldiers on the battlefield, but have the option of switching to an overhead camera that's good for giving large scale orders. Arma 3 comes with a RTS-style multiplayer mission where two teams are fighting for territory control. Every human player in this mode is a commander, who can spend their money (earned from territory) on purchasing AI units to join their squad.

How could you handle these things? For example, ordering around flying units in a full-3d space as opposed to a 2d plane. Being able to control actual ALTITUDES. Or how to handle resource-gathering and management.

Unless you can make resource gathering so enjoyable in itself, that players want to be resource-gatherers for their team, I'd just make resource-gathering simply a result of capturing specific locations and holding onto them (i.e. capturing a coal mine, for coal, or a oil well for oil, and etc...).

As for giving orders to AI and high-level commanding, I'd try to do it in a way that breaks as little immersion as possible. I think CoD: Modern Warfare does well with that (and here's the helicopter).

And totally scripted campaign sequence, but...

I say, keep the player "in the world" as much as possible, for immersion's sake.

Apart from those scripted sequences, the helicopter was basically flying on a 2D plane, but you can easily change that by giving additional controls. Just don't make the controls as difficult as Battlefield 2's were - I crashed 50+ helicopters trying to learn to fly those, and still never succeeded. Most times I never even made it off the ground - the helicopter just went up like two feet and tipped over.

Note: I gave Call of Duty as an example because I felt Modern Warfare was exceptionally well polished, and I liked the implementation and immersion of interacting with electronics for higher-level coordination while not actually leaving the battlefield. I'm not at all a heavy CoD multiplayer fanboy (I am a huge fanboy of the singleplayer campaigns though!).

Battlefield 2 also has a commander mode. And, in regard to Call of Duty, killstreaks really don't feel like a tactical move to me. They depend on the player doing really well. If they didn't require you to perform really really well on the shooting side of the game to unlock then they could be part of truly tactical choices. Also, there just don't seem to be ENOUGH choices with killstreaks. You earn them in a linear fashion then use them once. Then of course it feels odd to throw out random airstrikes instead of building bases, harvesting resources, and commanding soldiers around.

Here's some games that use this (and have multiplayer)

There's also one being developed by someone on here I can't remember the name of, if you check the dev blogs.

I think it would be fun to play as an individual hero, like in an FPS, but with the ability to call in reinforcements to the point that it could be seen as part RTS. You wouldn't necessarily have to switch to a top-down view, which risks making the game seem like two different games tacked together. You could select a unit type from a list or ability wheel or something, and then issue a command to have them dropped into the battlefield in a certain area that's in your line of sight. You could call in air support, and make sure you've taken out any anti air guns first, not as a side quest but just as strategy to make your air support more effective. You could call in artillery fire, or mark a target for assault from your ground forces. I know games use some of these, but I feel like it could be a lot of fun to use more of it. In a lot of games, the npc military seems like a little extra flavor to make the game feel immersive, but doesn't feel like I'm really guiding the whole group to victory like it does in an RTS.

Battlefield 2 also has a commander mode. And, in regard to Call of Duty, killstreaks really don't feel like a tactical move to me. They depend on the player doing really well. If they didn't require you to perform really really well on the shooting side of the game to unlock then they could be part of truly tactical choices. Also, there just don't seem to be ENOUGH choices with killstreaks. You earn them in a linear fashion then use them once. Then of course it feels odd to throw out random airstrikes instead of building bases, harvesting resources, and commanding soldiers around.

I wasn't trying to convey the mechanic of killstreaks, but the immersion of how those particular killstreaks were implemented.

i.e. I was talking about presentation, not mechanic. I'm not suggesting you add airstrikes, missiles, or any other particular feature. I'd suggest the same example even if you were making a Fantasy game.

Here's a non-CoD example that has nothing to do with killstreaks, to better illustrate what I mean:

Farcry 2's map is not merely in-game, it's in-world (it also magically scrolls, but that's unrelated to what I'm talking about). For usability, it can also fill up the screen more, like the CoD examples, but both Farcry 2 and CoD uses in-world animations to transition to fuller screens, which helps sustain immersion and presence in the world.

Hopefully that clarified the concept a bit better.

Here's some games that use this (and have multiplayer)

There's also one being developed by someone on here I can't remember the name of, if you check the dev blogs.

THANK YOU for this! I had never heard of some of these. Empires mod is a classic though.

Actually, I thought about it more, and Shores of hazeron has this too. (It's an MMOFPSRTSRPGSPACESIMCITYBUILDERSURVIVALSPORECLONENAVALSIMCREATURECREATOR)

You build cities with Thousands NPC's, and can recuit soldiers/equip them however you want, and order them to do things like follow you/board ships/board vehicles/patrol/man defenses.

Actually, I thought about it more, and Shores of hazeron has this too. (It's an MMOFPSRTSRPGSPACESIMCITYBUILDERSURVIVALSPORECLONENAVALSIMCREATURECREATOR)

You build cities with Thousands NPC's, and can recuit soldiers/equip them however you want, and order them to do things like follow you/board ships/board vehicles/patrol/man defenses.

I kind of wonder how much "rtsfps" can be applied to some open-world RPGs in which you can have a whole squad of combatants. If you could have more control over your allies, it would be a great way to do it. Sometimes in Skyrim I enjoy glitching the game by leaving quests after the quest gives me a permanent follower (followers that go away when you finish the next step of the quest). I end up with a whole army after a while. Not to mention some of the followers that can summon and my own two summoned creatures.