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UFO/X-COM as an RTS

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Dragenesis:
I've been throwing around the idea of a UFO/X-COM game where the tactical combat was a rts/rtt game as opposed to the turn based game it is now.  Tactical battles would be something along the lines of the War Hammer series and UFO Afterlight.  Unfortunately, the engine I plan on using, Spring, does not have native support for multiple level maps like multiple story buildings.  Is this limitation a game breaker for you for a UFO/X-COM game?  Would you have any interest in tactical battles being more of an rts/rtt format?  Thanks in advance.

Anarch Cassius:
Actually no. RTS is fun for a lot of things but for a super gritty game like this I'd rather see something where the strategy is basically like the campaign mode, with bases and radar and battles are handled under the tactical system. Building and harvesting just don't happen on the same timescale as combat.

For something realtime I could see a real-time version of the combat engine like Fallout Tactics used. Basically regen TU over time and everything happening simultaneously. Skills and stat still play a major role but things become more fluid. Fallout Tactics and the canceled Van Buren show a pretty elegant way of converting these sort of rules to real-time.

Dragenesis:
I think you miss understand.  The real time part, for the time being, is for tactical battles.  Like when you send a skyranger to a ufo landing site, instead of that battle proceeding as a turn-based game, it is more like a rtt.  The number of troops on both sides would be limited and there would be no resource gathering at that level or troop building.  Troops can be moved around the map as single people or together as a unit.  Sniper rifles would have a longer range, greater accuracy, but shoot slower.  Machine guns have a higher fire rate, but lower accuracy, etc...  Units still level up after battles and you would still have a geoscape similar in scope to previous games.  Time can be paused to allow you to issue commands.  Things like that.  The difference would be that the game, using the Spring engine, would not be able to have the multi-story battles that are pretty common in UFO/X-COM games now.  You can't go into a building and clear the first floor while clearing the second floor, etc...

H-Hour:
It depends a lot on whether you see the RTS/RTT combat happening like the UFO series (Aftermath, Aftershock, Afterlight), where the player still controls a small squad but issues commands in a stop-start real-time battlescape. Or whether you see the player commanding dozens of units in sprawling combat across a map in a manner more similar to RTS/RTT games

If the former, I think you can get away with no interior buildings but it will feel strange. You'll need clever level design to reduce player frustrations at not being able to enter a building. That doesn't mean it won't be fun. If the latter, I think there's no reason you need interior buildings.

If you haven't, check out the way Company of Heroes handles buildings. It might be a way for you to use buildings in spite of Spring's limitations. In Company of Heroes buildings can be entered but not explored. Send a squad into a building and they will man the windows shooting at anything that approaches.

Anarch Cassius:
Given that this game engine is somehow related to Quake2 and that Fallout Tactics had modes for both turn based and realtime gameplay I'm wondering if you might be able to do this as a mod of this game. I mean I saw a Quake mod that made it in to a freaking RTS where you built and controlled the enemies from single player. Very simple but a fun proof of concept.

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