You probably want me to say magic word "simulator".
But it is not the case.
I am doing this game for almost 2 years, and both me and the project progressed from absolute zero to what you can see in the first post. For comparison, this is how it looked in the beginning (may 2007).
The game concept was evolving all the time, and currently it is determine by 3 factors.
0) No MMO stuff. I don't beleive it is possible for a small team of enthusiasts. Aslo, another reason is point 2).
1) Right now I have no intension to reproduce / do a clone of well known robotech/macross game like Robotech:BattleCry, Macross VOXP, Macross VF-X 1/2,Macross PS2, Macross Ace Frontier and others. I don't want to hurt anyone, but, honestly, I find all of them crap in a gameplay sense (not the way they look). This is why I started this projects.
2) In my team there is only 1 person so far who likes Robotech/Macross. I failed to find any others from Macross/Robotech communities who would help me regularly.
The rest are from gamedev communties, they just want good quality, feasible (not MMO),interesting and, that's more more important, finished project. If you still in doubt what I am hinting at - no direct connection with the story of all Macross/Robotech animes and all that.
Game concept
This game will be a mix of arcade flight and robo simulators, based on some ideas borrowed from Mech Warrior 4 and Wings of War. However, in these splendid games the gameplay tends to be more shooter-like, thus not letting a player to experience completely what is to operate gigantic robot. It means that though piloting a mech (either robot or a an airplane), player’s piloting skills contribute to a very little degree to victory. Basically, the one who has bigger mech with more weapons/armor is the winner.
In my concept of a new gameplay stated here I will try shift the accent from shooter to the gameplay where the player can in principle outfight his opponent even having less firepower and armor.
For this purpose, I introduce a concept of specials actions or maneuvers.
In the game player can pilot a transformable mech either in robot state (Battloid Mode) or airplane state (Fighter Mode), depending on his own preference at a particular moment. The transformation itself is not a key feature of the gameplay. It simply serves as a logic brick to explain the fact that in the game mechs (either in Battloid or Fighter modes) can modify their aerodynamics properties very fast. Thus, a player can change direction of movement and its speed very rapidly with the help of special actions or maneuvers.
To illustrate the idea of maneuvers, Figure 0.1 is presented. For more details scroll down to section “List of Maneuvers”.
On Figure 0.1 player faces a heavy ship with various weapons and defense systems. It is hard to get close to it and deliver a punch in a standard way, because you will be easily shot down.
To solve the problem, player presses special combo and the plain starts approaching to the ship performing a tricky maneuver. On figure 0.1 different stages of the maneuver are depicted with number 1-4 correspondingly. As a result, most of enemy fire can be avoided.
Figure 0.1
These special actions will be of several kinds: defense ones and attack ones. Player can "purchase" them during customization of the mech. Actions will be implemented the very same way as in 3d fighting games: with the help of combos. Pressing a combination of keys, a maneuver can be triggers. Meanwhile, player can still control direction of movements in Fighter/Battloid modes, aim in Battloid mode, do firing and trigger other maneuvers. Maneuvers will be accom¬panied by fascinating animation involving transformation. So far, about 20 different maneuvers have been proposed.
To be short, the player has choice to make a tradeoff between
1. install more equipment like weapons, armor, fuel, more powerful engine on the mech. As a result, less action points will be available to him. Consequently, the player can access less maneuvers.
2. Sacrifice some weapons, armor, fuel, extra engine power to make the mech more maneuverable.
Some menue concepts
It is just a concept! It won't necessarily be exactly like this in the game.
Customization will more or less remind what you can encounter in MechWarrior 3,4 ; except maneuvers section.
Here you can change VFs type and get a review on perfromance
I think this is obvious
Some example of VFs weapon layouts.
And I don't like wasting time on forums. Perhaps, you won't see me for a long time unless there is a new proposal on collaboration.
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