I started this discussion on the underground fighting thread to explain how orbital combat might work but it expanded into a more encompassing idea that would be its own game so I am making anew thread for it. I was thinking a good title would be Starcraft Worlds since it will involve combat on many planets and travel between them. It will involve an ongoing war between each of the 3 races and will be a persistent environment. When you create an account you choose the race you want to fight for and then either name a server so you can fight with your friends or have it choose for you where it would put you on whichever server needs that race. Once in the server you will chose a planet in friendly territory to build a space base. This base will be off normal space lanes and thus safe from attack since the only way to find it is to have the coordinates given to you. When you are logged off your units will be stored at this base for safekeeping and when you are logged on you can keep some of your fleet at the base if you don't have need for 100 ships you can launch ships from and have them return to your base at any time if you need reinforcements or have no need of them and when at base they will be repaired quickly for free. Your space base will contain construction facilities where you can build new ships and fighters as well as bays to repair and store those units. It will also have research facilities that will allow you to research new technology and supply stations that have the same function as supply depots pylons and overlords but provide supply for your fleet instead of ground forces. Everything will be built in real time taking a certain amount of time to build but they will continue to build while you are logged off so you can queue up construction and research and it will continue without you and be ready to use by the time you come back. You will still be able to access construction and research while engaged in a space battle as well. At some point in your research you can pick to use the general racial mix, where you get everything but it isn't the best or a specific role where you have one type of ship that is stronger and you have unique ships of that type but others will not be available. An example would be a fighter specific tree where you get stronger carriers and different types of interceptors at the expense of being able to build a mothership. You will also have access to a universal upgrade that affects all units that you may research when you want. You will have general upgrades to chose from such as faster fire rates, race specific such as bonus 50% shields for all units and specialty upgrades such as 25% fighter range increase. You can have 2 upgrade in effect at any time and may swap them out at any time but you will have to research each universal upgrade before using it so having access to all of them will be quite costly. If you fell you chose the wrong specialty path you can chose to un research it and go another path but will lose the universal upgrades from that path and your units will revert to the normal version as well as custom units being deconstructed for a full refund. Also upgrade switching will take some time as the ships are refit where neither the new or old upgrades are in effect. You will have the option to allow people on your friends list use your base as a berth to repair and store units but your units will take priority so if your ships come in for repair they will push your friends ships out of the bays if you don't have enough for the both of you. Also Clans will be able to pool money to buy a mega base where all of the clan members can come for repairs when away from their own bases and members can also convert their personal base into a clan megabase. The clan bases will have communal bays where you can repair on a first come first served basis but there will be the option to build your own facilities there where your units take precedence over the rest of them. Also the clan base can have its own supply stations which can be used temporarily if someone builds new units with insufficient supply. This will allow that player to build the new units while he gets more supply bases of his own. Anything you build at your station or the clan's/friend's base you can choose to keep for your personal use or to make communal meaning that any extra supply will be shared between you and your clan/friend and the bays will be on a first come first served basis. You can convert it back to personal use at any time. With enough resources you can also build a merchant base where you can build units and sell them to other players who lack the research to build themselves as well as allow other players to rent bays for repairs and storage. You can't do this with items in a clan base or a friends base and friends cannot visit your base elements in a clan base without permission form the leader or an officer. A clan base can have trade base elements but only an officer or leader is authorized to set bays for that use. Space battles will take place in the orbit of planets and will occur whenever a player enters the orbit of a hostile planet. Players can enter and exit orbit whenever with no cost so if you start a fight with the enemy any other players ca come to that planet to fight with you and you can leave whenever you want. You also do not need to bring all of your units. You can bring a small force and then send more from your base if you need reinforcements. The whole sector will act as a pseudo map with you able to move to any location at any time. Space battles will play out very simply. First guy to lose all of his units or retreat loses and the winner takes control of the planetary orbit and can build a space station that will help defend the planet by allowing better communications with the ground and providing extra weapons and garrison units for defense. These garrison units have no FTL drives so they can't be used to attack other planets. The enemy can always come back at any time though so even if you win and start construction on a orbital defense station you have to defend it i case the enemy attacks. Also any players on the ground may have access to anti orbital cannons to shoot at your ships or space station so don't think you win because you have the only ships in orbit. The battle is only half over. At any point a player can launch a landing package towards one of the zones of the planet. Each planet has 6 zones each with a different map that has a terrain to match the planet's topography; a zone in the middle of an ocean will be an island map while one in the mountains will have many different levels. Ground combat will take place very similar to regular Starcraft where you start out with a central structure and 4 workers as part of the landing package. The defenders will already have a base on the planet but will only have use of it if the attackers land in that zone otherwise the attackers will have to send out their own base core. For extra cost the attacker can buy a drop package containing some combat units and the defender can transfer some combat units from abase already on the planet. Battles will play out like Starcraft with the last team remaining winning the zone; the fleet in orbit will be able to affect the ground battle however by bombarding the ground but the forces on the ground will have to spot for the ships in orbit. The players on the ground will also be able to affect the space battle overhead with ground-to-orbit weapons but once again will need friendliest spot for it; the space station can be used for this purpose. Also players may transfer units between them so a ground player may build a battlecruiser and send it into orbit to help stem the flow of reinforcements to the planet and space players can send some fighters down to the surface. The player who built the unit can give it to another player permanently or may take control of it again at any time they wish. Just as space players can send in new units to orbit new units can be dropped to the surface to help reinforce the units there but they will first have to go through the orbit and can be shot down so control of the planet's orbit will be important. Players on the ground may also pack up their units and send them into space to another planet or to their station but once again will have to go through orbit. In some cases it might be better to donate your ground units to another player on the ground when you leave since the units were built with minerals and gas mined from the planet ion the first place. Once you win a battle in one zone of a planet your bases will remain there under AI control and you can launch an attack on an adjacent zone using your forces. You will have to defeat the enemy in all zones and in orbit before your race owns the planet. Also the bases will remain on all planets but will be under AI control until a player jumps in to use them for a battle. Since the resources used for building bases was all mined on the planet there will be no net gain/loss from this. Any player can use any base on any planet for his race as long as another player is not already using it. The resources for your fleet will be rewards for conquering an enemy, mined near your space base and gained from equipment rentals in a merchant base so the resources of ground and space will not intersect. Any thoughts? Bonus 300 minerals for a great post.
Nice concept. I might have missed this due to its sheer length, but what happens when you log out? Does the AI take over, do you disappear entirely? It would take one hell of a server too, and for that, one hell of a subscription fee.
The idea is that when you log off you can just drop your ships into some random place in the void where they just sit there waiting for you while or you can fly them back to your base, a friend's base clan base or a merchant base where they will be 100% safe and will get full repairs, have status effects removed and have destroyed systems replaced. If it is a merchant base then you will lose discourses every hour the ships stay there and if you run out of money they gt the boot and float around aimlessly. No matter what you do you ships will not be attack-able As for the Servers the idea was for it to be like Wow where there are different realms and you choose which one you want to join.
Um, I would just like to state that you took a LONG time to think and write all of that out and that I think it sounds like the best idea in gaming history ( as long as it doesnt become like other games that you strt on a huge map and people each have a settlement. It ends up where no one wants to attack anyone since they know a clan will kill them... Thanks for giving me the topic to ramble on in owerup:
Well you will have your own bease but the whole idea is that you are fighting as one race against another so the indivudual is not going to kill everyone and will the game. It will be team oriented. When you log on you will be given a list of planets where battle is taking place and you can go reenforce one of those battles or start your own.
i once started to make a concept for a mmorts( i often make my own game concepts) and i found a lot of concept problems, like easy exploitable stuff. a mmorts just aint gonna work because of what happens if yo log out, if you can't log out while in battle, what happens when you suddenly have to leave, or when you can leave in battle, you just log out every time you're under attack and are starting to lose
I think the safety of space solution to the logout problem is fairly strong, but what keeps players from expanding their spaces bases indefinitely? If there is nothing that can damage or attack a space base, a player can just build and build... taking up server resources etc... you'd want to have some sort of upkeep system that makes these invincible bases degrade if they are left idle, or are expanded beyond necessary size.
This is a great idea, I think you should work out the specific details as to cover any imbalances it may have. Good work.
The battles will be communal so if someone logs off then anyone else on-line can take control of the ground forces. As for losing you might have better statistics but the world is persistant so weather you log off or not your races is still down a planet. On the topic of bases I was thinking that maybe you have to purchase additional control systems for a large base so the larger it is the more things cost so the only mega bases you will see are the clan bases and those of well established traders. Also I figure the build times for new sections could be measured in hours so even if you have all the resources in the world it will still take a few days to get a large base. Perhaps a limiting factor to base size could be that you have upkeep because the bases must remain fueled and for the Terrans the workers need to be paid.
Starcraft as a MMORTS? I don't think it is good option. This idea is better for games that may produce big loads of fighting sides, such as at least 17 races... Better would be MMORPG- like World of Starcraft, or something.
no u can have 3 races. other games have done this with only 2-5. but the idea would be. maybe your main main base. which is maybe where u start at when u log on. all extra stuff such as other buildings should be attackable. but maybe make it so you can build defenses around them so as that there not wide open and free for some new player and just kill everything. I think starcraft could do it. of course if it takes a subscription fee then that makes me not want to do it lol. I am already wasteing all my money on Wow and EVe lol.
For the race thing there are only 3 races but remember you can have research that acts as pseudo-factions and the universal upgrades added to them create a lot of options. As for the base thing I was thinking the bases would be hidden but you can get coordinates for a base by either following someone back or having them given to you by someone (spy). As for defense I was thinking you could build turrets. Each section would have minimal point defenses but you can build stand alone turrets and you forces will defend themselves. I was also thinking maybe when attacked your base sends out a distress signal for allies to help and if anyone comes to help there could be some kind of reward but if no one shows up some kind of AI police force arrives. Also in the event of buildings being destroyed you can purchase insurance. You don't have to but after losing half your fleet and associated support structures you will learn quickly. That could also be a limiting factor to base growth as more segments will cost more to insure. That will be one reason not to go to close to the front lines because if you are in friendly territory you are probably safe but in enemy territory you are going to be picked on by passing fleets though it is good for an ambush if you can remain hidden (cloaking generators perhaps) If you get too far into enemy territory you can always pay to have your base shipped to a new location for a fee of course. Build a base too large and you could potentially not have enough money to follow the front lines.
EVe is...? I don't know what it is but I play EVN (Escape Velocity Nova). it's a good game to start with since there are so many options, but half of the fun to the game is the modding community. They give you excelent tools to use to make mods or comeplete TDs. It's pretty sweet you guys should check it out. PS: I know... off topic. I just wanted to ask him. Also, nice! More awesome ideas! You should submit ideas to blizzard... joking
no the game is called EVE here is the site right here. http://www.eve-online.com/ a good game also lol.
Don't think that Blizzard will make any MMORTS after SC2 release. Rather MMORPG in Diablo universe...
A) I would also like a Universe Of StarCraft but it won't happen which has been proven in sooooo many other threads it is pathetic. B) I would rather have a MMORTS then a MMORPG. C) Who cares if StarCraft hasn't any RPG games, that's why we need 1. Also, it's Blizzard that has done moltiple games with multiple styles (so, they Are able to do it / just won't) As always nice thinking on your game idea
This is an awesome idea, if this was done that would be cool, but I could like to suggest that there could be ground units, just other people who have no fleet or want no fleet but are willing to guard your stuff while you're out raiding other peoples stuff, but that'd be confusing since there would need to be TONS! of people being zerglings lol, so if there were to be ground units, you'd probly be able to hire or buy computer mercenaries... I think I'm just suggesting parts of a possibly different Starcraft game... (that may or may not be under development) I don't think we'll see something like this until Starcraft 2 is finished in every way, or at least all three expansions have been made and put out into stores, unfortunately they would also start high-tailing their efforts into WoW or into making a fourth Warcraft. But hey, I'm just a fan of Starcraft, and I don't know anyone inside of Blizzard (as an actual friend at least). But I think this a pretty sweet idea, and I actually hope if it will cease to be just an idea and become a game.
