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Author Topic:   RTS SMAC

Shining1 posted 03-21-99 09:21 PM ET
Watching the movies for the Command Nexus and the Maritime control centre got me thinking - this is a really great world. Not necessarily game, but as far as setting the scene and doing intelligent, interesting leaders, Brian Reynolds has created a master piece. Lal Humanity, Yang's Philosophy, Santiago's tactical cunning :- all great characters. Too bad it can only be experienced from a view on high - wouldn't it be nice once in a while to get down and wallow in the muddy battlefields of Planet for a change? Watching enemy defenders swarming by mindworms, setting off tactical planetbusters in the enemy base, actually SEEING those quantum lasers in action rather than just enjoying the results...
Anyway, it is, according to some interview somewhere, time for one of Sid's 'innovative' games. Well, Alpha Centauri is a fantastic universe to build on. And the RTS genre sure could use some innovation. Gettysburg was a good start. How 'bout it?
yin26 posted 03-21-99 09:59 PM ET
Shiny,
You clearly don't understand the genre.
Do I want my chess pieces to do a victory dance after capturing a pawn? Do I want my checkers to morph into anti-matter grav ships of destruction? Should Bingo come with stereo headsets and a laser light show?
These things only destract from the realm of pure thought within which games like SMAC should be enjoyed. Anything more is just begging for longer release times, increased change of hardware conflicts (a Firaxis game never has a bug), and an open invitation for eye-candy loving Quake-heads to come dilute the essential beauty of a thinking man's game.
Sure, your ideas would make for a more visually appealing game that would no doubt sell a lot more copies and bring more fans into to the mix--
But who needs the trouble?
Yin
Keeper of Sarcasm
Mount Olympus, New Jersey
Q Cubed posted 03-21-99 10:08 PM ET
good god, no!
please, don't ruin something like this.
last few times a TBS turned RTS, BOTH games imploded.
One such case is Outpost/Outpost 2.
let's not do this to a franchise like Civ/SMAC.
Shining1 posted 03-21-99 10:24 PM ET
Yin,
Thanks for the encouragement. But I'll take the view that RTS could have far more of a strategy potential than most games currently allow for. The crude mission/level structure needs to be redone, if at all possible, and it would be incredibily cool if you could enact complex negotiations with other factions between missions (or during them!), rather than just viewing the next cut scene and falling back into the game.
Imagine how cool the first levels of Starcraft would have been if you had been able to blow off the sinister Mengsk's offer of help, only to have found you needed to come back begging for his assistance when the Zerg were outside your base. I'd like to see that.
As well, Firaxis's 3D technology and unit component system would make a good addition to RTS strategy. Being able to design your own specialist units on the battlefield would be a great innovation. I can't remember the number of times I've wished my terran tanks could pack on and fire some of those Goliath missiles at the swarms of mutalisks.
SMAC is pretty well set up for SOME kind of further expansion. It'd be interesting to see something like this.
Q^3: I've never heard of either of those titles. And simply because one company messed it up, doesn't mean it can't ever be done well (que the huge number of f**ked up RTS games currently available. You certainly don't need a TBS prototype to stuff up an RTS design). Currently, I seem to be playing SMAC and Starcraft. I'm pretty sure Blizzard ain't gonna make a TBS anytime soon. And Firaxis already has an RTS. Therefore...

Shining1
Keeper of Naiveity??
Kedryn posted 03-21-99 10:50 PM ET
Actually, I'd love to see many different types of games set in the SMAC universe. The setting is very, very immersive.
uncleroggy posted 03-21-99 11:00 PM ET
Shining1
I have a question for you regarding the amount of quality strategy that can be incorporated in an RTS game. My question is based in my own observations that most RTS games rely more on one's ability to quickly bang keys and manipulate a mouse(both of which I'm quite lame in doing). How do you offset this dexterity issue handicap?
Your comments and beer will be most appreciated.
Shining1 posted 03-21-99 11:06 PM ET
I guess my whole point is that Alpha Centauri is a really inventive, well done setting, and it would be a shame just to leave it at one game + sequel. Though I'm sure Brian's inventive powers are far from exhausted, it might be a good idea to spend some more time developing the current setting, and an array of characters and ideas to go with it, rather than starting over from whole cloth (as Morgan so succiently puts it).
And yes, while I love the TBS genre, and have for many years (learned to play chess at age 7, after all), I find the RTS genre has a more personal appeal. SMAC is not about individual units, but a whole society. I want to know about the individual units.
Shining1
Mcerion posted 03-21-99 11:11 PM ET
I think you have a good idea Shining1. I think the guys at Firaxis would be able to pull it off. I can't imagine how it would it still resemble SMAC though.
Shining1 posted 03-21-99 11:26 PM ET
Uncleroggy: Sorry, missed your post. But my first one should answer some of your points about RTS.
As for dexterity, I don't have any real answers, other than that most RTS games are quite poor on A.I routines (apparently there is one, Dark Reign, that has some reasonable scripts. Unlike starcraft, in which they were almost non existant). Being reasonably proficient in the banging keys/ mouse clicking department myself, I really haven't considered this a problem with RTS, except for the early learning curve stuff. But with better unit A.I (holy grail time, I know) you can afford to have less emphasis on the hurried response to events than you do now. Perhaps.
As for strategy, well, most RTS games are very similar to TBS, really (like I say, the genre is a bit underrated, strategy wise). If it wasn't for the early game rush strategy so popular with the under 15 crowd, I suspect this would have become more easily apparent.
RTS gets just as stragetically sophisticated as TBS does, IMO. Both games require you to build the right kind of units to defeat your enemy, defend your bases, get resources, gather information, and so forth. Just that it all takes place close up in real time. Deploying your units is no longer a matter of counting the number of squares between you and the opposition base, but of loading transports, setting waypoints, doing 'follow unit' commands, etc. You get the tactical aspects as well, which adds a lot of worthwhile complexity to the game.
Add in a reasonable diplomatic interface, better intelligence gathering processes, and the SMAC workshop, and you have a reasonable base from which to outthink your enemy instead of just outproduce them. Not that you can negotiate with mindworms, of course...
My beer? I'll see what I can do...
yin26 posted 03-22-99 01:15 AM ET
Shiny,
I was agreeing with you. I've been arguing for that (and other things) since I got here.
The first game that successfully combines the intelligence of a good TBS with the action/visual element of a good RTS will truly set a new mark.
I'd love to work on that project.
Hey, how'd you like to start a gaming company? You do the dirty work (programming, finding money, etc.) and me and Uncleroggy will drink beers and tell you how good you are doing and how you could work harder.
Are you up for it?
Yin
Polaris--The next name in gaming.
Shining1 posted 03-22-99 02:37 AM ET
Yin
I know you were agreeing with me. But it seems you are slipping into more of a passive aggressive sarcastic mode these days. Is this a sign of SMACceptance at last?
As for the SRTS, of course I'm up for it. Just that it would take me 10 years to get up to speed on all that stuff. I'm pretty sure Turbo Pascal doesn't cut it as a gaming lanuage, not that I can do graphics or anything (which is ironic in that TP has bugger all useful stuff other than graphics in it). And based on current form I'm not very good at finding money, either .
How about some of the rich technical SMACers? Spoe, Greg, Arnelios?
yin26 posted 03-22-99 02:54 AM ET
Yes. It's an atrocity, I know.
SMACceptance.
Actually, as I wrote somewhere else, I fault the game most for its often clumsy/redundant mechanics/gameplay, but I have become hooked on the concept.
For me, two defining moments:
1. Patch 3.0
2. Trying to BE the faction I was playing.
At any rate, what will it take to get this game of yours (ours) off the ground?
I've got $50,000 debt. What do you bring to the table?
Yin
"Can you spare a dime, Brother Greg?"
P.S. Sorry for missing that you didn't miss the sarcasm that I accused you of missing.
Shining1 posted 03-22-99 03:04 AM ET
Yin,
Approx $15000 + $3000 (estimated next years expenses) debt and a detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the atom. Plus martial arts ability, which when combined with your soccer skills still gets us absolutely nowhere.
I think we really should talk to an established gaming company about this. Now where could we find one of those?
P.S: I only half missed that your sarcasm was sarcastic, because I found a lot of what you said to be widely held as true. So even though you didn't actually mean it, other people did, and it was convient to turn your points around to make some valid points of my own. Kay?
MoSe posted 03-22-99 05:09 AM ET
Actually Yin, is funny that your (sarcasticallt intended, knowit) victoy-dancing chesspieces indeed exist, think it was an old litte 3D-chess or battlechess or something (oops, maybe twas doublefold, you were not using an absurd example, but a kown real example).
Now that I managed to try AeO, I'll put my 0.02 EUR in.
On some episodes, after I got repeatedly swarmed by red dorics or whatever, no matter how fast I clicked and tried to upgrade and produce enough warriors, had to reckick it and rethink a completely different approach to the whole thing (rush for a wall, then develop archers, ...). That seems to me to resemble more to strategy than to rushclick to win a single tactical skirmish.
What I find most difficult, is not to face a real time one-screen battlefield, it's hard to me to manage the whole map simultaneously (I mean from a logistic PoV, not mentally...); sent a scout ship up the river, then had to care fon an attempted breech in the wall, and in the meantime the ship let herself lured in a shore melee and got sunk!
Oh, stopit
Keeper of Mouthsuth (suddabe)
MariOne
MoSe posted 03-22-99 05:16 AM ET
Sit! a thypo!
Tat sould ave read 'shuddabe' (like wannabe?)
yin26 posted 03-22-99 05:45 AM ET
MoSE,
I know the chess one is a real example. It's called Battlechess--a game, of course, that caused every Chess-head to roll his eyes and say, "THAT'S not chess!"
MoSe posted 03-22-99 06:17 AM ET
OF COURSE it was not chess,
but as a used-to-be-CheessHead, I tell you I was bent from laughin!!! At the time there hardly was a viable chess SW that did set a match on CheessHeads, I kept SargonII just to pry open (overnight) the chessproblems too hard to solve. Later a Mephisto-something Chess-PC won our club Social Championship (trampling on some of our best chess Masters), and at the same time I quit playing (coincidence, swear)
Civ(&SMAC-to-be)Head
Marione
MoSe posted 03-22-99 06:19 AM ET
of course, it was SargonIII
tOFfGI posted 03-22-99 07:58 AM ET
I think that what's limiting a planet based, continous RTS is computer capacity. Think about it: A microscopic and microscopic view of a huge world at the smae time, all in Real time? It's kind of impossible. for the so-called "space strategy game" it works because it limits the actual things going on to one screen at a time, but it won't work if everything in a large world is going to work simultaneously.
Shining1 posted 03-22-99 08:18 PM ET
Even if you do need the normal mission based maps, include at least some interface between missions and the between missions stuff. Like losing the support of a minor ally because you used Nerve Gas pods on the Univerisity to win the last mission. Include stuff like that - SMAC could definitely be a quality RTS.
jig posted 03-23-99 02:16 AM ET
tOFfGI: That's why you need a pre-written linear story. Unless of course, you want to control all the millions of vehicles and troops fighting on planet at the same time...and get your ass kicked.
Sterling posted 03-24-99 12:47 PM ET
I play a lot of Starcraft, and a lot of SMAC. I WOULD like to see a RTS based of SMAC, but I don't think I'd like to play SMAC as a RTS. If I'm in the middle of designing a unit or adding things to the build queue and I get attacked, I don't want to have to decide between finishing what I'm doing and let the attacking units destroy my rec commons before I send over my defenses, or protect my buildings only to have to go back in and lose the progress I had made towards designing that new unit or maintaining the build queue.
However, I would love to see a RTS based on SMAC. Much smaller maps, maybe enough for 4-5 cities MAX per side, and probably pre-made units. Maybe it could let you design your units before each battle, a-la War, INC., and handle diplomacy in-between missions. I played a multi-player game the other day with a fairly low time limit, just to keep things moving. I hated it. Then I played a multi-player game without a time limit. Loved it. Took FOREVER, but it was fun. With the time limit there was always something that I didn't get around to each turn, and I don't see a way around this in a RTS.
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Author	Topic: RTS SMAC
Shining1	posted 03-21-99 09:21 PM ET Watching the movies for the Command Nexus and the Maritime control centre got me thinking - this is a really great world. Not necessarily game, but as far as setting the scene and doing intelligent, interesting leaders, Brian Reynolds has created a master piece. Lal Humanity, Yang's Philosophy, Santiago's tactical cunning :- all great characters. Too bad it can only be experienced from a view on high - wouldn't it be nice once in a while to get down and wallow in the muddy battlefields of Planet for a change? Watching enemy defenders swarming by mindworms, setting off tactical planetbusters in the enemy base, actually SEEING those quantum lasers in action rather than just enjoying the results... Anyway, it is, according to some interview somewhere, time for one of Sid's 'innovative' games. Well, Alpha Centauri is a fantastic universe to build on. And the RTS genre sure could use some innovation. Gettysburg was a good start. How 'bout it?
yin26	posted 03-21-99 09:59 PM ET Shiny, You clearly don't understand the genre. Do I want my chess pieces to do a victory dance after capturing a pawn? Do I want my checkers to morph into anti-matter grav ships of destruction? Should Bingo come with stereo headsets and a laser light show? These things only destract from the realm of pure thought within which games like SMAC should be enjoyed. Anything more is just begging for longer release times, increased change of hardware conflicts (a Firaxis game never has a bug), and an open invitation for eye-candy loving Quake-heads to come dilute the essential beauty of a thinking man's game. Sure, your ideas would make for a more visually appealing game that would no doubt sell a lot more copies and bring more fans into to the mix-- But who needs the trouble? Yin Keeper of Sarcasm Mount Olympus, New Jersey
Q Cubed	posted 03-21-99 10:08 PM ET good god, no! please, don't ruin something like this. last few times a TBS turned RTS, BOTH games imploded. One such case is Outpost/Outpost 2. let's not do this to a franchise like Civ/SMAC.
Shining1	posted 03-21-99 10:24 PM ET Yin, Thanks for the encouragement. But I'll take the view that RTS could have far more of a strategy potential than most games currently allow for. The crude mission/level structure needs to be redone, if at all possible, and it would be incredibily cool if you could enact complex negotiations with other factions between missions (or during them!), rather than just viewing the next cut scene and falling back into the game. Imagine how cool the first levels of Starcraft would have been if you had been able to blow off the sinister Mengsk's offer of help, only to have found you needed to come back begging for his assistance when the Zerg were outside your base. I'd like to see that. As well, Firaxis's 3D technology and unit component system would make a good addition to RTS strategy. Being able to design your own specialist units on the battlefield would be a great innovation. I can't remember the number of times I've wished my terran tanks could pack on and fire some of those Goliath missiles at the swarms of mutalisks. SMAC is pretty well set up for SOME kind of further expansion. It'd be interesting to see something like this. Q^3: I've never heard of either of those titles. And simply because one company messed it up, doesn't mean it can't ever be done well (que the huge number of f**ked up RTS games currently available. You certainly don't need a TBS prototype to stuff up an RTS design). Currently, I seem to be playing SMAC and Starcraft. I'm pretty sure Blizzard ain't gonna make a TBS anytime soon. And Firaxis already has an RTS. Therefore... Shining1 Keeper of Naiveity??
Kedryn	posted 03-21-99 10:50 PM ET Actually, I'd love to see many different types of games set in the SMAC universe. The setting is very, very immersive.
uncleroggy	posted 03-21-99 11:00 PM ET Shining1 I have a question for you regarding the amount of quality strategy that can be incorporated in an RTS game. My question is based in my own observations that most RTS games rely more on one's ability to quickly bang keys and manipulate a mouse(both of which I'm quite lame in doing). How do you offset this dexterity issue handicap? Your comments and beer will be most appreciated.
Shining1	posted 03-21-99 11:06 PM ET I guess my whole point is that Alpha Centauri is a really inventive, well done setting, and it would be a shame just to leave it at one game + sequel. Though I'm sure Brian's inventive powers are far from exhausted, it might be a good idea to spend some more time developing the current setting, and an array of characters and ideas to go with it, rather than starting over from whole cloth (as Morgan so succiently puts it). And yes, while I love the TBS genre, and have for many years (learned to play chess at age 7, after all), I find the RTS genre has a more personal appeal. SMAC is not about individual units, but a whole society. I want to know about the individual units. Shining1
Mcerion	posted 03-21-99 11:11 PM ET I think you have a good idea Shining1. I think the guys at Firaxis would be able to pull it off. I can't imagine how it would it still resemble SMAC though.
Shining1	posted 03-21-99 11:26 PM ET Uncleroggy: Sorry, missed your post. But my first one should answer some of your points about RTS. As for dexterity, I don't have any real answers, other than that most RTS games are quite poor on A.I routines (apparently there is one, Dark Reign, that has some reasonable scripts. Unlike starcraft, in which they were almost non existant). Being reasonably proficient in the banging keys/ mouse clicking department myself, I really haven't considered this a problem with RTS, except for the early learning curve stuff. But with better unit A.I (holy grail time, I know) you can afford to have less emphasis on the hurried response to events than you do now. Perhaps. As for strategy, well, most RTS games are very similar to TBS, really (like I say, the genre is a bit underrated, strategy wise). If it wasn't for the early game rush strategy so popular with the under 15 crowd, I suspect this would have become more easily apparent. RTS gets just as stragetically sophisticated as TBS does, IMO. Both games require you to build the right kind of units to defeat your enemy, defend your bases, get resources, gather information, and so forth. Just that it all takes place close up in real time. Deploying your units is no longer a matter of counting the number of squares between you and the opposition base, but of loading transports, setting waypoints, doing 'follow unit' commands, etc. You get the tactical aspects as well, which adds a lot of worthwhile complexity to the game. Add in a reasonable diplomatic interface, better intelligence gathering processes, and the SMAC workshop, and you have a reasonable base from which to outthink your enemy instead of just outproduce them. Not that you can negotiate with mindworms, of course... My beer? I'll see what I can do...
yin26	posted 03-22-99 01:15 AM ET Shiny, I was agreeing with you. I've been arguing for that (and other things) since I got here. The first game that successfully combines the intelligence of a good TBS with the action/visual element of a good RTS will truly set a new mark. I'd love to work on that project. Hey, how'd you like to start a gaming company? You do the dirty work (programming, finding money, etc.) and me and Uncleroggy will drink beers and tell you how good you are doing and how you could work harder. Are you up for it? Yin Polaris--The next name in gaming.
Shining1	posted 03-22-99 02:37 AM ET Yin I know you were agreeing with me. But it seems you are slipping into more of a passive aggressive sarcastic mode these days. Is this a sign of SMACceptance at last? As for the SRTS, of course I'm up for it. Just that it would take me 10 years to get up to speed on all that stuff. I'm pretty sure Turbo Pascal doesn't cut it as a gaming lanuage, not that I can do graphics or anything (which is ironic in that TP has bugger all useful stuff other than graphics in it). And based on current form I'm not very good at finding money, either . How about some of the rich technical SMACers? Spoe, Greg, Arnelios?
yin26	posted 03-22-99 02:54 AM ET Yes. It's an atrocity, I know. SMACceptance. Actually, as I wrote somewhere else, I fault the game most for its often clumsy/redundant mechanics/gameplay, but I have become hooked on the concept. For me, two defining moments: 1. Patch 3.0 2. Trying to BE the faction I was playing. At any rate, what will it take to get this game of yours (ours) off the ground? I've got $50,000 debt. What do you bring to the table? Yin "Can you spare a dime, Brother Greg?" P.S. Sorry for missing that you didn't miss the sarcasm that I accused you of missing.
Shining1	posted 03-22-99 03:04 AM ET Yin, Approx $15000 + $3000 (estimated next years expenses) debt and a detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the atom. Plus martial arts ability, which when combined with your soccer skills still gets us absolutely nowhere. I think we really should talk to an established gaming company about this. Now where could we find one of those? P.S: I only half missed that your sarcasm was sarcastic, because I found a lot of what you said to be widely held as true. So even though you didn't actually mean it, other people did, and it was convient to turn your points around to make some valid points of my own. Kay?
MoSe	posted 03-22-99 05:09 AM ET Actually Yin, is funny that your (sarcasticallt intended, knowit) victoy-dancing chesspieces indeed exist, think it was an old litte 3D-chess or battlechess or something (oops, maybe twas doublefold, you were not using an absurd example, but a kown real example). Now that I managed to try AeO, I'll put my 0.02 EUR in. On some episodes, after I got repeatedly swarmed by red dorics or whatever, no matter how fast I clicked and tried to upgrade and produce enough warriors, had to reckick it and rethink a completely different approach to the whole thing (rush for a wall, then develop archers, ...). That seems to me to resemble more to strategy than to rushclick to win a single tactical skirmish. What I find most difficult, is not to face a real time one-screen battlefield, it's hard to me to manage the whole map simultaneously (I mean from a logistic PoV, not mentally...); sent a scout ship up the river, then had to care fon an attempted breech in the wall, and in the meantime the ship let herself lured in a shore melee and got sunk! Oh, stopit Keeper of Mouthsuth (suddabe) MariOne
MoSe	posted 03-22-99 05:16 AM ET Sit! a thypo! Tat sould ave read 'shuddabe' (like wannabe?)
yin26	posted 03-22-99 05:45 AM ET MoSE, I know the chess one is a real example. It's called Battlechess--a game, of course, that caused every Chess-head to roll his eyes and say, "THAT'S not chess!"
MoSe	posted 03-22-99 06:17 AM ET OF COURSE it was not chess, but as a used-to-be-CheessHead, I tell you I was bent from laughin!!! At the time there hardly was a viable chess SW that did set a match on CheessHeads, I kept SargonII just to pry open (overnight) the chessproblems too hard to solve. Later a Mephisto-something Chess-PC won our club Social Championship (trampling on some of our best chess Masters), and at the same time I quit playing (coincidence, swear) Civ(&SMAC-to-be)Head Marione
MoSe	posted 03-22-99 06:19 AM ET of course, it was SargonIII
tOFfGI	posted 03-22-99 07:58 AM ET I think that what's limiting a planet based, continous RTS is computer capacity. Think about it: A microscopic and microscopic view of a huge world at the smae time, all in Real time? It's kind of impossible. for the so-called "space strategy game" it works because it limits the actual things going on to one screen at a time, but it won't work if everything in a large world is going to work simultaneously.
Shining1	posted 03-22-99 08:18 PM ET Even if you do need the normal mission based maps, include at least some interface between missions and the between missions stuff. Like losing the support of a minor ally because you used Nerve Gas pods on the Univerisity to win the last mission. Include stuff like that - SMAC could definitely be a quality RTS.
jig	posted 03-23-99 02:16 AM ET tOFfGI: That's why you need a pre-written linear story. Unless of course, you want to control all the millions of vehicles and troops fighting on planet at the same time...and get your ass kicked.
Sterling	posted 03-24-99 12:47 PM ET I play a lot of Starcraft, and a lot of SMAC. I WOULD like to see a RTS based of SMAC, but I don't think I'd like to play SMAC as a RTS. If I'm in the middle of designing a unit or adding things to the build queue and I get attacked, I don't want to have to decide between finishing what I'm doing and let the attacking units destroy my rec commons before I send over my defenses, or protect my buildings only to have to go back in and lose the progress I had made towards designing that new unit or maintaining the build queue. However, I would love to see a RTS based on SMAC. Much smaller maps, maybe enough for 4-5 cities MAX per side, and probably pre-made units. Maybe it could let you design your units before each battle, a-la War, INC., and handle diplomacy in-between missions. I played a multi-player game the other day with a fairly low time limit, just to keep things moving. I hated it. Then I played a multi-player game without a time limit. Loved it. Took FOREVER, but it was fun. With the time limit there was always something that I didn't get around to each turn, and I don't see a way around this in a RTS.