Discussion: GamePlay and Units Ideas

I was looking at it more from a technology stand point. If you recover a sunken enemy submarine (junk pile logic), maybe attributes or "technology" of that submarine or ship or whatever could be passed on to the host even if the only possibility is promotion of the unit. Or have a condition state that allows for a sunken sub to be taken over by a specialized unit such as a salvage ship with a Deep Sea Diver Upgrade (or as an upgrade to other fighting ships), DSRVs, Diver's Bells etc.

On another note, I know TAOW is an anti-WMD mod. And understandably so. But with the whole command vehicle idea, wouldn't a boomer or an attack sub make the perfect platform for a command vehicle, along with the satellite upgrade enabling it to see the whole battlefield. Able to slip beneath the waves undetected at normal viewing, until overflown by anti-sub aircraft, or in range of active or passive sonar of other subs or ships. As far as warheads, the use of WMD's has been off the table on the world stage for quite a while. So actually launching nuc missles would seem a little unrealistic anyways. There are other weapon systems that are carried aboard current sub classes. The tomahawk missle is one example that is known to be carried on the seawolf class. The idea that units will carry a definate amount of ammunition, a submarine would only have so many shots before it would be forced to reload anyways (by returning to a base or support ship maybe).
TAOW is a reallity based mod. And the reality of the situation is that the biggest "Guns" float on and under the surface of the ocean.
Since I bought the damn game years ago I was so pissed seeing the aircraft carrier on the front of the game, then not being able to use it in game besides on one crudely constructed mission. You guys have taken care of that. How about some of our other favorite weapons such as boomers, hunter/killers, and some rescue "equipment" (DSRV,Deep Sea Divers).
A helicopter moves up and down to pick up troops, maybe the same logic can be used in reverse to make a sub surface or dive. playing with the rate at which a sub can dive may allow it to be more seceptible to say a zodiac full of naval infantry sent to immobilize a dormant sub. Then maybe other units can be sent in to actualy take over the sub for the players use. There is a whole seemingly unexplored naval system that if exploited would blow every other mod I've seen out of the water.

Jarhead wrote:I was looking at it more from a technology stand point. If you recover a sunken enemy submarine (junk pile logic), maybe attributes or "technology" of that submarine or ship or whatever could be passed on to the host even if the only possibility is promotion of the unit. Or have a condition state that allows for a sunken sub to be taken over by a specialized unit such as a salvage ship with a Deep Sea Diver Upgrade (or as an upgrade to other fighting ships), DSRVs, Diver's Bells etc.

On another note, I know TAOW is an anti-WMD mod. And understandably so. But with the whole command vehicle idea, wouldn't a boomer or an attack sub make the perfect platform for a command vehicle, along with the satellite upgrade enabling it to see the whole battlefield. Able to slip beneath the waves undetected at normal viewing, until overflown by anti-sub aircraft, or in range of active or passive sonar of other subs or ships. As far as warheads, the use of WMD's has been off the table on the world stage for quite a while. So actually launching nuc missles would seem a little unrealistic anyways. There are other weapon systems that are carried aboard current sub classes. The tomahawk missle is one example that is known to be carried on the seawolf class. The idea that units will carry a definate amount of ammunition, a submarine would only have so many shots before it would be forced to reload anyways (by returning to a base or support ship maybe).
TAOW is a reallity based mod. And the reality of the situation is that the biggest "Guns" float on and under the surface of the ocean.

How about some of our other favorite weapons such as boomers, hunter/killers, and some rescue "equipment" (DSRV,Deep Sea Divers)

Those are some excellent suggestions , and in my opinion I'd say it's very possible to include even boomers (by including missiles such as Tomahawks like you mentioned), unfortunately I'm afraid that I can't be too precise on the submarine theme at this moment.

Jarhead wrote:A helicopter moves up and down to pick up troops, maybe the same logic can be used in reverse to make a sub surface or dive.

I'm not sure but I think Beng did managed to create a system which allows us to do that manually (by choosing in the unit's command menu), if subs are included then we may have such a command.

Jarhead wrote:Since I bought the damn game years ago I was so pissed seeing the aircraft carrier on the front of the game, then not being able to use it in game besides on one crudely constructed mission.

I know precisely what ya mean, during the game presentations there were a lot of images from the naval mission, the battleships and the aircraft carrier (not to mention the game cover itself) so I initially assumed we would have a ton of available naval missions and features (which unfortunately wasn't the case).

Jarhead wrote:playing with the rate at which a sub can dive may allow it to be more seceptible to say a zodiac full of naval infantry sent to immobilize a dormant sub. Then maybe other units can be sent in to actualy take over the sub for the players use. There is a whole seemingly unexplored naval system that if exploited would blow every other mod I've seen out of the water.

Indeed, it's truly a shame that EA never expanded the Naval System (I was kinda hoping it would be "fixed" on an official patch, but it wasn't), on top of that a ton of naval-related stuff was made unassailable (kinda hard to describe) so the only way we can squeeze in a Naval Mode is by improvising a lot.

Thanks for the reply Snake. I don't know how I ended up here but for some reason TAOW is always in the back of my head whether I am watching the History channel or even a commercial, no matter what I see I am always applying concepts to how it might work in TAOW. I realize subs maybe on the back burner so to speak but you have to admit they would make excellent command vehicles if they can be obtained later in the game so as to merit there run silent, run deep creedo. And not only would they make a great missile based platform, but also an excellent delivery vehicle for infantry (Which I still believe is the heart of the game, infantry that is.). I don't know what you guys are looking at as far as givng each faction a "speciality", or if any one faction will even have a specialty. What I do know is... it is a great opportunity to make a very unique unit, with very useful and a very different approach to combat which I can see alot of people diggin. Either way thats all I have to say about submarines at the moment. Just want to say thanks for the reply and hope even one of the ideas I explained peaked some interest on the subject matter.
I feel pretty confident in saying the Naval aspect in Zero Hour left much to be desired, so any improvement is more than appreciated and respected from people like me. All I have to say is keep kickin ass and takin names guys, I haven't so much as seen a stitch of game play and I am already sold. And that is more than I can say about the original.
Rock on.

Jarhead wrote:Thanks for the reply Snake. I don't know how I ended up here but for some reason TAOW is always in the back of my head whether I am watching the History channel or even a commercial, no matter what I see I am always applying concepts to how it might work in TAOW. I realize subs maybe on the back burner so to speak but you have to admit they would make excellent command vehicles if they can be obtained later in the game so as to merit there run silent, run deep creedo. And not only would they make a great missile based platform, but also an excellent delivery vehicle for infantry (Which I still believe is the heart of the game, infantry that is.). I don't know what you guys are looking at as far as givng each faction a "speciality", or if any one faction will even have a specialty. What I do know is... it is a great opportunity to make a very unique unit, with very useful and a very different approach to combat which I can see alot of people diggin. Either way thats all I have to say about submarines at the moment. Just want to say thanks for the reply and hope even one of the ideas I explained peaked some interest on the subject matter.

No prob man, in fact, suggestions are always greatly appreciated

To tell you the truth, when I first talked with Marc with the idea of including a Naval Mode, some of my very first naval suggestions was stuff like Subs and SDV's (SEAL Delivery Vehicle / Swimmer Delivery Vehicle), if a "petition" to include submarines in TAOW was to be made, my name would be the first in the list I would personally love to use subs, unfortunately as we look deeper into Zero Hour from a "Naval Perspective", things get more and more complicated , there's always a chance though, and hope is always there

I wonder how Zero Hour would be if EA would've expanded it's naval side

Jarhead wrote:I feel pretty confident in saying the Naval aspect in Zero Hour left much to be desired, so any improvement is more than appreciated and respected from people like me. All I have to say is keep kickin ass and takin names guys, I haven't so much as seen a stitch of game play and I am already sold. And that is more than I can say about the original.
Rock on.

Thanks mate

Here are a couple of posts I happened upon pertaining to ZH Naval activity that are pretty interesting, and I think we know the guy who wrote 'em.

http://www.cncmaps.com/index.php?showtopic=3278

http://www.cncmaps.com/index.php?showtopic=2165

Sounds very interesting to me.

Same here, it's good to know that Beng's on our side , we'll need his backup once the real naval coding begins.

Just wondering around looking at zero hour mods, it seems Beng has been everywhere. And with aircraft carriers, guard dogs, electronic warfare aircraft, this guy is off the hook!

Yeah, Beng knows the game engine from the inside out, he created many personal mods and helped a lot of mod teams with complicated modding issues and completely new logics (Beng created a lot of stuff which was initially thought to be impossible ).

In addition, he also expanded Zero Hours potential with a lot of new stuff like new logics (swimming infantry for instance), unused EA models (and coding) and overall modding assistance, a very powerful ally indeed ).

I was wondering, units like the AC-130U aren't exactly fast, will there be "escort fighters" that travel or can travel at the same speed. Like having jets travel at slower escort speeds to cover units like the AC-130U, then have a button that allows the jet aircrafts the use of afterburners. Any ideas? Maybe a speed upgrade that you just don't buy for certain fighter/escort aircraft? I know the AC-130U is loaded with flares, but that isn't always going to work against a servo of fighters. Or will there be a designated class of fighters that will almost exclusively fill the escort mission?

Jarhead wrote:I was wondering, units like the AC-130U aren't exactly fast, will there be "escort fighters" that travel or can travel at the same speed. Like having jets travel at slower escort speeds to cover units like the AC-130U, then have a button that allows the jet aircrafts the use of afterburners. Any ideas? Maybe a speed upgrade that you just don't buy for certain fighter/escort aircraft? I know the AC-130U is loaded with flares, but that isn't always going to work against a servo of fighters. Or will there be a designated class of fighters that will almost exclusively fill the escort mission?

An excellent question.

Usually multirole fighters (like the F-16C) will be the main escort aircraft, the air superiority fighters such as the F-22A can be considered to be the best for such Air-to-Air escorting roles, this can be also applied for AWACS defense.

---

One concept in which we've been working on lately, to serve as the definitive solution for the vehicle/infantry movement might be applied in that case as well.


Know that typical situation in ZH in which Humvees rush ahead of tanks and infantry?

Basically:


• The humvee will rush ahead of the attack team and is easily destroyed after engaging the enemy;
  
• The tanks, which are slower, are the next to engage the enemy, since they do not have the humvee support to help against enemy infantry waves those can be easily taken out;
  
• The rest of the attack team: infantry (on foot) is the slowest and is the last one to arrive (easy target).

To resolve that classic scenario we are including some innovations:

All ground vehicles will have a sort of a "Speed Modifier", the speed modifier will allow for vehicles of all speeds to move at the same speed (including a speed to able vehicles to move at the same pace as infantry), so Humvees and Tanks can roll alongside at the same speed. The "Speed Pace" will be manually chosen by the player (on the vehicle's control menu).

Basically that means that organized convoys can be effectively and finally built in Zero Hour.

It's natural we will adopt this to other vehicles as well (air, sea, etc.), so I'd say it's almust sure we'll include a special "Air Escort" speed modifier for aircraft (so F-16's and F-22's can fly at a steady, "escorting pace" alongside an AC-130U or an AWACS for instance).

That sounds asbsolutely wonderful. It solves alot of unrealistic scenerios of lagging units. That really is great news. Go TAOW!!!
What do you think about setting "Spooky" and possibly some other weapons to Ctrl fire so the unit will not track. You have to actually have to re-aim to hit your target (if its moving). Applying that concept to every vehicle would be pretty wild. That way if you aim and shoot at someone and they move, you might be firing at nothing but ground, but if you are on top of it you might just mow down a bunch of advancing infantry. Mostly because when they run they cannot shoot, and that could be capitalized upon if one is quick to fire first and fire often (accurately). Alot of the firing in ZH is done automatically, taking the player out of the game in a way. Not all units but some especially the more powerful ones, specifically bullet firing weapons, or even some missile weapons (I pick the AC-130U for this because it is not a very fast weapon, and carries alot of firepower, so to allow the weapon to be "Beefed Up" and still remain fair when targets start scattering you would have to spend time actually firing the weapon instead of just tasking it then going on about your business.) You could also use control+fire for lower end missile weapons that don't use GPS tech. That reminds me any news on the SALH soldier (laser designator type soldier)? Anyways thought that might be an interesting concept.

hey their, just offering up some websites to get some ideas as to what units you might want to look at for yourself. (unless you've already been there. Obviosly you've done your research though.)

This website offers up all kinds of weapons and vehicles old(WW1 old) to modern and some future weapons (i believe)-- http://www.militaryfactory.com/

http://www.futurefirepower.com/

One other thing, if you've ever played Cold War Crisis, you would see that the tanks can change between munitions (something like the SABRE and an HE round for infantry and buildings). Will there be anything like that in this mod or will it just be the mounted MG?

Also, Jarhead, that idea of having to fire for the unit itself is cool and all but your going to need units to come in after the after the attack to clean up or finish off. I definatley think that a real vehicle that is inaccurate to moving targets in ZH is incredibly accurate in real life. I think trying to work in some kind of way to ESTIMATE (not know exactly, lil' thing called human error) the enemy's movement would be much easeir on the player(think about it, commanders are not going to be giving information to the personal inside the craft about the position of their next target, it would be to hard with what else may be going on). Always having to relocate the vehicles site(espescially on a spooky) would leave no time to rebuild a force to retaliate or like i mensioned above, to finish off.

ses juan wrote:hey their, just offering up some websites to get some ideas as to what units you might want to look at for yourself. (unless you've already been there. Obviosly you've done your research though.)

This website offers up all kinds of weapons and vehicles old(WW1 old) to modern and some future weapons (i believe)-- http://www.militaryfactory.com/

http://www.futurefirepower.com/

Cheers ses juan, welcome to The Art of War Forums!

Many thanks for the suggestions

ses juan wrote:One other thing, if you've ever played Cold War Crisis, you would see that the tanks can change between munitions (something like the SABRE and an HE round for infantry and buildings). Will there be anything like that in this mod or will it just be the mounted MG?

Absolutely, our current M1A2 Abrams main battle tank, for instance, haves various weapons for various situations (players can manually choose which weapon to use in order to effectively respond to the specific situation at hand):

• SABOT rounds (for general anti-tank purposes);
  
• HEAT rounds (multipurpose, specially effective against buildings, light armor and infantry groups);
  
• Coaxial Machine Gun (this weapon is also automatically used when SABOT or HEAT rounds are equipped)

In addition there are other possible weapons like the commander's machine gun or remote controlled weapons.

Vehicles can also have special abilities, like Smoke Grenade launchers in the M1A2's case (note that additional special abilities are added for higher class vehicles, please check this topic for additional information).

ses juan wrote:

Jarhead wrote:What do you think about setting "Spooky" and possibly some other weapons to Ctrl fire so the unit will not track. You have to actually have to re-aim to hit your target (if its moving). Applying that concept to every vehicle would be pretty wild. That way if you aim and shoot at someone and they move, you might be firing at nothing but ground, but if you are on top of it you might just mow down a bunch of advancing infantry. Mostly because when they run they cannot shoot, and that could be capitalized upon if one is quick to fire first and fire often (accurately). Alot of the firing in ZH is done automatically, taking the player out of the game in a way. Not all units but some especially the more powerful ones, specifically bullet firing weapons, or even some missile weapons (I pick the AC-130U for this because it is not a very fast weapon, and carries alot of firepower, so to allow the weapon to be "Beefed Up" and still remain fair when targets start scattering you would have to spend time actually firing the weapon instead of just tasking it then going on about your business.) You could also use control+fire for lower end missile weapons that don't use GPS tech. That reminds me any news on the SALH soldier (laser designator type soldier)? Anyways thought that might be an interesting concept.

Also, Jarhead, that idea of having to fire for the unit itself is cool and all but your going to need units to come in after the after the attack to clean up or finish off. I definatley think that a real vehicle that is inaccurate to moving targets in ZH is incredibly accurate in real life. I think trying to work in some kind of way to ESTIMATE (not know exactly, lil' thing called human error) the enemy's movement would be much easeir on the player(think about it, commanders are not going to be giving information to the personal inside the craft about the position of their next target, it would be to hard with what else may be going on). Always having to relocate the vehicles site(espescially on a spooky) would leave no time to rebuild a force to retaliate or like i mensioned above, to finish off.

Indeed, it could also be a potential problem for the AI to use (one of the reasons that the AI doesn't use the Comanche rockets in Zero Hour for example).


At the moment though, the process in TAOW's randomizing logic is entirely automatic:

Tanks or infantry may or may not hit a target when they fire (the hit probability will change according to the specific situation), this was made to take away the "formulaic" feeling of Zero Hour battles, the AI can also normally use this specific logic so players can actually have large and lasting infantry and tank battles (taking away the previous "linearity" of hit ratio).

Since the hit ratio will be mostly randomized, the combat range will also dramatically increase, specially in the infantry case (soldiers in TAOW will be able of firing at much longer distances, the longer the distance the lower the hit probability though ).

One other thing, what will there be in terms of tech buildings? I was thinking that maybe there could be instead of tech building, garrisonable buildings that have special tactical advantages that could be pointed out in the beginning of a game or have the star above them. I'm just throwing ideas out here and seeing what sticks.

Some examples of tech buildings include airfields, tactical locations (control points), and other special buildings like maybe UN or PMC (Private Military Companies) Outposts.

We won't use ZH's building system for realism reasons (our units will be deployed from outside the map, by various possible means), and the battlefield action will be controlled by Mobile Command Vehicles (TAOW's equivalents of Command Centers).

There will be Land / Sea and Air-based command vehicles (in addition there will be multiple command vehicles for various purposes).

I think that the merkava tank should be in the game. I read somewhere in the forums that there was UN that you could gain help from and vehicles were mentioned. The M1 abrams is the US MBT but there were pictures of it in a UN skin so i was thinking, why not use the Merkava tank. Isreal is a UN nation so... Like i said, just throwing things out there!

It's perfectly possible, and there is still a lot of vehicles (including Main Battle Tanks) to announce

If the UN is included (like I think it will - as a secondary faction), then it will have a very diverse faction, with a lot of unique units as well (to bring even more variety).

Will you beable to fire out the windows of the HUMVEE ontop of firing the turreted .5o cal? And then not be able to fire out the windows of the uparmored version?

In the M1114 case, no.
It will have three seats (one fireteam) and it will serve for transport purposes only (the way it was depicted in ZH was rather unrealistic, specially in the case of snipers or firing missiles from inside the vehicle).

There will be certain Humvee variants though, which will most likely give soldiers the chance to engage the enemy while on the move (there will be maaaany more humvees, besides the current versions ).

Here is a pic that would be good for an icon.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_AC-130U_Spooky_lg.jpg

Jarhead wrote:Here is a pic that would be good for an icon.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_AC-130U_Spooky_lg.jpg

No Need
Most Camo's Are Ready
But Thank For The Help

Jarhead wrote:Here is a pic that would be good for an icon.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_AC-130U_Spooky_lg.jpg

Thanks , we're using custom TAOW Unit Icons though (to keep consistency with all units).

This might make a cool effect for supersonic aircraft

@ 1:40 on this video shows a really cool effect that might ad to TAOW.

the untis are veryyyyyyyyyyyy great but pls can u make them Taller ?? because they are smaller then a car :-O U know what i mean ?

Jarhead wrote:This might make a cool effect for supersonic aircraft

@ 1:40 on this video shows a really cool effect that might ad to TAOW.

what ? i don't see it sorry mate, reüpload it please