How would you design a EAW?

[R1ob7]

I was wondering what everyone expected from EaW or what was their dream game star wars RTS was. Not that this won't be a kick ass game but I'm wondering what is everyone expectations for it and so forth. This shouldn't be a place people list their gribes about whats in the game or whats not in the game more of how people first imagined the game, and what they predict what the final game may play like. This might be fun because after the game comes out we can look back and see who was right and wrong. Delphi doesn't get to make predictions though j/k

 

 

If you care, Mein would be:

 

Ok first for Space, A planet has multiple landing points for the rebels and only One for the empire, Landing points would be there for transports to land. This would force the empire to defend large areas around a planet to prevent rebels from landing but allow the rebels to concentrate their forces defending only one. Also in space there will be hyperspace points for fleets to come and go to the planet, so if you want to escape to one specific planet you have to get your fleet to one specific point and jump, however if you are just trying to save your fleet you can just send them to multiple points however your fleet will be scattered around neighboring planets.

Now going back to the landing points on a planet those will be important because you'll have to move your transports there to land your troops on the planet. I would like this because it adds a layer of strategy because now you can either decide to fight a space battle or try and slide your transports in to break a blockade.

 

For the ground battles I'd keep them the same mostly but have a "Landing pad" at the bases where you can load troops, materials (credits), buildings (Have some basic buildings be redeployable), ect... to redeploy on another planet if you want to try and retreat. Next you have to hold off the enemy long enough to allow everything escape. To keep people from instantly escaping there will be a timer on it that only one transport can leave at a time so you have to try and hold off the enemy while you evacuate. After you evacuate you'll have to try and avoid the enemy fleet in orbit of the planet while you get your transports to hyperspace points. But if you had say an Ion Cannon on the planet during the ground battle maybe you'll see it shooting into space. This would be cosmetic simulating the fact that the evacuation is happening simultaneously in space and on ground. In space I would have the Ion cannon on a timer firing at the enemy ships as you try to get your transports to different hyperspace points. The timer would be how long the Ion cannon was able to fire into space during the ground battle, the longer it survives on the ground, the longer it can shoot into space during the evacuation. Also for the evacuation you won't start with all your transports in space at the beginning they will spawn over time and at random points around the planet forcing the enemy to decide to whether to split their fleet and try to take down as many transports as possible or to keep it together and just clear out what they can get. The thing is that the Ion Cannons will shoot anything near the transports so if you split your fleet there’s a good chance that the smaller groups could become completely disabled. After a few rounds against the Ion cannon.

 

I guese because Episode 5 is my favorite movie of the franchise I always envisioned a Star Wars RTS to be like the battle of Hoth

[Juggernaut1985]

1. Manual loading of TIE Squadrons onto ships to allow for custom forces.

2. Transportation of troops on ships

3. Heros that can die and stay dead

4. Correct units in the timeline EaW has chosen

5. No newly made up units

6. Ability to land as many forces as you want on the planet but at landing points(ie landing points do not determind the # of ships you can land)

7. More well known planets

8. Correct placing of planets in the galaxy

9. Pop cap removal or large increase

10. XP sytem

11. Well known units such as the Carrack, Lancer, Dreadnaught....ect

12. Timeline that goes to Ep 6 and the destruction of the DS2

13. recruiting and training of heros(like take Luke to Yoda and out pops a Jedi Luke)

 

Thats all I can think of at this point.

[AquaIllusion]

I like pretty much all of your ideas. Especially the two about the land-battle retreating and the ion cannons.

 

I don't really know what I was hoping for... I guess at first when I read the basic description of the game, I thought 'Rebellion and Force Commander combined' (I happened to like Force Commander). In most ways, the game has actually turned out how I wanted. But there are some obvious disappointments. Not being able to intercept fleets on hyperspace routes (with an interdictor) being one. The lack of any sort of experience system being another. And the base building is hardly what I would have wanted (since there isn't a whole lot of it). The hyperspace routes are nice though. If there's one thing I love about strategy games, it's chokepoints. The Rebellion travel system made such things impossible.

[Star Wars Man]

1. Manual loading of TIE Squadrons onto ships to allow for custom forces.

2. Transportation of troops on ships

3. Heros that can die and stay dead

4. Correct units in the timeline EaW has chosen

5. No newly made up units

6. Ability to land as many forces as you want on the planet but at landing points(ie landing points do not determind the # of ships you can land)

7. More well known planets

8. Correct placing of planets in the galaxy

9. Pop cap removal or large increase

10. XP sytem

11. Well known units such as the Carrack, Lancer, Dreadnaught....ect

12. Timeline that goes to Ep 6 and the destruction of the DS2

13. recruiting and training of heros(like take Luke to Yoda and out pops a Jedi Luke)

 

Thats all I can think of at this point.

 

14. Venator

15. A 25-30 Pop Cap

16. Demo

 

 

That's all I can think about, at any rate.

[Deadeye31_pff]

I would have made it Rebellion 2. Everyship from that game, no matter how similar to another it was, would have been in this game. I would have scrapped the ISD 2 and Vic 2 for the Acclamator and Venator, though, if we wanted Episode 3 ships.

 

I also would have likely scrapped the Liberator cruiser and the Bulkwalk battlecruiser and maybe the SSD for the timeline, but there deffinitely would have been no tartan(it would be the lancer and the IMP 1, that other ship, would have been the carrack) nor the Mark 2 assault frigate (It would have been the well known regualr assault frigate that appears in many games)

 

Heck, Activision, in Star Trek: Armada 2, appealed more to its fanoys. They put in the Intrepid class (Voyager was a ship of this class) and made it unique from the Akira, which was a better ship, by giving it phasers that never stopped firing. Other ships had a fire, stop, fire, the Intrepid didn't. They made it work and didn't settle for just one frigate. They had 2,the akira and intrepid, a light escort (the defiant class) and a scout ship.

 

rather than make excuses for why a ship didn't work, I would have found a way to make it (any ship from rebellion) work.

 

now that I think about it, Armada had a lot more ships than here. You can say they needed planets and ground forces too, but if they weren't ready or didn't have the foresight for all of this, that is no excuse.

 

This was an ambitious project ot say the least and though I don't think they pulled it off, they did do enough that the expansion packs, and mods, can put in all this stuff. I prefer official expansion packs though.

[Foshjedi2004]

1. Manual loading of TIE Squadrons onto ships to allow for custom forces.

2. Transportation of troops on ships

3. Heros that can die and stay dead

4. Correct units in the timeline EaW has chosen

5. No newly made up units

6. Ability to land as many forces as you want on the planet but at landing points(ie landing points do not determind the # of ships you can land)

7. More well known planets

8. Correct placing of planets in the galaxy

9. Pop cap removal or large increase

10. XP sytem

11. Well known units such as the Carrack, Lancer, Dreadnaught....ect

12. Timeline that goes to Ep 6 and the destruction of the DS2

13. recruiting and training of heros(like take Luke to Yoda and out pops a Jedi Luke)

14.Ask the community about the era they want instead of changing it to suit the Current Lucas Stance: Clone Wars Era

15.Expansion of the Galaxy: Hydian Way, Corellian Run and Perlamien Route Battle Fields against the Pirates.

[Stellar_Magic]

If I was to design a EAW...

 

1. More Planets, perhaps even multiple planets in a single system.

 

2. Pop. Cap that is connected to a number of different factors:

 

2a. Population Count is based off the number of crew on a ship or soldiers in a formation.

 

2b. Population Cap is reflective of the deployment of Command Vessels and vehicles as well as the possession of strategic buildings on the ground, and the possession of strategic locations (Landing Zones).

 

3. Increased number of units in the game to include all EU designs from the era as well as the Imperial Pursuit Period (Period immediately after ANH while the Rebels retreat to Hoth)

 

4. Inclusion of the capture of vessels in space combat.

 

5. Experience, Morale, and Loyalty as values for all units.

 

6. Unit Defections and Surrenders during battle.

 

7. Canonical mission profiles and capabilities for all units. (Victory I as Oribtal Assault ship and Missile Destroyer, Venator as a Planetary Assault ship and Fleet Carrier, and the Maraudar Corvette as a Planetary Assault craft and Fast Attack Vessel for example)

 

8. Expansion of units from the period by the creation of logical variations of known units (AT-ST/u Urban Scout Walker for Example) as well as new units by the Delphi creative team.

 

9. More designs to be stolen by the rebels... in addition to their own research capacities (I'd want to make it so you have to steal the Nebulon B-1 Frigate from Kuat in story mode).

 

10. Rename the Broadside to something more fitting (Striker Class Corvette, or something along those lines).

 

11. Orbital Bombardment.

 

12. Capital ships are assigned fighters and troops that are built independently.

 

13. The Acclamator and Venator can land on a planet's surface.

 

14. Killable heroes.

[Nevets]

Pretty much Rebellion 2

 

(See the Expansion thread for a lot of good ideas.)

[noian]

1. Manual loading of TIE Squadrons onto ships to allow for custom forces.

2. Transportation of troops on ships

3. Heros that can die and stay dead

4. Correct units in the timeline EaW has chosen

5. Make and Disign your own units/weapons/ships.

6. Ability to land as many forces as you want on the planet but at landing points(ie landing points do not determind the # of ships you can land)

7. More well known planets

8. Correct placing of planets in the galaxy

9. Pop cap removal or large increase

10. Capaign that has more levels.

11. Well known units such as the Carrack, Lancer, Dreadnaught....ect

12. Timeline that includes the destruction of the Death Star and goes to NJO.

13. recruiting and training of heros(like take Luke to Yoda and out pops a Jedi Luke)

14. Those 200 dreadnaughts that dissapeared.

15. Random events(like when three lost computer controlled Alderaan ships popped up randomly in space)

16. NO broadside.

17. ALL star wars ships.

18. Orbital Bombardments

19. Ability to destroy ISD's being built

20. SSD's!

21. Rebel can also research SOME Tech

22. Rebels can build ISD's (call them Star Liberators instead or something) to fool imps.

23. Spies, ability to turn enemy units.

24. Diplomacy

25. Neutral Pirates, newfactions, stronger enemies(like YuZongVong.)

26. Unit defections, surrender, etc.

27. Board units.

28. Admirals that rise in rank and CAN move from ship to ship

29. Loyalty, ship efficiancy, etc.

30. Propoganda.

31. More Eras

32. Start in CW era and move to GCW era(the CIS can become Rebel Aliance, ect.)

33. Train CW units

34. Play as pirates

35. Have other factions join you and rename faction(chiss joins rebellion,rebellion become federation of free planets, etc.)

 

(I did get most of these from Juggernaught however I changed or deleted some I disagreed wih and added some..)

[Ghostly_Substance]

Well heres how I would make it.

 

1) Humanoid military units would be taken out of the population that you control (even if its the crew of a ship in space)

2) Taxing certain planets of their good economy the way you want it to sqeeze out the best credits income

3) Heroes be reqruited but when dead stay dead. Can come back as ghosts if have the training but dont do anything special

4) Units gain Experience and rank

5) Transport units on the ship and not a seperate transport

6) Prototype weapons (Few numbers) can be used in certain amount of battles then upgraded to production stage

7) Seeing capital ships being built inside a shield in a construction yard.

8)Ability to land as many forces as long as you bought enough transports for your landing party

9) Sending commando's to do the easy yet hard dirty work

10) All the units come out exactly when they are supposed to and seeing prototypes in limited quantity

11) Creating outposts for captured or neutral planets (keeping it under control)

12) Able to capture ships that are smaller then your ship. If hero is around then you can capture ships as big as yours but not bigger. Having more then one hero would mean taking over a larger ship then yours.

13) having a Direct IP and its own server

[Xyvik]

Well, I had a five page reply written, but somehow my word processor coughed and I lost four of them. With that bitter taste in my mouth I am not going to rewrite them but will instead make a few comments here.

 

Strategy and not tactics: putting low unit caps is not a balancing tactic. I know what balance is, and have a very exquisite understanding of balancing techniques, from simulations to slide rules to cut and paste to rock-paper-scissors. The only thing that lower unit numbers does is force the player to resort to the tactical level. Last time I checked, this is a real-time STRATEGY game. Focusing inwards instead of outwards is what has led this genre to the current stagnant state it is in. Need I mention the horrible atrocity that pretends it is a strategy game by the name of Warcraft 3?

 

Infastructure: Base building should not be limited in any way. Half of the strategy of planning a war is making sure you have the backbone to do so, both production-wise and economic-wise. Planets are very large, and the planetary combat should be as important, if not more so, than the space combat. The Rebels at least twice made the mistake of situating their command center on one planet and paid dearly both times, with Yavin and Hoth. This proves the point that planetary infastructure is important: you need more than one command center, and you need your planets intact. To do that you need bases, large ones. And you need to protect them against potential invasions. That means a lot of planetary combat.

 

Meh, that's all the heart I have to write at the moment. Maybe later I'll add some more.

[MasterTactician]

No Population Cap. The number of units you have should be limited only by the amount of credits you earn. If balanced correctly, this could still keep the number of units down while still maintaining a realistic environment.

[Zer_Teron]

Legacy of War

[SirNuke]

Eh, I need to play the game first to know if I what I would mess around with.

 

I thing that I think would be cool, is to have space and ground battles occur at the same time (like use mouse wheel to scroll between ground and space battles, and be able to order ships to target ground units).

 

As for the pop cap though, I would make it dependant on the map, as to allow at least a few epic huge star wars battles in a game.

Though I do agree there needs to be a cap. Otherwise once either side gains a significant credit advantage over the other, the game would basically be over.