...what would it be like? This is a share-your-ideas thread.

If I didn't have pretty much the next year of my life planned out, I'd be inclined to make one myself. My idea for an RTS is pretty simple. I'll sum it up in one word:

My answer is the same as when this question came up about a month ago.

I've always wanted to make an RTS where the player is a unit on the battlefield. The player would order units around with their character... maybe something like those newer Battlezone games, except with a more top-down view. May or may not be a good idea, it's just something I'm interested in .

I was going to say "I don't remember that topic coming up", but it turns out I was the first to reply to that thread. Well, I don't remember that topic coming up.

I'd aim for a Warzone 2100-like style with research (trees of weapons and tanks).

Maybe incorporate real-world factions and scenarios in the story (including ones that aren't so militaristic, like New Zealand ) so people could say "Nah, Sweden could sooo beat Finland's butt". But that would be said by Swedes to Finns.

Though, incoporating so many factions would make them only differ by their flags, names, starting positions etc.

If I made an RTS right now, each map would have both an on-ground and an in-space portion so that players could command units and build structures both on the surface and in orbit. Players would need to build spaceports to transfer resources from the planet to space, and units would have abilities like orbital bombardment, ground-to-space cannons, etc.

It would be 2D using from the side view (like a platformer). There aren't enough of those.

How would the Y axis work then?

I've always wanted to play/make an RTS where you can really mess with the terrain. Divert a river around you base for defense, blow up a hydrodam to flood a whole heap of land, drop a bomb and make a huge crater that's there forever. Set fire to a forest to provide smoke cover but now you have nowhere to hide later on...

Oh, and lets keep New Zealand out of these wars eh, we've done a pretty good job at it so far considering the world today... (although our gumboot throwing squadran would surely be a force to be reckoned with)

Probably something like in The Tone Rebellion. That one is a really good game
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/DylaScr2.jpg

I would try to eliminate resource collecting and instead have reinforcements come in at designated locations and times. Victory will depend on killing your opponent faster and more efficiently than he is killing you. Perhaps I would have the reinforcements come in on vulnerable transports so occupying possible resupply zones would prevent the players from turtling.

Wilson Saunders: Like Z?

I never got a chance to play Z. I heard about it back in the day but it was not on my list of stuff to buy. It is a pity because it sounds a lot like what I would want to make. My favorite RTS game to date is Total Annihilation.

I always wanted to do a really cute and cuddly RTS. Using vegetables or small pets or whatever as units. They could have silly weapons and structures and it would all be very weird, but a very happy atmosphere. It would of course be built on some simple but elegant and ridiculously well balanced game mechanics.

Wilson; there is always Ground Control 1 and 2, both are pretty nice (no resource gathering, just dropships etc).

Oh and if you like TA (which btw is the best RTS ever), there is the (unofficial, made by the same guy) sequel out now; Supreme commander. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks awesome.

It looks too awesome to play on my computer.

Having put some thought into making a RTS of my own here are some thoughts:

*Do all the rendering in 90 degree top down so I can rotate the units with rotate sprite and not have to worry about multiple sprites for multiple directions.

*Have neutral buildings that can be occupied by infantry. theninfantry can be killed by the destruction of the building or enemy infantry entering the building and succeeding in (non rendered) melee combat.

*Zoom in and out function for a better view of the carnage.

*Beyond line of sight artillery. Big Bertha is my favorite TA unit (that sound bad if taken out of context).

Would the 'heavier' units be less cute animals?

But shouldn't you still require the player to see the target by any other unit, else it could be exploited.

FrankyR and Peitz bring up the best ideas I've seen so far in this thread.

I still like my legos idea. I'm thinking it would be bright atmosphere like Peitz mentioned for his veggie game. Plus, legos are pratically meant for an RTS. In fact, screw the video game, I'll just make it IRL.

Some time ago I posted this thread about RTS design. I'd really love to do that one. Meanwhile I'm doing some brainstorming.

Anyway I've always dreamt about making something like Homeworld clone, with major tweaks in management etc. Like you'd be able to drop the hammer of indiscriminate justice upon the planets, build starbases etc.

I started writing here and realized that I was really writing a design document...

Suffice it to say, computer-themed, with as much of an arcade feel as you can possibly bring to the RTS genre.

They beat you to it .

Neat, sort of like warhammer, but with legos...

I had a lego chess set that I made myself, and sorely miss ever since the nephews got into them!

There was a side scroller platformer, freeware, a while ago, not Z, never heard of Z, but it sucked.

It had some really cool ideas, you could make any unit you wanted in the unit editor -- make new races, etc -- the units were priced based on their abilities, hit points, etc -- but the game play was terrible.

RTSes should be top down or 3D IMO.

I would love to see a multi-planet RTS that invovled not only ground/atmosphere combat, but combat in space too... -- A whole ship containing thousands of hybernating ground troops destroyed not couldn't get to the drop zone -- but I fear it would be too complicated and invovle too much micro management.

I love the idea of random based maps, and I also love the idea of having an entirely air/see/ground based game (as they're simple to play), and I love the idea of huge maps with lots of computer (and possibly netural) players -- some kind of trading system would be nice to see -- and with the huge maps, it would be nice to see wrap around maps, instead of maps with edges (ex: we're conquering the moon of hador today, so buckle up troops!) -- you'd expect crators, and a map that you could walk around one way or the other, or thru the top to the bottom...

He could do to BrikWars what Relic did to Warhammer. As in, make the most awesome RTS ever.

Edit: Argh, beaten. (kind of)

Michael: yeah I'd like that too. I'm not afraid too much about micromanagement, because you can simly go with the way Homeworld went. What I'm afraid of is that it would be really complicated to combine space and ground combat phases. I mean that you'd simply go mad when orchestrating battle on the surface and managing the fleet on the orbit to unleash surface bombardment.

Mmmh maybe I should think about that more...

I had this idea once to make a networked RTS where you could play either as a commander, or as a unit. If playing as commander, the game would look just like your average RTS, but you could put up "job ads" in the lobby from in-game. To play as unit, you'd have to reply to a job ad, and be accepted by the commander; you would then populate one of the commander's units, and you'd play the game in a 3d view. The commander might also give you soldiers you can command yourself.

With this, though, I see a few problems:
1) The programming involved would be extremely tricky, since so many players would have to be synced in a realtime action game;
2) There would have to be a well-designed mechanism to maintain a reasonable balance between commanders and players (say, 1:10 to 1:20). A reward system would be necessary, which is hard to get secure in such a networked thing, and it must be attractive enough to be a unit (to avoid everybody to play as commander), but not too much so (otherwise there'd be no commanders at all).
3) If a unit player leaves the game, his unit must somehow be secured so that the commander doesn't lose it; just removing it would be unfair for the commander, moving it back to the base would open an easy door for cheating. The best solution would probably be to instantly turn it into a robot unit and warn the commander.

Another option might be to have only unit players, but the one with the most "experience" (most kills, highest score, ...) would not only control his own unit (3D screen), but could also go into commander mode (RTS screen), enabling an autopilot for his unit. This would still leave number 1 on the list as a problem.

Tobias: that's what Battlefield does, though I haven't played that. Which reminds me I'd want sometime play Operation Flashpoint over network - the more players the better.

Edit: the reward system shoul work in the way, that the "unit" players would get rank and depending on their rank they'd be able to command other units, then become a commander of platoon and somehow supreme commander.

I'm game for it.

(Oh, and on that off-topic topic: Project Reality for BF2 rocks)

Seems like an excellent design document (going through the "Core Rules"). Now I want to make it more than ever! Umm, I mean "evar!!!1"

Credz to Jakub because I sayz so.

Got a question - how would you solve the transistion between space and ground battlefield?

Johan: There was an old game for the PC / Amiga like that.. Tiny Troops or something similar.

I'm not really into RTS games for some reason.

I haven't thought about it that much, but one idea is to use special spaceport/space elevator structures built on the ground to transfer units. They would act something like a teleporter in Warcraft3: you'd walk units into one side and then they'd appear on the other. Of course some vehicles could travel between the two on their own (they could have a enter/leave atmosphere action or something).

The more I think about this game idea though, the more it seems like it could easily get bogged down in micromanagement. The real trick would be getting the feeling of controlling two different fronts of the battlefield without making it unplayable in the process.

Have you given any thought to split screen? Have 1/2 the screen dedicated to space the other 1/2 dedicated to the ground. Perhaps link the two in scrolling so the player does not get confused as to what part of the ground links up to what part of space. I know the scale would be way off. Perhaps you could explain it away with degrees of orbit. That is since ground units are closer to the center of the planet they take up more of an angle relative to the center of the planet than the space ships in high orbit. Heck you could even go for a "round" map where going too far in one direction gets you to pop up on the other side of the world. "Populous In the Beginning" did a very good job with this.

What about tabbed inteface?
Perhaps it might actually work if the tab would show at least minimap for the thing that isn't currently visible.

tabbed views would work best.

There should be a way to zoom out from a planet you're viewing to the "space-map" which shows all planets/sectors/ships(that are in space) etc (very very zoomed out)

When you click on a planet you should be able to zoom down, and there should also be some stats as to the prescences on that planet (if you have units in sensor range) wether it's 100% you, or: %38 you/%40 neutral/%22 evil empire ... etc

But again, this gets into epic proportions and almost deserves to be labeled as micromanagement already, IMHO.

Agreed. The more of the area around you that you can see in an RTS, the better. Splitting the screen would cut down on the visible range far too much.

What you should do is render both scenes, but you zoom in for the ground, and zoom out for space. For the alternate view, you should see what objects and landscape are there, but it should be semi-opaque and slightly white so you know that it's there but you don't get obstructed by it.

When you are zoomed into the ground's battlefield, you should see what is in the sky/orbit above the area, but you should be able to easily see past it.

Well the question was more like the transistion of camera between two battlefields. In space I'd definately go the Homeworld way - absolute freedom of movement of units and camera (you focused it on some object and it kept following it, until you changed the focus).

I thought that from orbit you would be able to focus the planet and then zoom with the scroller to the surface - the question is how to make this possible with keeping some proportions of game objects and keeping planets reasonably small when rendering from space.

Hey and the micromanagement could be easily cutted down. You'll have to just send units where you want, have one key for some special action, and few others like docking key for fighters.

Also the macromanagemnet could be easily stripped - you just ask your fleet command to send you more units and in some time reinforcements will jump in (well for some reasonable fee).

What I'd like is a customisable AI that could be set to run your macromanagement for you. There could be an inteface built into the game that allows you to give it simple strategies. And for people who want to give more specific control, you could create script files for the AI that can overwrite every part of its behaviour. Something similar to this which is one of the AI configuration files that can be used to control allied and enemy AI players in Kohan.

Well I was thinking about something like universe which would live and where the player would be a commander of a space fleet. The universe would be AI controlled and the player would be able to change it in some way by his deeds. He'll be also able to ask for reinforcements as I mentioned. The idea was to focus only on tactical combat and simplify the the management as possible.

I also thought about the ground battlefield and I came up with the spherical battlefield concept: you'd be able to focus on the planet, rotate the camera as you wish and zoom in/out which would allow you to see units currently on the surface. From orbit you'd see only large structures and be able to attack them with your vessels (orbital bombardment) with greater zoom the unit icons would pop up and further maybe even the actual units.

The only thing is how to make it really simple and easy to program, plus optimized - that from orbit you'll see only sphere composed of 1000 polys and as you zoom the surface and terrain will appear.

I always prefer the building part of RTS than the blowing things up. War isn't very constructive.

I'd prefer a FPS style thing where I can command troops to help me out with my voice. Thats the ultimate invisible UI.

You'd have to develop the VOICE OF COMMAND or your troops will think you're a wuss. The neighbours will think you are mad.

You could play a rich man in a wheelchair and you have to order everyone around you. That would be just as much fun.

Matt: in that case you should play RTS's like Sim City not the war ones.

Real-Time Simulations.

Even if it's Real Time STRATEGY that still doesn't necessarily mean warfare.

You might like the City uilding series then, you know: Caesar III, Pharaoh, Zeus and Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom. Or Children of the Nile or Caesar IV, if you like 3D stuff. Mostly building, but not entirely without warfare.

Btw, let me say thanks for the link to brikwars.com which was posted a few days ago. We got somewhat into it, and the kids certainly do have a lot of fun with that type of gameplay!

Bun Bun and his army of Black Ops Elves vs The Satanic Kittens!
Although the Kittens are indesructible, the Elves can throw milk and neutralize them. Their goal is to neutralize all the kittens and transport them back to the cabin.

The Satanic Kittens' goal is to escape the cabin and kill all the Elves. Bun Bun can survive, but none of his elves!

Of course, Pete Abrams would have to approve, since all the characters were created by him in his online comic, Sluggy Freelance, which I recommend to everyone. Check it out at www.sluggy.com

Possumdude0 I am also a big fan of sluggy and your post brought a mental image of a battle fields strewn with disemboweled elves and kittens quietly lapping up milk.

both? In a tabbed view, there is potentially unlimited views -- basically, anywhere you're at with the camera you should be able to open in a new tab -- or any event that pops up "Cyron Beta III is under attack --> open in new tab" etc

And even then you only ever need to render one scene at a time. -- so "both" makes no sense to me.

Anyone play MULE? -- you can do things to royally screw up your opponents (though you can't fight them as I recall) but in the end, it's the score that matters... no reason you couldn't have an RTS game where fighting wasn't required -- hell you could open up a plantation on some planet off in BFN, make money, and buy the land from your opponent that you want, and meet the mission objectives, or you could just swarm in with you cleaning vehicles (air tanks, etc), and evict them forceablly.

:-D

Maybe based on past missions, the particular faction will be more or less cooperative with you... maybe all the missions from the start take place in the same universe/"level", with each of the missions happening one at a time in sequential order (or sometimes more than one), and you never ever "reconstruct" the world between missions. You built a crappy base? to bad, live with it, that base over on the moon of argos IV is still there, and just as crappy as it was when you built it...

I like that idea, a lot.

Just like in Homeworld: you haven't build that destroyer last mission, too bad, now you don't have time to do it - enemy destroyers are just here...

That was the point