Another TBS mode-ish Brainstormin' Thread - Vector Thrust

I have some ideas for a certain TBS mode :
-Each faction starts with an airborne fortress (you choose what model, each model have its own plus and minus), and one capital city, with tons of neutral cities/facilities scattered all over the map
-The main goal of this mode is either destruction of the airborne fortress (AF) or the capture of opposing side's capital city
-Either: -A: Use the AF to capture the city or
-B: More realistic method, you build ground forces and have them capture the city.
-Capturing cities & such gives constant flow of cash & supplies
-One single unit is squad based (i.e you put several different units in a squad), so does ground units (in other word, one single ground unit on map could represent a single battalion, or something like that)
-But you can customize their loadout too....(either by template or custom)
-Set up a base in your cities/facilities, they serves as: -A. Defenses in case of the enemy trying to capture it
-B. Rapid deployment. Whenever the city/facility is under attack, the units stationed there will be automatically scrambled
-Although you can build a (larger) base in an empty land as well (as well as superweapons? AF construction facility?)
-Constructing bases (so does building units) isn't as easy as you think, you need to allocate supplies to the desired area (i.e in form of transport planes/ground convoys) to begin the construction, which means you can disrupt your opposition's supply lines by intercepting those transports. You can always assign some combat units to escort them though (so that in case of them under attack, you can immediately directly control the escort squads, otherwise you have to order your nearest unit to help them)
-If you/the enemy 'invades' a territory with an enemy base/unit/city/etc in it, the game switches to the actual real time gameplay (if unit switching & playable ground units have been implemented, it should works here too- Battlestations series style), except if its ground units vs ground units (unless if you send a squad to do CAS there). You choose one of the squad involved and go get 'em, the rest will be controlled by the CPU unless if the aforementioned unit switching ability implemented. The battle will last until either all enemy dies/retreats or battle time expired (this will results in a stalemate, the battle still can continue in the next turn).
-Buildable superweapons/strategic weapons (Oversized railguns/laserguns? Killsat facilities? Traditional ICBM silos? Whatever are they, they take forever to build, but it can literally fry any part of the map in a single shot, along with whatever unit within that spot), either destroy it ASAP or build a countermeasure facility (ABM/Anti-ballistic missile facility? Energy shielding around the city?)
-Naval warfare exists as well (i.e, use shipyards to build warships, etc), shouldn't be too different with the aforementioned rules.
-The AF/aircraft carrier (if naval) can retreat mid-battle in case things get really bad, but it'll cost the territory where the battle takes place (unless if its takes place in an empty/neutral land/waters)
-Additional AF is buildable, they serves as an 'extra life'
-You can issue 'request reinforcement' command during battle to call nearby units to join the battle, but you can have 'instant reinforcement' by having another unit in adjacent of your unit (FYI: it's possible to bring have an allies of the other team in the adjacent to make them help you)
-Artillery units can either act as indirect fire support during battle, or you can issue them to attack several tiles around it.
-Cruise missiles can be deployed as well (with at least, half destructive power of a nuke), but they can be intercepted
-Since a game will take relatively long time to finish, there should be an interim/in-game save (on map/TBS view only obviously)
-It's possible to do battle in an extremely adverse area (i.e post-nuclear strike area), but it'll gradually reducing every involved unit's (both player's and enemy's, except for AF perhaps...) HP, unless if a special equipment is equipped (to prevent/reduce radiation effect). Oh, putting an unit on a radiated zone too long isn't good for their health as well (i.e they'll die in several turns).
-Team lock on/off? Oh yes, please. Allows other team to literally 'backstab' their allies.
-More to come~

POSSIBLE MUTATORS FOR THIS MODE:
-DEFCON mode: Basically turns the entire game into something similar to that infamous Defcon game, it gives you free nukes/superweapons in the very beginning, but they can't be used until DEFCON 1. The length of DEFCON phases is adjustable (either per turn, each 2 turns, etc), here's the outline:
-DEFCON 5: Capture neutral cities, construct anything that isn't superweapon/AF, but can't move units
-DEFCON 4: Can move units
-DEFCON 3: Battle can occur
-DEFCON 2: same, but short range strategic weapons (cruise missiles, etc) and artys' MAP attacks (yeah, that's how I call it) are usable
-DEFCON 1: Full access to all superweapons/nukes.
-Generations mode: Everyone starts out with Generation 1, which is WW1 era, after several turns passed, everyone go to Generation 2 (WW2 era) and so on. The earlier generation units are still present, and you can send them back (too slow, and the enemy might vaporize your units with higher generation weapons) to the nearest base to decommision them. New generation units have to be built, and obviously more costly than previous generation's, therefore sometimes it's a good idea to deploy previous generation units though (i.e, deploying P-51s in Generation 3/50-60's era as a COIN plane would be a good idea)

Instead of 'Do X research to advance generation', I think this should be more fair (i.e, there's no need to do research race to get to the next generation)

Edited by: Nergal01

This is quite a mode! It is almost a game by itself.
I have a couple of questions, but first I must understand how the player plays.

What are the player controls? How he plays? And what it can do? Can it control every unit?

In the map mode, you can control basically whatever unit at your disposal (in traditional TBS fashion). During battle, you choose a plane (only planes are usable...for now) from one of the squads (the rest are NPC). But things could change once the unit switching has been implemented, I'd like to see a gameplay that's similar to Battlestations series.

I like your research system and the defcon mode is a good idea but I think there should be less focus on the economy. I proposed a game mode that was basically advance wars lite so that the economy would not take center stage-the economy and infrastructure in my proposal was not there to help win the game but to give the enemy player something to bomb.

What I'm trying to say is that you focus too much on resource management then that's how players are going to win, for the most part.

However if you make what would otherwise be a really half-assed strategy game but replace the random number generator with dogfights, players will be able to focus on flying their planes instead of crunching numbers between battles. It will give players more opportunities to turn the tide with their flying skills and I think it will ultimately make a more fun game.

Right. Economy supposed to be made as simple as possible (hasn't got any better idea than this though), and the turn-based mechanism is pretty much like Nectaris/AW.

Actually, I have an idea about how to handle battles.

Instead of having dogfights one at a time whenever a unit tries to occupy an enemy unit's tile, just let everyone move their units around and allow enemy units to overlap each other (given that each tile represents an entire dogfight map there should be enough room for everyone).

After all the players have taken their turns the game will check which tiles contain units from two or more enemy players and handle all the dogfights one after another. For example, imagine a 3 player free-for all. Player 3 is taking his turn and he sees that player 1 is sending some of his best planes to attack player 2's airfortress. Instead of sitting there twiddling his thumbs while the other players fight a 15-minute battle, player 3 can move some of his own planes onto the same square. Then, when he ends his turn and the battle starts, player 3 can keep his forces out of the line of fire, circle around the edge of the map while player 1's forces engage the airfortress, then swoop down and mop up whatever assets survive so they can't be used to attack him later.

Of course, this does give the player who goes last an unfair advantage unless the turn order changes each round. Any ideas on the best way to decide that.

How about following how Battlestations does it? Where the battle occurs in real time and players just deploy units from bases, and instead of controlling every unit, players join in the battle by controlling special 'Ace' units while all non-Ace units are controlled by the AI and are given commands through a map screen by a commander. While the economy is represented the point system similar to Battlestations, where there is a fixed amount of points to deploy units, and additional points can be earned through capturing bases/cities.

Maybe then the deployment system could work something like this:

Land Assets:
-Mechanized Infantry Formation(APCs, used to occupy bases)
-Armoured Formation (MBTs)
-Anti-Aircraft Battery, Light (Self Propelled)
-Anti-Aircraft Battery, Heavy (Fixed Positions)
-Artillery Battery (Fixed/Self-Propelled)

Sea Assets:
-Missile Boat
-Corvette
-Guided Missile Frigate
-Guided Missile Destroyer
-Guided Missile Cruiser
-Battlecruiser
-Battleship
-Aircraft Carrier

Air Assets:
-Helicopter Squadron, Attack (Size: 4)
-Helicopter Squadron, Transport (Size: 6)
-Fighter Squadron, Ground Attack (Size: 2 Aircraft)
-Fighter Squadron/Wing, Multi-Role (Size: 4/12 Aircraft)
-Fighter Squadron/Wing, Air Superiority (Size: 4/12 Aircraft)
-Fighter Squadron, Naval (Size: 4, only from Aircraft Carriers)
-Bomber Wing (Size: 2-5?)

Under this, it could be possible for a single player to take the role of the commander of the faction, taking direct control of the Airborne Fortress/Naval Battlegroups and their respective aircraft and choosing what units to deploy, taking a more RTS style role, while the other players on the team take control of their own squadrons and focus on dogfighting and assisting the AI controlled units.

Edited by: DEathgod65

What you guys thing about Valkyria Chronicles gameplay style (Youtube.com) for the turn based version of this idea?

About the real time version, it could be more chaotic (but in good way). But it should be available a possibility to pause action so the player can take it time to micro manage the action.
Although, it will be not possible to pause the action in a multiplayer version of this…

All I could understand from watching that video was that it looks like each side took turns moving one unit instead of moving them all at once. Might work, but it would result in smaller dogfights (and having to send one squadron at a time to fight an air fortress would be a pain) and you wouldn't be able to make several units converge on a tile from different directions.

IMO, a turn based gameplay wouldn't suit VT, it would simply be too slow paced to be exciting. Like I said before, the role of managing resources and micro managing AI units could be dedicated to one player, while the other players just focus on their own squadrons and taking down enemies.

My initial TBS formula idea was to mix Wing Commander Armada and Advance Wars/Nectaris gameplay (or Military Madness, the indirect grandaddy of Advance Wars itself). However, we could opt for Battlestation-style real-time combat gameplay in case turn-based doesn't works.

Edited by: Nergal01