Age of Empires III: Galactic Conflict is a non-commercial, fan-based Star Wars themed mod under construction for Ensemble’s Studios Age of Empires III, drawing inspiration from several star wars games such as Galactic Battlegrounds, Force Commander and Empire at War, AoE3: GC aims to bring the star wars universe to the great RTS game of Age of Empires III.
Class: Sniper-Infantry.
Good Against: Infantry from afar.
Bad Against: Mechs, Aerial units and Buildings.
Factions: Confederacy
Specialist B1 Battle Droid model, programmed for long range and sharpshoot tasks on the battlefield. Unlike the other B1-series Battledroids, Assassin Droids had built in gyroscopic stabilizers and detailed target-selection programs that made them very effective snipers, which proved lethal to the Galactic Republic's clone troopers.
During the Clone Wars, battle droid assassins were deployed right away at the Battle of Geonosis, and were vital on the Battle of Muunilinst against the clone ARC Troopers. Battle droid assassins continued to appear on a number of battlefronts throughout the Clone Wars. Following the end of the conflict and the shutdown of the Separatist Droid Army, some Assassin Droids were reactivated and used by the rogue Separatist Holdouts on the Imperial Period.
Author's Note:
As I've stated numerous times, I'm trying to keep this a Star Wars mod where the 1st source of content is canon, whereas Legends content comes to complement (ergo, rarely replace) the other sources, exceptions are when I feel it breaks something I call the Rule of Cool. In the new Star Wars canon, sharpshooting duties in the Separtist army seem to left to the BX-Series Commando Droid, but I wanted to save the BX-Series for a different, cool, role. So in order to safeguard the Rule of Cool (and therefore keeping BX-Commando Droids for other duties), I've brought back the old Battlefront's series Battle Droid Assassin for the CIS sniper duties. To help it stand out from other droids I took away the "backpack" and applied it with a camouflage overlay to its texture.
Credits:
Star Wars: Force Arena for the main B1 Battle Droid Mesh and texture.
Model, Skeleton and textures edited by me.
E5-S Sniper Rifle mesh and texture made by based on the old battlefront series.
Do you like this killing machine of an unit? What are your thoughts on it? And, to be honest, the Sniper infantry class concept is still a little shaky, and I'm finding it difficult to work on them -- not the visuals or the codding - but how will they fit on the entire gameplay, therefore if you have any ideas on how to fit sharpshooters on the gameplay, be sure to give them away!
Remember, always view in HD by clicking view original!
Hmm, for a human player, a sniper could be useful as a harassing unit that could outrange defenses, or to force battles in the place you want. Also could have stealth ability. Later, artillery could replace them, so it would be a low tech unit.
But I don't know you have done some thought or work in the AI, but probably it would be misused with the design of above.
Another idea could be have a bonus against heroes, jedis or "elite soldiers" (Super-droids, republic commandos, etc.). But for a deeper suggestion, a global picture would be needed.
The sniper class already has stealth, and currently is the only infantry unit type that has that ability.
Snipers and Artillery should not in any way be interchangable. Unless snipers become able to bombard enemy buildings and units with explosive shells. But I kinda agree they lose their purpose on mid-late games, when mechs and aerial units are more present and are better equipped to counter infantry... Perhaps they will do well as a good early-to-mid game infantry counter, becoming obsolete shortly after Tech 3... I'll take a look into it
This summer I changed the mod to a clean build of the game, to ensure a better quality on content, and in this new build I have not yet touched the AI.
I plan to give a better picture of the unit classes and unit types later on, but exam season is at the door and my attention will soon shift to my studies, I'll have to find time for that
I think that in the mid-late stages of game sniper shouln't replace artillery, but it should complement it: in my opinion, at this stage the sniper play the role of a scout who has a sufficiently large radius of visibility and, thus, helps the artillery shoot targets outside its field of vision. I think that he needs the ability to gradually increase his radius of vision when he is motionless.