Tank AoS Playing Style

The last time I tried making my own AoS mix of DOTA and TANK WARS, I eventually scrapped it after it went a bit too DOTAish. Not to mention the amount of reading I'd have to do to create those trigger-intensive spells. So I created a different design for my AoS after thinking about how a tank works several times. This is how it works:

• All heroes automatically start off with a main cannon.
  
  
• When a hero gets enough money, they can buy weapon ports to fit on additional weaponry.
  
  
• The weapon port locations are, SIDE, MAIN, SECONDARY, CORE, and FRONT.
  
  
• The weapons available can only be fitted onto specified ports.
  
  
• These weapons however, drain mana (MAIN CANNON included), which works like an ammunition feed, missile rack, and battery all at the same time.
  
  
• Upgrades can also be purchased to improve the hero's mana, health, and other stuff.
  
  
• Rather than slot weapons in the inventory area, the weapons work like abilities you can buy so when you buy a weapon for the MAIN port, it removes your previous weapon upgrade, allowing you to buy the previous weapon at the upgrade shop if you want to change.
  

This design is staying in theory until I find out what may pose a problem to gameplay. Please give some suggestions or point out what might not work out.

PROS:

• Its not very DOTAish.
• Looks alot simpler to design than advanced trigger spells.

CONS:

• I haven't worked out how to deal with the auto mana usage yet.
• The trigger part for the upgrades also haven't worked out yet.

Sounds nice. I'll see if I can rig up a few triggers to make this work.

So basically, you want to make a Tank game with manual fire skills? So the weapons are projectiles, right?


I already made such map, except it's based on bs instead of tank wars...
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/resource.php?t=91435

After checking your map, I find the theory and your map quite different.

Because :

• The weapons can be aimed at targets. So there is no need to turn around to fire at targets.
  
  
• All weapons aim and fire straight at the specified target. Unless I decide to add an AI upgrade to the theory which allows your weapons to autofire.
  
  
• Mana is ammo and battery, yours is mana is crew.
  
  
• Weapons aren't stored in the inventory, they are literally part of the tank.

But, your map has inspired me to make some changes to the theory. Which is weapons that are bought are stored in the inventory which you equip (Thus removing it from the inventory and turning it into an ability.) and unequips your previous weapon. (Changing it from ability into item, so you can sell it off.)

If anyone has any comments to that part of the theory please state them.

But still?But you still plan to make a projectiles system, right? For the weapons? If you do, you might make anti-weapon weapons. For example in my map, the weapons can't pass cliffs. Cuz they are a natural barrier (but still mine is only a 2d projectile engine, since weapons doesn't change heights).

Also cannons can hit the enemies cannonballs, but the collision size is very low on cannonballs. In my map, projectiles doesn't home and goes in 1 direction. Dodging is still possible.

I wonder if you are going to add such weapon logic? I can give you my projectile movement 2d engine in Naval Battle map if you want it.

Basically, if possible, I'd like to work on something like that, seeing that I'm sure it would be quite interesting on a cliff situation where a mortar can strike enemies above whereas a Gatling gun can't. As for intercept maneuvers, I believe your concept of colliding projectiles might be quite logical, but I'm not sure whether the projectiles have a chance to collide.

Compare this :

• Marine pulse-rifle projectiles.
• Siege Engine barrage projectiles.
• Cluster Rocket projectiles.
• Phoenix heat-rays.

As for the weapon port theory if you don't know which port is where, get a picture of a Siege Engine and read this :

• The cannon is the MAIN port.
  
• The barrage launchers would be the SECONDARY port.
  
• The sides are the SIDE ports.
  
• The steamroller would be FRONT port.
  
• And the CORE is needless to say not visible.

The current theory is that only the MAIN and SECONDARY weapons are 360. The SIDE and the FRONT weapons only aim straight. The CORE is undecided.

P.S. : Do you know anything that might substitute a phoenix heat ray? Projectile types include, bullets, slugs, mortars, missiles and lasers. Is a railgun a good idea for a weapon?

A map without lasers is incomplete. Lasers.

Also, one thing that'd be blasphemy to miss - the rapid-cluster-rocket cannon. Seriously, that's the best gun in any map. Ever.

You need to play the map Tank Commanders by th15.

Great, any links to a download site? Cause I rarely have time to check which site has it.

Uhh, rapid-cluster-rocket cannon? What do you mean? A UNREAL Rocket Launcher on steroids?

An unreal launcher, yes. Be honest with yourself, do you play games for realism? If you do - why would you choose WC3's engine?

OMG! Never thought I'd see something so close to the theory. That means back to the theory charts for me.

Does anybody agree or disagree with these changes to my theory?

• SELFDESTRUCT SEQUENCE - Deny your opponent the glory when you know all hope is lost. May come with ejection seat upgrades.
  
  
• DEPLOYABLE WEAPONS - A hero can carry a compact version of a big gun which deploys when activated and the hero can connect to it to blow unfortunate people to bits.
  
  
• The hero can only change weapons at somewhere I just refer to as a garage. In the case that the hero is constantly moving they can buy a mobile garage for personal use.
  
  
• If the mobile garage is in anyway destroyed, anything it is carrying will either be destroyed or dropped.
  
  
• ADVANCED COMMANDS - For hacking and connecting, to access garages and deployable weapons.

To Tidearc: Not really, but I do feel that a good game should keep a bit of unrealism in it. Otherwise, why would I state lasers as part of the armaments? So in the case UNREAL TOURNAMENT'S 10-pack destruction goodness gets in, how do I balance that?

You can find it here or here.

@ Terrorblade's end tip of his previous post...
Yeah, I guess... oh wells. On with the main topic!

Self Destruct could be abusive (e.g self destruct rushing towers and the likes) but as the bat riders say - THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS!

Advanced commands sound like fun, don't go overboard and make it literally hacker-hacker wars - unless you want it to be able to deviate that far late game or something.

I have an idea... Smoke Bombs. They won't deal any physical damage but they would sure as hell get in the way of the camera; it would make tactics a pain in the ass to use.

So about that SELF DESTRUCT thing, how about a SELFDESTRUCT penalty? I mean, if you are charged extra payment for WILLINGLY blowing up your engine of destruction it comes down to letting the enemy get away with it or letting him/her know that you are perfectly willing to die just to not let him/her kill you.

Advance commands thing, HACKING I'm not really sure what good would it be. The main idea was that the hidden superweapon on the map would require HACKING in order to fire it, failure results in its defenses opening fire on you, seriously painful.

Advanced commands would require the player's hero to have a high level in order to use them, this is my idea on how to ensure no one summons an AIRSTRIKE on someone for the whole game.

However some advanced commands can be done from the start of the game like CONNECT, HACK and SELFDESTRUCT. HACK would get a higher success rate at higher levels.

But all in all, that much works is enough to fry my mind. So I'd probably just make HACK only usable at a high level.

P.S. : Should the hero's level be replaced with military rankings?