VH Mode -- the concept

[Teancum]

This is basically my brainstorming and gathering from others' ideas, but feel free to comment if you like. I'm just trying to see how plausible this is, and seeing it in front of me helps.

Phase I – Research and Development
*Implement ‘Forced Vehicle’ code as found in Eagle_Eye’s thread
*Adjust loop to numspawns -1 as the max, reset once that number is reached
*Add ExitVehicle death code. If you exit, you die
*Possibly a self-destruct for the vehicle too by inflicting damage? We have to get rid of it somehow
*Add class-based vehicle code – similar to original code, but loads a specific vehicle according to class chosen
*In the future the ‘hero’ vehicle will be a low-health flyer of some sort

Phase II – Preparation of Sides
*Sides are balanced. If you pick a certain class, other vehicles of that class will have similar attributes. The will not be like the shipped vehicles.
*Four Main Classes / One Hero Class
---Speeder
---Tank
---Walker
---Special (unlockable)
---Flyer (hero only)
*Republic
---BARC
---IFT Tank
---AT-XT
---Swamp Speeder
---Jedi Interceptor
*CIS
---STAP
---AAT
---Homing Spider
---Hailfire
---Tri-Fighter
*Rebel Alliance
---Imp Speeder bike
---AAC-1
---AT-LT (also known as the Pandemic AT-PT)
---Combat Speeder
---A-Wing
*Imperial
---Imp Speeder bike
---IFT Tank
---AT-ST
---TIE Mauler
---TIE Interceptor
Phase III – The Pretty Stuff

*Class Selection Screen
---Each vehicle is shrunk down to human size and has one bone in it, bone_root, this ‘mini-vehicle’ is what you’d see on the select screen
-----Speeder classes have a unit ‘bolted’ onto them (in the select screen and during play as well)
---The idle animation for these units is simply a 360 degree turn that takes 10-15 seconds to complete a rotation, ‘showing off’ the vehicle
*Easy LUA implementation
---Implements right into a specific gametype lua
---Code uses GetCommandPostCaptureRegion()
-----So long as all spawn points are created inside a CP’s capture region, it will automatically spawn you in a vehicle. No need to specify
---Because of it’s general nature, it can be combined with modes like Conquest, CTF, 1-Flag and Team Deathmatch easily

[Hebes24]

Sounds Good. Hopefully it will work out better than the old VH mode.

[DarthD.U.C.K.]

sounds awesome!

[EGG_GUTS]

Good Idea, this is actually very interesting.

[SilvaDalek]

This sounds fun!

[Teancum]

Yeah, and it literally is all possible, with a few exceptions I'm not sure about. It's just that I'd need a fairly full-time Modeler to re-export stuff, and [RDH]Zerted fairly full-time for awhile. The bonus to the whole thing is that Zerted and I can also work on Race mode with this existing code, as we'd have everything set up to force you into, and to stay in, your vehicle. From there it's just coding checkpoints and whatnot.

I dunno, I know I can count on AceMastermind for the model re-exports and that Zerted and I can do coding/a demo level together, but it's on the back burner for now. I need to finish up existing Convo Pack units and Zerted's got his shell/mode/era project + other projects he's working on.

You guys like the concept though? I think it'd be awesome -- I invision it as more than one mode: VH Conquest, VH CTF, VH 1-Flag, VH Team Deathmatch and VH Race. It'd be like Mario Kart for SWBF2!

@ Zerted -- if you read this: I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter, either publicly or on Xfire. If you think this is plausible without tremendous amounts of work I'll start a demo map for our testing purposes.

[[RDH]Zerted]

I'm not sure about the vehicles in the class selection screen, but I know how to do all the other parts.

I don't what you're talking about with the CP capture regions. You can move the players into vehicles right as they spawn or can force spawn them as soon as they pick a unit class. The map builder will have to specify spawn paths in the lua as there is no way to get a path point from a CP or anything else. You can teleport to a region, but you can't spawn at one.

...plausible without tremendous amounts of work...

Depends on the quality you want. Its not hard to toss the vehicle code and death (you could just reput them back into the same vehicle) code into ScriptPostLoad() and get it working.

If you want good integerate into the rest of the game modes, then theres all the objective containers, method callbaks, AI goals, timers, and other stuff to manage. Getting all that working and making the game mode easily startable, like Conquest, takes a lot more work. But its been done before so it can be done again (and gets easier/faster each time).

If it is created as an objective game mode, then adding it to any other objective based mode should be almost trivial (at least I'm hoping). Of course, if at any point in the future VH is being planned on turning into an objective game mode, then its best to do it correctly the first time.

I've made so much progress on custom eras today that I don't want to spend much time thinking about other things. I can do the coding, but its always best to have the full and complete ideas for the mode(s) before starting.

[Delta 47]

This sounds great Tean!

[Grev]

This is, I think the first time Ive given feedback to tean, so GREAT JOB! Great idea!

[MasterSaitek009]

You guys like the concept though? I think it'd be awesome -- I invision it as more than one mode: VH Conquest, VH CTF, VH 1-Flag, VH Team Deathmatch and VH Race. It'd be like Mario Kart for SWBF2!

An Xbox Clone Wars mode would be cool too.
Should be fun.

[[RDH]Zerted]

As I've finished the custom eras mod and am halfway through the FC source release, I'm ready to start working on this.

[SilvaDalek]

Does this mean that if this works we could add like a Spider Droid as a player model in our maps?

[Guest]

sounds awesome, but i think it will work only on large "open" maps like geonosis or hoth

[Teancum]

Does this mean that if this works we could add like a Spider Droid as a player model in our maps?

No, this is basically a hack that forces a player unit into a vehicle at spawn. To do so and still have regular troops is technically possible, but .... Well, Zerted will be able to tell you whether it'll be difficult to implement or not. Right now I'd 100% say don't expect that ability. It's still really to early to tell what will work well and what won't.

[[RDH]Zerted]

As of today, I'm starting work on this game mode.

Instead of making VH Conquest, VH CTF, VH Team Deathmatch, etc... What about having when the VH objective is started, the spawning players (do you want this limited somehow or just all players?) on the VH teams (can include support for locals if you want) are forced into vehicles. Now they go on as vehicles playing whatever other objective/mode is active. Is there anything extra different about the mode rules for the VH versions that requires Conquest and CTF to be recoded? Winning VH can be defaulted to reinforcement counts or team points, and the modder would be able to define/replace those rules with customs ones (example: don't end the objective until the CTF objective ends -> thus VH CTF)

Or did you want those as different game modes so it would be easier to show them on the map selection screen (which could still be done)?

Should there be some way to repair the vehicles? A constant, slow health regen? Modder defined healing regions?

Any thing else you wanted in the mode or was thinking of redefining? Any random ideas from anyone else? Its easier to add things in the beginning then at the end...

[Teancum]

As of today, I'm starting work on this game mode.

Instead of making VH Conquest, VH CTF, VH Team Deathmatch, etc... What about having when the VH objective is started, the spawning players (do you want this limited somehow or just all players?) on the VH teams (can include support for locals if you want) are forced into vehicles. Now they go on as vehicles playing whatever other objective/mode is active. Is there anything extra different about the mode rules for the VH versions that requires Conquest and CTF to be recoded? Winning VH can be defaulted to reinforcement counts or team points, and the modder would be able to define/replace those rules with customs ones (example: don't end the objective until the CTF objective ends -> thus VH CTF)

Works for me

Or did you want those as different game modes so it would be easier to show them on the map selection screen (which could still be done)?

Basically a combo of both. Anything with stuff like _vhcon.lua extension would load "VH COnquest" into the shell, but if you want to have it as an objective that works for me. It's probably easier that way.

Should there be some way to repair the vehicles? A constant, slow health regen? Modder defined healing regions?

Regions'd work. We'll just create a yellow CTF 'aura' with a region underneath.

[Grev]

Is this odf work, like spawning as vehicles (I get thats the idea, stop me if Im wrong), and if so, could you please tell me how its done? I have several ideas.

[[RDH]Zerted]

This is more lua work than ODF. I'll know how to correctly do it when the game mode is finished. And as a bonus, there will be a example map, showing how to do it, finished at the same time.

[Grev]

Thanks Zerted! This would work great for a Death Star map...

[Maveritchell]

Should there be some way to repair the vehicles? A constant, slow health regen? Modder defined healing regions?

Regions'd work. We'll just create a yellow CTF 'aura' with a region underneath.

If you're going to do ZE work for the new modes, you might as well just use the vehicle repair droids, right?