Sunday, June 10, 2012

A Seed design I can get behind!

So I have been looking at the SEED design I came up with awhile back and was getting the feeling that it just didn't seem right.  Have you ever worked on something and just felt that things are not going the way you intended?

With this in mind I went back to the drawing board on the SEED design and focused on adaptability of the army.  That was the main thing I wanted a player to be able to get with SEED, a force that would give when pushed and then push back but not break easily.

Here is what I came up with.  SEED is a force that is really is more than the sum of it's parts.  With SEED you will have the following starting structures.

1. Power Plant - 2. Refinery - 3. Basic Unit Factory
4. SEED Factory - 5. SEED Airfield - 6. SEED Command Center
7. Nuclear Power Plant

Once you have built a SEED Factory and a SEED Airfield you can build this.

8. Alliance Command Center

The Command Center is a key structure.  It is here that you can switch between your alliances that a SEED player may have.  You see, SEED will work a lot like NOD's doctrine system when it comes to its allies but unlike NOD where you pick one and thats all you get SEED can switch in game between it's allies.  Once the Alliance Command Center is built you will have access to the following structures to build.

9. Heliopolis Embassy - 10. Blue Cosmos Relations Center - 11. ORB Embassy

You can build all 3 of these structures but they take a bit of time to deploy (1 minute 30 seconds to build) and there is a build limit of 1 max of each structure.  When you build one your alliance automatically shifts to that faction unless you go into the Alliance Command Center and switch to something else.  Switching btw takes 1 minute and 30 seconds to do.

We'll start with what you as an Earth Federation SEED commander gets for their basic units for deployment.

From the War Factory you can build  -

Daggers
Launcher Daggers
Windam (Requires Heliopolis Embassy / Blue Cosmos Relations Center / ORB Embassy to be built)
Doppelhorn Windam  (Requires Heliopolis Embassy / Blue Cosmos Relations Center / ORB Embassy to be built)

From the Airfield you can build -

Jet Dagger
Gunbarrell Striker
Jet Windam (Requires Heliopolis Embassy / Blue Cosmos Relations Center / ORB Embassy to be built)
Sky Grasper  (Requires Heliopolis Embassy / Blue Cosmos Relations Center / ORB Embassy to be built)

Hmm, doesn't look like much does it.  Thats where your ally comes in.

Going with the Heliopolis Embassy you get a structure where there are 4 upgrades available to do.  You also get a power to use, the ability to deploy the Archangel anywhere you want on the map!  Not only that but when you drop the Archangel down it will spawn out the Morbeius Zero and the Strike Gundam and if they are destroyed they will respawn in 3 minutes!  


The upgrades are

1. Dagger L Redesign. - This turns your Daggers into Dagger L's and also unlocks the Dagger L Doppelhorn as a buildable unit.

2. Freedom Design - This will spawn the Freedom Gundam from the Archangel once every 6 minutes for free.

3. Justice Design - This will spawn the Justice Gundam from the Archangel once every 6 minutes for free.

4. METEOR Design - This will unlock Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice inside the METEOR flight unit as powers.  (This works much like GP03).  These deployments will be VERY expensive.


So you can see the advantage here.  You deploy the Archangel and it can give you access to some VERY powerful units.  Sure you can only build a few of the more basic frontline untis but this ally is all about single powerful units taking the day.


The ORB Embassy gives you ORB as an ally.  However unlike the other forces ORB gives you a single new power, a "Automated War Factory" that you can drop in every 4 minutes for free.  This factory is NOT limited to 1 which is a big deal here.  Every few minutes there will be a new "deployment" of free units produced at this factory.  The units that it will deploy are....

1. M1-Astray
2. M1-Astray Flight Rotor Shrike
3. Murasame
4. Ootsukigata

Orb doesn't have upgrades to deal with, they don't need them.  On top of that the more "free" factories you deploy the more free units you'll end up getting!  How sweet is that?

You will also have access to 2 additional powers on the side that the factory provides.  These will deploy the Strike Rouge and the ORB-01 Akatsuki onto the field for you to use.  However these will not be "deployed" where ever you wish, deploying them will cause them to appear at your ORB Embassy.


So Heliopolis gives you super units and ORB gives you an unending supply of free units, what does Blue Cosmos give you?  Pure, Unbridled Power!

First you get 4 upgrades again.  This time however they must be completed in the proper order to unlock the next "upgrade".  Second you gain access to some very powerful units as "drop in" units.  Again these units spawn back at your base and not "wherever you want" like the Archangel can.

Here are the upgrades that you get.

1. Phantom Pain Deployment - This unlocks the Slaugher Sword and the Slaugher Aile as buildable units as well as upgrading the Dagger Launcher to the Slaugher Launcher.
2. Gells Ghe Research - This unlocks the Gells Ghe as a buildable unit.
3. Zama Zah Research - This unlocks the Zama Zah as a buildable unit.
4. Destroy Research - This unlocks the Destroy Gundam as a buildable unit.

Here are the summon powers you get.

1. Dominion Ship Deployment
2. Strike Noir Deployment
3. Chaos Gundam Deployment
4. Abyss Gundam Deployment

These deployments cost MONEY on top of time.

So how it breaks down, Heliopolis gives you powerful free units and a slight upgrade to your basic units.  ORB gives your a lot of free units making things easier on your economy.  Blue Cosmos gives you very powerful units but requires a very active economy to be effectively deployed.  So I'm sure your going "Whats the catch?"

The Catch is in the Alliance Command.  Remember you can only ever have 1 alliance active at a time.  This means that you can't have the Archangel and the Dominion flying around on your side.  IF you switch alliances any units either deployed or free that you have built from another alliance will auto-destruct!  Thats right, if you have Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice flying around with the Archangel and you decide to switch to ORB to make things easier on your economy then when that switch is completed the Strike Freedom / Infinite Justice / Archangel will simply explode where they are (and in the case of the Freedom and Justice that can be a big explosion!).  So while you can switch alliances whenever you want it's not really a good thing to just "do".  It's best to stick with an alliance unless you really have to make a tactical shift.

However anything that is BUILT from the main factory is not destroyed.  This means if you go with Blue Cosmos and unlock Phantom Pain and the 3 Heavy Armors you can then switch to ORB for free units and build the Slaughters and the Heavy Armors from the factory!  NOW you see how sweet this setup can be!

This entire design to me just feels right.  I can see it's deployment in game, I can see it taking shape and being a very unique and welcomed addition to the game.  Besides, who doesn't want to watch 3 Destroy Gundams fight GPO3, Nu Gundam, and an army of Jegans and then watch in horror as a colony falls on top of them and DOME gets deployed across the field?  Just saying it makes me want to get to work on it right now!

7 comments:

Alan said...

THIS SOUNDS AWESOME!

azuza001 said...

Yea, assuming that I can pull it off lol. The METEOR thing has me worried.

Alan said...

Yeah it sounds a little difficult. Is the modeling more difficult or the script-writing stuff?

azuza001 said...

They both have their challenges. With coding if it go's smoothly you can come up with some amazing tricks to get things to work in ways that the game engine designers never intended (like the Colony Drop or the Gundam X Fire Timer for example). However when things just are not going well it can be frustrating especially when it's an AI crash causing the issues. Is it your new power or is it a bug that you previously didn't know about that is now causing the issue?

With modeling it's more straight forward. I find it's a lot like playing with legos and then deleting "faces" to lower the poly count. But then you have textures which can be a huge pain to do (I'm still very basic in my texturing abilities) and it has to LOOK right which can be very difficult to do. Also where do you put the detail into? Is it worth spending an hour building a head to a unit that you won't notice the details once your actually playing?

Then there are the models that others have donated to the mod. They are great but have no texture on them and are very high poly count so I prefer to use them on units that there will be a limited number of in the game. Look at the Power GM. It still has "framerate" issues when you build a lot of them because the model has so many small parts to it.

In the end I prefer to code. But I also want to know how to do everything else so that if I do need something and I can't get someone to do it for me I can do it myself. Which reminds me I still need to rip more audio tracks.....

Alan said...

I could try to get some audio if you would like. I'm not sure what you need though

azuza001 said...

Mostly audio / voices. You know, when you select a unit and tell it to move or attack? Those kinds of things. Those and "finished constructing" audio so I can remove the "Commander, the RGM 79 has been deployed" audio mess.

Valherran said...

Yes, the game badly needs unit voices right now. :-/