Spaceships as terrain & battlegrounds.

[Aquillion]

I was thinking about the idea of spaceships as mobile home bases when I came across another post talking about the emptiness of space fights at the moment.  That got me thinking about how they handle space fights in most movies and anime -- often, fights happen around giant capital ships, which serve as the 'battlefield'.

So, I wonder if that could be done in GH2?  Conceptually, flatten the ship to two dimensions.  Attacking mechas land on it and fight on it; they can also step off the sides and fight 'around it' there, since it would sort of be like an island floating in space.  It might also have some turrets on it that would fight for the defending side (which could be targeted and blown up individually.)  Maybe an airlock or two from which new mecha emerge under the right circumstances, or into which mecha can retreat.

In multi-part missions, you could even fight your way up to the airlock and use it to enter the enemy ship directly.

You wouldn't "attack" the larger enemy ship, probably, aside from blowing up turrets; once you defeat every enemy mecha standing on the battlefield, you'd be assumed to have 'won', and what happens then would depend on how the fight started (but blowing up or capturing the enemy ship could make sense if the attackers win.)

There could be one battlefield defined for each type of ship; that way, the PC's ship could be "attacked" and play a role in the fight without overshadowing the mechas.  If players are able to modify ships, then things like turrets could be added to make them show up on the battlefield.

There would also, most importantly, be things sticking out and such to provide cover.  Forests of sensor arrays or whatever.

[Frumple]

The turret things definately been done in game -- I distinctly remember getting shot up by the bloody things a few dozen times one mission (Long range weapons were their bane, though.).

The ship itself as ground sounds interesting; a counter proposal would be to get around to intergrating z levels into space battles, so you could go over or under the ship, which would just be a prop whatsit (Though I do kinda' wonder if it'd cause a performance hit, having a great number of props on the screen...).

In ground battles, ferex, you can fly right over enemies, though there is some odd logic in terms of melee and z levels (I can kick a Wraith out of the sky, hohoho, in a mecha that can't even jump.). Translating that kinda' thing might be worthwhile for space battles -- at the very least it'd be harder to slam into someone unless you (or they) wanted to.

That would have the downside of not having your mentioned possible coverage. Stealth in space would be kinda' awesome, and given the number of random asteroids (of fairly significant size!) floating around the spinners, space is pretty crowded in the L5 region. Being able to tote some coverage around would be neat. I could see -- should the spaceships be moddable -- a stealth focused character building their ship specifically so there's a lot of things to hide behind.

[Snakebit STI]

This seems to be more like epic battle territory than normal game play.

Cluttering up some space battlefields could be done with things like wrecked ships, though. Most pieces would probably be impassable. Big pieces = complete cover, small pieces = partial cover. Some ship parts could be salvageable for things like sheet metal, too.

[ein]

Quoting: Snakebit STI

Big pieces = complete cover, small pieces = partial cover. Some ship parts could be salvageable for things like sheet metal, too.

I think this is a great idea. You could take cover, strip off some sheet metal and repair yourself.

As for the spaceships being terrain, seeing as how most people travel around space in their mechs, it would be highly unlikely that they would fight a group of bandits with a space cruiser large enough to be a battlefield.

Snakebit's comment of it being more for epic battles is my opinion. Something like Star Wars with tons of little fighters flying around huge-ass star destroyers and shooting each other.

As for personal space ships, most of them wouldn't be large to be a battlefield, so would most likely end up as combatants, or left behind. Maybe give a pilot select screen before fighting bandits on missions or something to determine whether or not the ship is present. This would also give you a chance to leave a lancemate behind if it was probably going to be a dangerous fight, letting you still have a mech even if yours gets destroyed.

[SharkD]

This idea of a big space battle could be conveyed in part by changing the background image of the map to one featuring an exterior shot of one or more giant spaceships.

-Mike

[Frumple]

Quoting: SharkD

This idea of a big space battle could be conveyed in part by changing the background image of the map to one featuring an exterior shot of one or more giant spaceships.

That wouldn't do much for us ASCII folks, though; no background image to be changed. Would probably help out the rest of the players o'course, heh.

--

As to the smaller ships, mistah H's actually done those a few times in missions -- a few prop pieces, usually including a turret or two.

It'd probably be interesting to see lower scale space ships used as artillery or utility support, having a few missile lauchers or upscaled guns or a repair/refit pad or something. Could add an interesting dynamic to the more drawn out battles. Maybe even 'off screen fire' for the larger scale ship; seeing a massive beam(s) blast across the battlefield would be bloody interesting, I do say.

[Snakebit STI]

Quoting: SharkD

This idea of a big space battle could be conveyed in part by changing the background image of the map to one featuring an exterior shot of one or more giant spaceships.

Nice. All frames of reference being equal, the battle could follow the ships frame of reference. Then the ship could literally be part of the terrain if there's only one, especially for large ships. The hull of the ship would be the 'ground' of the battlefield. I think this works best for ships that are big enough that no one would bother trying to shoot one with a mecha anyway. This can be compensated for by having vulnerable points: engines and such. And no, I don't think you should be able to take out a large, let alone massive, ship by destroying its one weakness. Kill the defending mecha, destroy its guns, disable any means of escape (engines), and then they can surrender or not. If not; it's boarding time. (You should at least be able to shred through the docking bay with your SF2 weapons before going it on foot, of course.)

[Daemonward]

Quoting: Snakebit STI

And no, I don't think you should be able to take out a large, let alone massive, ship by destroying its one weakness.

But... doesn't every ship have a small thermal exhaust port that leads directly from the surface of the vessel to the heart of its reactor, that when breached would result in a chain reaction that would cause the entire ship to explode in a manner worthy of a multi-million dollar special effects budget?

[SharkD]

Quoting: Daemonward

But... doesn't every ship have a small thermal exhaust port that leads directly from the surface of the vessel to the heart of its reactor, that when breached would result in a chain reaction that would cause the entire ship to explode in a manner worthy of a multi-million dollar special effects budget?

It would have to be pretty small. Would two meters suffice?

[Snakebit STI]

It's a fusion reactor. There is no exhaust, because obviously they cool off the waste helium and use it for balloons.
Can we move on?
[edit]No, seriously, I think it's silly that massive war machines (or not-so-massive war machines) would be designed with a fatal flaw that results in the whole thing blowing up. Possible weak spots could be radiators, though. Cause the defending turrets to build up overload if you take enough out.

[xpace]

Quoting: SharkD

This idea of a big space battle could be conveyed in part by changing the background image of the map to one featuring an exterior shot of one or more giant spaceships.

I agree.

You could even have random explosions in the background, which sort of twinkle like stars or flash like lightning. That, and laser/particle beams which flash randomly. In fact, all these little effects could be handled with judicious use of palette-swapping. (Colors on... colors off...) That shouldn't take much processing power at all.

[Aquillion]

Quoting: SharkD

This idea of a big space battle could be conveyed in part by changing the background image of the map to one featuring an exterior shot of one or more giant spaceships.

I'm talking about making the actual battlefields more interesting to fight in from a gameplay perspective.  Big empty space with no cover is dull.  Sure, you can throw in some debris or whatever, but it's still going to be randomly scattered and rarely distributed in a tactically important manner -- on the ground, intricate mountains, forests, and so forth are vital parts of what makes Gearhead combat fun and keeps it from getting repetitive.

You don't get any of that in space, and I don't think a few random fields of debris can make up for it.  What's needed are battlefields with a concrete, coherent 'shape'.  Standing on spaceships (or floating battle platforms or whatever) can serve that purpose.

[Snakebit STI]

Quoting: xpace

That, and laser/particle beams which flash randomly.

Balancing out realism and awesomeness...ism is hard ;_;. When we get to adding galaxy-shuriken, we've gone to far!

Aquillion: We can't really take space combat out of the game (easily), and not every battle should be on a massive space ship with built in cover.
Some cover is better than no cover. I agree that battles with more terrain are more interesting, so I would like to see more land battles, but the current game mechanics mean that most fights take place in space. I think that at least some battles should take place on empty maps, but debris ranging from small to massive would at least break up the monotony.

[Frumple]

Quoting: Snakebit STI

When we get to adding galaxy-shuriken, we've gone to far!

Or perhaps not far enough!?

Though the basic mechanics of GH would probably preclude them. I somehow doubt galaxuriken can fit easily on a DC25 max scale, even on SF3+... at least without crashing the game via huge numbers.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Aquillion

I'm talking about making the actual battlefields more interesting to fight in from a gameplay perspective.

I agree. Empty space is interesting as a battlefield possibility, but when it's the only possibility that's a problem. Here are some more ideas:

Capital Ship: The type of spaceship large enough to be used as a battleground. The ship would only take up part of the map, with maybe several smaller ships as escorts. In SDL the body of the capital ship could be depicted beneath the movement grid, with turrets and other obstacles sticking up into the play area.

Wreckage: As above, but a giant wrecked ship rather than a working one. One team could start inside the belly of a hollowed-out derelict. The wreckage could be a destroyed capital ship as above, one of the giant evacuation vehicles used during the exodus, a destroyed station, a construction yard...

Outer Shell: The outer shell of a spinner. This would work exactly like an asteroid map, but with a different map generator.

Inside an asteroid: Just like the Rocket Arena, basically a big maze for mecha.

Dust Field: A basic space map, but filled with dust clouds. As the map repositions itself the clouds should wrap around from one edge to the other.

Meteor Shower: Lots of meteors moving in a certain direction. Any mecha that get in their way will get hit.