Ever play Wing Commander?
So for those of you who haven't played Wing Commander (WC), it's a game known for ground-breaking technology/techniques, cinematic-esque stories and top of the line space sim gameplay.
For WC I, II, III and IV you're a man named Christopher Blair, callsign Maverick. You're the Terran Confederation's best pilot, or at least you become that throughout the series. You go from ace (WC I) to traitor (WC II) to hero (WC III) to traitor again (WC IV) to hero... again (WC IV/Prophecy). The story is fantastic, the gameplay is awesome. Throughout the game you do things like destroy a super weapon, test fly experimental ships, get framed for the destruction of your carrier, destroy an alien homeworld that you've been at war with for the first 3 games, join a rebel faction against the Confederation, and rejoin Confed and be promoted to Space Marshall.
The game gets it's name because you're... well... a wing commander. You command a wing. More often than not, it's you and a wingman. In WC III and WC IV and Prophecy you can pick your wingman, your missile payload and ship. You can only choose fighters or bombers however.
So now that my background info is over... I think I could do something like this in EV:Nova. I was thinking of making a TC based on the life of a fighter pilot onboard a Federation Carrier (since I wanted to test this without investing time on making graphics, just to see how this could work out). So no more privateer, no more conquering planets, but more of a story-driven fighter-based game. Basically, a totally different use of the EV:N engine. You'd have to control your 1-3 wingmen with a lot more attention than most people use in the stock game. Without your wingmen, most of the missions would be impossible. Of course some missions you have to go alone too. In even shorter terms, this TC would be EV:N at a much smaller scale and from a different view point (fighter pilot instead of privateer)
Keep in mind, this is not a Wing Commander TC, it's a gameplay TC with roots in Wing Commander gameplay, but not anything to do with that story or universe. I know there's a WC TC in development (or maybe it was dropped?) but that looks like it uses the basic EV:N gameplay. I actually haven't been to the dev boards until the last couple days (debating the future of space war topic) but I haven't looked around at all, so my ideas are original to me, although I may not be the first one to come up with them.
Here's the technical aspects that aren't in any particular order, just as I remember them after thinking about this for the last few days:
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- Make a planet with a carrier sprite.
- Make the planet/carrier have a Bar (renamed to briefing room), a Shipyard (rename to hanger), an Outfitter (rename to armory?) and a mission computer (rename to bar.. yes, bar).
- The Shipyard/Hanger only has fighters that are available to you for the mission. Change this availability by using a type of license system where they're given or removed by missions and ships are required to have them. For example, for a bombing mission you're given a Bomber Authorization, allowing you to purchase a bomber (for free since it's a hanger, not a shipyard) for use durring the mission. After this mission you'd lose the Bomber Authorizaiton and given a standard fighter (is that possible?)
- The Bar/Briefing room allows you to pick a wingman by "hiring" him... restricting the amount of wingman you have by either playing with money (since it has no use in this TC) or by changing the max wingman size? It also adds atmosphere by including news thingies. You'd get your mission as soon as you enter, one that can't be refused and such. The gambling would be disabled if possible.
- The Outfitter/Armory allows you to change your missile payload. Tonnage is replaced with "missile pylons", most missiles having a tonnage of 1, some having 0.5 (dumbfire/raven like missiles), and all fighters having missile launchers pre-installed. For example, a ship A is allowed to have 6 IR and 6 Radar missiles. You give it an outfit called A-IR that holds 6 IR missiles and an outfit called A-Radar that holds 6 Radar missiles. Now remember, each missiles is 1 pylon/ton, so having a weapon space of 6 tons/pylons limits the ship to 6 missiles overall but allows you to mix and match. You could also reduce the outfit's max capacity (only 4 IR missiles in A-IR) to limit the amount of IR missiles, for example. As with fighters, you could have Authorizations used to allow certain special weapons to be used, like a Flash Pack (from WC IV) or perhaps a nuclear weapon or two or three.
- At the Mission Comp/Bar, you can view missions, which aren't actual missions. They're just conversations with various people that you can choose to read or not. Or maybe I could use it as an ingame email system for added story?
- The game itself would run at 1/2 speed, ship movement/maneuverability, weapon firing speed/tracking rates and everything to simulate the concentration of fighter to fighter combat. If you don't like it, hit caps lock to make the game normal.
- All fighters would have afterburners and a fast regenerating fuel supply, something like Freespace1/2.
- Everything would have to be slightly rebalanced of course.
- You'd jump/"autopilot" from system to system (called navpoints, not actually systems although in EV:N they would be) which are actually just places around the same system in the story at least. Your mission objective would say "scout out nav points alpha, bravo and charlie and destroy any bogeys encountered", with an actual mission objective of simply destroying the 2 pirate vipers at nav point bravo (remember, it's a system to EV:Nova) but the player wouldn't see that of course. Then they'd return to the carrier...
- Can you change tech levels of planets using mission bits? Hm... or simulate it by only allowing it to be seen if bits are set? That happens with wraithii cannons in the stock scenarios, right? If you can, that'd be nice. If not, blow up the planet/carrier and replace it with a new one with a different tech level. Or trick the player using wierd map stuff.
- Mission types would be like escorting a transport, inspecting cargo ships, patrolling a sector, testing new weapons/ships/technology, space superiority, first contact, destroying an enemy carrier or convoy, destroying enemy defense installations before a final assault on a planet, major fleet vs fleet battles, stuff like that.
Anyway... I haven't started because my expertise with plug-in making includes ships, outfits and weapons, that's about it. I've looked at the other stuff but haven't tried my hand at it yet. I just need three questions answered I guess... the other ones I asked in this post aren't quite as important.
- Is this possible to do within EV:Nova?
- Is there any interest in people playing this type of TC?
- Is anyone experienced with making TCs (not just plug-ins) that wouldn't mind helping me? I'd do most of the work but I need questions answered and help with stuff. If I were to do this alone I doubt I'd get very far, mostly because I'd get bored and just stop. Again, graphics work isn't needed.
btw, I'll be editing this a lot. It's a work in progress.
This post has been edited by Koshinn : 08 October 2005 - 02:26 AM
