Turn Based Combat...

[Daedal]

Recently I discovered a neat Flash game called Steambirds. Here's the link to the game and a link to a review at TIG. I found the game so ridiculously addictive that I finished the entire thing in one sitting and then found myself wondering why more games don't use this amazing combat mechanic. So then I wondered, what would Transcendence be like with this mechanic in it? Whenever you engaged an enemy, an enemy engaged you, or you hit a battle hotkey, the game would switch from free-flight mode to turn based battle mode. Obviously this couldn't be added as an option without serious buy-in from George and it's not an overnight addition, but I think it would be a really fun alternative to the twitch combat mechanic currently used in Transcendence (which is also fun!).

Aside from the straightforward change from real time to turn based combat I can see this option adding some interesting new depth to the game:
1. You can control wingmen directly.
2. You can enable various flight skills through in game events.
3. You can add a turn timer to simulate a more or less complex ship interface. More time to think == better ship computer.
4. Because it'd be annoying to go into and out of battle mode all the time, battles could turn into more meaningful, sparse, and large scale events. This could be used to create more story-centric mods.

Just a few ideas, I'm people could come up with many more in time. Thoughts?

[Atarlost]

This would require a completely different game engine. You might look at Battle for Wesnoth.

[Aury]

You might look at Battle for Wesnoth.

... as long as you don't actually use any of george's content, which is not GPL.

[Atarlost]

There's a distinction between engine and data. They should be able to be under different licenses. GPL should no more prevent you from using non-GPL data in the game engine than it prevents you from publishing for profit a novel written using Open Office.

You would need George's permission, but would even if you wrote your own engine.

[Xephyr]

Isn't this how anacrenon worked?

[Atarlost]

No Anacreon is a 4X game. He's talking TBT. Something like Triplanetary on a computer: http://www.projectrho.com/game/triplanetary.html

[SparcMan]

Makes me think of the VATS system in Fallout 3...

[Daedal]

Makes me think of the VATS system in Fallout 3...

It's very much like that, stopping free motion gameplay to allow tactical combat in a genre that doesn't usually do that, except made for a top down 2D flight or space sim.

Something like Triplanetary on a computer.

Another good way to describe it. And thanks for the link!

The idea would be to have an option when Transcendence starts that lets you pick standard combat or tactical combat. Standard combat would be Trascendence as it is today. Tactical combat would use the system described here. I assume this would require hardcode, not a mod, but I don't think it would require a completely different engine because the only thing missing is the stop-go action and the ability to add a few special motion or weapon tricks.

Using the BfW engine for this would give you a pretty clunky end product. You could probably have it keep track of the direction you moved in on one turn and have it apply that motion to the next turn, but that's nothing like the physics George has already built into Transcendence.