I was thinking about using a game engine for a science-fiction game I was coming up with. In otherwords. I'm thinking of an idea of my own. Since I'm not adept at programming, I could use volunteers for the idea.
The idea was of a game which would play out much like Wing Commander in the fact that the ships would fly similarly and such. The plot, the exact ships, the characters, however, would be totally different. While I like Wing Commander a lot, but there are many things which annoy me about Wing Commander.
Some of the ships are too easy to destroy. Either give them more armor, or fit them with more guns to shoot down weapons. In any case, they are too easy to wreck. Especially WC3. Give me a Thud-VII and I can take out some Kilrathi-ships with one pass on full guns, two missiles, for a buck and a biscuit (what can I tell you, I like good buttermilk biscuits). These capital ships are supposed to be ships of war. They are supposed to be able to withstand a beating and keep flying. Modern day, an enemy could probably lob a dozen missiles at a carrier and it could systematically gun every single one down and the crew probably would only break a mild sweat. Granted, Wing Commander ships *DO* have point-defenses, gatling-launch tubes, and that. But you never see them in the game! That makes it nearly useless! In the game, only the huge turrets are visible.
Turret Damage. These big giant guns do little damage. At least in the WC3 Novel, they described the Victory's guns as being ferocious. They ripped up the Vaktoths without breaking a sweat. They should be like that-- They're big guns! You have 20-meter turrets. They should pack a punch. They should hit like a friggin' mule.
In Wing-Commander, and a lot of science-fiction games, they seem to have this notion that Capital Ships are almost like ships on water, and the fighters are like planes in air. Again, a misconception, they're all in space. If anything, capships would be more like giant airplanes than ships. Although I'm not saying they should look like big fighters with guns, but they should look somewhat sleeker than some of the ships in WC3, although they shouldn't look like something out of a cartoon. No drag in space so they should have some faceted edges, but having some sleekness to it would help out a lot. Bigger ships probably would be clunkier than the smaller ones, but still. They shouldn't look like a big box. This isn't Star Trek, where we have the Borg.
Aliens. Granted, the Kilrathi plot was pretty cool. But if I was making my own series, I'd rather have a human/human conflict like Confed vs. Border Worlds (tonight on Pay-per-View). It just annoys me that all the aliens have two arms, two legs... at least the Kilrathi had 4 digits on each hand instead of 5. They can learn english rather easily, and their culture is somehow similar to ours. Additionally their weapons do the same damage to us even though their philosophy to war is different, and can be transferred from a Kilrathi Ship to a Confederation Ship (End-Run, mass-driver's attached to TCS-Tarawa)... you know, on Earth, even on certain parts of one planet, we use different power (220 volts, vs 115 volts). Now, an alien with a different evolutionary history would coincidently have the same power-source, which is almost completely compatible with ours? I think that's a bit far fetched at best. And even if we did have aliens... why do they have to have some kind of ridiculous religion which requires them to be in perpetual war that can be easily exploited in a war?
With all that ranting said...
MY IDEA
I was thinking of a story taking place in the mid 2200's or early 2300's. Basically Earth has expanded into space and spread far out. The climate is kind of like the late 20th century... everyone is totally unpatriotic, and everything revolves around making money. Except in this case, there is far more technology. It seems as if regulations have to be constantly put into effect to stop crooked businessmen from pulling a fast one. Unline Enron where a few companies happened to engage in bad practices, several companies teamed up together to help each other cover each others tracks and scam people out of millions. The president is a crooked jerk who has been involved in every single scandal you could imagine. He has also been no friend of the military... performing budget cut after budget cut. Ultimately the next president takes over. He's unlike bush, he's actually a hero, well respected and such, except to people who served under him. He was known to trample all over people if it would get him to the top. Go up by pushing others down. He seemed an honorable man and appeared like he would do good. He was also better than the other candidates too and generally speaking, you pick who you hate the least. So they voted him in. To his credit, he built up the military good, helped crack down on crooked businessmen, and attempted to stabilize the economy. Except terrorists who were disgruntled over the loss of some of their territory 14 years ago wanted revenge for this and are also disgruntled at Earth for occupying their space. They ultimately plan, and excecute a devastating attack which earth never would have expected. The government reacts swiftly, but it's not long before they over-react and start to turn into a police state, and begin invading other territories in some crusade. Ultimately other territories begin to fight back, except they are systematically crushed by a devastating war-machine that is the closest thing to invincible mankind has ever seen. For the people who live in the space earth occupies, they wonder how much freedom they will have to lose in order to feel safe. For the people outside Earth's sphere of influence, which is growing less and less, they wonder how long it will be before they are overrun and annihilated by Earth's angry people on a vicious mission to utterly, and totally annihilate them.
This is basically the plot, it is subject to change, but it is basically like 9/11 in space. Except, the plot would have significant differences in the exact development (I summed it up very short).
Earth has some of the most advanced technology on their ships. They are fast, agile, and sturdy as hell. They all are well-rounded and possess multi-role capability of their own.
The Terrorists use pretty much any ship they can get their hands on, which makes them the problem. They have trouble determining who their enemy is. The enemies win more or less by suprize. They also are rumored to have made some kind of special-weapon which is based on a design earth-developed, but never tested. How they got it is not known, but it is so destructive, it's effects would affect an entire solar system. Exactly how many they've built is not certain, but they are rumored to only have a few.
The Frontier: Their ships are actually suprizingly rugged, but fairly simple in technology. They make up for it in the fact that they could be repaired very easily in case of damage. They can also construct many new ships quickly because even with their lesser industrial capacity, their ships are much simpler, and easier to build. Some of their ships are older ships that earth lent to them during a previous war. Most of their smaller ships are hard-core ships designed solely to rain destruction on their enemies. The cruisers have a warship-role, but they also carry a substantial fighter complement also to aid their destructive capability and often fly with two destroyers for escort. They do have a few carriers, which are much more armed than earth, and also possess significant ability even if they were required to stand-alone. The additional weapons take up fighter capacity, but their capacity is still substantial, and is quite impressive anyway.
I could use help developing the plot, and ideas with developing ideas, concepts, etc.
-Concordia
The idea was of a game which would play out much like Wing Commander in the fact that the ships would fly similarly and such. The plot, the exact ships, the characters, however, would be totally different. While I like Wing Commander a lot, but there are many things which annoy me about Wing Commander.
Some of the ships are too easy to destroy. Either give them more armor, or fit them with more guns to shoot down weapons. In any case, they are too easy to wreck. Especially WC3. Give me a Thud-VII and I can take out some Kilrathi-ships with one pass on full guns, two missiles, for a buck and a biscuit (what can I tell you, I like good buttermilk biscuits). These capital ships are supposed to be ships of war. They are supposed to be able to withstand a beating and keep flying. Modern day, an enemy could probably lob a dozen missiles at a carrier and it could systematically gun every single one down and the crew probably would only break a mild sweat. Granted, Wing Commander ships *DO* have point-defenses, gatling-launch tubes, and that. But you never see them in the game! That makes it nearly useless! In the game, only the huge turrets are visible.
Turret Damage. These big giant guns do little damage. At least in the WC3 Novel, they described the Victory's guns as being ferocious. They ripped up the Vaktoths without breaking a sweat. They should be like that-- They're big guns! You have 20-meter turrets. They should pack a punch. They should hit like a friggin' mule.
In Wing-Commander, and a lot of science-fiction games, they seem to have this notion that Capital Ships are almost like ships on water, and the fighters are like planes in air. Again, a misconception, they're all in space. If anything, capships would be more like giant airplanes than ships. Although I'm not saying they should look like big fighters with guns, but they should look somewhat sleeker than some of the ships in WC3, although they shouldn't look like something out of a cartoon. No drag in space so they should have some faceted edges, but having some sleekness to it would help out a lot. Bigger ships probably would be clunkier than the smaller ones, but still. They shouldn't look like a big box. This isn't Star Trek, where we have the Borg.
Aliens. Granted, the Kilrathi plot was pretty cool. But if I was making my own series, I'd rather have a human/human conflict like Confed vs. Border Worlds (tonight on Pay-per-View). It just annoys me that all the aliens have two arms, two legs... at least the Kilrathi had 4 digits on each hand instead of 5. They can learn english rather easily, and their culture is somehow similar to ours. Additionally their weapons do the same damage to us even though their philosophy to war is different, and can be transferred from a Kilrathi Ship to a Confederation Ship (End-Run, mass-driver's attached to TCS-Tarawa)... you know, on Earth, even on certain parts of one planet, we use different power (220 volts, vs 115 volts). Now, an alien with a different evolutionary history would coincidently have the same power-source, which is almost completely compatible with ours? I think that's a bit far fetched at best. And even if we did have aliens... why do they have to have some kind of ridiculous religion which requires them to be in perpetual war that can be easily exploited in a war?
With all that ranting said...
MY IDEA
I was thinking of a story taking place in the mid 2200's or early 2300's. Basically Earth has expanded into space and spread far out. The climate is kind of like the late 20th century... everyone is totally unpatriotic, and everything revolves around making money. Except in this case, there is far more technology. It seems as if regulations have to be constantly put into effect to stop crooked businessmen from pulling a fast one. Unline Enron where a few companies happened to engage in bad practices, several companies teamed up together to help each other cover each others tracks and scam people out of millions. The president is a crooked jerk who has been involved in every single scandal you could imagine. He has also been no friend of the military... performing budget cut after budget cut. Ultimately the next president takes over. He's unlike bush, he's actually a hero, well respected and such, except to people who served under him. He was known to trample all over people if it would get him to the top. Go up by pushing others down. He seemed an honorable man and appeared like he would do good. He was also better than the other candidates too and generally speaking, you pick who you hate the least. So they voted him in. To his credit, he built up the military good, helped crack down on crooked businessmen, and attempted to stabilize the economy. Except terrorists who were disgruntled over the loss of some of their territory 14 years ago wanted revenge for this and are also disgruntled at Earth for occupying their space. They ultimately plan, and excecute a devastating attack which earth never would have expected. The government reacts swiftly, but it's not long before they over-react and start to turn into a police state, and begin invading other territories in some crusade. Ultimately other territories begin to fight back, except they are systematically crushed by a devastating war-machine that is the closest thing to invincible mankind has ever seen. For the people who live in the space earth occupies, they wonder how much freedom they will have to lose in order to feel safe. For the people outside Earth's sphere of influence, which is growing less and less, they wonder how long it will be before they are overrun and annihilated by Earth's angry people on a vicious mission to utterly, and totally annihilate them.
This is basically the plot, it is subject to change, but it is basically like 9/11 in space. Except, the plot would have significant differences in the exact development (I summed it up very short).
Earth has some of the most advanced technology on their ships. They are fast, agile, and sturdy as hell. They all are well-rounded and possess multi-role capability of their own.
The Terrorists use pretty much any ship they can get their hands on, which makes them the problem. They have trouble determining who their enemy is. The enemies win more or less by suprize. They also are rumored to have made some kind of special-weapon which is based on a design earth-developed, but never tested. How they got it is not known, but it is so destructive, it's effects would affect an entire solar system. Exactly how many they've built is not certain, but they are rumored to only have a few.
The Frontier: Their ships are actually suprizingly rugged, but fairly simple in technology. They make up for it in the fact that they could be repaired very easily in case of damage. They can also construct many new ships quickly because even with their lesser industrial capacity, their ships are much simpler, and easier to build. Some of their ships are older ships that earth lent to them during a previous war. Most of their smaller ships are hard-core ships designed solely to rain destruction on their enemies. The cruisers have a warship-role, but they also carry a substantial fighter complement also to aid their destructive capability and often fly with two destroyers for escort. They do have a few carriers, which are much more armed than earth, and also possess significant ability even if they were required to stand-alone. The additional weapons take up fighter capacity, but their capacity is still substantial, and is quite impressive anyway.
I could use help developing the plot, and ideas with developing ideas, concepts, etc.
-Concordia
