A Path Beyond APB, no allied cruiser?

[Einstein]

Regardless, not gonna happen, fixed wing aircraft... aren't really possible in this engine. It can be done in theory in very "hacky" ways but in practice it doesn't play well, doesn't look right.

Spot on. See the .9935 test maps

 

Also, just put in cruisers to counter the yaks and migs! Duh!

[Raap]

 

However, having it as an objective that you have to defend or escort is a much more realistic way to implement it.

 

Once upon a time, there was a Sole Survivor mod that featured this gameplay. It was actually quite fun.

 

Perhaps I'll resurrect this gameplay mode for an APB map sometime in april.

 

Edit: The game mode involved two teams, each with an AI controlled MCV that patrolled the map. The two MCV's would essentially ride in a circle around the map, on the opposite side of the map. The game would end on the destruction of an MCV. The challenge in this mode came from making sure you kept your always-moving MCV safe, while taking out the enemy MCV. This required good team coordination to remain aware of where each objective was.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Raap

[System Error Message]

Regarding fixed wing aircraft, in the original renegade when the Nod ordered a vehicle wasnt it always delivered by an aircraft?

 

The MCV game mode would be fun and even just having an MCV with lots of health that does nothing to drive around would be fun too. in RA, does the MCV have more health than ore truck and is faster?

Edited March 20, 2016 by System Error Message

[harvester]

The harvester is faster and have more health. MCV is slower and more expensive. Just get a harvester or supply truck if you want to drive around.

[Nodlied]

Regarding fixed wing aircraft, in the original renegade when the Nod ordered a vehicle wasnt it always delivered by an aircraft?

 

The cargo plane that delivers vehicles to the airstrip doesn't actually make use of any kind of physics. In fact, the plane you see doesn't really deliver vehicles at all. It is a cinematic that moves a plane model around and spawns the vehicle in the air at just the right time.

[SarahNautili]

Regarding fixed wing aircraft, in the original renegade when the Nod ordered a vehicle wasnt it always delivered by an aircraft?

 

The MCV game mode would be fun and even just having an MCV with lots of health that does nothing to drive around would be fun too. in RA, does the MCV have more health than ore truck and is faster?

they had identical speed (speed=6) and identical health (strength=600). however, the MCV had armor=light while the ore truck had armor=heavy.

 

And, again, there's no point to adding a purchaseable MCV if it does nothing that can't be done by already existing units. Especially since it'll confuse new players into thinking "it can be purchased it's gotta do something right?"

[System Error Message]

 

Regarding fixed wing aircraft, in the original renegade when the Nod ordered a vehicle wasnt it always delivered by an aircraft?

 

The MCV game mode would be fun and even just having an MCV with lots of health that does nothing to drive around would be fun too. in RA, does the MCV have more health than ore truck and is faster?

they had identical speed (speed=6) and identical health (strength=600). however, the MCV had armor=light while the ore truck had armor=heavy.

 

And, again, there's no point to adding a purchaseable MCV if it does nothing that can't be done by already existing units. Especially since it'll confuse new players into thinking "it can be purchased it's gotta do something right?"

 

We could make it repair buildings, maybe some gamemodes or even have it deployable for repairing buildings.

 

So if the plane was just a model than perhaps the same thing can be done for airstrikes or with other things.

 

But i really would like to see all the non flying vehicles implemented in at least. Even if the 2nd turret of the cruiser is just AI controlled and doesnt shoot at buildings is entirely fine because it would need less balancing.

 

And while the reason not to implement the tech center would be space you could always place some buildings next to each other for more open space. In every C&C game its not uncommon the build buildings next to each other.

 

Perhaps the fixed wing aircraft could be implemented as VTOLs assuming that kind of gameplay is acceptable.

[Pushwall]

Did nobody get the memo about how major development is over so anything that requires spending ages completely redefining the core gameplay will not happen?

[System Error Message]

But theres always room for improvement, perhaps major changes can be done for version 2.

[Killing_You]

Aside from bugfixes, balancing, and map implementation, APB is more or less done. If Pushwall decides otherwise, I'm sure it'd be in the form of a public announcement, but I highly doubt that's going to happen.

[Pushwall]

What "version 2"? This game's gone through many iterations and versions over the past 12+ years by the different people who've spearheaded its development at different points in time, and all of those versions left the core gameplay mostly intact because it works and doesn't need to be changed. When you try to change a formula that works, you get Gamma, and as I mentioned before, its big "selling point" of units gradually unlocking killed it because (almost) nobody likes having their choices so heavily restricted for the first half of every match.

[des1206]

 

Did nobody get the memo about how major development is over so anything that requires spending ages completely redefining the core gameplay will not happen?

 

Sometimes at night, when I lay in my bed, I still dream of driving around my chronotank, waiting for the intermittent GPS uplink to reveal AP mines, spy infiltrate the subpen for the one time sonar pulse to reveal Soviet subs, and planting cruiser strike beacons while fighting off paratrooper reinforcements.

Edited March 20, 2016 by des1206

[FRAYDO]

But theres always room for improvement, perhaps major changes can be done for version 2.

I'm afraid someone has already beat us to version 2.

 

[Pushwall]

chronotank

 

Well hey there's something that's within reach; it doesn't involve the use of Renegade's flaky AI, there's already some scripts that would work just fine to implement it with a few minor alterations, there's a relatively small amount of balance concerns for it compared to all the other stuff that's popped up in here, it shouldn't require us to completely redefine the game, and there's only one required asset that's missing this time: a texture. The model also has a few rigging issues but that's better than no model.

[System Error Message]

I dont mean restrict the tech till half the match but rather have it vary but have it all unlocked within a few minutes. In RA you could unlock all the tech within a few minutes. Teching up could be an optional feature to be enabled by server/map. Could even be useful for tutorial map.

 

RA APB never came out of beta so version 2 would be far away but it would be nice to have more elements from C&C including some of the campaign missions. RA seamist is a good example.

[ganein14]

I dont mean restrict the tech till half the match but rather have it vary but have it all unlocked within a few minutes. In RA you could unlock all the tech within a few minutes. Teching up could be an optional feature to be enabled by server/map. Could even be useful for tutorial map.

Didn't you hear what was said about what happened with tech levels and gamma?

[Raap]

 

 

RA APB never came out of beta so version 2 would be far away but it would be nice to have more elements from C&C including some of the campaign missions. RA seamist is a good example.

 

Delta (3.0.0) is not considered a beta version. Neither was Gamma (2.0.0), but let's pretend that it was.

 

More mission objective-based maps like Seamist and to some extent, Hostile Waters, is entirely up to level designers. It certainly is possible to have multiplayer matches with more objective orientated gameplay as you can already see in those two maps.

 

Single player mission, however, I don't think will ever happen, since there were never any real plans for those to begin with. APB's core gameplay is multiplayer, any development effort should go towards improving that core gameplay, rather than adding very development-intensive content only a hand full of people enjoy. Fun fact: Creating single-player content is significantly more time consuming than creating multiplayer content, due to matching player expectations for the content. Plus, I don't think W3D Hub has any single player content development experts, since nearly everyone is focused on multiplayer gameplay, the thing W3D can actually do well.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Raap

[harvester]

MCV is pointless, throwing things without any use would be unnecessarily time consuming that adds nothing to the game.

 

Fixed wing aircraft, while cool isn't gonna happen because the game is fine without it. If anything is not broken, don't fix it.

 

And......

 

 

Did nobody get the memo about how major development is over so anything that requires spending ages completely redefining the core gameplay will not happen?

 

[System Error Message]

so the next version would be 4. What im asking isnt to change the core gameplay but rather add them as optionals, something either map or server choices,

 

Replicating some missions from red alert would really add to the game and it should be multiplayer but adding bots would really be nice for these.

[Nodlied]

I'm pretty sure that there will never be a version 4. (Unless the APB lead decides otherwise.)

[Isaac The Madd]

Can't wait for ABP Omega.

(I know it won't happen.)

[Pushwall]

so the next version would be 4.

 

Did nobody get the memo about how major development is over so anything that requires spending ages completely redefining the core gameplay will not happen?

 

Do I really need to expound on this for you? Unfortunately over the span of 2015 the dev team has dwindled down to just me and a couple others who just don't have the time to do much, and everyone else at W3D Hub is either too busy with their own projects which are in development and actually have teams, or are again too busy with real life. "Version 4" is a pipe dream, stop thinking about it. Before you pitch any more grand ideas for APB in future, you should really ask yourself how long you think it would take one person to do it, if you would like to spend that much time doing it, if the game ABSOLUTELY needs this change, and if it would be worth all the time you spend on it. I'm just here to do bug fixes, minor balance adjustments, fix up another couple of AOW maps, and maybe include a couple of features that we already have most of the framework for, because anything bigger is a massive timesink for one person working on a free game.

[TK-421]

 

I think having this will help balance the allies as the artillery tank just doesnt compare to the soviet's V2 rocket

Um, what? So far artilleries have killed 1116 infantry, 1007 vehicles and 571 buildings, and 1496 artilleries have been destroyed. Meanwhile, V2s have killed 708 infantry, 975 vehicles and 460 buildings, and 1539 V2s have been destroyed. Looks to me like artilleries are doing a lot better than V2s... Unless you're referring to the original Red Alert's total joke of an artillery which was basically a Grenadier with a vehicle-sized hitbox, no resistance to anti-tank weapons, and 4 times the price.

 

and can damage submarines.

The RA cruiser had to exploit a bug in order to target submarines. If you're conveniently overlooking that, why aren't you demanding for grenadiers to be able to fling grenades all the way across the map?

 

A few things that bothers me is that in red alert the imbalance between the allies and soviets required to soviets to use more numbers in tactics such as the mobile gap generator but in multiplayer there just isnt enough players if someone would always have to man the useless radar jammer or mobile gap generator just for them to work.

Have you ever... you know... actually bought a mobile radar jammer in this game? Getting in one prints a big unmissable message about how you can deploy it when near the enemy radar, get out, and have it do its job by itself. As for the MGG I can see where you're coming from but the MGG here is, unlike RA's, actually powerful enough that it might be worth using in some circumstances. Making it deployable as well would be overpowered... and run contrary to your "make everything exactly like RA because that's more important than fun or balance" mission.

 

If you're asking for Allies to get more players than the Soviets? Not possible. And not needed, considering they already have a decent win ratio.

 

There are also some units i would like to see like the jets since it seems the harrier is working for apocalypse rising

Harriers are VTOLs. Yaks and MiGs are not. We do not have fixed-wing aircraft physics. Also implementing them at this stage would require a grand rebalancing. Not happening.

 

And going back to the Cruiser. This has already been brought up before and there are many many reasons why we won't do it:

• We don't have a model for it.
• There would be no counter for it if the Submarine Pen was down.
• It would have to have only one turret because the game does not support multiple turrets unless the additional ones are AI-controlled (and the AI doesn't shoot buildings, which is what the Cruiser's main job is, so that would be pretty damn pointless).
• It would be too big to navigate Hostile Waters.
• Having to overhaul naval combat AGAIN.

 

I got a way for it to work (see the first page of Additional units for APB)

[FRAYDO]

>see first page of additional units for apb

My idea of balancing the cruiser would be total damage would be 10-20% greater damage than the DD, slightly greater range than DD (but still in range if the strela),really slow, same or higher cost as the missile sub, reload would be slow as the (V2's reload time or slower than that perhaps), rounds would have a big arc (greater than arty or the V2's secondary perhaps) and the turrets would move slow.

>see response against that

Yeah that's cool except there's a reason why the Cruisers on Seamist are not visible even if you spectate over to the place the shells are coming from. We don't have a model. There's a bunch of other problems too:

• That range suggestion means it would have a godly 5-10m extra range compared to the Destroyer... hooray...
• A high arc would allow it to hit subs which is totally not what it should be doing. Unless its gun was forced to a high angle which would also mean it would have a lot of trouble actually hitting certain buildings even if it had 100% accuracy.
• "Really slow", only 10-20% extra damage, inaccurate, and a negligible range increase... considering that a Destroyer will get in range of the enemy base much sooner and therefore deal damage sooner and can actually HIT aircraft and can reliably hit buildings other than the sub pen, and will ideally not have a dumb arc setup that allows it to hit units that it shouldn't (subs), why don't I just get a Destroyer instead?
• It would have to have only one turret for the same reason I've mentioned dozens of times about why the Destroyer's depth charge rack can't be turned.
• It's difficult enough for destroyers to navigate the icebergs on Hostile Waters, you really want something twice as big going through there?

>

[OWA]

in red alert 1 there was the cruiser which had range and firepower

http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Cruiser

 

I think having this will help balance the allies as the artillery tank just doesnt compare to the soviet's V2 rocket and can damage submarines.

 

A few things that bothers me is that in red alert the imbalance between the allies and soviets required to soviets to use more numbers in tactics such as the mobile gap generator but in multiplayer there just isnt enough players if someone would always have to man the useless radar jammer or mobile gap generator just for them to work.

 

There are also some units i would like to see like the jets since it seems the harrier is working for apocalypse rising

 

You can have all of this...

 

 

...if you make it yourself.

 

[System Error Message]

 

in red alert 1 there was the cruiser which had range and firepower

http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Cruiser

 

I think having this will help balance the allies as the artillery tank just doesnt compare to the soviet's V2 rocket and can damage submarines.

 

A few things that bothers me is that in red alert the imbalance between the allies and soviets required to soviets to use more numbers in tactics such as the mobile gap generator but in multiplayer there just isnt enough players if someone would always have to man the useless radar jammer or mobile gap generator just for them to work.

 

There are also some units i would like to see like the jets since it seems the harrier is working for apocalypse rising

 

You can have all of this...

 

 

...if you make it yourself.

 

 

true, i am a developer but have been busy with university.

[Einstein]

Apologies in advance for the orange text that I am about to use. Sometimes people flip out and try to use it against me later as a red herring logical fallacy-type thing, but I swear that I only needed a color to differentiate my text from other people's. You have been disclaimer'd.

 

 

 

However, having it as an objective that you have to defend or escort is a much more realistic way to implement it.

 

Once upon a time, there was a Sole Survivor mod that featured this gameplay. It was actually quite fun.

 

Perhaps I'll resurrect this gameplay mode for an APB map sometime in april.

 

Edit: The game mode involved two teams, each with an AI controlled MCV that patrolled the map. The two MCV's would essentially ride in a circle around the map, on the opposite side of the map. The game would end on the destruction of an MCV. The challenge in this mode came from making sure you kept your always-moving MCV safe, while taking out the enemy MCV. This required good team coordination to remain aware of where each objective was.

 

Oh man, I remember that! That was a good one....moving on!

 

 

 

Regarding fixed wing aircraft, in the original renegade when the Nod ordered a vehicle wasnt it always delivered by an aircraft?

 

The MCV game mode would be fun and even just having an MCV with lots of health that does nothing to drive around would be fun too. in RA, does the MCV have more health than ore truck and is faster?

they had identical speed (speed=6) and identical health (strength=600). however, the MCV had armor=light while the ore truck had armor=heavy.

 

And, again, there's no point to adding a purchaseable MCV if it does nothing that can't be done by already existing units. Especially since it'll confuse new players into thinking "it can be purchased it's gotta do something right?"

 

We could make it repair buildings, maybe some gamemodes or even have it deployable for repairing buildings.

So you want it to be more like RA1 but yet you want things that were not in RA1? Also we already have a nice deployed Construction Yard that already does this. Otherwise you may use a technician or engineer. Plenty of things to repair buildings already in the game, right where they've been for over a decade now so I'd say that there's really no need for this.

 

So if the plane was just a model than perhaps the same thing can be done for airstrikes or with other things.

Nodlied already touched on this, but I'll try to clarify a bit further. The plane you see is a cinematic. In some ways, it doesn't even really exist. I like to think of it as being similar to something thrown on a green screen, like on the weather channel. The plane is there because 13+ years ago, the Renegade engine gods hung it there. It was never made pilotable because the engine is not capable of fixed-wing physics and until someone takes it upon thierself to heavily modify a 13+ year old engine to add one feature to a free game that is lead by a one man dev team, it will not happen.

 

But i really would like to see all the non flying vehicles implemented in at least. Even if the 2nd turret of the cruiser is just AI controlled and doesnt shoot at buildings is entirely fine because it would need less balancing.

See the above block of orange. Also, having the second turret be AI would make balancing worse because anything it destroys does not count points for the driver of the bote. This would also mess up other things like stats because if the AI turret was the thing that actually landed the kill, that means that you didn't get it. Then suddenly we have OVER 9000 people begging for the cruiser to be removed because its stealing its own driver's kills!!!! Not good.

 

And while the reason not to implement the tech center would be space you could always place some buildings next to each other for more open space. In every C&C game its not uncommon the build buildings next to each other.

If this was RA1, I would whole-heartedly agree. But this is a FPS game that is designed in the likeness of RA1, not intended to be an exact copy of RA1. While doing such a thing would be hilarious because we would all get the joke that the commander ran out of building space, it is not functional whatsoever in a FPS environment.

 

Perhaps the fixed wing aircraft could be implemented as VTOLs assuming that kind of gameplay is acceptable.

See the second block of orange text. The feature would have to be coded from scratch. Not happening unless we get some awesome volunteers to take that on and open a big ol'

 

 

But theres always room for improvement, perhaps major changes can be done for version 2.

Version "2" was many years ago. We are now in major version 3, which will be the last version unless Pushwall goes full-on April fools on us or something

 

I dont mean restrict the tech till half the match but rather have it vary but have it all unlocked within a few minutes. In RA you could unlock all the tech within a few minutes. Teching up could be an optional feature to be enabled by server/map. Could even be useful for tutorial map.

I see where you're going with this, but we would rather keep our playerbase. This is another example of a concept that does not translate well from a RTS game into a FPS game. In a purely RTS environment, its a wonderful idea. In FPS it just doesn't make sense to do this. At one point, enough people thought that it was a good enough idea that it got put into the game. After the game died (no players for many months) it was decided to remove the cause of this problem. We would like to avoid another episode like that if at all possible.

 

RA APB never came out of beta so version 2 would be far away but it would be nice to have more elements from C&C including some of the campaign missions. RA seamist is a good example.

More maps. This is something that is not only possible, but also planned!

 

I hope that I didn't come across as sarcastic in this. It was not my intention. My intent was simply to clarify and elaborate on some points and reasons as to the "why" behind some things. I would like to ask you and others though that you read the multiple many dozens of posts in several threads about exactly these type things that outline the reasons why they simply can not be accomplished. Whether it be because of a severe lack of manpower to make it happen, or otherwise just because the Renegade gods did not deem it so. There is a reason for everything. Until we get a larger-than-one-man dev team on this project that has already been labeled as FINISHED though, I just don't see much if any of this ever happening. That being said, anyone with the necessary skill is welcome to make helpful contributions if they line up with the current design and direction, as always.

[TK-421]

>see first page of additional units for apb

 

My idea of balancing the cruiser would be total damage would be 10-20% greater damage than the DD, slightly greater range than DD (but still in range if the strela),really slow, same or higher cost as the missile sub, reload would be slow as the (V2's reload time or slower than that perhaps), rounds would have a big arc (greater than arty or the V2's secondary perhaps) and the turrets would move slow.

>see response against that

 

Yeah that's cool except there's a reason why the Cruisers on Seamist are not visible even if you spectate over to the place the shells are coming from. We don't have a model. There's a bunch of other problems too:

• That range suggestion means it would have a godly 5-10m extra range compared to the Destroyer... hooray...
• A high arc would allow it to hit subs which is totally not what it should be doing. Unless its gun was forced to a high angle which would also mean it would have a lot of trouble actually hitting certain buildings even if it had 100% accuracy.
• "Really slow", only 10-20% extra damage, inaccurate, and a negligible range increase... considering that a Destroyer will get in range of the enemy base much sooner and therefore deal damage sooner and can actually HIT aircraft and can reliably hit buildings other than the sub pen, and will ideally not have a dumb arc setup that allows it to hit units that it shouldn't (subs), why don't I just get a Destroyer instead?
• It would have to have only one turret for the same reason I've mentioned dozens of times about why the Destroyer's depth charge rack can't be turned.
• It's difficult enough for destroyers to navigate the icebergs on Hostile Waters, you really want something twice as big going through there?

>

 

 

Alternative posted below there.

[Einstein]

Do you read posts that are not yours? You can't balance a unit that can't fundamentally exist in this game in the first place. Balance is not the problem, its the "works" behind the unit concept itself (and the little tiny thing called a model). The mechanics are not currently possible and due to a cease in major development that has been referenced dozens of times already (yet somehow gets ignored), it is most likely that these mechanics will never get created.

 

I really hate to bring it to this but.....

 

These things (all of these requests that are piling up) must be made by someone if they are to exist at all.

These things would take lots of time to even have a semi-functional mock-up.

Nobody is getting paid to work on this.

Nobody from the community is stepping up offering to do it, therefore....

These things must be made by the dev team.

Pushwall is the dev team!

If he says it isn't going to happen.... Is the writing on the wall really that faint?

 

Again, I'm not being sarcastic with these replies. But folks, the reality is that if you suggest something that isn't a minor improvement to an existing feature, eg: "hey this texture looks like some guy made it in 2003, we might could make it look better", then it just has no way to get done.... A sad truth, I know. But truth nonetheless.

[Isaac The Madd]

This idea is crazy, but it could be interesting.

What if we made a large naval map with no land and have the cruiser be a mobile naval base. (It could deploy to build a limited number of gunboats and then act as normal building for a while.) It could have only one turret active in movement mode and have several controllable turrets when deployed. The Soviets would get a giant submarine that does the same thing except it can not deploy underwater and is a submarine.

I would be really hacky and look odd but it could be neat.

(Since this is my idea I would make a the stuff for it, if it is not impossible.)

Edited March 22, 2016 by Isaac The Madd