Proper nuclear attacks, combat vehicles & Defense Towers

[LegoRobot]

Before I get started I'd like to say that imo the biggest shortcoming of Multiwinia is scale. I understand that's due to hardware constraints, time limit considerations and balancing issues but I have a machine that could easily accomodate large, sprawling battlefields and I dream of matches that last several hours in which the balance of power shifts back and forth many times. Bring on larger maps! Now, on to the main suggestions:

The existing nuclear barrage item is insufficient. It's just a clone of the meteor attack. I'd prefer one with a sizable area of effect (completely destroying everything within the same radius as your fully expanded selection circle) with a suitably impressive flash, shockwave and mushroom cloud. The shockwave could be relatively slow moving, damaging but not destroying all vehicles and of course instantly killing all darwinians it contacts until it fades after expanding for a second or two. As this would be tremendously powerful I think rather than making it a crate item, you should need to build and defend a special structure in order to get them, the Defense Tower.

Combat vehicles should be kept to a minimum as obviously they have the potential to ruin the purity of darwinia as an RTS. Something like a Starship Troopers style troop carrying drop ship would be nice, or perhaps one that can pick up an armorer troop carrier and set it down someplace else before automatically returning it to the assigned incubator. I'd also like to see some kind of tank, essentially a slow moving mobile turret that cannot turn as quickly as a normal one. It should be ineffective against stationary turrets but effective against infantry. Some sort of anti-air turret or vehicle would also be nice in order to shoot down the flying viral creatures and enemy harvester UFOs.

Defense Towers should be small buildings you can place which function either as a missile silo or a sort of armored pillbox, depending which 'mode' they are in. You can order up to 40 darwinians to enter the tower and fire from shuttered windows, sort of like a pillbox. In launch mode, the more darwinians you have inside, the faster you can build missiles. It should take about five minutes to build a standard missile (small radius of effect, similar to an air strike) and ten to build a nuke. Either can be shot down mid-flight by an anti-air vehicle or turret. It should take one minute between choosing the target and actually launching the missile, complete with a warning to the opponent, giving him time to assault your defense tower and prevent the launch.

Finally, force field pylons. In order to prevent game-breaking shenanigans (putting your solar panels inside the force field perimeter) perhaps they can only be built in certain predetermined areas, set by the map builder. In any case the solar panels would be out there, available for anyone to attack.

[Xocrates]

...

...errr...

...nevermind.

[Major Cooke]

The existing nuclear barrage item is insufficient. It's just a clone of the meteor attack. I'd prefer one with a sizable area of effect (completely destroying everything within the same radius as your fully expanded selection circle) with a suitably impressive flash, shockwave and mushroom cloud. The shockwave could be relatively slow moving, damaging but not destroying all vehicles and of course instantly killing all darwinians it contacts until it fades after expanding for a second or two. As this would be tremendously powerful I think rather than making it a crate item, you should need to build and defend a special structure in order to get them, the Defense Tower.

It's something everyone would wish for... but I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, if... at all...

[LegoRobot]

Why not? The game already includes forest fires which destroy everything in the forested area. Why should a forest fire be more devastating than a nuclear blast?

[MarvintheParanoidAndroid]

The existing nuclear barrage item is insufficient. It's just a clone of the meteor attack.

No. No it's not.

Use a nuke. Now use a meteor shower. See yet?

Edit: also I was going to go through and argue point-by-point, but I think Xocrates has it pretty much covered. How you can talk about the purity of Multiwinia as an RTS, and then suggest turning it into every other RTS ever somewhat eludes me, though.

[LegoRobot]

The existing nuclear barrage item is insufficient. It's just a clone of the meteor attack.

No. No it's not.

Use a nuke. Now use a meteor shower. See yet?

They create the same sized explosions in semi-random locations within the same radius of effect. One delivers the explosives from the sky, the other delivers them by missiles. Functionally, they are identical.

How you can talk about the purity of Multiwinia as an RTS, and then suggest turning it into every other RTS ever somewhat eludes me, though.

Multiwinias purity comes not from simplicity; it's actually fairly sophisticated. Instead, it's the abstraction. Rather than have many specialized buildings and units it has a few which are used for many things. It is in keeping with that idea that I suggested a single armed vehicle, a single flying troop transport, a single user-placed building and so on. Darwinia already is an RTS. The way to keep it pure is not to keep it simplistic, it's to expand the possibilities in a way that doesn't result in needless clutter or headaches.

[MarvintheParanoidAndroid]

No they're not. Keep trying.

Hint: time factors into it somewhere.

[LegoRobot]

No they're not. Keep trying.

Hint: time factors into it somewhere.

Yes, the nukes take longer to hit. That's not sufficiently different, imo.

This is all beside the point. Even if they retain the existing nuke barrage I'd at least like a new, wide area explosive weapon with a shockwave like the WMDs only much smaller scale. Whatever you want to call it, that's what I'd like.

[MarvintheParanoidAndroid]

Yes, the nukes take longer to hit. That's not sufficiently different, imo.

Well, it is in my opinion. The long delay makes them a completely different weapon strategically, there's all sorts of places you can use a meteor shower where a nuke barrage would be completely useless, if the enemy player can simply clear out his troops from the area.

Before I get started I'd like to say that imo the biggest shortcoming of Multiwinia is scale. I understand that's due to hardware constraints, time limit considerations and balancing issues

Have you considered that it's not due to that at all, but rather it's an intentional design decision to make a fast-paced, streamlined game instead of cluttering it with all the base building/defense of traditional RTS games? This kind of thing has come up many times, with people suggesting massive-scale additions which completely miss the point of the game. However, it's clear that you're expecting something completely different from the game to me, so I'm probably best off leaving you to discuss your ideas instead of pointlessly arguing

[Xocrates]

ARRRRGGHHHH!!! I can't do it! I can't stay away.

Before I get started I'd like to say that imo the biggest shortcoming of Multiwinia is scale. I understand that's due to hardware constraints, time limit considerations and balancing issues but I have a machine that could easily accomodate large, sprawling battlefields and I dream of matches that last several hours in which the balance of power shifts back and forth many times. Bring on larger maps! Now, on to the main suggestions:

First off, this is a misconception. Although bigger maps would indeed cause all those problems, Multiwinia was specifically designed for short brutal battles. One can argue that once a map editor is released you (and others) can make those kind of maps though.

The existing nuclear barrage item is insufficient. It's just a clone of the meteor attack. I'd prefer one with a sizable area of effect (completely destroying everything within the same radius as your fully expanded selection circle) with a suitably impressive flash, shockwave and mushroom cloud. The shockwave could be relatively slow moving, damaging but not destroying all vehicles and of course instantly killing all darwinians it contacts until it fades after expanding for a second or two. As this would be tremendously powerful I think rather than making it a crate item, you should need to build and defend a special structure in order to get them, the Defense Tower.

Insufficient for what? Nukes in MW are already quite powerful (and significantly different from Meteor strike).
By the way, keep your base building out of Multiwinia. That's missing the point.

Combat vehicles should be kept to a minimum as obviously they have the potential to ruin the purity of darwinia as an RTS. Something like a Starship Troopers style troop carrying drop ship would be nice, or perhaps one that can pick up an armorer troop carrier and set it down someplace else before automatically returning it to the assigned incubator. I'd also like to see some kind of tank, essentially a slow moving mobile turret that cannot turn as quickly as a normal one. It should be ineffective against stationary turrets but effective against infantry. Some sort of anti-air turret or vehicle would also be nice in order to shoot down the flying viral creatures and enemy harvester UFOs.

This part amuses me. First you say that vehicles should be kept to a minimum but then suggest a bunch of them, some of which are essentially slightly modified versions of existing units. Also, regular gunturrets work as AA, and the harvester is intentionally nigh-invulnerable (although admittedly I never quite understood why).

Defense Towers should be small buildings you can place which function either as a missile silo or a sort of armored pillbox, depending which 'mode' they are in. You can order up to 40 darwinians to enter the tower and fire from shuttered windows, sort of like a pillbox. In launch mode, the more darwinians you have inside, the faster you can build missiles. It should take about five minutes to build a standard missile (small radius of effect, similar to an air strike) and ten to build a nuke. Either can be shot down mid-flight by an anti-air vehicle or turret. It should take one minute between choosing the target and actually launching the missile, complete with a warning to the opponent, giving him time to assault your defense tower and prevent the launch.

Finally, force field pylons. In order to prevent game-breaking shenanigans (putting your solar panels inside the force field perimeter) perhaps they can only be built in certain predetermined areas, set by the map builder. In any case the solar panels would be out there, available for anyone to attack.

I think I already made my point about this part.



Also, suggestion to new users: Never, ever, start posting by making suggestions to alter the game.

[LegoRobot]

Well, it is in my opinion. The long delay makes them a completely different weapon strategically, there's all sorts of places you can use a meteor shower where a nuke barrage would be completely useless, if the enemy player can simply clear out his troops from the area.

Well, it isn't in my opinion. I'd like a mini-WMD, essentially. The least they could do is add actual mushroom clouds to the nuke barrage explosions.

Have you considered that it's not due to that at all, but rather it's an intentional design decision to make a fast-paced, streamlined game instead of cluttering it with all the base building/defense of traditional RTS games? This kind of thing has come up many times, with people suggesting massive-scale additions which completely miss the point of the game. However, it's clear that you're expecting something completely different from the game to me, so I'm probably best off leaving you to discuss your ideas instead of pointlessly arguing

It's not either/or. It could be a separate game mode, "Expanded combat" or something similar. There's no reason not to at least offer the choice.

Also, suggestion to new users: Never, ever, start posting by making suggestions to alter the game.

Denied. That's what I registered to do in the first place, and I stand by it.

[ynbniar]

I'm never sure how to tell if these posts are genuine or some bored forum member taking the piss.

[xander]

Denied. That's what I registered to do in the first place, and I stand by it.

Then be prepared to have a very short stay here, full of flaming.

I suggest that you play Multiwinia a bit more. You clearly want it to be something that it isn't. Master the ins and outs of Multiwinia, as it is, before you start suggesting changes. The fact that you can't tell the difference between a nuke barrage and a meteor shower indicates that you have failed to do that.

xander

[MarvintheParanoidAndroid]

It's not either/or. It could be a separate game mode, "Expanded combat" or something similar. There's no reason not to at least offer the choice.

That's like saying there's no reason for Multiwinia not to have a separate game mode which is an FPS where you run around as a squaddie, fragging Multiwinians.

(Also:

Also, suggestion to new users: Never, ever, start posting by making suggestions to alter the game.

I didn't say that, Xocrates did).

[Krion112]

To: everything Legorobot suggested (since I'm not caring much to copy, paste and all that).

The mushroom cloud for the nukes is an unescessary graphic, like on Darwinia, the pixel effect.
The Nukes are not a duplicate of the Meteor, for they don't slow down time and they also travel slower, and cause more damage, also require strategy in placing them. The military vehicle was once considered, but was removed due to it not working or fitting Darwinia/Multiwinia in any way. The transport is unecessary since Armour can already move anywhere, except through laserfences, but that's fair enough. And the gunturrets already hold the kind of defense building, only they can fire at land or air, for example, shooting at "space invader" bombers to destroy them. So all you're suggesting is turn Multiwinia into the average RTS, which isn't what the creators intended, and on that point, that's why I'm just waiting for when (if ever) the map editor comes out.