ideas for the next defcon?

Ideas for expansions and improvements to Defcon

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MikeTheWookiee
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Postby MikeTheWookiee » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:25 am

Only real addition I have is that a possible one that to get faster resyncing (it really depends upon the speed of your computer), possibly the game's speed (i.e. update tick rate) reduces to pre-game levels (from 10/s to 1/s) while the game is paused. May be tricky to do, but there's a good chance this is actually possible with the current game. (there may actually be a chance this is implementable in dedcon, although I think bert's a bit busy right now).
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Postby odstjj75 » Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:37 am

i think thats one of the biggest things that would change the game style without changing the entire simplicity of the game a 3d playing board.
its already a pretty realistic game. utilizing radar and planes and nuclear missiles, adding a 3d map will make it even better and more realistic. one thing i read about somewhere in the game of defcon. you are a commander of some sort, deep in a underground bunker. telling everybody what to do. in the atomic age we have satellites. Satellites are equipped with cameras and what not, why are we looking at a flat screen monitor on a desk. lol. im pretty sure hes not looking at a 3d hologram but a, view screen somewhat like google earth.

be kinda cool if we can have a news feed. too after nyc is hit with a bomb a news feed will roll across saying something cool. " in other news today new york city got hit by a russian icbm today, the city is in ruins and red cross and the national guard have been deployed to help survivors. the type of missile that hit was a SS-27 Topol M. carrying a massive warhead scientist belive it was a 45 MT warhead" something like simcity you know. who that played it will.

haha keep the heart pumping in this thread like almost 1500 views.

submit what you want from, creating a entirely new game with land armies and claiming land and what not, don't waste your time here, thats not defcon, get out. :lol:

not necessarily animations but if we had a google earth like playing board, with zoom features. we can actually zoom down and watch the rocket plumes of smoke, and stuff and actually watching the missile break down in the multiple stages. you can actually keep the same picture of the nuke the little rectangle with a triangle on top. draw lines on the rectangle part of it. and the parts fall off. in flight adn the only thing that impacts the target is the triangle. ( the warhead)

^^ haha well i came back multiple times to this message, after i posted the original lol every time i posted i was like " bah thats perfect" you guys hate when that happens?
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torq
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Postby torq » Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:50 am

Guys, I think it would be more simple for you just to make a nuclear war plugin for the Google Earth itself :lol:
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Postby bert_the_turtle » Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:35 am

'lol' is not punctuation. And I sincerely hope anyone actually making a game is completely ignoring input from this thread. But do go on, at least that keeps other threads clean :)
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Postby MikeTheWookiee » Wed Apr 22, 2009 8:40 am

As an aside, it's not quite Google Earth, but there's always satcon.
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Postby trickser » Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:30 am

bert_the_turtle wrote:'lol' is not punctuation.


lol, what?
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Postby The Reds » Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:54 am

Actually to answer Why?'s question I am making plans for a nuclear game like defcon except it's a first person shooter game and has this wicked story line. :lol: But then again, thats 20 years away for me. But then again... it's an idea so I am really looking forward to pursuing this. :P You can say its going to be similar to Fallout 3 but for my imagination, its going to be intense!
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Postby Nightwatch » Thu May 21, 2009 3:02 pm

Okay, xander will stab me for this but i will say it anyway.
I would want to addtional Aircraf types:
a) Early Warning Aircraft, a radar plane that has the radar range of a standard radar but can be swichted on and off.
If you use the radar, the plane is visible to everyone (like a detected landbased unit out of radar range).
b) Tanker, a tanker aircraft with twice te range of a bomber (once around the globe). Other aircrafts are refilled while "landing" on that plane. Its slow and vunurable and every refuling reduces his own range.

Both planes should come only with airfields, one each or something, no respawn of course.

And while we are at it, i would like the sub hunting ability moved to Battleships.
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Postby Zorotama » Wed Jun 03, 2009 7:24 pm

In my opinion the news could be this:

1) A total bug fixes (and Mexican gulf and Mediterranean free to use);

2) The possibility of reloading subs.


N.B: = Then, i think Defcon uses too much CPU
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Postby The Reds » Sat Jun 06, 2009 7:21 am

i like the idea of reload-able subs.
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Postby Barbarossa » Mon Jul 19, 2010 1:18 am

How about a 3d Defcon that is scale invariant? Meaning a Defcon that is the likes of Google Earth and you can switch between 2D aerial view and 3D global/spherical representations depending on zoom scale. When the player zooms all the way in the world becomes reduced to rendering as a flat 2d projection and for "localized" purposes the game becomes a "map" again, but when user zooms out to get a "high level" view the game emerges into a fully functional 3D virtual earth. Think "spore" but more realistic.

Missile trajectories will be calculated correctly (they will fly across the north pole, etc) and individual missiles will have "height" factor.. Detail can be granular and atomic, meaning the game gives the user ability to view the perigee, apogee, eccentricity, orbital period, etc of the individual missiles, missiles display ETA, etc.. Basically OrbiterSim or Apollo NASSP type of "realism" because nukes are basically same as rockets just with a nuke package..

Oceans have "depth" meaning submarines aren't in "either/or" state but can go to crush depth, can do all kinds of crazy maneuvers reminiscent of Hunt for Red October, and with torpedo they should be able to sink all kinds of ships (including carriers).. If the user wants to he/she can take localized control of the submarine and become the captain of the sub, manually flood torpedo tubes, authenticate launch orders, launch countermeasures, basically the same level of realism as see in games like Dangerous Waters.

Fighter jets can be piloted within the game itself, basically its also a fighter jet/bomber simulator the likes of Janes F/A-18 or F-22 Total Air War, there will be AWACS and refuels, intercept and escort missions, you can practice landing on aircraft carriers, be scrambled from an airbase, and stuff like that.. and as for bombers that can be modeled off current US bombers and basically simulates to the level of large body wide/heavy aircraft the likes of PMDG 747 on the Flight Simulator..

And then we can command individual battleships, carriers, as well.. kind of like Ship Simulator.

So each individual unit can be micro manage by the user. And nano managed. For example on a sub you user can instead choosing to be captain, can be in control of only the helm and take orders from the captain instead.. or only weapons control, etc..

So the user can go from the lowly crewman to all the way up to the commander in chief and every station in between and all at once within the context and confines of a game. It can seamlessly go from as low level to as "high level" as the users so chooses it to be.. your actions and decisions from higher levels become the orders that you must obey when playing lower levels and constrains what you can or cannot do, and yet your actions on the lower levels (individual victories or loss) will effect the outcome of the game in totality on the higher levels..
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Postby xander » Mon Jul 19, 2010 1:28 am

First off, there is almost nothing in your post that hasn't been suggested before. Your post is only slightly novel, in that no one has made any of those suggestions in a while (hence your bumping a year old thread). The basic answer comes down to "Defcon is a game, not a simulation." Moreover, Defcon is a highly abstracted game, eschewing realism for aesthetics. If you want to create a game that implements your ideas, have fun, but it won't be Defcon.

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Postby Barbarossa » Mon Jul 19, 2010 1:43 am

xander wrote:First off, there is almost nothing in your post that hasn't been suggested before. Your post is only slightly novel, in that no one has made any of those suggestions in a while (hence your bumping a year old thread). The basic answer comes down to "Defcon is a game, not a simulation." Moreover, Defcon is a highly abstracted game, eschewing realism for aesthetics. If you want to create a game that implements your ideas, have fun, but it won't be Defcon.

xander


There is nothing wrong with Defcon as it is. I'm quite fond of 1.43 and don't see the need for further patches or fixes.. (although they would be appreciated, to me its not necessary).. But this post exists to talk about a (hypothetical) NEXT version of Defcon (iff such will materialize, which is anyone's guess, and I would venture to guess probably not..) Having said that, there are degrees of extremes, and a continuum of abstraction. Most individual games (like fighter jet simulator, rocket space/sim, ship simulator, sub simulator) are concrete in their specializations but don't tie together the "bigger picture". Defcon (the current version) is purposely abstract, like Chess, and I'm sure most of all (myself included) appreciate it for being exactly that. But a next version of Defcon (and we are all speculating and through ideas into the wind - because there may or may not be a next version) in order to be distinct and contrast/stand-out from the first version it will have to offer much much more. As far as I'm aware there is no game/simulator that ties in both sides of the extreme, one that holistically unifies the bigger picture and the individualistic localized mechanics on the granular level.. A scale invariant game that allows one the freedom of choice to play as high level or as low level as one so chooses to play. Otherwise, I see no need for a next version of Defcon, because from the standpoint of abstract-only, this version suffices and any other would be redundant. But it would be wonderful (however wishful it is) to dream of a game that encapsulates both ends of the spectrum in all its resplendent totalities.
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Postby Montyphy » Mon Jul 19, 2010 11:10 am

While you are "nano"-managing that one unit what is happening to the rest of your forces? Will people be physically/mentally capable of macro, micro and nano managing all at once? Does the "nano"-managing happen at the same playback speed as the rest of the game i.e. the speed selected by the players?
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Postby Barbarossa » Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:21 pm

Montyphy wrote:While you are "nano"-managing that one unit what is happening to the rest of your forces? Will people be physically/mentally capable of macro, micro and nano managing all at once? Does the "nano"-managing happen at the same playback speed as the rest of the game i.e. the speed selected by the players?


Well since we are all probably talking hypothetical here (there may not be a NEXT version of Defcon in *any* form whatsoever) when a player is "nano" managing on the concrete detailed localized world levels all the other far-away elements that is outside of his control get rendered probabilistically, just like how right now Defcon battles are computed anyway, which is to say probabilistically. In Defcon when a fleet of ships fight against another fleet individual shots are predetermined and probabilistic.. since it is an abstract-only high-level strategy game there is no need to functionally emulate the inner mechanics of the battle on the lower detail levels..

I think I understand what you are saying. I agree no player can be "everywhere at once".. and that will never be possible. Think real life, politicians on the upper echelons of society do not have the luxury of really "nano-managing" those under their control. The Commander in Chief cannot be everywhere at the same time. Its a different ballgame, he can't form individual interpersonal relationships with the privates way down on the chain of command, he operates mainly on a high level abstract level. Every now and then he will put on a show/image and shake hands or eat a meal with the lowly soldiers and pretend to understand what is happening on the lower levels.. but thats not how he spends the majority of his time..

However inarticulate this may be, I was attempting at alluding to a game mechanic that allows us to seamlessly cross the continuum of high level to low level, from pure abstraction to the nitty gritty of details of the concrete specializations of each individual military unit. So my imagined hypothetical future version of Defcon, when you are playing "high level" the battle is probabilistically calculated and you DON'T worry about the lower levels, when you are playing on the lower levels you worry about your immediate submarine, your immediate fight jet, your immediate airbase or ATC, etc and although you have a "higher level plan" handed down from commands in the chain of command, you world/game is basically your immediate local surroundings, until the time you choose to play some other local surrounding or zoom out to become a high level strategical war commander.

But individual battles that you play (which are determined by YOU and not purely random/probabilistically) get carried over to the higher level.. Something like this was already implemented in F-22 TAW which is a game over 10+ years old. But the game was limited to only fighter jets and not an all out nuke war. Basically calculations will be probabilistic until or unless the player jumps "down" into the lower levels and make a change and then that individual outcome will get pushed to the high level engine .. I understand the total effect will be very limited since the more "nano" the management gets the less average of overall cover/ total influence/ leverage you are able to have on the game.. (in higher levels) But its like the butterfly effect of chaotic systems, you never know if one small victory could turn the tide.. and besides it fun to be able to play the entire chain of command and give and take orders from and to yourownself!

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