New Game Mode Idea

[DDD113]

Well I'm not opposed to only running it on the Sao Paulo circuit, it sounds pretty amazing from what you've said about it. If that's our best option, then let's go for it, and if we only have the forward cannon, it kind of incorporates the defenseless part when the zombies are behind you and the attacking part when they are ahead of you, like the best of both. I still think the best way to work the rubber banding is to just have a delay between when you get away from the zombies, and when they react to speed up to you. Therefore you would have a short break and not lose energy during that time. The BRs sound good too, I was just wondering how you ended up configuring that, sounds like it will be fun to try to cram a few BRs into the Nazca skillcut!

On a sidenote while we are talking about difficulty and rubber banding, I would suggest a harder yet difficulty for the single race and endurance modes, either that or to reduce the difference between the ship stats, because with iFreet, ATLAS, LOGOS, and Solaris, I can easily win any race even on Cassandra, which seems to have harder AI than Draco Cavernae. It would be cool (and challenging) to have a super hard mode, where you can never guarantee your victory, or something to even the ships. If I were to rank the ships as far as ease-of-winning goes, it would be:

Easiest to Hardest:

iFreet
ATLAS
LOGOS
Solaris
CEN-R
Amphithere
Zepher
Helios

[docfo4r]

Well the current AI difficulty level will be expanded. I think we haven't really lost a word about it yet so let me catch up with that!

Damian and I have worked out a concept for the AI. Each game has a more or less unique AI, or even a certain system of AI behind it. SSGX will be no difference. Next to the normal difficulty setup, you can also activate certain modules for the AI. We call this system 'TMRS'. Each letter represents an unique module. So weakest AI would be without TMRS, and strongest AI would be with TMRS fully activated, while a medium AI could have only TS for example.

[T]actics = AI drops Mines etc. on technical & narrow sections, absorbs front assault weapons when racing on 1st place rather than firing them, drops Mines etc. if a ship is directly behind.
[M]isjudgement = Going away from making the AI too robot-alike by introducing flight/tactics mistakes randomly. This also helps in making the AI unpredictable.
[R]age = Everyone of us raged before, right? So the AI should do that aswell. If you aim for one and the same ship all the time, that dude will take it personal and will focus on putting some fire under your a** rather than winning the race.
[S]kills = Giving the AI the ability to drive skillcuts, perform barrelrolls, perform sideshift-barrelrolls etc.

Of course those are all just some examples. And it will also take a while to implement all of this feature but we are looking forward to do so since you have the ability to modify the intelligence of the AI with a much deeper setup rather than "easy, medium & hard". Due to the time-consuming progress, the TMRS wasn't available in the October demo.

[DDD113]

Okay, cool, I like the "Rage" feature, good work there. Overall, good ideas, I think those are things that some good racing games lack (especially the rage!)

[Mike458]

Amazing. Will we have advanced settings as well (where TMRS should be located)? As DDD said, most racing games like GT5 and Forza 4 just have a simple AI that you can outsmart. However, with TMRS (which I think that it may be really hard to code ), this shouldn't really be a problem. I think it may feel that you're actually in a real online multiplayer game providing you get it correct!

EDIT: New game modes!

Survival Racing: All you have to do is to beat a certain race time. However, there is a catch! All of your opponents are in very large and heavy ships (Similar to the Helios 1C, or the Hummer H1), and they are going the opposite direction! If you have a big crash with one of them, your craft will be instantly eliminated. Other than having a big crash with one of the oncoming ships, then you will not take integrity damage, even for barrel rolling. If you fail to beat the target time, then you will also be instantly eliminated.

The extension to this is Infinite Survival. The basic concept is the same. However, instead of trying to beat a time, you have to survive as long as you can. You start with only one oncoming ship, but every 10 seconds, another ship joins in. You get 2 heavy crashes this time instead of 1.

Scores will be worked on later.

____________________________

Not really a game mode, but an idea: Simulation Damage

This might not be included in the game, but it might be an idea to consider. I'm pretty shaky to see this in the game, but I think that this idea is worth sharing.

Your ship will not only take integrity damage when hit, but it will also start to suffer mechanical problems. The only way to fix these problems is to absorb weapons. Each weapon absorbed will repair all damaged systems by 15%.

For example...

If you got hit in the front, you will possibly suffer:

[Damage: Effects]
Front Aero Damage: If your Rear Aero is not damaged/destroyed, your craft will understeer a lot more depending on the damage through the corners, and your top speed will be hampered depending on the damage of your Front Aero.

Weapon System Damage: Your weapon pickups will be restricted depending on the damage of your Weapon System. If it is destroyed, you will only be able to pick up Mines, but only 2 mines will be deployed. Your own weapon damaging effects will be also reduced depending on the damage of your Weapon Systems.

If you got hit in the sides, you will suffer:

Steering Damage: Your craft will be harder to turn and will steer to one side naturally. This is varied depending on the damage of your steering.

Anti-Grav System Damage: Depending on the damage of this system's damage, your craft will bounce, becoming harder to control, and sink lower to the ground. This causes the craft to scrape along the ground, which will lose you speed.

Side Aero Damage: The least important thing to get damaged. Your Anti-Grav System, your Weapons System, and your Steering are completely safe until one of these are fully damaged (Only hits from the destroyed Aero will count for other damage, the other does not until it is destroyed also). These cannot be repaired unless you complete a lap. Once you do complete a lap, these will both be repaired by 10 percent.

Finally, if you get hit from the rear, you will suffer:

Rear Aero Damage: Your craft's back end will come out more often, making it harder to control through the corners. Your Engine and Airbrakes are safe until the Rear Aero is destroyed. (You can absorb collected weaponry to repair this, but it will only repair 10% of your damage) Your craft will also suffer a drop in top speed as well.

Airbrake Damage: Possibly the second worst type of damage possible. When this system is damaged, your airbrakes will function slower and eventually, not work at all. As always, this varies on the damage level of your Airbrake system.

Engine Damage: The worst kind of damage of the lot. Your thrust and top speed will drop dramatically. Once your engine is destroyed, you will be barely able to sustain 200 Km/h on Gamma class.

In conclusion, Simulation Damage does seem very overkill, but I think it's worth sharing. Comments?

________________

Hot Potato/Timebomb:

This is a Last Man Standing/Tag cross. At the start of a race, 2 random ships (except the race leader, who is immune to having a bomb), have bombs. The bombs have a fuse set for 60 seconds. The 2 ships have to ram (tag) other ships to pass the bomb to them. If a bomb-carrying ship tags another ship, then the tagged ship gets the bomb and cannot tag anyone else for 2 seconds. Meanwhile, the previous bomb-carrier loses the bomb. If a bomb-carrying ship takes the lead, then the previous leader immediately gets the bomb and cannot tag anyone for 2 seconds. After the fuses go on the bombs (After 60 seconds), the bombs will go off and the ships with the bombs are eliminated. Once 3 ships remain, one bomb is taken away, leaving one bomb to destroy one ship. Once 2 ships are left, the race leader loses his/her's immunity to getting bombs and it is an all-out battle to avoiding getting the last bomb. The winner is the last man standing. Weapons are off, and you have infinite ship integrity.

Any comments?

If you read all of this, you get a cookie.

[DDD113]

I've updated my Zombie ship concept. It now looks sharper, more deadly, with the nose wings being attached by brackets as well as the rear wings. I also changed the body shape a little bit, and I envision it having a raised section running down the middle, similar to Solaris, but less tall. Side views are WIP.

zombie_ship_mkII.jpg

There are air intakes at the corners of the main hull, at the start of the detached rear wings, and one at the very nose of the ship. The airbrakes are at the back of the rear wings. It almost has a Logos/Solaris mixture style with the unique sharpness that makes it the Zombie ship. I think I'm going to tag it the Reaper for now, so say hello to the Reaper MkII!

[Mike458]

Awesome. Looks more like a drag ship now! I can see some of the LOGOS and Solaris mixture styles, but it mainly looks like a drag ship to me. Any ideas on color schemes?

[DDD113]

I'm thinking some metallic colors, maybe part silver, and part a sort of silver-bronze mix, with some color highlights (red, black, maybe green?). I'll work on that later. As for your ideas, Survival sounds extremely violent, I could see lots of wild collisions there! Not sure exactly how that one would work, but this Time Bomb idea does interest me, seems like a very frantic, adrenaline-filled mode.

I do think the Simulation Damage is overkill, it would kind of make it a crapshoot race, with the winners sustaining the least severe damage. I never was a fan of that Fusion "damage-makes-your-ship-stats-worse" thing, I think it's geared for more combat oriented races (which is why it was in Fusion )

The Time Bomb idea is interesting though. My suggestions would be to start the player with the bomb (maybe it could be a sort of super-magnet, easily transferable between ships, but still deadly), and have a 30 second timer before detonation. All 8 ships would be on track for the start of the race, and be programmed to stay in somewhat of a pack formation (relatively close together). Contact passes the bomb, and when it detonates, it eliminates the ship it was on, and a new bomb attaches to the ship at the rear of the pack. This way, if you could outrun the pack, you would be rewarded by eliminating the bomb threat (although the mode would have to be programmed so this is very hard to do.) What are your thoughts on these ideas?