Project - Starcraft Battlefront

[Sephalo]

Starcraft Battlefront

Team:
Teuncreemers: For now only terrain and brainstorming.
RaiN.: Scripting (and brainstorming?)

Starcraft Battlefront is a multiplayer PvP oriented game where players battle each other in equal teams of 1 to 8 players per team. Each player will have the possibility to control one unit at a time in a third person shooter style to hunt down enemies. The game play looks really much like Star Wars Battlefront. Players battle against each other in a average sized map with different control points. At the start of the game each side starts with 2-3 control points while there are 1-4 neutral control points to capture somewhere on the map.
Each side will start with 80 units alive, have a maximum of 80 units alive at a time and will have 250 reinforcement points. Every time a unit dies a new one will spawn, at the cost of 1 Reinforcement point, somewhere at a control point based on where the most help is required.
Each player is able to select a unit somewhere on the map and start controlling it; giving him a 3rd person camera view of the unit and allowing him to move around, shoot and use several special skills. Every unit that is not controlled will have a difficulty mode with Easy, Medium, Hard, Very Hard. This will set the AI of the unit to make it aim better and have more armor.

What are the Game Mechanics?
Each side starts with 3 control points where units will spawn. The computer is able to have 80 units alive at the time. Every time one of those units dies the team will lose 1 Reinforcement Point and the unit will re-spawn again. Whenever the 250 Reinforcement Points are gone a team won’t have re-spawns anymore. Whenever the last unit alive dies from a certain team and there are no Reinforcement Points left the team has lost.

What are control points?
Control points are small bases where units will spawn after they’ve died. Control points can be captured by the opposing team while standing in the area for 30 seconds when having more friendly units then opposing units nearby.

What are Reinforcement points?
Reinforcement points are points that are required to let units re-spawn. Every time a unit dies it will re-spawn at the cost of 1 Reinforcement point. The entire team shares 250 Reinforcement points at start. Whenever a team runs out of Reinforcement points they will step closer to losing the game.

How do players control units?
Players can only control one unit at the time. They can select a unit by pressing a button in their UI; giving them the option to look at all units controlled by their allied computer player. Whenever they want to control a unit they just have to select the unit and press a button to move to third person camera. Only units that are not controlled yet can be the target of this effect.

How does the damage system work?
Units will just shoot with normal attacks like you’re used to in blizzard games. Units will have a pretty high chance to miss on non-controlled units. When units are shooting at players they will have a higher chance to hit unless the player is moving. Units won’t be able to make headshots. Players controlling a unit will have to aim their shots with the mouse and move with W, S, D, A like first person shooters. Players are able to make headshots if they got the right weapon for it.

 

[Statharas]

Headshots with a ghost gauss rifle.

Plus, add the ability for zerg and protoss to play this. Like, Protoss Zealots using Charge whenever the unit clicks an ability, Dark Templars with stealth ability, High Templars with ZAP ZAP ZAP, Stalkers with a blink similar to the WoW mage blink, Immortals (slow)...

Incredibly fast zerglings, Roaches that can burrow and reach underground levels easier than other players (burrow, Dig), Hydralisks with charge, Banelings that suicide after they *BOOM*, Infestors that can throw eggs that spawn AI controlled units that die quickly, and moar.

Terran could use Marine, Ghost, propably hellions as well, Marauders, Reapers, +++++++

Just an idea.

 

[Sephalo]

Headshots with a ghost gauss rifle.

Plus, add the ability for zerg and protoss to play this. Like, Protoss Zealots using Charge whenever the unit clicks an ability, Dark Templars with stealth ability, High Templars with ZAP ZAP ZAP, Stalkers with a blink similar to the WoW mage blink, Immortals (slow)...

Incredibly fast zerglings, Roaches that can burrow and reach underground levels easier than other players (burrow, Dig), Hydralisks with charge, Banelings that suicide after they *BOOM*, Infestors that can throw eggs that spawn AI controlled units that die quickly, and moar.

Terran could use Marine, Ghost, propably hellions as well, Marauders, Reapers, +++++++

Just an idea.

For Terran I had in mind:
Assaulter (Viking Assault mode but a littlebit scaled down), Marauder, Marine, Ghost, Reaper. All with special stuff.
Reaper, Ghost and Marine are able to headshot.
Special units: Thor, Siege tank

For Zerg I had in mind:
Zerglings (faster then average), Hydralisks, Infected Terran, Roach and maybe baneling. (Suicide won't be good for game mechanics)
Special Units: Ultralisk, Queen

For Protoss I had in mind:
Zealot, Dark Templar, Stalker, Immortal, High Templar.
Special Units: Archon, Colossus

Just a concept though

 

[Statharas]

Yeh cool ideas. Do it.

 

[Sephalo]

Spoke to RaiN. and he would like to join the project as scripter yay

 

[Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo]

Ah nice, I loved SWBF 2 and would really like to see a similar Sc2 Map
And I guess with Rain. you got a first good catch hehe ;P

I hope you add other modes apart from the conquer every control point thing. Because in my opinion that sucked pretty hard in SWBF2 as conquering one enemy control point results in less defense for one of your own and thus you'll hardly ever win by gaining control above all of them.
But guess you're intend to add different modes anyways once the progress allows you to test everything out.

 

[Sephalo]

Ah nice, I loved SWBF 2 and would really like to see a similar Sc2 Map
And I guess with Rain. you got a first good catch hehe ;P

I hope you add other modes apart from the conquer every control point thing. Because in my opinion that sucked pretty hard in SWBF2 as conquering one enemy control point results in less defense for one of your own and thus you'll hardly ever win by gaining control above all of them.
But guess you're intend to add different modes anyways once the progress allows you to test everything out.

Yeah RaiN. is a great scripter. We worked together for something like a year on Oakwood Forest ORPG (wc3 orpg). He left the team for SC2 and now I got to be honest, also like SC2 lol

About modes in the game. Most likely that will be great to add, but I don't want to rush things and drown in idea's. For now I think it's best to just create the basics of the game and later on we can start thinking about different options in camera settings, game settings and difficulties. Those are easy to implement in the end anyway.

 

[cookies4you]

Make bigger unit vehicles, not special units. For example,

Overlord:
Overlords are large biological vehicles, capable of transporting allies

Siege Tank:
Siege Tanks are assault vehicles for terrans, capable of dealing splash damage

Colossus:
Colossi are large robotic units, capable of firing a powerful laser. Colossi are basic protoss vehicles

Archon can stay a special unit

 

[Statharas]

Teunc, i have a better idea. MAKE IT A MOD.

 

[Sephalo]

Make bigger unit vehicles, not special units. For example,

Overlord:
Overlords are large biological vehicles, capable of transporting allies

Siege Tank:
Siege Tanks are assault vehicles for terrans, capable of dealing splash damage

Colossus:
Colossi are large robotic units, capable of firing a powerful laser. Colossi are basic protoss vehicles

Archon can stay a special unit

Who said special units are small?
A colossus will probably be like 5 times the size of a marine.

 

[HellKnightX]

As cool of an idea as this is, my concern is that if you have 80+ units on the map at the same time all using tracelines and actively scanning for players, you'll generate a lot of lag, both on the CPU and the network. I'm hoping Blizzard keeps their promise and gives us some better FPS tools/optimization.

 

[Sephalo]

As cool of an idea as this is, my concern is that if you have 80+ units on the map at the same time all using tracelines and actively scanning for players, you'll generate a lot of lag, both on the CPU and the network. I'm hoping Blizzard keeps their promise and gives us some better FPS tools/optimization.

Yep exactly what RaiN. said in a PM last night.
The numbers are therefor not specific yet. This will be based on if the fps remain playable or not. The amount of players is also a thing that's really unsure because 3v3 will have less lag then 8v8 ofc.

I spoke with RaiN. in a pm and asked him if headshots are even possible to code. He answered me with OFC, we can even make legshots if we want. So the only concern that lasts is the fps.
I trust blizz, which might be stupid, in making better fps tools.

 

[Blizard Of Oz]

Someone already has a major production in the works for this. Check it out on UDMOD.com

He has so many high quality models already and crap that you starting this might not even be worth it. This person has the models, has a team assembled, yea...I just say dont waste your time.

 

[HellKnightX]

Yep exactly what RaiN. said in a PM last night.
The numbers are therefor not specific yet. This will be based on if the fps remain playable or not. The amount of players is also a thing that's really unsure because 3v3 will have less lag then 8v8 ofc.

I spoke with RaiN. in a pm and asked him if headshots are even possible to code. He answered me with OFC, we can even make legshots if we want. So the only concern that lasts is the fps.
I trust blizz, which might be stupid, in making better fps tools.

The less players you have in the game, the less network lag that will be generated by mouse and key presses (which do generate quite a lot of lag on bnet unfortunately due to poor code implementation client-side). If you're going to be using AI with tracelines, I can only say hope that blizz finally adds in a real traceline function instead of having to make one. Perhaps if they add in a 3D parabolic function, you could even simulate bullet drop due to gravity unless you're working with laser-based weapons.

 

[Sephalo]

Someone already has a major production in the works for this. Check it out on UDMOD.com

He has so many high quality models already and crap that you starting this might not even be worth it. This person has the models, has a team assembled, yea...I just say dont waste your time.

Oh.. Could you give me a link of that because I should've missed it on udmod.com. I check that site out a few times a week so I'm surprised I didn't see it.

 

[mrzwach]

If you're going to be using AI with tracelines, I can only say hope that blizz finally adds in a real traceline function instead of having to make one.

Dear god, do we need Blizzard to do everything for us?

I mean seriously, do you know what a line is? Do you know what the distance formula is? If so, you should be able to make a traceline function that is reasonably efficient and 100% accurate, even for units/buildings/doodads and destructibles of varying size.

 

[Sephalo]

Someone already has a major production in the works for this. Check it out on UDMOD.com

He has so many high quality models already and crap that you starting this might not even be worth it. This person has the models, has a team assembled, yea...I just say dont waste your time.

Nothing on UDMOD.com....
Are you serious about this because I think you're mistaken by something else. Not that I even saw a project with 'many high quality models' for SC2 yet. Only saw a few custom SC2 models so far so I highly doubt that's true.
And even if it's true. Gameplay > fancy models, and if it comes to 2 people making the same map then we would succeed in getting the best gameplay I assure you!