Naval Combat Confirmed? - Page 3

duck · 2011-12-23, 09:59 PM

I'd only be interested in naval battle if the bases in a particular continent are island themselves.
Otherwise small boats, jetskis, etc would be rather unpopular in regular continents because they are easily targeted and destroyed by other vehicles (i.e. reavers). This is exactly what you see in BF3. No one uses a boat because they get blown up by helis fast

HELLFISH88 · 2011-12-23, 11:52 PM

Originally Posted by duck

I'd only be interested in naval battle if the bases in a particular continent are island themselves.
Otherwise small boats, jetskis, etc would be rather unpopular in regular continents because they are easily targeted and destroyed by other vehicles (i.e. reavers). This is exactly what you see in BF3. No one uses a boat because they get blown up by helis fast

I would think aerial attack would be their only weakness but you cannot discount Sea vehicle's "Speed tank". A larger PT boat may be easier to strafe then a Jetski (Assuming you can get past it's weapons) but outside that I don't see any terribly unbalancing threat. I would imagine a continent such as Hossin would suit aquatics well. The Lush swamps could even provide cover from those pesky reavers ;D BF3 Boats have problems because it is a severely limited Map and they have no where to hide or maneuver.

These vehicles are more relevant now because we will not only be contesting facilities but remote wilderness as well. Quick aquatic vehicles can move infantry units or special forces around quickly and stealthy to infiltrate or flank enemy lines. The PT boats could provide fire support in a location or circumstance where one couldn't readily call upon it from either Armor or Air support. These vehicles are not suppose to be blatant game changers. They simply Add Depth and diversity to Auraxis. More Toys to play with. More Tools to master. Larger vessels such as legitimate Warships would of course be a utterly different story. I would imagine A Capital Class ship such as a Battleship or Carrier would constitute a base itself and therefore be an exception. Fuck that would be awesome. Fuck.

Fuck.

Justaman · 2011-12-24, 01:51 AM

Originally Posted by Baron

I'm guessing after release as well, and the reason being we know there are only 2 empire specific vehicles at this point.

If there were naval vessels you would HAVE to have at least ONE that is empire specific.

Air, Land and Sea

1 ES Air vehicle (fighter)
1 ES Land vehilce (tank)
1 ES Sea vehicle (TBD)

Unless your VS. Then you just ignore the fact that its water and keep going.

Traak · 2011-12-24, 02:37 AM

I would pay 500 bucks for an Iowa.

I want to paint the name on the place it's usually painted.

I want 16" guns. Each capable of being manned individually, with 25km range (real ones could do 57 miles)

If I was rich enough, I would BUILD an Iowa-class, just to prove the relevance of the battleship in modern warfare, and load it to the gills with weapons good from six feet to 2000 miles.

Armor? It would take a nuke to kill it.

LongBow · 2011-12-24, 11:34 AM

Naval combat was an original design goal, its been something players have been asking for.

I guess that little spiel was just a copy paste from an old design doc or press release ...

Galapogos · 2011-12-24, 03:17 PM

I too would love to see expansive naval combat, ranging from pt boats to aircraft carriers, however I think ships much larger than pt boats would likely be difficult to design functionally.

The first thing is the sheer scale of even a frigate, and if ships were not even close to the proper scale It take away a lot of the awesomeness in my opinion. Granted, I don't know a whole lot about game development, but I am pretty sure having a player controlled vehicle with too many polys makes the game lag city, if it doesn't crash it.

The other big issue that I see is that I have never seen a game in which players can move freely on or in a vehicle. When you stand on a vanguard and it starts moving it slides out from under you. I assume this is because it doesn't take in to account the friction between it and the player standing on it. I think it would be pretty disappointing to be locked into a seat if I was on a large ship, and that would also eliminate the possibility of boarding enemy ships.

Baneblade · 2011-12-24, 03:57 PM

Originally Posted by Galapogos

The other big issue that I see is that I have never seen a game in which players can move freely on or in a vehicle.

PlanetSide for one.

Baneblade · 2011-12-24, 04:33 PM

I dont want battleships in PS, which has always been what people were most against my ideas for... they never actually read the idea, just trolled it. I'll work up a PS2 version soon.

Galapogos · 2011-12-24, 05:06 PM

I imagine if warships of any kind are put in the game it will be a bit after launch. The devs said they don't want indirect warfare such as artillery, so thus large warships would only be useful for deployment and refueling. However, having large scale naval battles including aircraft sounds fascinating if done right, but any game that could pull this off (obviously not including RTS games) would be monumental for this alone, and ps2 has enough to prove already.

Shogun · 2011-12-24, 05:14 PM

naval battle may still be on the 3 years plan. makes good stuff for a big expansion hype 1 or 2 years after launch.

i´m actually glad it´s not in on launch! could have delayed launch. there is more than enough stuff to check out for launch. after all, even the engine is brand new.
the core game has to be stable and populated at first. there´s a lot of time for expanding content. and soe might want to still have something exciting in the pocket for a later campaign. naval battle would be the easiest possibility they have. then there´s space battle, new caves, maybe some hacking cyberspace warfare and that´s almost all i can think of.

Traak · 2011-12-24, 08:48 PM

Originally Posted by Galapogos

The first thing is the sheer scale of even a frigate, and if ships were not even close to the proper scale It take away a lot of the awesomeness in my opinion. Granted, I don't know a whole lot about game development, but I am pretty sure having a player controlled vehicle with too many polys makes the game lag city, if it doesn't crash it.

Why? The bases have lots of polygons. They render just fine. So do the dozens of trees, rocks, warpgates, etc.

Just like you moving through the terrain requires your computer to keep re-drawing your screen based on what it sees, a moving ship would be re-drawn. I don't see it being that much of a problem.

Also, the polygons on a battleship or carrier could be truly enormous, as in, one huge polygon can do almost the entire flight deck, for example.

I want to see naval combat where the navy can generate its own fog, and planes would almost have to run into a ship to find it. We don't need Reavers downing capital ships with a single rocket volley from ten miles. Yeah, already got the Reaver OP OD OMG in PS1.

As you said, with a navy, the scale of combat would have to be truly vast. Flying 100 yards from one carrier to attack another would be stupid.

Galapogos · 2011-12-25, 01:51 AM

The thing is bases and such are buildings, are fixed, they don't change position.
I have brought up the idea of player controlled warships on other forums before, and I was told that vehicles with over a certain amount of polygons create performance issues, but like I said I don't know much about the limitations of game engines.

Traak · 2011-12-26, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by Galapogos

The thing is bases and such are buildings, are fixed, they don't change position.
I have brought up the idea of player controlled warships on other forums before, and I was told that vehicles with over a certain amount of polygons create performance issues, but like I said I don't know much about the limitations of game engines.

I don't see why that would be the case. I will explain my reasoning:

Whether something is a soldier, ship, or plane, your computer will receive at least three things from Sony:
A) Position
B) Orientation
C) Velocity vector

Covering that point in space with a set of polygons and textures will take a given amount of computing power. I don't see why you moving in relation to a base, or a ship moving in relation to you, is different, from the standpoint of computing power, because the computer has to re-draw it on the fly.

Perhaps someone who actually works in this industry, directly, with moving shapes, can tell us.

Baneblade · 2011-12-26, 09:00 PM

Fixed objects don't need to be part of the traffic, the client already knows where it is supposed to be.

Kipper · 2012-03-12, 06:40 PM

Sorry to perform necromancy on this thread, but I think water-borne combat would be a superb idea.

I'm not talking about capital ships either - you just need a common pool RIB equivalent that can take 2 or 3 people at high speed with a couple of gun mountings, a water-borne APC (or just a module for the Sunderer, or just force use of Galaxies/swimming) and an empire specific motor launch; again 2 or 3 people but slower, more armoured and with mountings for missile or anti air.

Water hexes needn't be capturable - just something you need to cross to get to offshore platforms or small islands containing facilities. The map could have an 'alcatraz' style island with a base (dropship centre!) which you need sea or air to reach, larger rivers running into the main continent so you can use them as rapid transport and legitimately fight against tanks on the shoreline, and the occasional bridge to contest which brings in infantry. A base or two on the main continent but backed onto a river (some sort of manufacturing type facility sounds ideal, you could hack the controls to shut off the waste pipes and then have squads use them to storm the base).

Boats would work well as anti air and a river through a canyon or with a small cave system would provide an area where they could be relatively safe from it too.

They could save underwater combat for an expansion, but that would be pretty amazing too.