Plan for Tony Richards

Well, today I took a trip back down memory lane.... I dusted off the old Zip drive, popped in some old backup disks and brought my old Colonies game back to life.

Wow, it's amazing how far Torque has come since then... especially with TSE and some of the TGE 1.4 enhancements.

Now I'm just wondering aloud if I should really try to tackle this game again, or if it's best collecting dust.

Maybe if I explain the gameplay here and I get someone who says "nah that sounds stupid" or "hey, cool idea" then that'll help me decide :P

Basic gameplay:

Two types of players: Commanders and Mercenaries/Soldiers
Three types of organizations: Clans, Corporations, Merc Units

Clans are a combination of Commanders that own land, plus Mercs that have turned into soldiers (the pay might be a little less for soldiers, but it's a lot easier to get a job as a soldier than being a merc... but you might be stuck on sentry duty and not see a lot of action) Corporations are an organization of Mercs who have been hired as soldiers. Again, a little easier to get a job but the jobs might pay a little less. Mercenary Units are units of Mercenaries that are hired as a unit. Generally these units are a lot better at a specialized skill, like a flight of gunship pilots and co-pilots that always work together, have their own pre-determined voice server (like Teamspeak or whatever) and generally work better together. A commander will pay more for a Merc Unit to help him defend or attack, but usually the price is well worth it. Merc Units typically don't have any alliances, whereas Clans and Corporations generally do. Alliances restrict who you can and cannot hire / be hired by.

Mercenaries have two skill tracts... combat and non-combat. Combat includes basic weapons, heavy weapons, ground vehicles and air vehicles. Non-combat include mining, construction, manufacturing, and nano-tech. Mercs have the skills necessary to create things, but they don't have the resources or the facilities to create them.

Commanders own land (zones). Zones have mines and commanders can design placement of refineries, vehicle construction yards, barracks, space ports, etc, but they can't actually build them. They have to hire mercs in exchange for credits, raw materials or other manufactured items to come in and work the refineries, build the buildings, etc.

To make gameplay go faster, mercs can only mine / build a certain amount every day, but it only takes a few seconds to reach the limit. This makes it so a merc can spend a few minutes, do a few things for a bunch of money, then the player can spend the rest of his time doing the other things in the game... specifically... battles.

The second skill tract of a merc is the combat skills. These are built up by buying upgrades, using weapons, gaining skills, unlocking new weapons, etc. When a merc fights in a battle, he's hired by a Commander. The merc uses (with permission) a certain amount of resources to fight as an infantryman, pilot a tank or gunship, etc. Commanders accumulate respawns and doles them at as necessary during a battle, sometimes not allowing respawns until a group of people are ready to respawn. Mobile capturable spawn points allow the battle to progress and stay fluid and keep the action fast paced.

Three different battle types allows for skirmishes, battles and matches. Skirmishes are very limited, don't utilize a commander's resources, nor can a commander lose his land in a skirmish. These types of battles don't require the defending commander to be online.

Battles are full-fledged battles where commander's resources are used and his land can be lost. Both the attacking and defending commander have to be online and agree to the battle.

Matches are like battles, except the defending commander cannot decline. They're set up much like TWL style ladder matches, where an attack is initiated (usually through a limited skirmish that's generally just a probe but escalates into a match) and a match date is agreed upon, generally 7-14 days after the match is initiated. This gives both commanders plenty of time to hire mercs to defend / attack.

Multiple zones can be included in a match (up to 9 total). Zones that are included in the match can contribute resources, stockpiled weapons, respawns (Life Pods) and vehicles, but a zone that's included in a match is at risk of being overrun and taken over by the enemy. Since zones are about 64km x 64km, this makes for huge battles.. 192km x 192km being the maximum. (Well, that's the original plan... TSE can handle it, but I'm not quite sure I want to make that many terrains. :P I might lower the zone sizes to something a little more manageable, like 2km x 2km, making the largest battles be confined to 6km x 6km.)

Skirmishes, battles and matches don't necessarily have to be full-tilt attack and destroy everything. They could be escort missions to get resources across a zone. Ground transports are the only way to get resources from zone to zone and commanders can hire mercs to ambush these transports, even deep inside enemy territory... they're unlikely to succeed but sometimes it's a risk commanders will take, just in case a convoy is traveling unprotected. Battles can also be surgical strikes to take out a key research center or refinery. Just something to slow down production to give the attacking party a jump on resources... Or they can be simple probes, just to see how the opposing commander reacts and to get a good idea of how the defenses are configured.

For the most part, being a commander is a tedious type of gameplay that only people who really enjoy tactics and more of a real-time-strategy type game. But, the FPS/RPG aspect of the game should draw those types of people as well... and I'm hoping the vehicle simulations are advanced enough that people who enjoy tank / gunship style simulators might also enjoy the game.

The original game design called for Mechs / Hercs / whateveryouwannacallthehugerobots, but since I only have tanks and gunships modelled, I'll probably stick to that for now.... maybe mechs will come later... I'd love to be able to get picked up by a publisher like Sierra/VU Games or Microsoft and call the game Starsiege: Colonies or Mechwarrior: Colonies... (or maybe even Dark Horizon: Colonies :p), but for now the working title is Star Colonies.

It's a little different in that you're not playing a Capture the Flag type game... losses generally means someone just lost a zone. Matches and battles are a lot more important. My biggest fear is cheaters unbalancing the economy... and my second biggest fear is some huge Clan ends up dominating the entire planet... but hey, I could always open up a new planet for the new players, right? :P And then there's room for an upgrade with interplanetary escort missions... and and and... bah... that's enough for now :P