Squad Leader Archive
Thread: SL Idea: Satellite Reconnaissance
Page 2 of 2
KyeAshke
Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:53 pm
#14
I think this is more managable than the tactical overaly idea - that would essentially take the SL out of action for the fight, or they wouldn't use it at all. There isn't much of an in-between.
I like the idea of sending a droid up, a la BHs, and the whole seeker droid idea. It makes perfect sense. That, and one of the things mentioned about the tactical overlay was that we'd need to see the combat information of everyone in play (health and states primarily). That would be very messy, and hard to control. With the orbital view, it realistically wouldn't give you that information - just a view of what was going on.
In fact, you could combine all this in a 'tactics and reconnisance' branch of the SL tree - 1 and 3 initial and improved seeker control (could increase a maximum transmission range on the seeker being controlled) and 2 and 4 could be initial and improved orbital droid interaction (could increase the time and resolution of any orbital information, and reduce the time taken to ready the next droid), with Master having advanced forms of both.
This would also open a new market for DEs - they could add modules to decrease the chance of detection, or increase range, resolution or battery life of our orbital droids (cause think about it - you'd probably only get 1 use out of each droid. It would take alot of the battery power out of the droid to put it up there in the first place, or even a one-use-only booster).
And again with the seeker droids, they would only have limited battery life/range - if the SL could fly the seeker back to him before the battery ran out, fantastic he could recharge it. But you could easily set the distance the round-trip would cover to be not very good (200m or so) whereas a one shot full distance (400m in this case) would provide ample time to prepare. And given the chance that they could be targeted and shot down (they would have pitiful defences/armour) the DE's would have another good product to sell that is always in demand. And again it could be upgradable to increase battery life, range etc. Obviously as these upgrade would add more they would be very very very expensive.
The more I think about this, the more I see it being not only viable, but balanced and more importantly - fun (which is what we're all here for, after all).
The only technical problems I can see are these:
1. Resolution on the orbital view would have to add an increase to the viewing distance to not only structures, but trees, players and pets as well. Probably not a difficult thing to do, but it might cause problems for less-advanced client computers to render.
2. How to link the control of a seeker droid to the SL. I imagine there is code in place for this (CSRs can 'take over' players when they all logged out for example - though i don't know if they actually log in as them or not).
I might think of something to add later.
But a top notch idea! It really is.
I like the idea of sending a droid up, a la BHs, and the whole seeker droid idea. It makes perfect sense. That, and one of the things mentioned about the tactical overlay was that we'd need to see the combat information of everyone in play (health and states primarily). That would be very messy, and hard to control. With the orbital view, it realistically wouldn't give you that information - just a view of what was going on.
In fact, you could combine all this in a 'tactics and reconnisance' branch of the SL tree - 1 and 3 initial and improved seeker control (could increase a maximum transmission range on the seeker being controlled) and 2 and 4 could be initial and improved orbital droid interaction (could increase the time and resolution of any orbital information, and reduce the time taken to ready the next droid), with Master having advanced forms of both.
This would also open a new market for DEs - they could add modules to decrease the chance of detection, or increase range, resolution or battery life of our orbital droids (cause think about it - you'd probably only get 1 use out of each droid. It would take alot of the battery power out of the droid to put it up there in the first place, or even a one-use-only booster).
And again with the seeker droids, they would only have limited battery life/range - if the SL could fly the seeker back to him before the battery ran out, fantastic he could recharge it. But you could easily set the distance the round-trip would cover to be not very good (200m or so) whereas a one shot full distance (400m in this case) would provide ample time to prepare. And given the chance that they could be targeted and shot down (they would have pitiful defences/armour) the DE's would have another good product to sell that is always in demand. And again it could be upgradable to increase battery life, range etc. Obviously as these upgrade would add more they would be very very very expensive.
The more I think about this, the more I see it being not only viable, but balanced and more importantly - fun (which is what we're all here for, after all).
The only technical problems I can see are these:
1. Resolution on the orbital view would have to add an increase to the viewing distance to not only structures, but trees, players and pets as well. Probably not a difficult thing to do, but it might cause problems for less-advanced client computers to render.
2. How to link the control of a seeker droid to the SL. I imagine there is code in place for this (CSRs can 'take over' players when they all logged out for example - though i don't know if they actually log in as them or not).
I might think of something to add later.
But a top notch idea! It really is.
Page 2 of 2