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Frader

Hell Commander (RTS) - Unit preview video

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Hey guys, I'm back!

I could start explaining what I've added to the game since my last post, but I won't. Instead, I'll just tell you to watch this video ;) As always, remember this is still a work in progress. Specially regarding unit balance.

Anyway, all unit attributes (walk speed, attack damage, attack cooldown and a dozen more) are now configurable through a text file. Ultimately, the idea is to let you guys play with them as I expect you to do a better job than I would. Apart from the few times I played the original Doom games recently, it's been years since I touched any of them ;)

Oh, and I've decided to start a new thread just so people can find the updated info easier ;) For reference, this is the previous thread. There you can find some more info on what this project is, how the game will work, the currency system, etc.

For my next update I hope to have a beta version ready. Be patient! :D

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That looks pretty sweet man! Did you edit the sizes of the models? I would have imagined the cacodemons to be a good bit larger and the lost souls much more puny.

Is there a way you could make lost souls behave in their original doom behavior? I guess the best way I can explain it is that the lost soul fires it's projectile and 'becomes' the projectile it fires, and then becomes it's normal slow-moving self at the point of contact. I could imagine how fun it would be to control lost souls, because the way they behave in their own AI in doom is really stupid.

You should probably make the corpses of the monsters dissappear after a short bit of time (I know Command and Conquer Generals just makes the corpse descend through the floor) As far as the monsters and weapon damage goes, I'd make the projectiles do a good bit more damage. Some of those battles seemed like they lasted forever. This will encourage the players to use many more monsters at a time, because these days in Doom, we deal with monsters in the thousands, so it would only make sense that you can do the same (or more) in an RTS. It's good to hear that the main changes I would want to make are customizable :)

You are definitely doing a fabulous job so far.

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Looks fun. Monster attacks could be improved (lost souls need to be able to charge from far away, maybe using a hack like the dogs in Red Alert 2 depending on what the engine can and cannot do), but I suppose it'll come in due time.

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Let's take things one at a time.

Firstly, yes, i did tune the sizes of the models myself. I used this page to get an idea of the size of each. Taking another look at it, i think i could make cacos a bit bigger, and lost souls a bit smaller. But not too much.

About the way lost souls move, it really isn't what the engine can do as i'm doing that myself. It rather comes down to how long it would take me to do it :P A while ago I though of making lost souls speed kinda random. So maybe they could cross 3 or 4 map cells at an accelerated speed, but then would be very slow for another 3 or 4. That could in some way ressemble the way they move in the original games, while still giving control to the player. The idea about making them charge to enemies is a also one that i like. Both would be reasonably easy to implement.

On the other side, self-moving lost souls is something i don't think would be that easy. Also, I'm not sure if it would be convenient to do, because they could become a mess to control. I'll keep that on the "possible additions list" for now.

What's next? Aye, corpses dissapearing after a while. This is something i already though of and I pretty much agree with you. I'll somehow make them go underground, become gradually transparent or something.

And finally, I'm sorry to say I made the decision not to go for battles between great numbers of units. I guess this is not obvious if you haven't tested the game yourself, but when you get a lot of units together the ones at the back are just unable to shoot and become pointless. Actually, what they do right now is trying to find a way to their nearest enemy even if the only available path is going all around the map. I guess I'll have to fix that too, so if the path is too long they wait for other units to die instead.

At the end of the day I prefer the player thinking on strategical places where he can fight and positioning their units correctly rather than throwing lots of units into the battle. Against some unit types (cyberdemon, revenant) spreading out your untis becomes really important as their rockets have an "area of effect". On other cases you can prevent a fireball that misses his target from hitting some of your other units.

Another micro-management trick is to get one of your units to keep moving near the enemies, so they try to hit that one but they fail because it keeps moving. That would, of course, only work against enemies that throw fireballs. And it could be countered by the other player by having his units to attack some other unit instead. I could keep going, but i hope u get the point ;)

And i still need to implement buildings, how they get possessed, fog of war... Damn, this is gonna take me forever haha :P

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