Dry Land is a Myth Discussion

[knucracker]

This topic is for comments on the Dry Land is a Myth Blog post.
http://knucklecracker.com/blog/index.php/2015/05/dry-land-is-a-myth/

Wordpress has kindly broken comments (no submit button) in their latest update.  Until I get that sorted, you can post feefback comments here.

[mzimmer74]

Great to see land in the game.  It will add for some nice strategic opportunities.  Looking forward to the day when I can play this!

[hoodwink]

Game is looking great: innovative and tactical-based as always.
I saw a comment recently which talked about the possibility of the player designing their own ships for use in a game.
If this is the case, could there be a similar mechanic for land units? This seems less useful, but I suppose would be an interesting avenue to explore.

Great work with this new game!  ;D

[Twi]

Is it just me or is the 'Bog' slowed down by terrain? Maybe you should just call it Creep :P Bog is definitely a weird name for something that supports your energy production.

[Omegatron]

I didn't notice at first but the nebula from before is still present. A small patch of it can be seen at 11:00.

[Telanir]

A familiar user interface, a welcome addition of land/islands that we didn't get to see in previous builds, and ship building. SHIP BUILDING.

I can't get over how awesome the point defense and missiles and etc. are looking when you're sending off those ships to fight particles, it looks fairly balanced so far. We've got the usual suspects, energy packets, headquarters, and of course, minions to send to do our bidding, my favourite aspects of Creeper World, I am glad you're recycling some old tested ideas while also applying new creative twists–definitely enough to warrant a new game.

One thing that never gets old about your games is that there's always tons of projectiles flying about, always lots of action at the front lines and plenty explosions for everyone. Having so much 'enemy' to tear to bits is going to be so satisfying. ;D

This is fantastic work VirgilW! I am looking forward to seeing more of this.

[Grayzzur]

"...as these islands start to bog down..." Haha! Good one. (About 4:30 into the video.)

[Nemoricus]

Ooh! Nice to see another video, and it looks like things are coming along nicely.

Corporate HQ, mmm? So we're rapacious industry, come to despoil the lands and plunder their treasure? Sounds like fun. :)

The idea of land in this game is a bit of a weird one, I feel. I guess it has to do with how it comes off more as islands in an ocean than chunks of rock drifting through space. It also seems like it could shift the focus away from the ships to the land units.

As far as harvesting terrain for upgrade points...I wonder if it would be interesting to have a trade off between energy production and technological advancement. The higher the terrain is, the more energy it produces, but you can't harvest it if you want to keep that energy production bonus.

The fact that ships can't fire or work on land feels rather arbitrary. It makes sense balance wise, but it 's strange to think about why that would happen. Also, after thinking about it some more, I think it might make more sense for the game to be set in an ocean rather than space, with ships confined to the water. It just seems like a rather natural fit.

Also, an idea that might be interesting to play with...local rather than global upgrades. For example, you might put upgrades on the energy mine, and it only affects the ships that are within its range.

[Foraz44]

Looks very good by now :)

But i have question. That Corporate HQ will be always the same, always on each level and it will not be able to be edited like Command Node in CW3 or map creators will be able to choose it's look/equip/presence?

[knucracker]

Regarding the Corporate HQ design and ship designs in general...
The game supports 'arbitrary' designs and modules on ships can be mixed and matched.  How much of that is exposed across the story and in the first early release of the game is a gray area, though.  For sure, there will be more designs than you have seen so far.

Whether or not there is a general purpose ship editor for players at the first early release is debatable.  It may be something added in over time, and/or limited to custom maps (or other collections of maps).

The CorpHQ will also likely be trimmed down to be a bit smaller than what you saw in this video.  I want it to be more of a liability in most story missions.  Lose the HQ, lose the mission kind of thing.

[TheDigitalWizard]

I noticed that player bog seems to overwrite enemy bog at the same speed it spreads over normal terrain. I feel like player bog should stop at the edge of enemy bog, and you have to destroy the enemy bog with weapons rather than easily overpowering it with one Bog tower.

I also feel like mining the terrain itself isn't the greatest idea. I might have the harvesters actually fly out and gather the upgrade points from particles. I feel like it would give you a reason to let some particles through into your space.

[cooltv27]

I noticed that player bog seems to overwrite enemy bog at the same speed it spreads over normal terrain. I feel like player bog should stop at the edge of enemy bog, and you have to destroy the enemy bog with weapons rather than easily overpowering it with one Bog tower.

to me it looked like the blue bog was destroying the red bog when it tried to expand into that cell, and the red bog destroys the blue bog when it tries to expand

[w09scottj]

Looks awesome. BOG is a cool concept but why not have space based power zones as well which can be different to the land ones e.g. the space ones can have the phalanx drones we saw in the last video and have unique features. Even better why not have different types of energy mine to add another layer of strategy e.g. defensive mine with heavier defenses or a shipbuilding mine with a ship construction bonus etc. Could there be a special construction ship which can build mini defensive systems in space to secure certain areas against rogue particles or to create a defensive line or maybe it could also build shields which can take a few particle hits. Finally in the first video we saw a cloud, I think you called it plasma, that stops particles and causes them to clump up and slowly have to erode their way through, is there any chance that it could return? It would be quite cool if you could have a ship that can created a wall of space based BOG-ish stuff like that.

*Sorry if I just splurged out a tonne of suggestions in an incoherent mess*

[Omegatron]

The CorpHQ will also likely be trimmed down to be a bit smaller than what you saw in this video.  I want it to be more of a liability in most story missions.  Lose the HQ, lose the mission kind of thing.

I quite liked the lack of a single point of failure in the earlier versions, mainly because it made a change from CW, but you're the one making and testing the game so you probably know better than me.

[Epic4242]

I don't quite understand why the ships can pass over the land but not work on them. I mean from a physical, not gameplay, point of biew