Apocalyptic Dawn (formerly known as Military)

[Omega]

The ADS works by firing a high-powered beam of electromagnetic radiation in the form of high-frequency millimeter waves at 95 GHz (a wavelength of 3.2 mm). Similar to the same way that a microwave oven heats food, the millimeter waves excite the water and fat molecules in the body, instantly heating it and causing intense pain. (Note that while microwaves will penetrate human tissue and remove the water to "cook" the flesh, the millimeter waves used in ADS are blocked by cell density and only penetrate the top layers of skin, so it will not damage human flesh.) Such is the nature of dielectric heating that the temperature of a target will continue to rise so long as the beam is applied, at a rate dictated by the target's material and distance, along with the beam's frequency and power level set by the operator. Like all focused energy, the beam will irradiate all matter in the targeted area, including everything beyond/behind it that is not shielded, with no possible discrimination between individuals, objects or materials, although highly conductive materials such as aluminium cooking foil should reflect this radiation and could be used to make clothing that would be protective against this radiation. As demonstrated on Discovery Channel's "Future Weapons", all living things in the target area receive a similar dosage of radiation.

It doesn't mention effect on machines at all, but it does state how it causes this pain, by "exciting" the water and fat molecules, something machines lack. As well, the part about it being reflective would make you think that machines would be able to armour themselves from such a thing, maybe even some units could be able to (don't plan to, though). Finally, it states that the millimeter waves are blocked by cell density, which sounds to me like thick armour could block it.

It states that "Some ADS such as HPEM ADS are also used to disable vehicles", which seems to me there is an entirely different kind, though I'm thinking we can't go overboard for the issue of balance. The ability to stop a 3x3 block of units instantly (for the "stage 2" ADS seems like plenty).

now, about spamming the ADS to freeze everything, i think that the "slow" shouldnt stack, but the damage would.

That's an impossibility of effects though. What I'm thinking is that it's a 1 second duration (so as to make it disappear almost immediately after the beam stops; maybe zero duration if that works, but dunno if that would), overwrites the existing effect (no stacking in duration), and if it stops the unit in its tracks, then it seems that it makes no difference whether or not the speed stacks. Since the damage is done by the attack itself, not the effect, it would "stack" with other attacks the same way as always.

lastly, the ADS should have a slightly longer range than other defenses, so it can sit behind them and assist in defending the base. since it's late game and seemingly experimental technology, it should be pretty fragile, so it must be defended by the other defenses.

It shouldn't be too long range though, I think. All defenses have above average range anyway, to try and ensure that they can be used to attack a foe despite their general immobility. The ADS is vehicle mounted, so mobile. In fact, it may be more realistic to make it an upgrade to the humvee instead of a proper defense. Though, it could very much be a traditional "turret" defense. Ideas on which is better?

[Zoythrus]

maybe the HPEM could be the upgraded version of the ADS, and it would do some damage/slow to light vehicles, as i said, and would do much more to infantry. maybe it could be a 2 splash radius instead. (as a reminder, this wouldnt affect heavy vehicles/aircraft, so they would be completely immune)

about the splash damage not stacking, i think you have it spot on. the damage should be able to stack without the effect stacking.

and when i say "longer range," i mean like +1 or +2 to the default defense range. and i could just see my ADS mounted Humvees running off trying to kill some enemy. make it a defense.

[John.d.h]

I think it would be reasonable for the ADS to have some effect against light vehicles, if not much, since the waves could presumably pass through the glass and unarmored materials to hit the squishy driver inside.

[Omega]

Bearing in mind that effects will need a way to target tagged units for these to work properly.

[will]

Fun thought - if ADS can be reflected, tanks get mirror armour - and then the boffins make missiles that home in on the reflections... such is progress...

[Zoythrus]

Fun thought - if ADS can be reflected, tanks get mirror armour - and then the boffins make missiles that home in on the reflections... such is progress...

but wouldnt it be horrible if your mirror tanks reflected the beam onto some of your units? they'll cook anyways.

[Zoythrus]

hey, sorry for the double post, but i just got an idea that is completely unrelated to the topic at hand (the ADS turret)
ok, here's my question: is it possible to make a scenario follow an algorithm as well as never have an end? why do i ask? because i think an interesting minigame scenario that could be made is the RTS version of CoD:Zombies. since we talked about zombies as neutral creeps, it would be cool to give them their own game. so, the idea is that you have a "castle" in the middle of the map (that has some turrets attached to it), and it's your job to protect it from limitless hordes of zombies that get stronger with every wave (both in HP and attack power). now, if we could get a counter of some sort to count how many waves youve survived would make things interesting.

[Omega]

hey, sorry for the double post, but i just got an idea that is completely unrelated to the topic at hand (the ADS turret)
ok, here's my question: is it possible to make a scenario follow an algorithm as well as never have an end? why do i ask? because i think an interesting minigame scenario that could be made is the RTS version of CoD:Zombies. since we talked about zombies as neutral creeps, it would be cool to give them their own game. so, the idea is that you have a "castle" in the middle of the map (that has some turrets attached to it), and it's your job to protect it from limitless hordes of zombies that get stronger with every wave (both in HP and attack power). now, if we could get a counter of some sort to count how many waves youve survived would make things interesting.

Yes it is possible, using a for loop where we increase the number of zombies each time, continuing forever.

We start with one zombie, and each wave, make 2 more. We can remember this wave number as a variable, and set the display text to "wave x" (slight problem, as pointed out before, is that there's no way to pass a variable to be a display text unless it exists in the language file! Help me bug Silnarm to let us bypass this! I mean, to get out of this mess in a scenario that used a timer, I had a very, very long language file that listed every time (in second increments) from 20:00 to 0:00. That's 60 * 20 = 1200 lines just for the time. Naturally, I didn't type it out, but had to go WAY out of my way to create a simple javascript file that would create this language file. As a result, despite their only being one language (and unlikely to ever be any others, even though GAE is translatable, there aren't even any major mods in foreign languages anyway) and the only thing being translated was a number, there was a lot more work to make that ... work.

At any rate, when all the zombies in that wave are dead, it increases our variable, and thus increases the number of zombies spawned. The only problem I can think of is that zombies aren't spawned "randomly", but would have to be from one place. I could do some more math though to have them spawn a bit more spread out (eg, we perform a calculation to see if there will be more than 10 zombies (wave 5+), and if so, we put one third of them spawning here, one third here, and everything left here. This would have no end, and when the player is defeated, they will  be told what wave they made up to (another place where we need non-translated output, in this case, the output is not a number, but full text). We may also be able to keep track of the number of kills the player does and tell them that too.

In fact, I may even implement a hidden, scenario-only zombie in the UNATF faction solely to allow this kind of scenario, but only if bypassing the language translation becomes available. I did request such a feature before, but it was denied. Understandably, we should be supporting and encouraging translation, but there's no way to include a mixture of translated and non-translated stuff (that would actually be the best way to go, since we could pass everything but the variable(s) through the translator, but it would also be the hardest to implement by far). Still, at least give us the ability to bypass the translation, because otherwise we won't even have scenarios that depend on outputting variable factors (unless I plan to create another 1000 line language file). Be sure to bug Silnarm when you see him on the IRC .

As for making the zombies stronger, it could replace them with a new kind in the later waves, though the simple growth of numbers may be enough.


Related to the ADS, now, I think we need some compromise here. Should it or should it not affect vehicles. Reasons for effecting vehicles is to make it more powerful and useful, reasons not to is to balance it out, keep it from becoming overpowered, and ensure that even if "spam built", they don't become impossible to breach. My fear is that combining anti-air weaponry with the ADS, you could have a far overpowered defense that would be ridiculously difficult to counter. The ADS could keep the infantry completely at bay, and the vehicles weakened enough for even a small number of soldiers (or other defensive structures) to take out. The ADS would then only be weak to aerial units, something the anti-air weaponry would easily take out.

That's just my take, I'm willing to hear yours before we decide how the ADS should work in the final game, bearing in mind CPU habits, balance, and even a slight touch of thought to the future Cult.


I'll be away a bit, so progress will be slowed further, but I'll hopefully be able to get onto the boards, still. As well, this topic just hit more than 1000 posts!

[John.d.h]

despite their only being one language (and unlikely to ever be any others, even though GAE is translatable, there aren't even any major mods in foreign languages anyway)

I'll have you know that the GAE has an almost-complete Spanish translation.   However, I don't really think it's likely that we'll have any other complete translations until we get a much more complete release (maybe 1.0) because then the lng files won't need to be updated so often.

As far as no mods having other language support... yeah, I do need to get a Proyecto Verde translation done eventually.   If anybody has a completed and high-quality mod that they want in another language, they can just ask and I suspect that our multinational community would lend a hand.  Assuming I have the time when such a hypothetical request would arise, I wouldn't mind translating some mods into Spanish.

Related to the ADS, now, I think we need some compromise here. Should it or should it not affect vehicles. Reasons for effecting vehicles is to make it more powerful and useful, reasons not to is to balance it out, keep it from becoming overpowered, and ensure that even if "spam built", they don't become impossible to breach. My fear is that combining anti-air weaponry with the ADS, you could have a far overpowered defense that would be ridiculously difficult to counter. The ADS could keep the infantry completely at bay, and the vehicles weakened enough for even a small number of soldiers (or other defensive structures) to take out. The ADS would then only be weak to aerial units, something the anti-air weaponry would easily take out.

That's just my take, I'm willing to hear yours before we decide how the ADS should work in the final game, bearing in mind CPU habits, balance, and even a slight touch of thought to the future Cult.

I would have no problem with the ADS being strictly anti-personnel.  I'm not sure what the anti-vehicle solution would be, except maybe a bunker full of RPG troopers, or tank traps + artillery.  Speaking of bunkers, I think it would be pretty cool for the Cult to have a spider hole as a stealthy troop hideout, along with a sneaky, low-cost anti-personnel solution.

(click to show/hide)

[wyvern]

IED's and dart launchers could also fit the cults description the bear trap idea looks funny though
I do think the ADS should affect the humvee for one reason, since its a relatively popular spam tech unit, whats to stop your enemy from loading up humvee's with infantry and charging your ADS, dropping them only when they're in range. The APC should be immune though due to better armor/technology

[Omega]

IED's and dart launchers could also fit the cults description the bear trap idea looks funny though
I do think the ADS should affect the humvee for one reason, since its a relatively popular spam tech unit, whats to stop your enemy from loading up humvee's with infantry and charging your ADS, dropping them only when they're in range. The APC should be immune though due to better armor/technology

That works. The humvee could be affected, though perhaps to a lesser degree, due to it's light armour.

[Zoythrus]

IED's and dart launchers could also fit the cults description the bear trap idea looks funny though
I do think the ADS should affect the humvee for one reason, since its a relatively popular spam tech unit, whats to stop your enemy from loading up humvee's with infantry and charging your ADS, dropping them only when they're in range. The APC should be immune though due to better armor/technology

That works. The humvee could be affected, though perhaps to a lesser degree, due to it's light armour.

isnt that what i said earlier? i think it should go for all "light vehicles," so that the Cult will also have a vehicle or two that are affected as well (seeing as the Cult use lighter vehicles for speed and stealth, this would work well)

i have no problem with mines or traps, as long as there is some way to detect them. maybe each faction's land detector (attack dog, UAV) could spot them. honestly, i dont want to have a new detector solely for mines/traps, it's just too much to think about.

[wyvern]

You could rename the private into an engineer/sapper and he could have a minesweeping ability.

[Omega]

I suppose we'll try having the ADS only reduce the speed of the Humvee while stopping infantry. This will be done using tags, however, the issue is, how do we make it so the humvee is affected to a lesser degree? The only thing I can think of is to have two separate effects, one that affects the humvee (eg, "Overheating") and one that affects the infantry units. Of course, we'll expand who exactly it affects when the cult is released, but that's a thing for later.

As for mines/traps/etc, I think that UNATF is already complex enough! Many units have multiple attacks, some having as many as three attacks which can be used in different circumstances. There are more units than any existing Glest faction, with a total of 32 regular game units! It also has more upgrades than any other faction, allowing more ways to expand and improve your units. This large number of units, combined with an also large table of strengths and weaknesses, makes the faction quite daunting as it is. The tutorial will be split into 5 manageable parts which will go over the basics of the game as well as explain each unit in depth. It will also show basic gameplay strategies.

IED's and dart launchers could also fit the cults description the bear trap idea looks funny though

IED's will appear there, though a fair bit more potent than those often used by terrorist organizations today. Dart launchers are far too primitive though. Remember, this isn't a poorly organized terrorist organization with a couple of AK-47s and an RPG launcher, this is a full fledged, well organized network of organizations controlled by an unknown council of leaders. It is well funded, well trained, and very, very dangerous. They would generally use guerrilla tactics, not out of cowardice (they're perfectly fine with the whole Kamikaze thing), but because they don't have these rules of engagement that limit UNATF, as well as feel no guilt in using low tactics.

You could rename the private into an engineer/sapper and he could have a minesweeping ability.

I think that even though we're unlikely to see mines in UNATF, the "Private" should be renamed to be "Engineer". Obviously it's not the best placed name, but it beats private.

[Zoythrus]

IED's and dart launchers could also fit the cults description the bear trap idea looks funny though

IED's will appear there, though a fair bit more potent than those often used by terrorist organizations today. Dart launchers are far too primitive though. Remember, this isn't a poorly organized terrorist organization with a couple of AK-47s and an RPG launcher, this is a full fledged, well organized network of organizations controlled by an unknown council of leaders. It is well funded, well trained, and very, very dangerous. They would generally use guerrilla tactics, not out of cowardice (they're perfectly fine with the whole Kamikaze thing), but because they don't have these rules of engagement that limit UNATF, as well as feel no guilt in using low tactics.

i see the Cult as a combination of a well-funded organization and a bunch of guys who are using weapons they scrounged up. here's what i think: as they go up the tech tree, you'll see higher and higher ranking officials in the organization. so, the AK-47 and RPG guys are pretty much low level grunts with no real meaning to the Cult, but then you'll get things like chemists and clerics as the game progresses. now, the tanks and things that the Cult have are probably going to be weaker than the UNATF's things, but overall speedier, so they can run away from any battle they cant win (and it goes well with the whole hit-and-run tactics that they espouse). hey, do you think that the Chemist unit (or their lab or whatever) can create some sort of mutated freak? like, a big hulking monstrosity that works as an anti-tank unit?

[Omega]

Bearing in mind that there's also the issue of balance. If the cult is made with weaker faster units for hit and runs, the CPU cult will lose. Simple as that. As well, that's not really a favorite strategy of many players. I see them as something which may not be quite as technologically advanced as UNATF (though very close), but having the advantage of no morality in their weapons. They will happily use extremely dangerous biological agents, chemical agents, and even dirty bombs. I planned their "special attack" to be an MIRV (assuming that multiple projectiles from MG gets implemented), but they will also have a second type of special attack, a dirty bomb which deals only minor damage on the initial explosion, but spreads extremely dangerous radioactive gases (like the UNATF's nuke, these will be downplayed to prevent them from becoming a game ender).


Edit, and the official backstory:

21 January 2029: Much has changed in the past ten years. In 2021, the European Union came to the anamious decision to merge their member states into one country, making it the world super power in economic and military conventions. Two years later, with the United Nations preaching the benefits of unified countries, the United States of America and Canada came to an agreement to a single government. These unified outlooks to the world allowed radical peacekeeping changes to run into aspect. United Nations Security Council members lost their vito powers, a number of peacekeeping missions in the middle east and Africa allowed for many regimes to be overthrown, paying a price in blood for longterm peace. A single currency became adopted amongst all UN members. Peace seemed imminent. Or so it seemed.

30 May 2032: Peace was never meant to be. Working under the radar, a number of dwindling insurgent groups were mysteriously merged by a council of leaders, bearing great power and the threat of destruction to those who opposed them. The UN, unaware of this threat, had already removed pressure on the countries which they called their home. However, this group never forgot what the UN had done to them. They wanted revenge. They wanted more than revenge. They wanted a new world order, a world born anew from destruction, which they could govern as they wished. They called themselves the Brotherhood.

Unlike the terrorist organizations of the past, the Brotherhood did not lack strong leadership. They weren't poorly funded, trained, or equipped. In fact, they were a modern force of enough power to cause immensive destruction; and no morality to control it. With the higher ranks composed of world class inventors and researchers, they had created the ultimate weapon: a biological agent they deemed Serem 121. Unlike most biological weapons which seeked to kill or injure humans, these vital agent had only one ambitious goal: to warp the target tp their side. A special neural agent which infested on the brain, it essentially created a zombie. An outer shell of no emotion, dedicated only to the Brotherhood's cause. It was the worst fate anyone could imagine, a fate worse than death.

With this weapon of mass destruction, the Brotherhood surfaced itself. With an ultimatum to the United Nations, they declared their goal of destroying the world, only to rebuild it anew their way. A way the UN could never allow. Desperate to stop this, the UN gathered the most elite troops from its various member nations. The first time in more than 15 years, the UN was about to have a military mission. A mission they could not afford to fail. With all of the world's countries working in union, they christened this military force the UNATF, the United Nations Armed Task Force. They had only one purpose: to stop the Brotherhood. No matter how high the civilian causalities or their own losses, they would fight till their last breath, as would the Brotherhood.

1 July 2032: The Brotherhood reveals themselves to the world. The UNATF strikes. War has begun.


As we see, we have new developments. Firstly, the "cult" has now been named. Behold, the Brotherhood. A simple name which has been used many times before, has that ominous feeling, and will fit the faction well. Secondly, the Brotherhood will not use the Serum in the regular game (due to the horrendous difficulties of converting a target into a different unit on the other side... while remaining balanced!). Instead, that will be a storyline element in the scenarios. In the regular games, the fights are to prevent the use of this terrible serum. Of course, there will still be plenty of zombies in the scenarios. There will be multiple types of zombies as well, to allow diversity.

[wyvern]

Dart launchers were used by the Vietnamese, who never went into a battle without complete numerical superiority, despite not having completely low tech. Also, the Cult could use captured UNATF tanks/vehicles

[Zoythrus]

following the Brotherhood's lack of morals, i think that this would be a nice addition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb
(think of this as an anti-everything (except aircraft) device, maybe it could be outfitted onto a defensive platform, making it analogous to the UNATF's ADS)

so, lets discuss the Brotherhood's "Combine soldier," we really havent given him a true name yet.

[Psychedelic_hands]

Cool story bro! (No I actually mean it  )

What will the Brotherhood's architecture style?  Slum-like hideouts or evil genius's lair type things? I'm having a hard time picturing what they'll be like.

[Zoythrus]

i always imagined them to resemble the Nod from C&C - leaning more toward the dark, evil genius look.

[wyvern]

I always thought they were something like Viet Cong or Taliban

[Omega]

i always imagined them to resemble the Nod from C&C - leaning more toward the dark, evil genius look.

Yes, they resemble that a bit, though they value practicability over simple looks, so as long as the defense of a building is high, they don't care if it looks like crap. So while UNATF is keeping their stuff all polished, the Brotherhood is more practical, highly innovative, and extremely resourceful.

They aren't really like the Taliban, which is largely outdated in technology, though they do improvise where necessary. Think of it like putting every terrorist force together, throw in some brilliant scientists and a huge financial backing, remove opposition to allow them to expand underground, and you have the Brotherhood. Consider it terror evolved.

following the Brotherhood's lack of morals, i think that this would be a nice addition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb
(think of this as an anti-everything (except aircraft) device, maybe it could be outfitted onto a defensive platform, making it analogous to the UNATF's ADS)

That's interesting, a weapon meant to destroy humans specifically, without causing large damage to infrastructure. That would somewhat be comparable with the Brotherhood's desire to rebuild the world, since keeping buildings intact would help that, as well, the lack of morality matches the idea of a bomb targeted at killing only living things. I don't think it would be defensive though, as using a bomb for defense sounds a touch insane, but would instead be dropped from the Brotherhood's aerial units.

so, lets discuss the Brotherhood's "Combine soldier," we really havent given him a true name yet.

Got any good ideas, then?

Moving away from the brotherhood, which is very far away in production terms, some of you offered to help with modeling. While I do not need help with the humanoids, those of you with more experience in weaponry may be a better choice for modelling the weapons, which can be later combined with the existing human models. As well, new concepts for the buildings, of which many will be redone, are accepted. Of course, this is purely volunteer only, you do not need to ask permission to help, and you are welcome to simple model something as you will, then upload it here, preferably as a blend file, though any format blender can import will do (which includes G3D). Textures are a plus, but not necessary.

[Zoythrus]

hey, slightly off topic, but i was looking at the tech tree for the UNATF, and i got wondering, where's the Spec Op and the Sniper? you promised us a sniper for the UNATF.

And about the "Combine Soldier," lets call them "Special Heavy Assault and Deadly Espionage" (SHADE) Troopers (i tried my best to think of a good backronym...). and we can just call the Mutant Commandos "Commandos."

[Omega]

hey, slightly off topic, but i was looking at the tech tree for the UNATF, and i got wondering, where's the Spec Op and the Sniper? you promised us a sniper for the UNATF.

First of all, that's not offtopic. Secondly, they're there, just under a different name (no worries, tooltips will be used to ensure that the weapon naming structure won't confuse anyone). The special op, like the infantry and marine, has three classes with different weapons (you can think of the infantry, marine, and special op as different classes of infantry units, each one being better from the last, but still being diverse in weapons). In this case, the "Special Op XM500" is the sniper, which uses a Barrett XM500, a next-generation sniper rifle which is still in development, and will boast better accuracy and a lighter, more compact design than the current M82.

As mentioned, there's different classes for the Special Op. In addition to that dedicated sniper, there is also the Special Op RPO Shmel (typo on the previously uploaded image), which has a RPO-A Shmel as a weapon, with two types of attacks, an incendiary projectile, which is basically a long range flamethrower, and an explosive thermobaric warhead. Finally, the last class is a Special Op M4A1, equipped with a carbine, and is fast, accurate, and well rounded (meant to be the standard late game unit). It also boasts a grenade launcher secondary attack (a few units do, really, though only the special op has both a fragmentation grenade and a tactical concussion grenade, which deals minor damage and renders a the target nearly useless for a few seconds).

And about the "Combine Soldier," lets call them "Special Heavy Assault and Deadly Espionage" (SHADE) Troopers (i tried my best to think of a good backronym...). and we can just call the Mutant Commandos "Commandos."

I like SHADE, though I'm not sure who you refer to with "Mutant Commandos".


Edit: Also, I've been wondering if we really should have a full conversion. In the past, Apocalyptic Dawn had its own menus, language files, etc. I am beginning to rethink the logic of that, since it almost forces the user to make a separate install for the mod. Instead, perhaps we should just have the techtree, maps, scenarios, and tilesets be bundled? It would no longer include the tidied up tilesets (I'll instead bug the GAE team about making them the default tilesets in GAE, since they're just the regular tilesets with a few fixes, such as making the XML neater, ensuring that things follow walkable/unwalkable guidelines, and preventing the night from getting *too* dark. Though, I would really like to take a try with a unique tileset in the same way as the likes of the Annex mod introduced us to, with larger than normal size objects. However, since those kinds of tilesets only work on certain maps, they would be used generally only in scenarios, so that would need a way to have scenario specific tilesets (as per this thread).

[Zoythrus]

another elite infantry would be a soldier that has been mutated. enhanced range, attack, and speed; but is fragile.

then we started calling him the Mutant Commando, one of the Brethren's elite units.

do you remember our discussion about Elite units? units who are immune to toxins (and maybe something from the UNATF also?). the ones we agreed on were the UNATF's Spec OP (and all forms thereof) and the Cult's SHADE Trooper and Mutant Commando.