Battlezone Forums

I really want to see a successor to the Battlezone series, a sentiment likely shared by everyone else here. Why else would there be a "Why a 'Battlezone 3' is unlikely " sticky topic? A couple years ago I hoped MAD would be that game. Sadly, the project ended with the loss of much more than just a proper game.

Back then, all I knew of development was the basic C practices I taught myself with a "For Dummies" book. Now I finally feel I've had enough formal education and work experience to at least try to make something. Even if it's a complete flop, it's a hobby that I'd really like to pursue. I've been teaching myself how to use the Unity engine and I think a new Battlezone-style game is do-able.

I've given a fair bit of thought into what I would want to improve or change about the Battlezone games. After playing many rounds of BZ2 and even some BZ: Classic with a friend, he has also given me some ideas. Still, you guys are much more familiar with the game and I'm curious to know what improvements you would want to make for a successor?

Here are some of the random ideas I've thought of:

• I'm not particularly fond of how supply rate and capacity are tied to extractors. I think that the rates and capacity rules should be similar, but the recycler should provide a much larger cap (from 40 to, say, 80 using the current resource units) with even slower resource accumulation. Importance could be added to regular scavengers by implementing areas where meteor showers periodically strike, leaving scrap deposits.
• The satellite/relay bunker are particularly useful components for controlling units across the map. I would want to bring back the ability to pull up the satellite from anywhere. Ideally, a "fog of war" would obstruct anything which is not directly in a friendly unit's line of sight.
• Infantry are week. They just are. I'd like to see an infantry squad system to given them a bit more power and importance. I think they would be best suited for defense and should probably fail miserably if you send them out to directly attack a group of enemy vehicles/defenses in the open.
• The ability to modify weapons of the units you produce is a pretty awesome feature. I would like to see it expanded with some sort of "loadout" system which trades speed and/or ammo capacity for additional/more powerful weapons. Special loadouts and requisitions could (possibly) be restricted for use by actual players.
• I feel like pilots players in coop could be effective. Instead of being at the mercy of the commander for units to command and even vehicles to drive, I think pilots should be able to recruit units and specially equipped vehicles using some form of experience currency. This currency could be awarded by destroying enemies or by completing select tasks given by the commander, although I haven't figured out a particularly robust system for this. Similarly, I'd like pilots to be able to erect defenses and utility structures using the same currency.
• Tugs. What are they good for? Absolutely nothin'. Still, the ability to move objects is kind of nice. I think this functionality should be extended to either some set of combat vehicles or maybe even scavengers.
• I would like to implement an editing system similar to both Battlezone 2's editor and Halo's forge mode. Ideally, a satellite view would allow for terrain manipulation and first or third-person views would allow for object placement and editing. It could support multiplayer in theory, but I'm not sure if that would be important or not.
• In a perfect world, I would also like custom assets to be easily imported and spawned as well. Of course, these would have to be created outside the editor environment.

I will probably come up with more ideas which I might add to the list. Feel free to add to or criticize the ones that are there. Also, I completely understand if you don't want to give out design ideas.

Neat! I haven't really been here in years and after looking around for a bit, I noticed Bionite: Origins. That's awesome! I still want to pursue something myself as a hobby, but I'm ecstatic to see that someone is actively working on a spiritual successor.

EDIT (after looking into it a bit more): Even if it's never finished... but that's another topic for another day.

extractors can now work in parallel if the flag is used, so that might help you. recyclers need to have a cap, if only for the limits of varbs.

i, too, had thought i might like to see a 'fog of war' feature added like is used in other games like dark reign, but the current system works well enough - if not better - because it forces you to have units in the field in order to gain visibility.

check out infantry in Uler (called 'serpents' which are apc soldiers) for the use of strong infantry. also, i added various buildable infantry to G66 awhile back and am buffing them some in the next version.

G66 also added advanced weapons and buffs to the AI team which is an option.

while you were out, the ability to build limited recyclers for thugs was added, which help on large maps with dispersed buildable areas.

tugs are very useful if you know what to use them for.

Red Devil wrote:recyclers need to have a cap, if only for the limits of varbs.

Maybe increasing the cap significantly, then? In the current implementation, I'm concerned that once a user captures more than their half of the map, the economic effects cause a snowball because the defender is not able to pump out more expensive units like APCs, assault tanks, and rocket tanks. I felt like that issue could be avoided by allowing scavs to make up for the lack of extractors.

Red Devil wrote:i, too, had thought i might like to see a 'fog of war' feature added like is used in other games like dark reign, but the current system works well enough - if not better - because it forces you to have units in the field in order to gain visibility.

How does the current visibility system work, anyway? I thought it used line of sight, but I've seen some instances when one of my units was attacking an enemy building, but it was still invisible on the satellite image and I could not command additional units to attack it. Is that a bug or am I just not understanding the system?

I haven't played much with Unity, but my experience with UE4 suggests it could be useful.

Satellite view is just sometimes iffy.

AHadley wrote:I haven't played much with Unity, but my experience with UE4 suggests it could be useful.

I have no doubt that Unreal would be a particularly powerful engine. Since I have no real experience with developing games in a 3D environment yet, though, I've chosen Unity because it is free and has a massive amount of tutorials and support. However, I'm still in the process of working through tutorial projects to better familiarize myself with the environment, so if I get some free time I'll check out UE4.

It's definitely a more impressive and powerful engine and I'm sure a lot of the design philosophies will translate, but I am afraid that working in UE4 will require more of an investment than I am able to provide by myself. I could recruit help for the project, but I'm not in a good position to create or sustain a consistent development team at the moment. The subscription cost can also add up quickly since I can't afford to work on something like this full-time. I'll definitely give it a bash, but it might be too high of a time and financial cost.

General BlackDragon wrote:Satellite view is just sometimes iffy.

Ahh... must just be a bug, then. If that's the case, adding fog of war may be redundant.

There wouldn't be much I would improve, but a newerish BZ game with the BZ2 modability (+ some) would be awesome

i'm thinking that some newer players would enjoy the addition of shaders and high res textures, but older players who grew up with the current textures might not.

Well, I certainly don't envision creating anything which would replace BZ or BZ2. I just want to make something that follows a bit in its footsteps; a "spiritual" successor rather than a direct sequel.

one of the best features of Battlezone is the graphical unit interaction system. i have not seen it in any other game.

UI and movement/controls are definitely the top priority for me. The genre just doesn't work well without those being extremely tight.

Much higher terrain detail and full 3d terrain sculpting capability, +full 3d pathing/navigation for the AI.

MrTwosheds wrote:Much higher terrain detail and full 3d terrain sculpting capability, +full 3d pathing/navigation for the AI.

I was greatly surprised upon learning to use UE3's terrain editor that it is no more capable of overhangs than BZ2's. UE4 is much the same.

From what I can tell, almost all terrain editors use something like a heat map in order to sculpt the terrain. Heat maps are 2D in nature and do not allow for overlap. I would like to implement an editing system similar to both Battlezone 2's editor and Halo's forge mode. Ideally, a satellite view would allow for terrain manipulation and first or third-person views would allow for object placement and editing.

In a perfect world, I would also like custom assets to be easily imported and spawned as well. Of course, these would have to be created outside the editor environment.

Of course, like everything else, these ideas are purely theoretical right now. I don't think they would be particularly difficult to implement if the initial framework was built with them in mind, but I do not have enough experience to be completely confident in that thought.