1. The first thing I would improve about Battlezone is the weapons. They are balanced considering the scope of the game but if you compare them to a simulation both the range and damage calculations fail miserably. Missiles rarely work like they should the only game to ever get this right was EarthSiege. Laser weapons are another rarely portrayed correctly and again EarthSiege and HeavyGear2 got it right. Bullets also strangely disappear after a rather short range. What kind of gravity exists on this planet!?!
2. Speed, Inertia, Momentum. While Battlezone does a decent job at this compared to the jumpy wild antics of most modern games today the physics do feel a bit restricted at times. Again this is either due to design, limitation, or both. But if my goal is to simulate an entire planet things must behave realistically.
3. No destructible terrain? Battlezone maps appear to made exclusively of height maps. Height maps can easily be deformed by changing the white and dark areas of the image. Red faction did something similar with its famous geomode technology. I'm not saying in Battlzone you should be able to dig a 500 foot crater but affecting the landscape with weapons is always awesome. Not the mention it can prove to be a tactical disadvantage or advantage in the right circumstances.
4. Dodgy on Foot or FPS mode. While on foot the input delay feels more like you're still piloting a vehicle. A vehicle that happens to look like a human. I got used to it over the years but the controls as a soldier/pilot feel sluggish on foot. A faster response time here would appeal to a wider audience of gamers. I appreciate the fact the player has to crouch and not move when sniping but you have no ability to go prone which would more easily hide you from enemy forces. My advice is to not even have a FPS mode unless you can give players a full range of freedom. It be neat if you could have a team of engineers inside a recycler and remotely pilot the scavs or other non direct combat units.
5. The one time use jetpack. While this might be realistic it's not very fun. It's more like a jump pack than a jet pack because your blast off into oblivion with no control over the thrust. It's weird that if you don't move you fall like a rock but a thunderbolt always falls at a maximum speed. (SLOW!) Jetpacks should have a maximum height and range but if your stranded 10,000 miles from your home back you might want the jetpack/jumppack rechargeable.
6. The guns don't work on the APC. The APC is one of my favorite units but you can't fly it, use its guns, or even direct the troops very easily. It be awesome if you could have 10 troops defend a bunker and watch them try to repel the enemy. If I include a APC or Transport unit in my game it will be fully usable in every sense. Once again I'm aiming more for a Simulation and think of Battlezone but on a planetary wide scale.
7. I love the Atilla. But the design is wildly impractical. With all the mass the unit has would it be so hard to fix a few rocket pods or even a minigun so it can defend itself when it runs out of laser juice? Overall it's a very poor Mechwarrior for anything other than its awesome range. Walkers are normally weapons platforms and used as siege weapons. In non combat roles they are often explorers/scouts because of their versatility over tracked or wheeled designs. The most useful kind of mech is called a Powersuit which mimics human movement. I like the idea of a Mech or Powersuit and likely one will appear in my game.
What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Do you like some of my ideas or hate them? Please explain why.
Here is a screenshot of what I'm working on. Please note this is not representative of the final work. The HUD is off and none of these textures are original. Basically it's just a proof of concept for the spherical height map idea. My assets have many layers of textures but I'm saving all that hard work for a proper debut when the time is right. I'm not aiming for modern graphics because if I was the game would not be finished within this decade. If I can achieve something about as detailed as Halo1 I will be happy. Considering that I'm only one guy left to do all the programing and art the task is daunting. The multiplayer part is what worries me most but I will figure it out in time.
The engine tessellates the terrain. Right now the hard coded limit is 9000 polys to prevent ant visual popping from the LOD. The draw distance can easily be changed but it will be likely fixed so no player has a unfair advantage. I think the terrain looks okay but it needs better textures, craters, and more scaring in general to make it look better.
