[General Battuta]

As part of War in Heaven development we played with a number of experimental gametypes. Some are going in (in R1 or the future), some are more difficult to narratively justify.

One of those is one I'd like to work on as a standalone release at some point. Tower Defense!

Instead of buying towers, players could buy new fighters, bombers, and gunships to add to their defending swarm. Weapon and pilot skill upgrades could be purchased, individually or across classes of ships. Warships could be bought and positioned at preset warpin points, or moved between them with a special order system using query-orders and either a training message or reinforcements-based menu. You could even upgrade capship turrets, which could be really fun (upgrade her blob turrets to pulse weapons! Upgrade the flaks to standard flaks, then buy Fury AI for the ship!)

The goal would be to kill increasingly large and threatening waves of hostiles without being overrun. The player him/herself could be an invincible, stealthed, unarmed presence, or a 'boss' ship of some kind with a considerable tactical impact. You might be able to get a healing/repair system working based on the player's presence, for instance. If you disabled traitor, you could allow the player to use a negative damage primary to repair stuff, a sort of 'medigun'.

The resource system would (natch) be variable-based; kills would add to the resource pool, and calling in new types of ships and upgrades would deplete it. This system has already been implemented in BP2 and it's both modular and extensible.

I would like to give this a shot at some point in the future, if I don't end up using something of the type in a BP mission.

[Mobius]

Are you going to add a credit-based system, like in Colony Wars 3?

[General Battuta]

Are you going to add a credit-based system, like in Colony Wars 3?

Already done in BP2. Could be expanded.

[Droid803]

You know what, go suggest this to FS:RTS.
'Cause I'm of the persuasion that tower defense from first-person view is futile, or at least, intensely aggravating.

[General Battuta]

If you could play a gauntlet mission in first person you could do this. Invalid worry.

[Droid803]

So it wouldn't be tower defense but just a gauntlet where you can buy reinforcements and try to protect a ship.
Oh yay escort missions.

Because in tower defense, placement location is important. That kind of thing is kinda moot when your towers...move around to engage the enemy (by themselves, no less). And if they don't -> see note on being aggravating. Placing stuff properly in FP view is URGH. That mine-laying mission in Cardinal Spear is a goddamn nightmare cause you can't tell if you even placed them right :/

But seriously, go talk to FS:RTS. At least I'd like to be able to play from RTS view.
You could buy capships to defend a node and reposition them to have optimal turret firing arcs and stuff too then!

[haloboy100]

Sounds like skirmish mode in star wars: empire at war. Except there's no space station.

...or maybe your goal would be to defend an arcadia?

[General Battuta]

So it wouldn't be tower defense but just a gauntlet where you can buy reinforcements and try to protect a ship.
Oh yay escort missions.

Because in tower defense, placement location is important. That kind of thing is kinda moot when your towers...move around to engage the enemy (by themselves, no less). And if they don't -> see note on being aggravating. Placing stuff properly in FP view is URGH. That mine-laying mission in Cardinal Spear is a goddamn nightmare cause you can't tell if you even placed them right :/

But seriously, go talk to FS:RTS. At least I'd like to be able to play from RTS view.
You could buy capships to defend a node and reposition them to have optimal turret firing arcs and stuff too then!

Failed.

If you think it takes anything involved in FS RTS to pull this off, your FRED-fu is pretty weak.

Anyone who actually read the original post, is possessed of an understanding of FRED and its tools, and understands the concept interested in contributing?

[karajorma]

I could be talked into it. Probably more in the coding than FREDding field though given that the team loadout code is actually generic enough to be used with capships. I've just never had cause to add the necessary layer to make it accessible.

[Colonol Dekker]

I get the impression Droid feels that resource pools are not FSRTS exclusive (as you say, using variables and ship class values make this practically cake to implement)
Rather droid would be more comfortable with a tower defense game on a 2D plane.
 
 
Just thought i'd add it as the FAILED seemed a bit excessive

[Mobius]

Elements of strategy and resource-managing are welcome. After that, we'll need RPG-like environments inside ships and space stations.

[General Battuta]

If Droid wants to yell about how it's impractical he's going to have to get around the fact that I figured out how to do a socket build system and a snap-to strategic view in the shower yesterday. 

[Droid803]

I get the impression Droid feels that resource pools are not FSRTS exclusive (as you say, using variables and ship class values make this practically cake to implement)
Rather droid would be more comfortable with a tower defense game on a 2D plane.

This.
If not a 2D plane, something with more intuitive camera controls than simply flying from place to place without a cursor...(maybe something like HW interface if you want to keep it 3D).

I'm not saying it's impractical to make, but rather I'm skeptical about how practical it would be to play if you don't have a cursor and a free camera and whatnot. If you do, well, you basically remade what FSRTS has...

At least, that's what I was thinking. If you've got some good system thought up, it'd be interesting to try.

[General Battuta]

I do in fact have such a good system.

[Dilmah G]

I think the idea's cool and that it's implementable, but I just don't think it'll be that fun after about 5 minutes (Granted, I've never played Tower Defense). I may have misinterpreted this (I do it all the time), but isn't this going to boil down to "They have 5 wings, I have 5 wings, are my C-3-9'd Erinyes boys with Dual Proms and Furian AI going to beat the- Oh wait, they just did. Here comes more fighters, let's see if my fighters can-" You get the picture.

IMO, it's how the attackers act that's going to make or break this 'gametype'. Doing all that stuff in your first post is pretty doable to someone who knows FRED, but it could be a sugar low kicking in from my maccers, but it just doesn't seem like defending an item for like ten minutes against waves, and waves, of hostiles and assorted toys could be that fun unless they were smart about it.

Of course if it's a design that rewards guys like me who habitually prioritize targets and enjoy having to think fast and direct firepower where it's needed and avoid an information overload, then I'm all systems go. Or if it's a matter of me not understanding anything due to my lack of experience with Tower Defence, I'll keep my mouth shut.

[Scotty]

Tower Defense games are one of the most addicting flash games ever made.  Just go to armorgames and click the strategy tab.  There are easily a dozen just there.

That said, Tower Defense is a strategic game, not a tactical game.  I highly doubt c-3-9 will be effective in completing waves, if only because once capships get into the fray, they don't respond to that (and big enemy capships won't die to just a c-3-9).

On a side note:  If you have five wings of Furian Erinyes and the next wave only has five wings, those wings are going to be good.  Waves get progressively harder as the game goes on, and I'd be willing to bet those fighters were not cheap.