[Kiloku]

Looks like the era of massive space battles is soon coming back with 64-bit only games

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2014/01/08/stardock-gives-us-a-peak-at-stunning-new-engine.aspx

[Flipside]

Looks interesting, kind of like Homeworld 2 on steroids. The only downside is that still images don't give any idea of frame-rate during those battles.

That said, if it pulls it off, I'll be interested to see what is done with it.

[Lorric]

Looks interesting, kind of like Homeworld 2 on steroids. The only downside is that still images don't give any idea of frame-rate during those battles.

That said, if it pulls it off, I'll be interested to see what is done with it.

From the article:

And Oxide has achieved just that. The demo we saw featured nearly ten thousand units and hovered around 30 frames per second the whole time.

[General Battuta]

Let's all be suitably cautious, Glassbox looked like a fantastic engine before release.

[Flipside]

Looks interesting, kind of like Homeworld 2 on steroids. The only downside is that still images don't give any idea of frame-rate during those battles.

That said, if it pulls it off, I'll be interested to see what is done with it.

From the article:

And Oxide has achieved just that. The demo we saw featured nearly ten thousand units and hovered around 30 frames per second the whole time.

That's good to know, though I will add as a caveat that whilst I understand this is supposed to be 'future friendly' and therefore will tax modern systems, it depends of the complexity of the program that is using the engine as well. But nonetheless, definite potential if it works

[Phantom Hoover]

Let's all be suitably cautious, Glassbox looked like a fantastic engine before release.

To be fair its fundamental flaws were immediately obvious from those first videos, Maxis were just very good at making them look like a good idea. The thing is, I'd file 'massive-scale strategy game where every single shot is tracked' under the same category of misguided ambitions.

[Dragon]

Well, IIRC, Real Virtuality (ArmA II engine) does exactly that. It's an FPS, but with an RTS-like scale and a lot of "high command" RTS-style features (ArmA II has even been modded into a full-on RTS). Dunno about what they thought of as "massive scale", but ArmA II has 10x10Km maps and can have huge amounts of AIs running around in some missions. Oh, and all the weapons have a realistic ROF, meaning you can easily go to 4000rpm with a minigun (that said, due to the nature of ArmA missions, you never really have a lot of weapons firing at once). This engine isn't without flaws (indeed, it's somewhat quirky, especially when it comes to physics), but isn't horrible, either.

[Spoon]

We get it Dragon, you really really really love Arma. You dont have to tell us at every opportunity 

[Dragon]

Well, name another engine that can do a 'massive-scale strategy game where every single shot is tracked' and do it well. Really, RV is the only engine I know of that managed to do that, and still work on a normal computer. The point is, it's been done, and it doesn't make tradeoffs like limiting weapon ROF or restricting unit count (the only thing capping the amount of units that can be in a mission is how much your CPU can take). And it's not even something that's been introduced recently, even the first ArmA could do a lot of that. So I'll hardly call such a feature a "misguided ambition". It's just a matter of doing it well, and this can be useful in certain situations (for example, if you want an FPS/RTS hybrid).

[AdmiralRalwood]

Well, name another engine that can do a 'massive-scale strategy game where every single shot is tracked' and do it well.

Total Annihilation?

[NGTM-1R]

Sword of the Stars has always claimed to be such.

That didn't really make it much better...

[TrashMan]

I wouldn't call ti "massive" in that sense. Globally, given that you have a lot of fleets, and given the size of the maps/galaxy? Yes.

But each fleet is limited by command points, so you won't be having 10000 ships on screen at once.

Not that it's necessary to have a bajjilion ships. I prefer fewr, but more valubale ship that you have more control over, over thousands of ships that are all easily replacable or irrelevant. Kinda like the basic infantry unit in C&C and other games. You just spam those.

[Phantom Hoover]

Well, name another engine that can do a 'massive-scale strategy game where every single shot is tracked' and do it well.

supcom?

supcom would probably have been better off with a more abstracted combat system though

[Spoon]

Well, name another engine that can do a 'massive-scale strategy game where every single shot is tracked' and do it well.

supcom?

supcom would probably have been better off with a more abstracted combat system though

You ninja'd me there. I was just typing this up.

I think most games would have been better off with a more abstracted combat system. The whole 'every shot is a tracked projectile' thing has never added much to gameplay for any of the games ive played that have done it. In supcom it just made a lot of shots disappear into the terrain, every slightly sloped hill became an enemy. In sots it just made the game perform poorly with bigger battles and most weapons had a really low rof because of it too.

[An4ximandros]

Having played Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations, I gotta say I love the old system of "Chance to hit/miss increased/decreased by hull size." You are more likely to hit a Warbird than a fighter.

The whole "track all shots" shtick is terrible outside of F/TPS games.

I look forward to know more about this engine though.

[TrashMan]

Having played Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations, I gotta say I love the old system of "Chance to hit/miss increased/decreased by hull size." You are more likely to hit a Warbird than a fighter.

The whole "track all shots" shtick is terrible outside of F/TPS games.

But then you don't get things like a missile passing right in between the warbirds wings during it's roll and it plastering the missile-launching warship.

Having collision, deflection and targeting simulated can create some very cinematic and interesting scenarios.

[NGTM-1R]

But then you don't get things like a missile passing right in between the warbirds wings during it's roll and it plastering the missile-launching warship.

Having collision, deflection and targeting simulated can create some very cinematic and interesting scenarios.

Only if the game designers and animators are lazy. These things could easily happen in a percentage-based system provided somebody did some work on it.

[General Battuta]

Having played Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations, I gotta say I love the old system of "Chance to hit/miss increased/decreased by hull size." You are more likely to hit a Warbird than a fighter.

The whole "track all shots" shtick is terrible outside of F/TPS games.

But then you don't get things like a missile passing right in between the warbirds wings during it's roll and it plastering the missile-launching warship.

Having collision, deflection and targeting simulated can create some very cinematic and interesting scenarios.

Sure, but on the other hand you get situations like Supreme Commander where units are practically unusable in rough terran because they have low angles of fire and they'll hit ridges. It does add some overhead to basic functionality.

But then you don't get things like a missile passing right in between the warbirds wings during it's roll and it plastering the missile-launching warship.

Having collision, deflection and targeting simulated can create some very cinematic and interesting scenarios.

Only if the game designers and animators are lazy. These things could easily happen in a percentage-based system provided somebody did some work on it.

Let's be fair: this is an assload of work, and doing that work is often going to set your product back, not move it forward.

[Phantom Hoover]

Having a lot of low-level simulation also contributes to the problem most strategy games have where micromanaging units can give you a massive advantage, especially in the early game when the snowball effect is biggest. A simple combat model can be easily optimised by an AI; it's far easier for humans to dominate in a complex one.

[TrashMan]

But then you don't get things like a missile passing right in between the warbirds wings during it's roll and it plastering the missile-launching warship.

Having collision, deflection and targeting simulated can create some very cinematic and interesting scenarios.

Only if the game designers and animators are lazy. These things could easily happen in a percentage-based system provided somebody did some work on it.

Lazy?
You do know games have a fixed budgets, and there's probably better things to spend it on than basicly scripting events that are cool the first time, but happen exactly the same every time after that.

So no, it couldn't happen easily. It would mean a lot of work as it would have to be made for each unit individually.

I prefer a simulation approach, as it gives you a far wider range of possible outcomes.