Halo Reach RTS

one of the only ways a Halo Reach RTS would work is with a full-forge-world-16-player-multi-team-territories match with about 1-3 out of the 16 players as the moderators or shop owners where you could purchase weaponry which would help you conquor more territories which would increase your rank which would be sort of a goal here so it would be sort of like a large-scale conquest match but sort of more in-depth. there would be 7-8 teams with team changing OPEN which would allow alliances.

player traits would include:

MOVEMENT>
speed 75%
jump height 50%
gravity 50% *to prevent accidental cliff-falling from killing you
vehicle use FULL
DAMAGE/HEALTH>
starting weapon plasma pistol *first weapons are the weakest. this encourages players to get moving and to search out for weapons in their territory or to invade other places
damage 25% *to lessen the damage delt to non-player items such as barricades so that a longer-lasting seige may occur to a players barricades
damage resistance 500%
sheilds
sheild 50% recharge
health no recharge *health packs are only in territories and an emergency one in the shop
immune to assassinations *why die instantly?
immune to headshots *to lessen the dramatic health difference to headhots focusing less on FPS shooting skill and more on RTS technique
infinite ammo DISabled
equipment usage normal
OTHER ATTRIBUTES>
respawn time 1-5 minutes (its up to you)
betrayal OFF *so you CAN backstab your alliance and allows for a better bond of trust with your allys, knowing they can kill you when they want. betrayal spam is ILLOGICAL however. the rest of the players alliance may get you back
Game time limit 60 minutes
territory capture 10 points
kills 1 point
score to win 500 *most games would probably end ina host-ended game. this is just in case anyone is annihilating
GENERAL RULES>
each player is either on his own team or is with a partner and is spawned either right by or inside of a territory to get things moving. inside each territory is 1-2 falcons and other vehicles will vary. weapons are hidden around the territories for players to search for. other weapons are in other random nuetral territories that no one starts by.
in the quarry section of forgeworld is the shop where players show what items they have obtained and the shop owners allow player to obtain things such as better weapons or armor abilities or grenades. oversheilds can be obtainable in some territories with 180 respawn times.
since ammunition is limited, people will have to fight to gain more ammo or join alliances if they are low or out of ammo.
some territories can be fortified or are in fortress that a player may barricade himeself in. usually, fortified territories do not have much ammo so the player inside will have to make ammo trips and limit himself to barrication inside his fortress, or other players will cut him off from his supplies.
if a player has no territories he must either be elimated or become a slave to another team. a slave is an ally who must be dedicated to his team. if he changes teams, he will be booted from the game and lose all progress.




well, just came up with all that off the top of my head. someone should make a map for that!

or if you want to play a halo RTS, you could just play HALO FRICKEN WARS! But this idea is cool too

 

Aww, come on! Halo Wars was'nt that bad! Still, a Halo RTS style game where you control the people on the battlefield is already my first forge project. Check out "Halo Wars" (Not the game, my map!) in my fileshare.

You have Halo Wars bases (The only reference I had) where you can send vehicles out of as well. There is an invasion style objective to it and similar to Halo Wars itself, if unable to protect your base from full force, you are pretty much screwed! So there is strategy in my map as well! (technically).

 

My brother actually came up with this turn-based strategy game in forge. We used the initial spawns (red and blue) as soldiers and vehicles for special attacks and everything. We also had a bunch of territories on the map, and if you keep in control of that territories for five turns you get more points to purchase more infantry and vehicles.

Oh, and when we would attack we would roll these dice to see how many soldiers died or live.

I know you were looking for an RTS, but I think a TBS game worked alot better.

 

I have absolutely no idea how this would work without an incredibly dedicated team of people. Even with Slash's suggestion, the game would be ruined with 1 griefer, and you would need 16 people.

And I still have no idea how this would work.

 

Played a Pac-Man game where the walls were extremely low, and players could not jump.

This is relevant because it very nicely compensated for Reach's lack of a top-down view. We could still see a good amount of the field, and physical obstructions to movement did not interfere with sight (which is how quite a few real-time strategies work, on a very basic level).

So you can remove jumping (which is generally not seen in RTSes anyway) and keep most of the walls low. A few high walls here and there can simulate units' limited lines of sight (so you can't see out for miles), and a few raised platforms sprinkled around can more directly simulate classic RTS vision mechanics (high ground can see low ground, not vice versa).

EDIT: All that said, you'll have a choice here. Low walls and such will simulate RTS game mechanics, but the lack of buildings will probably compromise the RTS feel. Buildings that spawn in over time will get the RTS feel, but will take you even further from RTS game mechanics.

 

Why not have buildings that you simply can't enter? They could serve as something of a LoS blocker, but wouldn't have any real effect on player movement or positioning. After all, how many RTS's actually have units fighting inside of a building (unless the building itself is the battlefield). Players could also spawn on top of their respective buildings. As the round progresses their initially small bases could balloon or branch out and form a small, rooftop-based series of paths and platforms that allow the player to move around their respective "home territory" with ease. This could represent the ability found in several RTS's that allows you to spawn units away from your "Head Quarters" as you progressively capture the map.

The bases will obviously never go near the several territories that must be captured. I personally think a "3-plots" syster (where you gain points based on how long you control territories) would simulate most RTS's perfectly. These areas could have small amounts of ammo for basic starting weapons (preferably the Assault Rifle to avoid long range combat), while smaller areas outside of the territories might house single power weapons (Focus Rifle, Sniper w/ little ammo, Shotgun) could allow a losing team to gain an advantage over "territory whores". Adding in light vehicles could also allow you to simulate "power units".

Edit: On the subject of vehicles, I don't really think you could get away with a balanced game that features anything other than Ghosts, Revenants, or Wraiths (and even that would be a stretch). I'm going to quickly list of several reasons why any other vehicle could take away from the feeling of an actual RTS type game.

Warthogs: What could possibly be wrong about the good old Hog? Well, simply using a single Warthog will take away at least two teammates, causing the infantry front-lines to become rather dull (It's a fourth of even the largest team). With an incredibly powerful Machine Gun (plus an impressive range), it just couldn't work in a game based around simulated walls, slow movement and close-medium range weapons.

Edit: On top of that, it's just all-around too usefull. A side passenger seat, a low splattering speed and other comodities make it a surprisingly overpowered vehicle.

Scorpions: No. Just No. On top of a lightspeed-traveling, all-killing fast-firing main cannon, it has its own powerful Chain Gun and can serve as a platform for player movement. Unacceptable, and even considering it will be grounds for a Forgehub ban.

Falcons and Banshees: I decided to group these together, since they share many of the same characteristics. First off, they both allow players to completely ignore any deviders or walls, and all around rape everything from their lofty ariel domain. Banshees are especially troublesome because of their Fuel Rod, which puts holes vehicle or infantry regardless of damage settings.

Falcons will also deter front line fighting for the same reasons as the Warthog. Fighting no more than five ground enemies while being screwed from above is, in my honest opinion, not fun. I doubt you could really make any aerial vehicles work in 3-dimensional space. A final note: these vehicles can hover to a height just outside of close-medium range, rendering them invincible to most ground fire.

Mongooses: They might not seem like too much of a problem, but consider this: You can use them to completely break the frontlines "wall". These bad boys can also whip right past enemy defences and allow for easy territory caps at the begining of a round. That takes no skill, and defeats the purpose of fighting for territories.

Now, why would Mongooses be any more at fault for this than any other vehicle? Simply put, oher vehicles aren't useless; When you ditch your Mongoose to capture a territory, you lose nothing. With literally any other vehicle, your better off just using it to kill your enemies. The Mongoose's entire purpose is to help players rush territories.

...

Now, this leaves us with the Ghost, the Revenent and the Wraith.

Ghost: An ultra-light attack vehicle. The ghost takes little damage before falling apart, even if the player in it has increased damage resistance. It also deals relatively little damage. What's more, that damage is useless at long or even medium range due to the fact that you need to lead you shots.

Revenent: The Revenent is a medium-sized attack and transport vehicle. It takes roughly 3-5 shots to kill a player in regular slayer, unless you have the godlike talant required to land a direct hit with it's unwieldly morters. It does surprisingly little damage if it lands even a foot away from it's target, so it serves no practicle purpose at long range. It makes for some great anti-vehicle ordnance, without being too hard on the infantry.

Wraith: To be honest, I have doubts of how balanced this would be. It's incredible power should be balanced out by it's slow movement speed. A low jump height means players can't just pool up on top of it and use it for transport. The turret provides only minimal use at most ranges, especially with increased damage resistance. A splatter should also be relatively hard to get for the same reason. The Wraith makes for a great Heavy/Tank/Hero unit, and the fact that you can blow it up with one planted grenade makes it a risky unit to use in a heated situation.

ATVs: Most of you probably know the turretless tank glitch by now. For those who don't, you can find information on it here. The turretless tank glitch basically allows you to make a large and well-armoured troop transport unit that can carry a driver, one anti-personal turret operator, and as many troops as you can fit on a tank.

/holy-****ing-longpost

tl;dr

Spoiler

Read the damn post.

Cheers,
HarisSales.

 

I was referring to non-enterable buildings. However, there is a reason why you need very, very short barriers that only obstruct movement in order to adhere to RTS mechanics...



Buildings in most RTS games -- both old ones, like StarCraft and Age Of Empires II: The Age Of Kings, and new ones, like StarCraft II -- don't block vision or attacks. You can see and shoot right through them. (The Command Center is only on fire because my damn Marines wouldn't stop shooting it before I ordered them to shoot each other.)

To preserve that effect, you need low barriers that players can see and shoot over. Hence, my mention of the trade-off: RTS mechanics or RTS feel?

 

Could always have the building spawn on the edge of your map.

Have to look into invasion slayer/invasion gates but you might be able to make it so that capturing a certain point causes a building to spawn.

And using some of the vending machine tech that others have made you could make it so that they have to go to that building to get a warthog, or specific weapon.

 

Hmmm, I was thinking of something along the lines of "capturing respawn points", to simulate the infantry churning bases of RTS's... or maybe some sort of territory that steadily spawned in vehicles and weapons for who ever controls it. Not sure if either is possible on the surface of Reaches game creation tools... but maybe some complex engine can be created in Forge. Also, any issues with vehicle balance in regards to passengers can be remedied by using player settings to limit vehicle use to driving only, no passengers or gunners.

 

I just made a massive edit on Page 1 regarding vehicles and why most of them would be almost impossible to implement in a decent RTS remake. I'm just a little afraid that everyone's going to miss it, since it's at the very bottom of the page.

Cheers,
Haris.

 

Map: Bungie.net : Halo Reach : File Details

Gametype(Invasion): Bungie.net : Halo Reach : File Details
Gametype(Race): Bungie.net : Halo Reach : File Details < Appropriately named after the notorious tactic by HW players, Warthog rush is alot of fun whenever you feel like rushing a base without playing an RTS.

Well, the bases have buildings. But, they don't spawn over time.(I am afraid of overloading the map) The portals leading to the basement where the vehicles can be acquired will not activate until halfway through the game, which I think can implement an upgrading feel to the game.

Same goes for loadouts of course. This all depends on the Elites capability of capturing the objective quickly. You play as a typical soldier on the ground and access to vehicles can turn the tide of battle!

 

I experimented with my idea in forgeworld and then found that territories gametype only allows 5 ****ing territories and 2 teams?? WTF where they thinking with this one? was it like this in H3? i cant remember. so my idea seems a little hard to do unless you want a big 1 on 1 team battle. it wouldnt be as fun as multi-team though. maybe you could work with a multi-team stockpile-like game? idk ideas?