Terrain Walker Gameplay Ideas.

pauldavidmerritt · Post by **pauldavidmerritt** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:22 am

Both of these scenarios would be nice to play with, providing pilots two options to pick from when getting ready to 'walk the terrain'.

RISKY OPTION 1. Ship is cloaked, landed anywhere on the planet. This option is free, with some risk. If you land on the surface cloaked, certain fighters may have an expensive, rare detection device to locate your ship (or ship's cloak is deactivated if it is shot by random weapon fire). If your ship is shot or compromized, your terrain walker is alerted and you can activate a beam/transport back to ship if you chose to do that. Once the transport sequence is activated, it takes 5 seconds to commence.

EXPENSIVE OPTION 2. If a planet has a docking station, you also have the option to pay a hefty 'parking fee' for extra safety. You are safe, at an expense.

DennyMala · Post by **DennyMala** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:33 am

We would probably need more TW gameplay then parking options.

It would really be nice to find NPCs TW around making a planet more lively and interesting as for combat and missions. Somewhat like we do in space.

Scavenger4711 · Post by **Scavenger4711** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 3:10 pm

From post: 159743, Topic: tid=10683, author=DennyMala wrote:It would really be nice to find NPCs TW around making a planet more lively and interesting as for combat and missions. Somewhat like we do in space.

I'd love to see that as well! Maybe some wildlife even. But I could imagine that this would have quite a big impact on the server's bandwith because it all would have to be synchronized then...

As for the parking idea:
I for myself have some trouble with the fact that the walker comes with a stealth device that can (for a reason I can't quite explain myself) only be used, when you landed. I mean: if my walker has a stealth device for my ship, why can't I use it in space then? It seems rather illogical for me.
Therefore I'd suggest that your ship just stays where it is, visible and all and it should only cloak if you have a cloaking device installed. Otherwise your ship remains "silent", meaning that it won't be detected on radars or sensors of any kind (except the naked, human eye).

[Edited on 12-3-2013 by Scavenger4711]

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 3:38 pm

And when your ship is blasted to pieces. You're stranded forever, unless there is a city you can walk to
and buy a new one.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:03 pm

From post: 159756, Topic: tid=10683, author=SeeJay wrote:And when your ship is blasted to pieces. You're stranded forever, unless there is a city you can walk to
and buy a new one.

I can picture this:

You just landed on a hostile planet billions of light years from any Planetary system with Cities or Stations. You leave your ship to do some mining or you found a hidden container.
Suddenly hostiles appear and blow up your ship!......Just pray that the hidden container contains food!.......

:P

DennyMala · Post by **DennyMala** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:31 am

You're doomed even while into a city.... TWs can't dock that I know of.

Since then, ship safety is paramount and a prerequisite of the entire TW concept. That's why Vice did it this way.

I would just say....move along....there's nothing to see here.... LOL!

Then again, all can be changed, but this is rooting to the basicts of the TW concept in this game... I doubt it can be done reasonably but the last word is always on Vice.

Addin content for the TW play may be another playfield.

Post by **DaveK** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:06 am

There was a massive discussion and even a poll about protecting/hiding ships when the TW is deployed. What you see is the consensus.

We've had TW for a while now and there are lots of interesting tweaks and extensions that come to mind to make TW's more versatile or get more game play for small changes. It's good to see discussions and suggestions surfacing.

I love the idea of having NPC Walkers - it would add a vast amount to SP, since SP players never see another walker, ever. It could also add a lot to MP, especially at those times of day when players are scarce - we retired one are lucky in that we can play whenever, but more often than not I'm the only player on a server at the times I can play. Planets in war zones could become battlegrounds against the Vonari - hire a "fleet" of NPC TW and you could take on Vonari fighters from the ground!. Perhaps even Vonari TW's!

Tempting though it is to get excited and want to boost the mech war aspect of TW, it's not Mech War that we bought, it's Mercenary. We would probably end up with two separate games in one package, both suffering as a consequence. It would certainly require a much bigger game size and probably better specced PC's. If you really want a full mech war experience, play a specialised mech war game as well EM. Vice has worked hard to integrate TW's into the game so they are natural part of it, not a bolt on.

I also love the idea of allowing TW to dock at a city - it would also add to the game. TW are about the same size as ships and can fly to the city landing pad, so it wouldn't be unreasonable that they might be able to dock and even enter the city station. It might even open things up for an extension to the shipyard for TW upgrades!

-splosives- · Post by **-splosives-** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:24 am

3 things I'd like:

- Terrain walker AI. Both neutral and hostile

- Customizeable terrain walkers

- Smaller terrain walkers. (this would make it more realistic by both fitting in your ship, and making the planets look bigger in comparison).

Jk-77 · Post by **Jk-77** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:23 am

From post: 158947, Topic: tid=9376, author=Jk-77 wrote:Yeah similar to what Cargo posted, i would like toggable headlights for the Ships and Terrain Walkers, and maybe even some planetary caves that you can explore for hidden loot that could be located on mountainsides or other locations, the entrances could be too small for spacecraft so Terrain Walkers would be essential in exploring them, would make exploring planets a little more fun/interesting and adding more TW contract possibilities. Deep in the caves there might be high interference or something that reduces the range of your radar and makes you invisible to other ships looking for you on thier radars so you could hide on the planet if you wanted to escape detection and there is no nebula in the immediate area. The caves would be dark so would heighten the need for headlights.

Some amount of Terrain Walker customisation might be an idea, e.g swap out different kinds of cannons maybe even purchase certain hardpoints for the TW, e.g a faster movement device, higher shield reserves etc. Even some planetary combat missions, staged inside the atmoshphere, where you could use your TW for combat which would add to the combat possibilities in the game. I think more varied and detailed scenery would be a good addition too, some scenery could have an effect on the Terrain Walkers, for example, walking in a heavily grassy area would slow the TW and make it less noisy etc.

I appologise if some of these ideas have already been posted, its a long thread lol

*TW=Terrain Walker

[End of the quote] (Cant remember the command to end the quoute properly... lol)

*I originally posted this a while back on the things that you would like to see in future updates thread, the one thats fifty nine pages long now lol, so i thought it might be a good idea to quote it over to this thread, as my suggestions quoted are mostly to do with future gameplay ideas for Terrain Walkers...

[Edited on 14-3-2013 by Jk-77]