TANX (Iron Strike)

[Huehnerschaender]

I'll try to let the Tank move over the trees, but I will put this to the end of my long long todo-list. There is too much game mechanics which need to be ready for the missions to work correctly. All the trigger events and triggertypes still need to be added to the engine and the according game behaviour too. This will take the next full days... I don't know what I can achieve and what unfortunately has to wait until after the IGF. I hope I get everything planned running.

Additions will be made after the IGF. Firts, we need a running game which is playable as intended...

Greetings,
Dirk

[WILL]

I got the PM. The idea is to keep to my 'general' path layout.

Your original map didn't quite flow well as it had the the tank squad backtracking and going in all directions.

I think that we can do without some grass-based maps. ie. the bases and maybe the last one... but we have to stick to the directions specified the way they flow on my non-plausible 'guessed' map. (Sent in a PM to Chebmaster.)

Like I said if we can shift those spots to locations that make more sense, yet keep the general shape of the layout (directions from mission to mission stay the same) If it morphs a bit where we some things are a bit more stretched over from how close I put them thats ok too. But the direction and the basic way the spot is approached between the missions is important to the briefings and bigger story. The first map was just too different from what the plot needs so we have rework the one I sent you to work better wit hwhat we have to work with.

[Chebmaster]

Ok. My new version. Maybe needs to move the mission #1 location.


Missions 4, 5 and 7 are placed in the *real* forest areas (see the forest map layer in the http://host-17-99.imsys.net/_share/_...legend.psd.zip (Warning! 41 megabytes * 15KBytes/second limit - it's like download a camel through a needle eye!). Other locations are just guesses where the groves could likely be (beside rivers/lakes). The front line is more detailed now, taking into account the terrain (Ural river, effectively separating the Weas and East and some salty swamps East of it).



Mission #1 thext: + "After landing from the airdrop, your squad prepares to move out to the front. This is when you notice a BIG problem. The area where need to be is marked on the map as a flat, open desert. Where's the hell the forest come out...? Either the map is wrong, or worse. You are lost!"

Mission #7 text: + "Fled to the South and hid in the forested area"

Well, it seems this is all I can do. :?

[WILL]

Hmm... well it seems we are limited in where this 1st mission can be. It seems VERY high up north from the front(that means a HUGE HUGE screwup by the inteligence guys and the direction you have them going back south would lead them directly through the enemy lines... if you could find a better direction considering that they were dropped so fare in the middle of enemy territory that might work better. Maybe if they instead tried going southeast to wrap around through the mountains but before they got there ran into the supply convoy? That might be more feasible for your suggested 1st location.

Plus the 4th mission where the air base is could be a bit more to the east. The air base can be in the desert because we can easily place the walls and stone ground to take care of any map issues there.

Same thing with the supply base too... it's not really limited to grassland.

Also Reid recently PMed me saying thta he might even have some stuff ready to go. So... this might open up some more rocky looking territory.

Appreciate all the effort to getting detailed location information. We're making progress, we just need to refine some small bits now.

[Traveler]

Okay, I have just pmed Dirk with some desert (cactus & rock) models to try out. If those work out, i'll probably be able to create a couple more and different models....

[Chebmaster]

that means a HUGE HUGE screwup by the inteligence guys

Or a medium-sized screwup by the pilots of the plane our tanks were desanting off.

Plus the 4th mission where the air base is could be a bit more to the east.

Well, my suggestion then is to swap the 4 and 5 points (and move point 3 accordingly). Really, the current point 5 better suits for the air base. It's on the authentic enemy territory, not on the recently claimed lands.

Why I'd prefer to *not* move too dep into the enemy territory is because these areas contain Coalition's vital industrial and mining plants, so it should be *very* strongly fortified (did I forget to draw that...?).

Oh! An idea! The anti-tank obstacles! I don't know how the modern ones look, but back in the time of WW II these were just three pieces of railroad rails welded together. Put a lot of such things on the field - and voila, tanks can't pass!

Should be *extremely* easy to model.

The air base can be in the desert because we can easily place the walls and stone ground to take care of any map issues there.

Well, see the little dots near the point 5 that mean "sand" ...? Thus the idea. Swap 4 and 5, and nudge the former 5 a few pixels left. It will end in the desert.

[WILL]

Oh! An idea! The anti-tank obstacles! I don't know how the modern ones look, but back in the time of WW II these were just three pieces of railroad rails welded together. Put a lot of such things on the field - and voila, tanks can't pass!

Hmm... indeed! I was hoping for those, barbed wire and land mines aswell, but time kicked our butts in those areas unfortunately. I'm hoping that the IGF people will forgive us for some mission features. We can even call this one a beta version and release an 'enhanced' version of 'Stormfront' after. Then when Dirk wants to release the full version we can add all the other cool stuff and a whole other pile of missions.

Mind you Iron Strike has come a long way since TANX afterall. Dirk has put a lot into this version and I think it's gonne turn out great. ...if we can ever figure out where on earth to put these darn missions. :lol:

Supply/Air Base Locations & Direction from Mission 1:

Ok here is my latest idea... I'm inclined to agree with you on the airbase and the supply base aswell. However I think that we should probably move 2 UP to where 3 is... and we'll put the new 3 right in between the new 2 and where the new 5 (supply base) will be. Make sense?

Basically have the squad move towards the eastern edge of the front INSTEAD OF going right through the middle of the whole 'dug in' enemy trench line. (aka suicide lane! :roll It'll make more sense to the players too I think... If I can get some other objects for the desert/rocky/grassland maps then we can place 2 in a spot that has that.

4 Tanks in the middle of enemy territory explaination:

As for the reason why the tanks are smack dab in the middle of enemy territory... we can go with 2 other posibly more plausable scenarios 1) The planes had engine/navigation trouble (possible hit by enemy EMP weapon) and had to ditch the tanks or 2) the plane crash landed and the tanks bailed out before they hit ground. Problem with the last one is that a plane crashing would bring attention to their location so they might in that scenario, be stuck running from an enemy that knows where they are right away. (works against the whole chapter's plot) I'm leaning towards option 1 on that one myself. Much cleaner/simplier explaination to it.

[WILL]

Here is a little video of the current state of the briefing screen.

...

http://www.dino-it.de/isbriefing.wmv

Finally checked out this video. Wow! Very nice. The voice is pretty darn nice. Computerized voice isn't too bad either...

I think we'd want a voice actor for the introduction's narration though. IF we sent that way with it. I'm thinking either a woman's or a young childs voice. Something to really draw out the empathy in their voice for the terribleness of the situation. After the intro text and narration we can put in the audio clip that was used in the 'TANX' version only have that as the menu audio.


Intro 'movie' sequence idea: [size=9px](Time willing... and if we can make is SIMPLE )[/size]

We could possibly use some TV/news footage/clips/pics showing terror[size=9px](biological/chemical/bombings)[/size] attacks and a few nukes going off in cities, etc... for shock effect to put them in a huge OMG mood while the narration is going on. We could even create --using existing media-- faked scenes for each earth changing events such as;

- Increased bombings and terrorist plots in Europe
- Russian president assassination,
- Entire continent of North America going under quarantine from a biological attack initiated pandemic [size=9px](I changed this because only nuke attacks made less sense! Pandemic is more believable)[/size]
- Overseas Canadian and US military stranded without a home [size=9px](US/Can off limits for fear of spreading desease!)[/size]
- Rise of the Coalition under the feared Russian General[size=9px](the new Hitler/Napoleon)[/size], fall of the UN [size=9px](burning of a flag?)[/size], Reformation of NATO and signing of new Alliance by China, Japan, etc...


Oh and I'll see if I can come up with a few concept flags/banners we can use in the game's title/intro/somewhere...

[savage]

In this video I used a TTS-Engine we are using at my company for some things to speak the mission briefing text. Is any native english speaking guy interested in recording the mission briefing texts for me with his own voice? It would be much more authentic than the synthetic speech even if the quality is a very good one

Ok, let me know what you think about the briefing screen so far.

I added a visualisation of the new "smoke engine" in the end of the video... take a look at it, too

http://www.dino-it.de/isbriefing.wmv

Hey I think I know that TTS voice intimately. It's one of Loquendo's voices. I'm intrigued what your company is using the Loquendo stuff for. I was in negotiations with them to try and get some "free" voices for Seige of Avalon, but it never really went anywhere.

Btw, smoke looks good.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi savage,

I am working in a software development company for telecommunication platforms. Last year, in one project I needed the Loquendo software to speak SMS texts. I was developing a service which converts SMS into talking MMS with an animated character reading the text (for fixed network MMS capable phones).

Thats why we have the TTS from Loquendo (we have some others too for other projects, eg Speechify). The license is house bound of course and I don't know if it would be legal to use the voice in my game, so a human speaker would be the best of course.

Greetings,
Dirk