Infantry Combat

[Eluem]

Try to make the most of infantry combat and the theme of endos not being squishy humans:
-Implement more movement mechanics for endos
-Charge jetpack to dash this would also possibly make space dueling more interesting (which will likely happen pretty often when scavenging if your ship breaks during a battle)
-Sprinting
-Sliding
-Fluidly sprinting into sliding into jumping onto a wall
-Keep time to kill high (it should take quite a bit of damage to disable an endo)
-Avoid 1 hit kill infantry weapons (big things like direct hits from huge weapons is fine)
-Make leading important
-Make it possible to repair yourself in combat when you're not under fire

The movement is the most important part to me. Fluid and fun infantry movement will be pretty important with the scale of the game and the fact that you won't always be able to rely on your ship. It'll often get torn up and you'll be forced to bail and try to hitch a ride or something. Ideally, it should still feel fun to fight another endo even in open space.

Perhaps look at Starsiege: Tribes and Fallen Empire: Legions for some interesting ideas about fluid movement and damage. Titan Fall is also an obvious thing to look at.. however it has the same damage model as CoD. Which I don't think is appropriate for a game like Starbase. Starseige: Tribes is a much better place to look. Though it would need to be adapted for open space and angular terrain. Which is why I suggest movement options like bursts of speed and sliding.

I also mentioned this on discord:
https://discordapp.com/channels/423790999052222464/590464706548989952/678393466040090634

 

[Burnside]

These aren't quite parkour-bots like in titanfall... I'd settle just for having a cover-lean control like in some FPSs- a directional jetpack dodge that kicks you into flight mode if you're standing might be an interesting mechanic since jetpacking is less viable than walking/running so it'd have a nice trade-off.

I know there was talk about a heavy endo model that couldn't use chairs, so maybe a super-light one that has less durability but gets a faster run/sprint and has enhacned movement options?

 

[Eluem]

These aren't quite parkour-bots like in titanfall... I'd settle just for having a cover-lean control like in some FPSs- a directional jetpack dodge that kicks you into flight mode if you're standing might be an interesting mechanic since jetpacking is less viable than walking/running so it'd have a nice trade-off.

I know there was talk about a heavy endo model that couldn't use chairs, so maybe a super-light one that has less durability but gets a faster run/sprint and has enhacned movement options?

That's a fair point of view. Instead of a lighter model (because dying in one shot will never be fun). It could possibly be a backpack option that takes up space in the backpack, preventing you from using other backpacks and limiting your weapon loadout.

Though, I do think that the jetpack should have a charged/boost mechanic for everyone.. especially for when you're in space.

 

[Croomar]

Movement systems can really change the entire dynamic of a shooter, and I personally always felt like they're greatly enriching the games that featured them. But Starbase already has a very intruiging overall concept for infantry combat with open space, magnetic surfaces, freely usable jetpacks, destructible environments and locational damage with according animations. Those are already far more features than you would hope to see for an MMO with shooter elements, and is a pleasant surprise see even for the scale Starbase offers overall.

So, do we reallyy need cool movement features? Certainly not urgently, the combat promises to play out interesting enough for what Starbase tries to be if you ask me. But they would make the game a lot more awesome and infantry combat a good bit more enjoyable. And with that comes an additional reason for players to focus on infantry combat. Space sandbox games have a tendency to rely a lot on ship combat, especially if they feature ship building. So creating an incentive for players to engage more on the smaller scales would allow movement features to add a new dimension and new depth to the game, possibly even making it relevant enough for more communities to form around it, which is a rare sight, in Starbase as much as in any comparable game.

These days, you can consider Sprinting, leaning and the three stances standing, crouching and prone pretty elemntary for any shooter. Elementary enough that I think they should be included in Starbase at some point. Other than those, I made the experience that sliding usually has pretty big impacts on gameplay, but the proposed jetpack dashes sound awesome as well.

As for the time to kill, from the SB feature videos it looks fairly high already. Making entire bullet sponges out of every player isn't necessarily fun either, but with a reasonable amount of health / armor / shields / whatever, you can make firefights prolonged events, adding to their depth as it leaves time and options for different possibilities and maneuvers.

 

[Eluem]

Movement systems can really change the entire dynamic of a shooter, and I personally always felt like they're greatly enriching the games that featured them. But Starbase already has a very intruiging overall concept for infantry combat with open space, magnetic surfaces, freely usable jetpacks, destructible environments and locational damage with according animations. Those are already far more features than you would hope to see for an MMO with shooter elements, and is a pleasant surprise see even for the scale Starbase offers overall.


So, do we reallyy need cool movement features? Certainly not urgently, the combat promises to play out interesting enough for what Starbase tries to be if you ask me.

I 100% agree. This was pointed more towards future changes as the game develops. The developers have FAR more important things to focus on right now for the kind of game it is. They need to get all this netcode and simulation tech being tested on a larger scale first.

But they would make the game a lot more awesome and infantry combat a good bit more enjoyable. And with that comes an additional reason for players to focus on infantry combat. Space sandbox games have a tendency to rely a lot on ship combat, especially if they feature ship building. So creating an incentive for players to engage more on the smaller scales would allow movement features to add a new dimension and new depth to the game, possibly even making it relevant enough for more communities to form around it, which is a rare sight, in Starbase as much as in any comparable game.

This is what I'm going for. I really want there to be room too have a lot of player expression in infantry combat.

These days, you can consider Sprinting, leaning and the three stances standing, crouching and prone pretty elemntary for any shooter. Elementary enough that I think they should be included in Starbase at some point. Other than those, I made the experience that sliding usually has pretty big impacts on gameplay, but the proposed jetpack dashes sound awesome as well.

Yeah, I figure that we'll get crouching and sprinting at some point. The main thing here is that I want sliding and jetpacking to preserve some extra momentum and allow you to traverse more dynamically without adding any other extremely complex mechanics. If we could integrate all of these mechanics together, along with the ability to switch to different surfaces in a cohesive fluid system that has ways to preserve momentum, we could see some very interesting movement without having to build really complex parkouring mechanisms.

As for the time to kill, from the SB feature videos it looks fairly high already. Making entire bullet sponges out of every player isn't necessarily fun either, but with a reasonable amount of health / armor / shields / whatever, you can make firefights prolonged events, adding to their depth as it leaves time and options for different possibilities and maneuvers.

I absolutely agree! This is why I recommend looking at Starsiege: Tribes dueling videos for a good example of how long ttk should be. For example, I feel like the plasma rifle shouldn't 1 hit kill. I would prefer if it actually produced a small but useful blast radius around impacts that. Then, it could 2 shot direct hit or 2 indirect + 1 direct hit, or 4 indirect hit kill someone. That's the kind of damage ranges I'm thinking of.

Of course ship weapons would be different and big slow tube rocket launchers that you can see coming can be different. I just don't want to walk around corners and get gibbed lol.

 

[Burnside]

Given that it's an anti-vehicle/structure weapon, any of those heavy infantry weapons being one-hits on an endo is fine imo. Movement and weapon systems need to be fun and awesome and produce good fights, but they also need to be internally consistent.

 

[Eluem]

Given that it's an anti-vehicle/structure weapon, any of those heavy infantry weapons being one-hits on an endo is fine imo. Movement and weapon systems need to be fun and awesome and produce good fights, but they also need to be internally consistent.

I definitely agree. It's a fine line to balance around. I always favor fun smooth gameplay and will adjust lore to justify mechanics if possible. If it's not possible to get them to work together smoothly, I usually take a step back and try to see why.

The big anti ship weapons should definitely one shot players, but they should also have enough lead up, setup, or some kind of tell to give players the opportunity to avoid getting instagibbed by them. Of course, stuff happens. I don't want the game to take away from anything by trying too hard to force it to always be fair. I just want to focus on trying to make it feel fair most of them time.

For example, rockets could handle this by not killing in one shot unless you're close to the center of the blast radius. Any other hit could do huge damage and send you flying. This would help reduce how often you get ruined by a random rocket.

Anti ship sniper rifles like the rail gun could give some warning by producing a beam of light (Fallen Empire: Legions did this with their charged laser rifle). Players could see it coming and evade.. also it prevents camping by giving away the position of the rail gun user. It could possibly not produce this light if you haven't started charging a shot for a minute. So if you want to stealth snipe, you can only take one shot a minute. Otherwise, your gun has so much charged energy in it still that when you being charging up another shot, it produces a beam of light.. idk if that's the best solution. Just some ideas.

For the plasma rifle... I honestly want it to be my main gun but I don't want it to be over powered or too weak. It already has a charge up mechanic to prevent it from being OP.. maybe it could also create a short beam of light to make it more obvious where it's aiming and when it's about to fire. This could possibly also make it a bit easier to aim lol

 

[Burnside]

The plasma rifle has 8 shots, that's not a mainline inf. weapon, your loadout is heavily skewed and might be showing some odd bias. For something like the rail rifle, I'd almost say give it a light trail instead of an "overheat ghost" or whatever. Another thought based on that, infantry weapons could glow proportional to their damage output, so high-burst weapons glow strongly after every shot regardless but tend to "cool off" while high DPS weapons with weaker individual rounds will tend to "heat up" when used frequently or recklessly- in either case the shooter is making the choice to make themselves more visible. A Heavy weapons team can mitigate heat-glow from their weapon by sticking to cover and shoot-and-scoot tactics to physically hide while minigun and whiplash users can mitigate the effect by conserving their fire.

On explosives having damage falloff across their blast radius, I'd agree, but that would need to be implemented for all explosives- which I would like to see, personally- and I'd thought of it myself but discarded the idea because it would require extra implementation. Definitely something for the wishlist.

 

[Recatek]

Personally I would be wary of sliding/dashing or any other bursty character movement options in a P2P-networked shooter.

 

[Eluem]

Personally I would be wary of sliding/dashing or any other bursty character movement options in a P2P-networked shooter.

This is a very valid concern... However, the game already features fully projectile based guns which is typically a networking issue as well.

It's definitely something to take into consideration when testing and designing the feature though. I do think it could work despite this possible issue.

 

[WolfiAUT]

It's definitely something to take into consideration when testing and designing the feature though. I do think it could work despite this possible issue.

Another reason why public testing should be available as soon as possible.

 

[Geronimo553]

My only concern about infantry combat is the damage of handheld weapons. From the weapons shown in game videos they look to be a little under performing. Like the reaper pistol looked to be nearly ineffective. Though in all fairness the videos are now old and they could have been improved.

As for infantry combat movement I would prefer the combat to not be any faster or more complicated than it is. From what I have seen I really like the slower combat versus high speed rush rush.

 

[Burnside]

mind you, pistols in general should barely be effective outside of damaging standard glass and chipping away at endos- not a lot of people get the differences in firepower between cartridge dimensions and barrel lengths that make rifles vastly superior weapons from a ballistics perspective

 

[PopeUrban]

My only concern about infantry combat is the damage of handheld weapons. From the weapons shown in game videos they look to be a little under performing. Like the reaper pistol looked to be nearly ineffective. Though in all fairness the videos are now old and they could have been improved.

As for infantry combat movement I would prefer the combat to not be any faster or more complicated than it is. From what I have seen I really like the slower combat versus high speed rush rush.

All damage values you see right now are temporary for testing purposes. Ships are way flimsier than they're supposed to be to test performance of fracturing and destruction, handheld weapons haven't been fine tuned due to a lack of need to do so. They're relying on the closed tests to start getting the info to lock down the damage values as the priority right now is ensuring all the underlying systems are functional.

 

[WolfiAUT]

mind you, pistols in general should barely be effective outside of damaging standard glass and chipping away at endos- not a lot of people get the differences in firepower between cartridge dimensions and barrel lengths that make rifles vastly superior weapons from a ballistics perspective

Since this game is far from being realistic, I don't mind pistols and smaller bullets still doing damage.

On the other hand - depending on the material of our roboiiis even common assault rifle cartridges (556x45; 545x39, 762x39) wouldn't do much damage to the characters.

 

[Recatek]

Since this game is far from being realistic, I don't mind pistols and smaller bullets still doing damage.

Indeed. I love me some hand cannons.

 

[PopeUrban]

Indeed. I love me some hand cannons.

I'd really like some dedicated antipersonnel defensive weapons. Since we have rockets I'd like to see some EMP launcher or lightning gun designed around dealing damage to EXOs without damaging surrounding systems. It'd be harder to use, probably less damage or range or whatever, but it would be good to have a go-to weapon for defending your electronics core or other critical systems, or attempting to rapidly board and clear a structure or ship without collateral damage so you can exploit it faster.

Lets face facts here, if you start shooting pilots dead you're going to shoot up a lot of control panels.

 

[Geronimo553]

Taser and handcuffs would be neat.

 

[CalenLoki]

Personally I'm more in favour of slower cover-based combat, rather than run n gun Quake-like.

And since the game is centered around stations and ships, infantry combat should definitely favour staying on the ground, rather than flying. Treat it as last resort to your feet back on something, rather than viable approach to combat.

I agree with not too short TTK, but also would like it to devolve in DPS fest. The person who hit first or is in better position should definitely have upper hand.

So things I'd like to see:
Slow acceleration for jetpack. So no silly left-right insta-strafing. Maybe also noticeable difference between front and lateral acceleration.

Acceleration on the ground shouldn't be instant either, but certainly more responsive than jetpack.

Recoil. And I mean actual force that can send you flying if you went for really big guns. Extra magnet on the knee to help mitigate it.

Bullet impact force. So if you're being shoot at, the first response should be seeking cover, not shooting back.

Nearby hits affecting your aim by shaking the camera. Sometimes called suppression mechanics. I know it's controversial, but I like it. So if your cover is being shoot at, you either change it or wait for the shooter to run out of ammo, not peak and shoot back.

I like charged jetpack-assisted jumps, but they should be possible only from the ground, close to perpendicular to it and forward.

I like the idea about OHK weapons warning the victims. Although I'd rather have the light beam to always appear before the shoot. So sniper press trigger (or go into scope view) to activate the gun, and can shoot 2s later. Then bullet trail can stay for prolonged time (also 2s) to reveal camper possition.

 

[Burnside]

pre-fire beam only makes sense on stuff like a spartan laser-esque design, everything else isn't internally consistent- however, I can see the plasma rifle having some kind of visible static field for a half-second between hitting the trigger and firing, rockets have a lower velocity and a thrust trail, railguns have an after-charge static field, conventional heavy rifles *might* have a bullet trail (iirc Halo justified this because it was gas-propelled instead of gunpowder), etc- everything should be a little different

I'd say if the infantry missile/rocket launcher had a seeker-feature, it could have a tiny red-strobe LED-type thing on the front sight representing some kind of lasing sensor, but they're dumb-fire so no, you don't get pre-fire detection, be more cautious

honestly, the more I think about the pro/cons of heavy weapons have pre-fire tells, the more it feels like that would encourage run-and-gun behavior; suppression mechanics would be more interesting if it did something like narrow your field of view instead of shaking the screen