I was involved in a tank battle tonight, if you can call it that.
It got me thinking about the tanks in Aces High here. They're nice, but to be honest they are not fully playable yet. Maybe there not supposed to be, but even what is here is pretty simplistic.
I've been collecting a bunch of ideas on what I think could be done to make them really fun.
I know some of this may have a snowballs chance in hell of getting implemented, but I at least want to ask.
- Get rid of the external view online
- The Panzer's MG-34 in the cupola should be able to swing 360 like the M2 .50cal on the M-3 halftrack. The guns really could do that.
- Blur the tank treads and bogey wheel graphics. The tank treads are not animated, so I suggest that you make it hard to tell. This is what was done in another tank sim I own, Steel Beasts. The graphics are crude, but I never noticed the treads are not moving. This would be easier than making them animate, right Natedog? Color the treads blank grey, and the bogey wheels with no holes or lugnuts showing. Make them muddy if you want to cover it up.
- Paint the Panzer green.
- Treelines. We've got smoke rounds, but I would like to see some treelines just like them. Green of course, with some brown stumps showing at the bottom. They don't have to be everywhere, just premanently added them to the areas that vehicles often travel.
- Remove the super-speed downhill in neutral trick. Replace it with no slowdowns going uphill.
- Bridges and rivers.
- Reduce the 75mm cannons range. Have the shells disapear after a certain distance, much longer range than machinegun fire, but not infinite. They're too long ranged. This isn't accurate to real life.
- Make them accelerate slower. I can whip thru all the gears in no time. I can't even shift my motorcycle that fast.
- Either self propelled artillery or towed artillery behind an M3 halftrack. Perhaps this is already planned using the navy gunfire fire control. I hope so.
- Increase the size and defenses of vehicle bases.
- Change the enemy population thermometers to show air and ground populations seperate from each other.
- Draw a road network on the textures for the ground in the same pattern that bases "teleport" vehicles around. If I can jump out from my base to this base, draw a road between them. This one is simply asthetic, but you could tell at a flash where to expect vehicles from.
If there were one thing on the list I really, really want...its the treelines. From the point you appear in the foothills in your tank, untill about 1,000 feet to the side of an airbase, there needs to be some terrain to play in. It would be a double edged sword, since tankers couldn't see gun emplacements at bases and hit them. They would need to get in closer, but the AI guns there probably can hit them from these ranges.
Hans.
[This message has been edited by Hans (edited 12-26-2000).]
