Here's how foot soldiers can work in AH. I encourage anyone to find fault in it in terms of game play and major technical difficulties to implement it.
1. Modifications
a) Add these 5 types of soldiers: Sub-machine gunner, Rifleman, Sniper, Anti-tank personnel (bazooka), Sapper(explosives). Let them just be able to crawl, crouch, run, and lean into sides, with minimal arm and gun animations.
b) Spawn:
* Soldiers can spawn inside any of the town buildings
* or they can spawn at various points on the airbase provided 'troops and supplies' are available.
* Soldier can also spawn directly into Goons, trucks, and jeeps, whether or not they are air borne or on the road. It's not fun to sit in a goon for 20mins and get killed as soon as you jump off by gun installations.
* Transportations can carry their default number of troops (A.I or P.C). As the player controlled soldiers hop on or spawn in them, the A.I troops are replaced.
* Just let the troops be able to sit in the passenger seat (all 10 troops might be sitting on the same spot but we wouldn¡¯t mind) and look around. We don't need to walk around inside goons or trucks, and when the driver unloads their cargo, the P.C troops will find themselves falling or on the ground.
* In the ¡®Join¡¯ list, specify which players are piloting what type of vehicles/planes. By default, player should be able to spawn into any of these 3 transportations as foot soldiers; goons, trucks, jeeps. Who wouldn¡¯t prefer P.C soldiers to A.I troops? Gunners should still be required to ask permission first.
c) Capture of fields:
* 10 paratroopers (either A.I or player controlled) enter the map room via the map room door and the field is captured. The A.I troops need just reach the map room building as before.
* When the first troop enter the map room, 1 hour capture period commences (and announced on the radio) and during that time, 9 more troops must enter the map room to capture the field. When the set time expires, all the troops that have entered will be cancelled and the 1 hour capture period must be initiated again.
* The town buildings don't have to be destroyed first to capture the field. (but it'd be a good idea to flatten them first because soldiers can spawn anytime to defend even if there's only one building left in the town)
d) Hopping onto vehicles: Allow soldiers to hop onto these 3 transportations and nothing more; Goons, Trucks, and Jeeps. Let the players hop on whether the vehicle is running or in full stop to make the game play less tedious, provided the transport is on the ground. (You can¡¯t hop onto an air borne goon although you can spawn into it from the hanger).
e) Let the soldiers be able to drive these 2 vehicles only; trucks, and jeeps. They shouldn¡¯t be able to jump off fighters, bombers, tanks, or goons and start shooting as foot soldiers for the obvious reasons. Those type of pilots should end their mission as pilots, not as foot soldiers.
f) Ending mission:
The soldiers should be able to end their mission anytime anywhere, provided that they are on the ground. If you end your mission in the enemy territory, you are captured. The main objective is about capture of fields or destruction of enemy installations, not so much about killing how many, so players wouldn¡¯t complain that much when an enemy ends his mission just before getting shot. If you¡¯re a paratrooper and the enemy disappears, it¡¯d be easier to get into the map room, etc.
g) Modification to environments:
* Just keep the basic design of the maps. No major overhaul of maps required.
* Add some A.I field guns that can be controlled by players, in and around towns to make the soldier only raids difficult.
* Add some rocks around towns to make gun fighting more fun in town capture fighting.
* The town buildings do not need to be detailed. They don't need to have rooms or stairs. Just paint a little bit inside the walls and give us a door or an opening even without a door, so we can get inside and out.
That¡¯s it!
