"Fleet" Commander Chassis

Kind of a crack-brained idea that I thought about while I was sitting in traffic this evening...

One of the main problems in team games (of any genre really) is a lack of team cohesion. I think this will always be a factor, but Zero-K might be in an interesting position to address the issue for several reasons. First, it is pretty much geared toward team games. Second, the Spring Engine is designed to handle battles of very large sizes including many players on very large maps, thus exacerbating the problem. Third, Zero-K is highly customizable for the player with a huge amount of unit options and tactical variances - One of those being the ability to chose a Commander Chassis. This could also be interpreted as selecting a player's "position" or role in the game. This would be similar to "Forward", "Pitcher", or "Defender" in various team sports.

I propose that one of those positions be created that plays a leadership role in Zero-K. My idea is to implement a commander chassis that is designed to provide base abilities to allow the player to act as such. The design of the commander would situate the player so that they would be, essentially, an active spectator who was able to communicate with their team, and not see beyond their fog of war. (They would also not be able to communicate with normal specs)

The purpose of this is to allow the player to take a strategic perspective by not being bogged down about micro, specific build orders, etc... Instead they would draw lines on the map, watch the enemy radar blips for incoming attacks and attempt to coordinate players into cooperative actions that benefit the team. Because this is simply a choice of chassis, there is no requirement that anybody even listen, but I think that good players can recognize good options and opinions when they see them.

My thought is to add a commander chassis that is heavily nerfed in build power (as like 2bp or less even), can act as a mobile radar, and can fly using the gunship mechanism. Weapons on this chassis would also be poor to prevent flying com rushes. The initial build price of this chassis would be 100% of initial metal (no initial upgrades, but morphs could lead to some interesting stuff?). Finally I would make this chassis extremely difficult to unlock, so that primarily only the most experienced players would have access in normal play. (People that often spec anyway since they're tired of stomping noobs all the time) I would suggest some mechanism that limits the number of these units in play at a time as well.

I realize there are obviously some big holes in this concept, so flame away! But I also think it merits at least some concept discussion as a relatively easy way to help Zero-K stand out as such the innovative game that it is.

How would you use this chassis? How would you value the added strategic insight when compared to losing an "active" player on your team? If a proven "Fleet" Commander were to hand out advice would you follow it? Is there enough strategic "meat" in the game to make this useful? Other thoughts? Do you know of any other game (doesn't need to be RTS) where this type of mechanic has been successfully employed? How would this affect clan play?

Yeah, I think that currently and ideally, this is the role played by a competent air player. They have the best intel, and are able to lend their weight strategically to anywhere on the map.

Team cooperation only comes with people who are willing to listen though. Sentiments like 'you play your game i'll play mine' and 'But I need this HLT to defend my base!' are depressingly common. Mostly what you do when trying to guide your team is just whipping the noobs who are not advancing beyond 3 mexes and who start gunships (sometimes half your team) then spam brawlers vs a plane player. It is more drill sergeant than general, but that all comes from having the game played at such a low skill level (IE, games are too large).

I don't really see the point of the chassis you proposed. It would probably only be used for rushing to inaccessible situations or the middle of the map for a fac-plop and cheesy junk. I don't know why anyone playing strategically would take it. It would also have all the old athena problems if it is a true gunship (Planes countering).

It might be worthwhile bringing back the old 'team spec' functionality though where a player who is not counted in elo etc has only team vision, can communicate with his team, lay marks, etc. There are lots of games where I'd be happy to give advice but the elo is too low to play.

Something similar crossed my mind too once. But it is too hard to enforce such a role into this game. It would maybe start to work when the teams get really big.
I like the idea of some sort of command structure within an RTS game though. You'd have to make a completely new game around that.

In this game most high level teamplayers can micro make bases chat etc and are still able to follow what's happening on the rest of the field. They don't need a special commander for that.

in an ideal world where everyone gets along that would be very nice, but i foresee a lot of noobbashing and whining if you give such power to the wrong player.

I've been suggesting some very many many years ago (it was still CA back then) the idea that some players would be dedicated battlefield analyzers. They would look for weak spots while their team scouts, they would notice intruders, they would notice which enemy flank can be steamrolled by artillery and which by assault units or simple raider spam. Then they would place markers accordingly, provide their team with important information such as energy stalls of single players and maybe even be able to give (eg idle) units of players to another players, et cetera. All this with Mumble support and what not.

But in the end that's probably just a bad version of comm-sharing, so.. a request to all clans out there: Make use of comm-sharing! Get used to excessive teamplay with lots of communication and insanely epic player interaction. I wanna see some really high level comm-sharing teamplay action in the near future! :)
(of course that has to be supported by Springie first)

you mean like teammates controlling units (when idle, owner's commands override everything) ?

also, this concept depends heavily on communication, understanding and teamplay, which some players completely lack (only some because of language reasons). pragmatically said, this will epic fail because the one thing that is for sure is the evilness and/or dumbness of mankind.

Well, back in the CA days we had an option called "backup" in the faction-selection list. Backup was a team-member with no units. It was buggy, and making sure the autobalancer wouldn't count him as a player was tricky, but it was there.

i think this is a good idea, I almost never see a team making any kind of plan before the battle starts, having a plan and a commander would make things more intersting and more realistic.


About them using builders i see a simple solution: no metal, if the game gives them no metal, builders cannot build ( he could still have E for stealth and rezzing)


The way I see it: in a small game such a player could use "donated" units to help battle micro at any point on the frontline (since he does not have to worry about a base) while in larger games he could be a general looking at the bigger picture and directing the reserves (players could give him units to reposition and redistribute)

I was wondering the same thing, Google. And if you can share the units, wouldn't that mean the general-commander is able to build stuff, too?

Or maybe they're literally shared and not given.