Big Iron - Feature List

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Mechanized Combat in the Far Future
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Description

Big Iron is a real-time 3D combat simulation based around the concept of giant armored walking robots. Players compete against AI robots to complete various single-player missions (either stand-alone or as part of a campaign), or head to head against other human players via the Internet in team or deathmatch mode.

Big Iron is intended to be extremely flexible. Players are able to build their robots from the ground up (including selecting customized "skins") Battlefields and missions can be created from scratch with an included mission editor. Multi-player server operators are able to control and customize server operation (including setting game balance related parameters and customizing mission objectives or restrictions)

The game is intended to be similiar in scope to certain Windows shrink-wrapped games (like Starsiege or Mechwarrior), but with a distinctly Linux touch. Big Iron is not going to be a high-speed FPS like StarSiege Tribes, Quake or others like that. The pace will be a little slower and a little more strategy oriented. One on one battles may last several minutes between highly skilled pilots.

Here's the list of all the stuff we'd like to do. Naturally only a small subset of this will be provided in the first release.

General
- Support for 3D hardware acceleration (OpenGL)
- MOD based music soundtracks
- Realistic sound effects
- High frame rate/responsiveness
- 1st person in-combat cockpit view with customizable heads up display
- High quality (png/tga) screenshots
- Users can record battles and replay from different angles
Robots and Vehicles
- User customizable "skins" for all vehicles
- Configurable from the chassis up, allowing user to select weapons, engine, reactor, defense and special systems.
- Broad variety of systems and combinations
- Range of chassis sizes from small light scouts to heavy duty "finger of death" rigs
- Support for multi-pilot vehicles (e.g., a pilot and a gunner)
- Non-mobile units (turrets, buildings, bridges, walls)
- Non-combat units (freighters, civilian craft, etc.)
- Any thing that is not terrain can potentially be destroyed/damaged
- Tunnels, underground chambers
Combat
- Weapons are divided into damage class types
- Defensive systems can be tailored to different damage classes
- All unit systems are physically located somewhere on the unit's body, forming the "internals" that can be specifically targetted
- Weapons must first penetrate outer defenses (shields, armor)
- Distinction between unit incapaciation/destruction and pilot deaths
- Ejecting pilots are vulnerable for some period of time before they are considered safely off the battlefield
Movement
- 2, 4 or 6 legged walking with robots
- Rolling or hovering with vehicles
- Flying or hovering with flyers
- Falling with all units (based on physical model)
- Jump jets for robots (allowing short controlled flights)
AI
- AI control possible for each type of unit
- Customizable skill and agressiveness levels for AI's
- Extensible AI objectives and motivations through scripting engine
Communications
- Public communications to all players
- Private communications to specified target
- Private communications to specified target
- Preset orders to allied AI units
- Server operator generated messages
- Mission triggered messages (possibly through scripting)
Sensors and Targetting
- Varying types of radar (passive/active, resolution, scan frequency, efficiency, etc.)
- FLIR
- Zoomable cockpit view
- Shared sensors/targetting
- Close range scans allowing detailed information about buildings, vehicles to be determined
Weapons
- Beam weapons (ion cannons, lasers, particle beams, yamamato guns (BFG))
- Blast weapons (blasters, rail guns)
- Ballistic weapons (blast cannons, auto-cannons, artillery cannons)
- Seeking weapons (missiles (heat-seeking/radar/laser guided/fly-by-wire))
- Other weapons (plasma whips, emp burst, mines, disrupter cannons)
- Ammo based weapons or energy based weapons
- Varying rates of fire/recharge
- varying damage classes and levels
- each weapon has a unique visual appearance, allowing visual identification
Defensive Systems/Counter Measures/Other systems
- ECM (anti-missile/radar)
- Thermal Camoflage (anti-missile/IR scope)
- cloaking devices
- stealth systems
- turbo boosters
- shields
- armor (ablative, reflective, self-healing)
- repair modules (self and portal heal pad)
- jump jets
- increased ammo packs
- engine
- reactor/fuel cell
- servos/treads/wheels
- chassis/hull (sets size and weight restrictiosn on contained components)
- computers (for targetting, scanning, communications)
- ejection seats (for escaping mortally wounded vehicles)
Terrain
- Irregular terrain (composed of tesselated triangles)
- Support for open maps with very large outdoor areas
- Support for smaller "arena" style closed maps
- Different types of ground characteristics (traction, hardness)
- Support for water (rivers, lakes, ocean, quicksand)
- Realistic physics model, including inertia, friction, gravity, air pressure, sliding on hills, recoil, etc.)
- Weather effect modelling including rain, snow, lightning, meteors
Missions and Campaigns
- Game play is organized into missions with various objectives
- Missions can include single, sequenced and conditional objectives
- Objectives can include
  - Kill all or some enemy units
  - Defeat all or some enemy units (i.e. run them off, not necessarily kill)
  - Destroy structures
  - Protect structures
  - Protect units or NPC AI's
  - Survive for a certain period of time
  - Move to a certain location
  - Scan structure or unit
  - Escape an area before a certain time
- Multiple related missions can be linked together to form a campaign
- Campaigns can be nonlinear (level of success at one mission determines which mission is played next)
- Campaigns can place restrictions on repairs/refits/unit changes between missions
- Campaigns can provide or take away player directed AI allies during or between missions
- Missions and campaigns can have adjustable difficulty levels (increasing or decreasing enemy units, enemy skill, repair/reload time, etc.)
- Objectives and/or missions can have time limits
Networked Play
- Dedicated server mode provides multi-player action for an arbitrary number of players
- Certain missions may be tailored to multi-player play
- Types of multi-player games can include:
  - Deathmatch (kill all other players)
  - Team Deathmatch (players organized into 2 or more teams)
  - Capture the Flag (enemy flag object must be physically retrieved and brought back to base)
  - Overrun (all players on the same team defending base against impossible odds)
  - Kamikaze (all players on the same team attacking base against impossible odds)
  - Freeze tag (entire opposing team must be frozen, but not killed)
- Networked play can restrict players to a single drop, to drops only as the mission begins, require a certain "sit out" time, or allow unrestricted dropping in.
- Non-active players can enter a "kibitz" room where they can chat, work on unit configuration, examine server information
- Non-active players can enter a "chase cam" mode where they can follow one of the other players around
- Servers can be set up to cycle different distinct multi-player missions
- Multi-player missions can end after a certain time, after a certain number of kills, by a unanimous vote of players (for cycling past a disliked mission on a multi-mission server) or by achieving a certain objective.
- Server admin controls for kicking, banning, monitoring and logging player activities
- Server machine can also have a client running and playing on it
- Servers can optionally rate limit incoming connections to prevent broadband-equipped players from getting unfair advantages
- Built-in capacity for inter-player real time audio communications
Script Extensions/Dynamic Scenery
- Teleport gates
- Heal bays
- Reload bays
- Doors (possibly locked for certain teams or by certain conditions)
- AI units/reinforcements dropped in
- Changing mission objectives
- Refit bays for changing certain vehicle configuration on the fly

Page maintained by Loiosh
Last modified September 17 2001 21:22:15.