Yet another Mod announced: Dark Waters

[dawdler]

Well, I thought I'd go with the flow and announce my little project in a new thread:

Dark Waters, a completely submerged multiplayer team combat experience. Meaning, its gonna be blue. And deeper blue. And a little dark. But mostly just blue. Think X-Com: Terror From The Deep. But its only based on the idea, its NOT an X-Com mod.

-Story-

Humaninty want to explore. We want to reach out. We try to seek out new life in the universe... Early morning 13th of May in the year 2024 someone responded. There was a confirmed messege coming from the planet of Mars, one of the most explored planets in our galaxy. Top scientiest tried to deciphered it while every telescope turned its eye on the red planet. Little did they know it was the beginning of the end...

28th of February, 2025, a huge city sized disc shaped object crashed into the Atlantic ocean. No one had seen it coming. The world leaders scrambled to determine what has happened, but it was to late. Severall other discs had already taken up orbit. Satellite coverage went down, all communications failed. Soon thereafter came the deadly rain... Scores of alien aircrafts launched surprise assaults on military bases all around the world, and the mammoth discs in the sky turned their eyes on the major citys of the world. United States was one of the first to recieve. Bombs with the power of 10 standard nuclear missiles fell onto the earth, leaving citys in ruins, and billions dead across the globe.

But all was not lost. The Royal Air Force had been developing a plasma cannon defense system to use as a shield for nuclear missiles. The three functional prototypes where employed against the onslaught of the unknown enemy, and in an heroic effort they took down one of the alien motherships and detered several massed assaults. The goverment quickly ordered the construction of more of these, and the island soon became a floating fortress, a lonely island in a sea of destruction. Refugees began pouring in from all over the world, to get under the cover of the massive cannons. They brought information, reports on the dead, on levelled countries and massbombed cities... And on countrys that have striken a deal with the aliens. These refugees also confirm one of the objectives the aliens have: Turn the Earth into an entire world of water, with little land. Using some sort of burrowing bombs, they shatter deep mountain layers, making entire nations sink beneath the waves.
Apalled by this the British goverment, with the support of what remained of US, Russian and Chinese goverments in exile on the British island, they declared that the Commonwealth would never surrender, and never give in. Over 300 million people was now safe under the plasma umbrella.

A new type of country took form. A new type of army was raised.

It was time to strike back and reclaim the Earth waters.





Weapons and vehicles are undecided (my mind only works so fast), but each side will have at least one all purpose dropship/sub and light/heavy ground vehicles and subs. Not much in other words, its focus is still ground(seabed) combat.

Concerning general gameplay, it will not use any health meters or crosshair. Ironsight of some sort will be there though (at the cost of reduced movement). Health and ammo will be checkable, meaning your player estimate ammo and holds up his hand to see if you are bleeding if you press respective key.
Further more, it will use a "morale" system, which will alter health/accuracy/damage of the player/rifles dependant on how many friends are in the vicinity. Meaning, not realistic weaponry or player handling, but screw that
The point with this system is simple: superiority to win the day.
You will also be able to drop unconcsious and wounded in true Xcom style when shot (note, medics DONT have to stand on top of you to heal you, it might hurt)
Hopefully, HL2 can simulate murky underwater enviroments with flashlights pretty good, but one dont really know, just hope.

Still just in its design phase, need HL2 first

And if anyone asks if one is in need of help, then the answer is kind of. I want to get the basic design finished first.

 

[green1152]

Very good story, Dawdler. Hey, are you still with EoD mod?

 

[Majestic XII]

Dark Water/s is a name for a horror movie....did you know that

 

[MapE]

Is you mentality towards the mod the same as your making it look in the title ? "Yet another Mod"

 

[Guest]

Why always America first?

And why are the British RAF the hero's with the americans and russians... well I don't like your mod idea.

 

[dawdler]

No I'm not with EoD anymore.
Pirates in Dark Waters is actually a cartoon series too
And of course its yet another mod. Would it be better if I said "The 1337ests mod idea sliced bread! w00t! This is gonna roxors! Cool mod, look at this!"?
Why America first? Yes why... First rule of war: Disable enemy defences. Who has the most defences? Who has the capability to use them? Who would YOU take out first if you invaded Earth? Galapagos Islands?
And someone needed to be the heroes. I picked Britain due to four reasons: Its a small and easily defended island (compared to entire world), All major land areas (North America, South America, Asia, Russia, Africa, Europe) would be main targets, I dont like Australia (to much desert), its large enough to house all these people. Japan would be the second choice, could have easily been that too. I just happen to like England

Besides, if you notice, its not RAF any more. Its just the Commonwealth Army (combined airforce/subsea force, its not like you would need a real ARMY anymore) now, comprised of soldiers from all across the globe, those that escaped

 

[dawdler]

Ah, now I have something to show even!
The rifle is the "Sea Reaper" infantry rifle, and I know its not very good in some places (its not done, it is just done enough to take a picture of it ). And since I'm not a modeller (this is my second weapon ever made, I made a Sten gun about 6 months ago), maybe it will be remade once one get a real modeller, so its just a concept. See it as a drawed paper image in 3d

 

[dawdler]

I always end up having monologues on forums :dozey:

Anyway, the design page is in near presentable shape with feature list and more info on different score/morale/group systems.
Ignore the page itself, it cant be classified as a webpage, just a slightly graphically enhanced text document.

http://w1.855.telia.com/~u85528876/darkwaters/

I dont mind anyone saying the page sucks, but wouldnt mind if people actually read before saying the mod idea and parts stinks, though there might be inconsistencys

 

[Cleric]

I for one like your idea, although the story is a bit like Independance day (big flying disks an citys being destroyed) i like it for once britan is the heros, we are on a poxy small island an we are still one of the most respected superpowers!!

Tho how are you going to do water based combat?

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by Cleric
I for one like your idea, although the story is a bit like Independance day (big flying disks an citys being destroyed) i like it for once britan is the heros, we are on a poxy small island an we are still one of the most respected superpowers!!

Tho how are you going to do water based combat?

Kind of independance day, but then again, how many alien movies ISNT like this (Mars Attacks dont count )?
Besides, my aliens arent stupid like the ones in ID, they dont waste energy travelling down to the surface, they:
A) crash a huge mothership in the ocean from where to launch attacks.
B) Bombard countries from orbit.
C) Floods everything with burrowing bombs.
D) Are from mars.
Like Indepence Day? Its flying discs. That is all that can be derived from ID

Concerning the actual excecution of water combat... There are two ways: Full water enviroment (meaning, you just raise the sea level in the HL2 map editor, all physics become accurate (slow movement, sink/float, whatever underwater physics is, with little modifications) or fake water enviroment (you just put a bluish layer (or blue ambient lighting) on the screen) and simulate slow physics by altering normal physics.
I think the first is possible with Source, or at least I hope so, hehe. If that works it isnt as much that needs altering.

Concerning the maps, if by that you mean by the water combat, its just a normal map in water. Except it has closer fog range. Its bluer and darker. Flashlight standard equipment
Its just to take any map and sink it, then add mud and vegetation that would be on the ocean floor.
Think on fighting around the huge sunken Bismarck, hiding in deep gorges and launching assaults from seaweed forrests
(note, reality WILL take a beating, the seabed will be more colorfull than in reality, kind of like taking shallow sea and having it everywhere, it would be booring fighting on just mud)

 

[Nick Stone]

"wow, taht sounds cool", i thought until I saw the word "plasma".
Plasma, plasma, plasma, why so damn much plasma?
Lack of creativity?
Plz, come up with something own, or do some research.

 

[Submerge]

SIGNS & Encounters of the 3rd Kind

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by Nick Stone
"wow, taht sounds cool", i thought until I saw the word "plasma".
Plasma, plasma, plasma, why so damn much plasma?
Lack of creativity?
Plz, come up with something own, or do some research.

Laser?
Plasma is HOT. It can be used underwater. Try lighting a candle underwater and see how well that goes.
Besides, the plasma guns are just in the story. Well, except for the plasma thrower. Though I am thinking on altering it to pressurized water crystals instead (high pressure gun which freezes the water just infront of it to really tiny particles instead of bullets, to form a flamethrower effect) (you DONT want to get them shot through your body )
Btw, it is kind of hard to research weaponry in the 2030's where aliens have invaded. Its not like you can look it up in a book.

SIGNS & Encounters of the 3rd Kind

Is the most idiotic remark yet, and have nothing to do with anything except they are aliens. The Signs aliens didnt bomb earth and hated water, the other movie isnt even about anything resembling a war. Its like saying I took the story from the ET movie.


Might I ask why both of you decided to remark that without thinking instead of saying something productive? Both need to do some research :dozey:

 

[Nick Stone]

dawler, you could always look what kind of things/prototypes we have at this moment, and just redo it, or something like that.

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by Nick Stone
dawler, you could always look what kind of things/prototypes we have at this moment, and just redo it, or something like that.

Doesnt help. We do not have any prototyped underwater personal weapons or combat systems last time I looked. (sidenote, that rifle I made is actually originally based on the outline of the M16, funny huh? )

 

[dscowboy]

I like the no-HUD idea, I think if that was done right it would provide more immersion and a better experience. Here are some thoughts I had:

Differences between land-combat and underwater-combat:
- Players will need to use lights to see very far, but once they turn their lights on they give away their position.
- Some ideas regarding lights/visibility: Certain classes could have larger light arrays so they could see farther. Same with vehicles. Also, players could have the option to scoop up sand (if they were standing on sand) and throw it to form a cloud in front of them and decrease visibility, kind of like smoke grenades

- Movement will be slower, but 3 dimensional. One of the vehicles could be a little handheld propeller/jet thing. While you were using it you wouldn't be able to hold weapons, but you would move much faster.
- Heavier classes would sink faster, they would spend most of their time on the sea floor unless they had some kind of propulsion pack or something
- Blood would create a visibility-reducing cloud
- Wildlife in the ocean could be important to gameplay, in different ways. Whenever players moved through a dense reef area of someplace where fish would gather, they would scatter about, revealing the player's location. So someone crawling through the flora would want to be careful not to disturb any wildlife. Also, larger creatures (giant squid if you were deep enough, sharks), could poze a hazard.

Just some thoughts. Got any ideas for what the aliens will be like?

 

[dawdler]

Finally, someone with constructive points and not stupid comparisons

All nice ideas actually. I already know about the lights, heavier infantry will have more equipment on and spots for more lights.
Hopefully the source engine can do real flashlights (well, better than a lit circle on a wall at least) that can be used in MP.
Scoping sand depends on how the engine is, how easy it is to detect the material he's standing on...
However, that handheld propeller is not quite as good... Cause it will mean people will scatter very much. If you read the page, you'll notice the grouping and morale system, meaning I want them to stick together as much as possible. I rather like the idea of a transport similar to the Tribes 2 transport (you jump on it). So one can move them in groups. Possible the scout may have a handheld prop for limited flight (he's the only one that needs to run away from the enemy if alone ).
Having blood reduce visibility... Well, the more clouds we have, the slower the engine, sadly. But then again, its with greatly reduced visibility in the first place and one can up polycounts just because of that... But once again, depends on the engine.
And the wildlife, yes that's a definite addition, especially those scattering fishes

Edit: Forgot to say, aliens are not very planned yet, but in the lines of X-Com:TFTD of course. Meaning smaller, blue and the standard big black eyes. They will definetly have the advantage of camouflage and size
Oh and I forgot, unlike the humans which mostly will just vary in armor, aliens vary a bit more... For instance, the heavy infantry would be in a mech style armor, like 3 times larger than the little aliens (think the unreal 2 female heavy armor suit, but with a nasty alien in it)

 

[dawdler]

After some consideration and discussion, this mod will draw itself slightly closer to its X-Com:TFTD base... Its still a new war, but this happens after the second alien war in the X-Com saga (very short after).
http://w1.855.telia.com/~u85528876/darkwaters/story2.htm
Is the revised story (some stupid spellings error there though), but the background story is a bit long, will probably be cut to its own page in the final layout (so one can optionally read it). The one commenting about the plasma cannons will be pleased with the new name I think (fun note: The original name of the cannon was IRAC, before I took a moment to think on it and started laughing).

And soon we have both a hosted page and forum

 

[AllStarRapper]

this mod sounds boring as all hell

 

[dscowboy]

Great input, way to keep the ideas flowing.

 

[crabcakes66]

Originally posted by AllStarRapper
this mod sounds boring as all hell

what do you want? CS clone #476, ww2 mod of doom......another raceing mod ........we are trying to do something differant

This mod has been in planning for less than a week.

We are actually making good progress.......everything is subject to change, except that it will initialy take place underwater.

 

[AllStarRapper]

alrigt, cool

Water Wars clone #1:cheers:

it pisses me off how people r all with this CS clone shit

 

[crabcakes66]

Originally posted by AllStarRapper
alrigt, cool

Water Wars clone #1:cheers:

it pisses me off how people r all with this CS clone shit

you lost me

 

[dawdler]

Yeah, me too. I havent seen a subsea combat game (or mod) yet it, that is actually infantry combat (there are sub games of course). But maybe I have missed it. Doesnt matter anyway. Almost every mod is a clone, one way or the other (there are few really unique, but most of the time its about war and... Uhm, that's been done before). Because people WANT these clones

Anyway, the new Dark Waters page is here:
http://darkwaters.editingsource.com
I like black and dark pages if anyone havent noticed it yet
But I dont think I will be the one doing this page, it might take a rather long time, since we need something to show first, still in that tedius design phase.

 

[green1152]

It's all about the features my friend... Different types of gameplay... but they are almost similar in some ways

 

[crabcakes66]

Originally posted by AllStarRapper
alrigt, cool

Water Wars clone #1:cheers:

it pisses me off how people r all with this CS clone shit

I just looked at that waterwars mod.....other than the fact we will both have underwater action ...i dont see any other similarities.

And how are we a clone? ....they are 2 completly diferant ideas.

 

[Harteex]

ey yo!
This mod sounds cool :bounce:

btw, dawdler, I guess your UFO mod for bf42 is dead :x

 

[Draklyne]

Question: Are you planning to have a conglomeration of alien species or a single race?

I was just thinking of some alien species variations, and I thought you could have top-side waterskimming aliens, shallow water aliens, mid and deep water aliens.

If it was a bunch of different alien species, the waterskimmers could be insectoid, the shallow waters could be your ordinary land-type infantry (crocodile men? Little green people?) and the mid and deep water aliens could be whale-sized or shark-sized. Of course I don't really mean this literally, they'd be aliens, but I'm thinking more in terms of body shape and size.

If they came down into the oceans in saucers, would they try to flood the world by melting the ice caps to make the world suit them more? Or would they try to do something else to the environment?

As for a replacement for plasma, you could use a form of cold-fusion. It's a long-shot, and I haven't done any research, but I remember something about cold-fusion and extremely high speeds...

Peh. Just some ideas.

 

[Cerberus]

hmmmm

hmmm, constructive criticism, hmmmm.

First off there ARE new weapons being used for underwater combat. Shows how much research you did.

The russians developed a way to encompass a torpedo in an air bubble, so that only the tip of the nosecone is actually in contact with water. They have them rocket propelled, and they go really really fast. Mach 2 I believe, which means you can't move subs out of the way before your hit.

Bullets can also have the special air bubble, they've developed a machinegun that can shoot deep underwater. Great for trying to nock out fast moving underwater targets, much like the phalanx system except for torpedos instead of missles.

Rail guns are becoming more feasable, the next generation of aircraft carriers will have TWO nuclear engines so that sufficient energy can be generated. Like the bullets, you can have rail gun projectives with the air bubble.

If your doing underwater, just have the game be vehicle based. Theres absolutely no reason to have underwater mechs or underwater soldiers, subs are just better underwater combat. One big thing about underwater combat is the whole stealth possibilities, since its usually difficult to find your enemy. That in itself will be difficult to implement.


And whats it with mods and alien overlords attacked? Even somethingawful.com complained about that.

 

[dawdler]

On the aliens, yes they will use different shapes, but they are very unthought of.

"If they came down into the oceans in saucers, would they try to flood the world by melting the ice caps to make the world suit them more? Or would they try to do something else to the environment?"

Naw, would be to easy Read the parts about the burrowing bombs.

Cerberus, the bubble bullets are actually a good idea, but you are missing the entire point with the mod. It is not meant to be realistic. And its not "alien overlords". Humans have already beaten them TWICE in two wars, so that shows you how good they are. This time its only worse as they have 10 times the forces Have you ever played X-com?

Edit: Btw, got a new weapon:

Still just 70% done though. Its the Gauss2 variant.

 

[VoiD]

Perhaps i missed something here? but the aliens are from mars a (as far as we know)dry planet yeah they live in water? Other than that i like the idea good luck

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by VoiD
Perhaps i missed something here? but the aliens are from mars a (as far as we know)dry planet yeah they live in water? Other than that i like the idea good luck

Well, they do both The first war was mainly pure "martians", which meant ground combat. The second war aliens originated from a 65 million year old colonyship that crashlanded into the mexican gulf. This third (according to our story) war the aliens originate from X. Meaning not from mars and not from earth. Somewhere else. A water covered planet perhaps? Europa perhaps?
The humans do not know. All they know is that it is the same type of aliens. Meaning they are at the MINIMUM 65 million years old. A lot of things can happen in 65 million years. The first war aliens had lived on dry Mars for so long, they adapted easily to the surface. The "original" aliens do not have that adaption. The original aliens might come from a time where Mars still had oceans...

You can explain anything with imagination