Zenkai Knights

If you can develop this it may replace multiplayer. As you said the players can share the profiles. One or another profile may be far better than most of the players (considering how much time a program need to react at the moment when a button is pressed).

I don't know how much the game will be modable, but some mods may prevent the AI learning normally. Like you can learn how to drive a car, but this will not make you able to make a hairpin turn with a semi truck at high speed. Creating mods that changes basic aspect will heavily affect the AI I guess.

Each Mech has a AI profile too but they are special profiles.  each tells what a specific attack range is basically.

somethings might have to be enforced into the game.

Totally agree. There should be some kind of fix points to make the AI's job easier on mods.

i am going to enforce that all primary attacks are ranged and all secondary attacks are melee.  couple reasons for this is all mechs are required to have atleast 1 ranged attack and 1 melee attack.

Dead simple, it helps balancing the gameplay also.

going to have to limit combos and have the perfect way i am going to do it.  i will use a tree system and not all mechs need to go through the entire tree for there attack combos.

well.....i am having issue with arm aiming. i may just have to use unity's ik system.

This sounds really like a fighting game. There are moves that can be comboed into each other, and there are follow ups which requires a specific attack to hit to chain the next one. It is more strategical than the method Windom XP use (normally there is only one possible follow up for a hit that not requires cancel, and the further you chain the more damage the hits deal). You should use parry or clash too, to make it able to block attack with attack. Like attacking at the same time.

it is a fighting game like windom xp and extreme vs games. that should of been obvious from the start. XD

Make difference between arena fighters, and versus fighters. Versus fighters are like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, but also the Gundam vs. games count as one. The arena fighters are games that doesn't punish pure melee or ranged combat, and there are ranges where one or another character is helpless. To make it simple, in arena fighting games you can overhelm the more skilled players with tactics, in versus fighters you can't.

updated doc. moved online to considered features.

considering implementing a weapon customization system for mechs instead of the separate variations.

What about having one or two mechs as base, and full customization?

Weapons: refire rate, damage, projectile speed, projectile type
Engine: speed, duration, propelling method, resistance against knock back
Wings: mounted additional weapons, mounted additional boosters

Just some examples I came up fast. Changing one value could change the other to keep the balance: having more from something will decrease the performance of something other. Maybe some kind of weight system for additional balance: the more equipment you have the higher the base weight that determines your impulse.

Additional systems also cost additional sacrefices: ability to transform prevent having weapons or boosters on wings, for example.

There would be some benefit even from using a completely "naked" mech since you could have unmatchable speed and boost duration.

technically, it would be 3 mechs and full customization, if i went that route.

if i am doing customization i might as well ditch the idea of 2 sequels and do 1 sequel. refer to past post. zk2 will just be merged into zk1. customization will make it easier to code AI cause i don't have to worry about unknown stuff from others. also would cut out need for users to know how to animate.

And it would be much easier to create custom unit that fit one's style. The question is that, how much an unit will be customizable, and how much option a customizable aspect has.

Endymion wrote:And it would be much easier to create custom unit that fit one's style. The question is that, how much an unit will be customizable, and how much option a customizable aspect has.

this would nearly kill modding of gundams and whole mechs into the game.  


in zk2 the parts swappable would be similar to gundam breaker.  legs, arms, torso, and head. head might be merged into torso.  ability to attach packs would be determined by torso whether it supported packs or not.   other attachments would be determined by the part they attach too whether that part supports the attechments or not.

I see, that's a good idea.

i could also tie the mech AI with the user who created it. what i mean is the created mech AI is based on who created the mech and matches his/her style. more the person plays as the mech better the mech will be able to match the style of its creator. users then will share their creations through a special file for sharing. the share file will just be a locked version of the mech save file so the AI doesn't get updated when you play as it.

It still sounds very advanced for me. It is more like learning than adopting. I really would love to see it, definitelly interesting to "teach" an AI how to play.

technically, the AI is just a bunch a chance values mixed with logic.  what is happening is these values get adjusted to make things closer to way a human would play.

though the number of values the AI has is probably going to be between 10 - 20.

Example values:
Base Attack chance
Attack chance increase when enemy is moving towards you.
Attack chance increase when enemy is moving away.
Attack chance increase when enemy is in air.
Attack chance increase when enemy is grounded.
Attack chance increase when object is in way.
Base range to be from enemy
differential from base range.
melee chance
range to increase chance of melee. (closer to enemy higher chance farther lowers chance of melee. this value is mid point)

After back reading and checking the concepts. I'd go with the second option.

Anyway, will the weapon changing (LONG RANGE to MELEE V/V) apply in the game? Or the weapon changing will be direct with no transition?

Not really comparing... just sharing an observation.

In UKWXP, if you turn the change weapon into a passive one. e.g. in UKWXP pressing C autos to a SwordCancel bypassing the weapon changing animation. The A.I. is tougher compare to when the A.I. has to change weapons with transition.

Because when you're near, the A.I. will just automatically dash hack and slash due to no transition.

While if there's a weapon changing transition, the A.I. usually will change weapons to melee if near the opponent and a new logic is derived; like should the A.I. attack melee or dash back to Gun mode... making the A.I. less aggressive.

Or will said above will be applied on certain mech concepts?

Good luck with the progress.

I guess that should depend on the melee and/or ranged weapon's strenght. It is a good balancing tool to prevent certain weapons to overpower everything all the time. Originally the weapon switch was in an instant during attack in Windom XP too, but for balancing reason it was changed to the one the game currently have. Units like Windom Vista or Windom BlackComb dominated with instant switch. Windom Vienna have instant switch, but its range easily counterable with any longer melee weapon than the Millennium's.

one thing i considered for ZK is weapon stealing for hand weapons.  any heavy attack would have a chance to knock a weapon out of the mechs hand.

weapon change may be instant at first.

Ooh weapon stealing! I like the sound of that. :D I think applying this would literally create a different game balance. Though I think it would require you to rewrite some existing codes right? Just a hunch... due to you'll probably have to create another aim setting where certain skills knocks off the opponents weapon. that said, will they be forced to melee mode if their primary weapon is knocked off? or they still have auxiliaries like vulcans and mini guns? sorry for throwing question, just very intrigued in your project.

Naught wrote:Ooh weapon stealing! I like the sound of that. :D I think applying this would literally create a different game balance. Though I think it would require you to rewrite some existing codes right? Just a hunch... due to you'll probably have to create another aim setting where certain skills knocks off the opponents weapon. that said, will they be forced to melee mode if their primary weapon is knocked off? or they still have auxiliaries like vulcans and mini guns? sorry for throwing question, just very intrigued in your project.

hand weapons only anything that's mounted won't drop.  as for my project, its barely coded.  i have done movement experiment, loading of models from a obj file, hit testing and partial aim script which is barely working as desired.

well, if i am going to do full customization then i might as well implement the navigation for the game modes and stuff i was planning for zk2.  which isn't menus but a 3d hangar you walk around. going with my original idea that for mechs. full mechs, no customization except for color scheme.  going to do the advanced AI in the sequel and implement a basic AI.

the documents on features:

Zenkai Knights
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U3B_r-iJHLg0sMG7Ug91WR3uzr3OQbcV0BSbkf_-e28/edit?usp=sharing

Zenkai Knights 2: Kustom Knights
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1edjMxAwa3o4bgvamu0bWDhUpmTaXyNtueQRTajJ-V90/edit?usp=sharing

Armored Warriors in 3D, that is an awesome idea!

i will try to make ZK1 scripts compatible with Zk2 so i can cut out alot of work on zk2. example is the hand weapon scripts will be the same as in both games and weapon attachments will share similar scripts between games. ranged weapons work by a simple call to them from a main script to fire. melee weapons are just a call to disable or enable.

i am going to start building zk2 when first version of zk1 lite comes out.