I have already wrote some on the RTS features but I want to go into more detail on how the mode will be played. When I started the second alpha of Mecha Asylum, I had in mind a game that would be both RPG and RTS elements from various games that I have played. The plan failed because I couldn’t work the RPG elements in with the RTS and make the game easy to play. Since I have failed at that attempt, I’m going to try to make the game another way and have the elements separate but also affect the other.

Focus

The point of the RTS mode is to have the players just battle it out with massive armies of mecha suits. With this in mind, I don’t want to have extra features that would distract from the main goal. The ranks will depend on total power from the total army amount and other things. The only other thing is that the RTS mode will work with the RPG and world building mode. The old document has some good elements in it and I plan on using them as plans for the game. I just want to reiterate what the player will be able to do and controls that will function in the game.

Each Feature and Section will have an unique purpose that will give the player more to work with and bonuses for having. I will write in more detail what each feature will be and how it will work along with the reason for having it. I also want to explore micro-management that some games feature that allow the player to automate some tasks so that they won’t have to work on every little thing. I think it is annoying to have to do every little thing all of the time when I really want to be doing action. If I want to do the things that I’m managing then I should be able to, or change what the automation does.

Bases

There will be two bases: planet and moon, along with colony. The planet base will focus with defense and if it is destroyed then the player loses the game and has to start over. The moon base will create mecha suits for the player and the more the player has the more mecha suits will be generated in a day. The colonies will provide services and provide the job functions for the player and help with offensive attacks from the sky.

I. Planet Bases

1. Base

1. If The Base Is Destroyed

The reason for this is that if the base is destroyed then the player loses the game and has to restart. Restarting means that the player loses everything they had up to that point.

1. One Planet and One Base

I feel that the focus should only be on one planet. The reason is that there can only be so much the player can do and focus on when there are too many planets. I want everyone in the RTS mode to be together and that didn’t exactly happen in the second alpha so I’m limiting the focus to make the game simplier and I hope, more fun to play.

1. One Base

The player will start with only one base and can have only one planet base.

1. Premium Feature

Can have up to three bases and at different locations. Every one needs to be destroyed for the player to be defeated. Different locations in that they can be at different places in case the player who is attacking destroys the home base, there is another to fall back to and rebuild.

1. Land

1. Starting Land Amount

The player will start with a number of 10 in 10 slots that will appear on the map.

1. n00b Class

I want to protect new players from instant death and allow them to learn the game before they are attacked. The only problem is that after they leave the n00b class, they can’t go back into it. So the n00b class needs to be at a level where they player can protect themselves and not be attacked constantly.

1. Buying Land

The player will be able to buy land from the surrounding areas. It won’t be cheap because I don’t want people to only buy land. It would be boring and I don’t want that. Buying land is just another option for n00b players that can’t quite gain land from attacking.

1. Capturing Land

It should be stated that, I have always thought that when someone gains land from another player it is transferred to the other players side. Well, that could be in the story or a story but the game dynamics will just substract the land from the enemy and adds it the players side.

1. Land Defense

There are two types of defense (and perhaps more) for spying and attacks. There will be limits to the amount of stations that can fit on a section of land. Stations can be upgraded to make them smaller and allow more stations to be built on a piece of land.

1. Maintaining Land

Each piece of land will need to be managed separately so the more land, the harder it would be to managed. I do want to kind of keep the land small for each player but there will be a lot of people who will have a lot of land. For those that will have to much land to be managed, I want to allow them a place to buy bulk stations to be dispersed in each land slot equally.

1. Mining

Mining will be micro-managed meaning that when new land is discovered, metals will be mined automatically every day. The metals will be recorded and used later for different things. Mainly to produce mecha suits, weapons, and armor. Metals didn’t really have that big of a purpose in the second alpha and I want to change that in this version.

1. Land Map

I want to show where cities are and how much the player has gained control over. I also want to show if there are any enemies near by the player and the distance from them. No matter how much land a person gets, they will never be anywhere near the other players. The land will be in the form of a circle because it is the easiest way to represent the land mass.

1. Premium Feature

I want a third defense station that creates a shield over the land and there needs to be at least one station on each piece of land. This defense station defends against colony blasters. It will have a limit on how much it will defend against but it won’t leave the player completely open.

1. Cities

1. Population

Population determines how much income the player recieves. The income is dynamic and depends on how the player treats and protects the population. If the player is attacked to often and doesn’t make an effort to protect the cities then the people are going to leave.

The reason for this approach is that it does a better job at giving the player the right amount of money and allow new players to make a good amount of money quickly if they play the game right. Perhaps not but it makes the game fair, unlike Alpha 2 which was kind of skewed.

1. Start Village

Every player must start with a village to continue making money. There is no way to lose the village as it is next to the base. This is because the player always needs money to play the game. There will also be a minimum amount of population in that city in case all other cities are captured or the population fades away.

1. Birth and Death Rates

New villagers will be made every night and the cities repopulationed based on death and birth rates. It really depends on the load the script creates on the database and server. May have to work part of the people every hour in the day. It also depends on the setting that the player puts on the cities but that will be managed outside of the RTS mode.

1. City List

I want to list the cities in the control of the player and give the player stats on the city. The population, the citizen rating, the death and birth rates, and how well the city is protected. I also want to give the position of the city in how far away it is from the base. I want to give indication when a new city will form and how many people are going to be in it. The names of the cities will be totally up to the player because I don’t think there will be too many that they won’t be able to manage the names.

1. Premium Feature

Since the player is paying to play the game, I want to give the player a break by giving the player more cities. I also want to give the player a easier time to gain population but it won’t be too easy, it will just be a tiny bit better than what normal players get. What it may come to is more characteristics (or less) to make the population more likely to go to that side.

II. Colony

1. One Colony

I only want the player to have one colony because everything else will just be added to that colony. The colony will cost a great deal of money to buy and after that, each module will cost money.

1. Privileges

1. Start Alliance
2. Buy and Upgrade Modules
3. Add to Offense with Blasters

1. Modules

Modules are stations that are added to the colony to add functionality. It would allow me to add more features in one central place for people to find them. The only problem is that for the features, the player will need to buy the colony so I may move some of the features to the planet base or make available for all.

1. SpyCam

The spycam can be upgraded to help the player to see into enemy territory. It will have a limited amount of power and will interface with sentinals to enhace the information obtained.

1. Blaster

The blaster can be fired on a piece of land damaging the defenses on that one piece of land. This has to be done before battle and the damage done depends on the level of the blaster and the strength of the defense of the enemy.

1. Bank

Alliance bank system that allows all the groups in the alliance to use the bank to store their money. There will be a limit to how much each group can store in the bank. The bank will also be accessible to all group leaders and the alliance leader to give to other alliance groups and group members. This doesn’t mean that every can store their money in the bank and can’t lose their money when they are attacked. It won’t work that way but it will allow transfer of money between groups and players.

1. Weapons Factory

I really just want the mecha to be made complete with weapons and what not but I also think that they should be given weapons of various strengths to enhance their attacking and defensive attributes. If I do fit this in to the RTS mode, it will be automatic depending on the metals the player has also. The player will set the weapons to produce and it will save money for the player.

1. Storage

Allows holding and transfering of supplies from one player to another through the use of using the Colony as a storage area. The supplies when they are stored inside the storage are immediately deducted from player that sent them. They will be in storage until another player is given permission to recieve the supplies in part or as a whole.

1. Metals
2. Mecha

1. Stations

1. Purpose

These are mini-colonies that are positioned near the main colony. It gives members in the alliance or group who can’t afford to buy a colony the use of blaster and spycam modules, except weaker than the colony ones.

1. Market

Anyone can buy one of these to be manufactured and added. The money goes to the owner of the colony and is up to the owner to set the price. The price will have a maximum price and minimum price and will have to cover the inital price of to make the station.

1. Premium Feature

There will be mining capiabilities out in space for those who wish to have a station set up to mine asteriods. There won’t be a lot of metal amount in the asteriods but it should give a few rare metals for those lucky enough to capture one.

III. Moon

1. Purpose

The moon base tasks is to create the mecha suits every day. The amount depends on how many bases and how upgraded each of the bases are.

1. Mecha Creation

1. Base Armor

When the mecha suits are created they are given no weapons but they are given base armor depending the metals mined. The base armor can’t be changed after the mecha suit is created so it could end up that a beginning player gets luck and finds a strong metal for the base and uses it for such.

1. Mecha Type Option

The player chooses what type each base will create and will become micro-managed in a queue for the player so that they don’t have to go back and set the type every time. They will be able to change it after the player sets the type and the queue.

1. Not Enough Resources

If there aren’t enough resources to create the type they want, then the player will have the option of what he wants to do when it happens. The options are going to be to skip the mecha type and go the next one or halt the production of the mecha suit until there is enough metals to create that type. The default option is just to create the basic weak type that doesn’t cost but a few resources that every player will have by default anyway.

1. Upgrades

Upgrading Moon bases has to be done one by one, so there will be moon bases that are level 0 and on up to level 4. This causes the player to have to pay for each upgrade for each base. The reason for this is that I don’t want the player to just upgrade to level 4 as soon as possible and then start buying new bases.

1. A moon base creates one (1) mecha suit a day for every base that is created.
2. Two mecha suits a day.
3. Three Mecha Suits a day.
4. Four Mecha Suits a day.
5. Five Mecha Suits a day.

Market

It would be better if the player could buy all of the mecha they want but I don’t want to have to make the player have to buy the mecha suits all of the time. It would be too much work to have to buy everything, and would cost a lot of money also. I want to focus the market on buying the components to make a functional mecha suit that is as weak or powerful as the player can afford.

I. Weapons

1. Types

This is a hard one, I have to create a long list of different weapons of various powers for each type of mecha suit. I have a list but it is currently long but too short to be in final. I will eventually add more and more as time goes on and I think of different technology that I can put in the game. Different weapons will also do various things and affect different properties in the game.

1. Lasers
2. Rockets
3. Plasma
4. Shell
5. Swords

1. Restrictions

Different weapons can only be used on specific types of mecha and others can’t be used on some mecha types. This will be detailed in the FAQ when the weapons and rules come out. These details won’t be finalized until after beta and right before the game is finalized.

1. Scrapping Weapons

If the player doesn’t need a weapon any more they can scrap the parts and gain the metals back from it. They could get some money back from doing so but I will have to tweak the game and see if I should allow that.

II. Armor

1. Armor “Shells”

Armor is simple enough, there are different “shells” for covering the base mecha armor. These shells can be replaced by better armor. The only problem is that the shells have to use the metals on hand so the player won’t just be able to use the most powerful armor unless they have the metal required to use.

1. Mecha Body Shop

This is the place where mecha suits go to have their armor added to their base armor. It costs money to use the foundry, so what this amounts to is that the player has to have the metal to get the shell armor and has to pay money have it put on.

III. Metals

1. Buying

Players will be able to buy metals from the market but at a price set by how many metals there are and the metals worth. If there are a lot of metals, the price will go down but if there are a few metals then the price will be very expensive.

1. Selling

Every Metal in the market was sold to it at one point or another so if there are no metals, then no one sold that metal to the metals market. A player will be able to gain a profit from selling metals depending on how many metals there already are. The player shouldn’t sell more than they have to use so I will try to lock them to using the minimum metals for production or I may just forget about it and allow the player to make the decision to sell and halt production.

Attacking

I. Player vs Player

1. Attacking

1. Mecha Placement

The player will given a grid for mecha placement and then the mecha suits will attack for each round. Each mecha suit has a range of their attack and can only hit so far. The closer the mecha is the more damage the attack is done.The players will have to experiment the best layout for mecha suits or look at the FAQ after it is completed.

1. Failure

If the enemy was able to move in then the attack failed and the player retreats. If the player loses then they have to give money to the enemy as a fee but no land will be taken or lost. The player will also lose a small percentage of their forces.

1. Success

After that round what is left will be given and the winner will advance one row. After all the rows have advanced and the enemy has been beaten then the player gets the spoils of war and a percentage of the enemy forces are destroyed.

1. Amount of Land

The player can only fit so many mecha suits in a field of land so depending on how much land the player wants to attack will limit how many mecha suits the player will be able to go into battle. The player may not be able to attack all of the players land nor will I allow that to happy. There will be a limit to how much land the player can attack so that the player isn’t totally destroyed in one attack.

1. Premium Feature

I want to allow people who have a paid account to save their attack patterns for later use. This will save some time for the player and allow them to use an attack grid that works for most players. Is this fair? Probably not, but not all grids will work for everyone so it is up to the player. It also saves a lot of time from having to do the same grid over and over again.

1. Defending

Before any attack on the player takes place, the player will be given a chance to place their mecha in a way so that they can defend their land. I think I will have percentages since the player won’t know how much the player will attack. The player will also be given a grid and options for what to do when they are attacked.

1. The Grid

The grid will be a total of 8 rows by 5 columns of squares. The player will have the option of placing two or three mecha types in one square and the range the mecha type will attack. Not all squares will need to be used so it could be a guessing game as to whether a square has mecha in it.

1. Buddy List

1. Enemies

It seems an enemy and buddy list would be cool to have as I think it would be a great feature in a game where there aren’t very many members. Enemies will show up and the players will be able to attack each other and will have the option of placing and logging everything with that enemy.

1. Buddies

These are friends that aren’t in the same group and are allies. Either they are friends in real life and want to play together or they met some where and want to play the game together. These people can’t attack each other unless they are in different groups and are told to attack each other. That would be the only way to get around this, even if they are in different groups that are at war.

1. Restrictions

A new player can’t be attacked until the player has gained enough resources that he would be able to survive an attack. Also players won’t be able to attack players that are far below them. The same is not true for players that are below other players. There will be a range really on attacking. A player can attack as far up as the player thinks he can win but once he does so the player he attacked can attack back. If a player attacks another player during the n00b class then that player moves out of the class and can be attacked from that point on.

1. Normal Mode of Attack

During this, the player can only have so much of there land and resources taken from them but they can’t be killed. The only way they can be killed is during a special mode during wars and during tournaments.

1. Attack Points

In order to keep the attacking and all out war to a minimum, I am going to enforce points that are used whenever the player attacks another player. The player will receive these points at intervals of time to spend on attacking. Each attack will use a range of these points. These points could be used for other things, but for right now, they are only going to be used for attacking.

II. Spying

1. Purpose

Spying is implemented so that the player doesn’t go into battles completely unaware of what the player is facing. This means that the player will be able to see what the enemy has before the player attacks.

1. Spy Power

1. Percentage of Information

How much the player actually sees will depend on the differences of spy power for the player and enemy. The player could see everything if the player is too weak or the player could see nothing.

1. Building Spy Power

Spy power is based off of the colony module and how many sentinal drones the player has. The player has to send the sentinals into the enemies territory and it like attacking except the player can send more in.

1. Upgrades

Drones intelligence can be upgraded to allow more information to be gathered.

1. Results

After the results are displayed, they are saved for later use. When the player attacks, the information will be available.

III. War

The war mode has some features to it that I want to make available. What I want from this, is to make it easier to beat down the enemy on both sides. I also want to automate some things to make it easy for the leaders to manage the wars.

1. Modes

1. Deathmode

This is where the players can totally kill other players. After the war is over the player has to remake their game and start over. This has to be agreed by both parties or when a group wages war without telling the other group about their plans.

1. Normal

Same as attacking, except when the player defeats the player, they can’t play until after the war is over.

1. Rules

1. Contract of War

Both groups have to agree to attack each other and afterwards they can attack at any time.

1. Ending the War

The war ends when one side is defeated or one side forfeits the war.

1. Winning a battle

Players who defeat their enemy will only get the land from the player but not any money, unless they kill the player then all money from the enemy will be handed over. The reason for this is that the player will need any money to rebuild their forces but if they are killed then it wouldn’t matter anyway.

1. Attack Limit

There will not be an attack limit during the war and so the players will be able to attack a player as many times as they can or want. This allows groups with smaller teams to go against groups that have larger teams. This allow affects the team with the smaller amount of players and not the team with larger amount.

1. Spoils of War

The winner of wars get a cash prize from the system and get a point towards their ranking.

The points will determine the rank and what groups can fight other groups. Top ranking groups may not be able to fight anyone unless there are a lot of groups and players.

IV. Tournaments

1. Purpose

Tournaments test the raw skill of players and how fast they can build their game. This could become a mode of play like the RTS and RPG modes but for now, I don’t know what all will make it into the game. For now I’m going to focus on the form of play. The RPG mode will also have this but in a different form.

1. Rules

1. Time Limit

I will have to decide on the time, but, for now, the time limit will be one week. That would give enough time to do everything.

1. Unlimited Play

Attack points won’t be used and the prices for resources will be reduced.

1. Starting Resources

Players will start with more land, mecha, and will have two cities to start off with. The player will have to start over, no matter what the player has in their normal mode of play.

1. Free For All

There will not be any group play and there won’t be any allies either. Everyone is the enemy so anyone can attack anyone they want.

Manage

There are quite a few things that will have to be managed elsewhere in the game and this is where they will all go. This page will allow the player to control the options of the game in different areas. Some areas will be controlled in a separate mode and won’t matter if it isn’t controlled here or not. Since I don’t really know where some parts will end up, I will reserve them for here if I can’t place them where I want. It may end up being that I don’t even need this page and that will make me happy.

Status

The status will remain as the place where the player can access to news and the player stats. I feel that I will need to do this page after I am finish with all of the others because this page will work off of all of the others. The point I’m trying to make is that I really don’t know what will make it into this section. I just know this will be the place where the player will get the general idea of what they have and what happened while they were away.

Group

Most of the group and alliance functionality will be placed in a new mode but this page will give a few details about the group the players are in. These are for the basic members, the group and alliance owners will have a separate mode in which to control the aspects of the group or alliance.

1. Joining a Group

This is done when the player first clicks on the group section. They can’t make a group here, they will have to do that in the Group and Alliance mode. Once they join a group and meet the requirements of the group, then it is up to the leader of that group if the player can join.

1. Group Member List

I want to have a page that displays all of the members in the group, their rank in the game, and their rank in the group. What the basic member won’t see is the members of other groups but they will see the group names and if given permission can click on the group and see who the members are.

1. Display

1. Group Name
2. Alliance Name (if the group is part of one)
3. News, announcements, and upcoming wars.
4. Player Rank
5. Player Privileges

1. Wars

1. War Log

I want to have a page with stats about past wars and who the winners were. Also details about the war so that members can see what worked and what didn’t work. Also plan ahead if they are fighting the same group they had battled before to set up a plan ahead of time.

1. Player’s War Role

I also want to display the members of the enemies and who the player is assigned to attack. If anyone had gained stats from spying that information will also be available for the players. Also it will display information on enemies who were killed or are beaten to the point where they can’t play until the war is over.

1. Bonus Functions

1. Alliance

If the group is in an alliance, then new options will be available for the members of the alliance that will give them new and cool features that is on the colony.

1. Group

Certain options will be open if the members have the job and are part of the team. Group leaders have to be careful who they accept in their team because there will be some members with double jobs and with different features from that job. If the player has the job then those features will open up but there still needs to be a certain amount of trust from the team to allow that player to control those functions because the player can do whatever he wants.

Conclusion

These features may not seem like much but will take a lot of time to create. Some of the harder ones will take even more time. The roadmap will also need to be updated as the game development progresses. This is just a rough draft and I hope it to be the last alpha version. There may be some more features that I want to add later but I may just add them to the list of features for version 2.0. Given the way the modes are set up, I hope that I won’t need to change every mode to add new features. The only thing that will change is the story so I have that to look forward to. The RTS version is unlikely to change that much from now until the next version but I will take suggestions in beta and after the game has been finalized.

This Mecha RTS game will be different from the others and that is where I think the strengths are with the game. Gamers will find what they like in one game and see if it can be applied to another. If they find a game to hard they may play it but if they find another game that offers the same functionality but is also easier than they may also come to that. The problem is that I can’t afford to give prizes to players but I may do so if I can find enough money and finalize the game. That could also be one of the reasons some games are more popular than others.

Another problem is that I really need to focus on security on the game, so I will most likely have to recode everything in the game in an attempt to improve the security in the game. This will require more time and resources that I don’t have right now. I don’t think we will even get enough members to warrant something like that but if I’m going to offer money or prizes, I’m going to make sure they deserve it.

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I wrote some on the RTS mode in the first Design Document but I want to reiterate what each mode actually is in case I want to add more. The purpose of the modes is a focus towards one main goal and not try to include everything in the mode. I don’t want to make the same mistakes as I did in the second alpha of the Mecha Asylum game. Another cool thing about each mode is that I want to upgrade to the second version, I can close down a mode and make the upgrades.

The key feature perhaps, is that the RPG mode is going to be dynamic based on the RTS mode. I want the RPG mode to also be separate of the RTS mode meaning that only some parts behind the scenes will affect the RPG mode. The RPG mode will only affect the popularity characteristic and the RTS mode will affect the RPG mode more than the RPG mode will affect the RTS mode.

Well, I should probably explain the dynamic interactions between the RPG and RTS modes. Certain operations will either be done in the modes, the one that makes more sense and fits in with the mode without distracting from the main purpose. If it doesn’t fit then the code will be moved and the adapted inside of that mode.

RPG

The player have one mecha and to experience the dynamic world.

I want the have missions for this mode and allow the player gain the ranks by collecting experience and upgrading their armor. Since the focus is only one mecha suit, I want to have the attacks a little bit different than the RTS mode. Since the players are going to be a little bit more involved in the roleplaying, I want to record the actions the player takes. The players won’t have to roleplay and the mode will offer more game play for those who don’t want to roleplay.

There will be traveling in the land to visit the cities and places that each player has. The players will be able to set up shop and sell items to traveling players. Traveling in hostile territory will have a chance of a random attack depending on the spy and defense. The player won’t be able to travel inside of hostile territory that would otherwise tear the player apart when entering.

RTS

For massive battles of mecha suits against players in an all out war.

A lot of people want to just bash heads with other players and this mode is to allow them to do just that. There won’t be that much else besides gaining armies and battling. Land will be gained here and the bases will be brought in this mode. This mode will have some advanced features towards it that may make it a little more difficult than other RTS games out there but it will be that way so that it fits in the other modes of play.

World Building

I decided to make this a mode since it will be separate from the game and from the other modes. The plan of the game revolves around this mode and so it needs to work independent from the other modes. The other modes (RPG and RTS) will depend on this mode for money and other functions. I have some plans for this mode and some of them are major.

Groups and Alliances

Not really a mode of game play but it will be separate and work with the RTS and RPG modes. Once I make the framework, I can use it in other web applications so I am fairly happy about that after I make it. The groups and alliances will allow players to network with other players and fight as a team. The only deal that I have is that the groups and alliances are in the simplified form are the same thing. I want to set up an admin that allows me to set what actions are for groups and alliances and for shutting down the alliances features.

In the front, the player only joins the group and is added to the table that says he is part of the group. The back is where everything is done and new features can be added or changed. It is also where the team will be managed and so it needs to be modified to where the game can implement the team in attacking, defending, and other features.

Dependence

Key: Mode -> (Depends on) -> Mode

RTS -> World Building
RTS -> Groups

RPG -> World Building
RPG -> Groups

World Building -> RTS

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