Okies! Here's my thoughts. First off, I entirely agree with you Musketeer. The TT has slowly devolved into a 'melee first, strategy and everything else second'. But, a mod based on the RO engine might give us a chance to rectify that
I propose this. We have Imperial Guard versus Tau. I don't *like* Tau (I despise the fact that they were put into the game, they are just plain stupid IMNHO) but they would fit the game mechanics that the modders would have to work with best. Here's my run-down on races:
Orks: Out, unless the modders want to do some SERIOUS work on getting hand to hand to a more managable (and faster) level.
Chaos: Out for much the same reason. To put them in game would force you to go with a Chaos Undivided force, unless/until the hand to hand system is in game in a better form. At that point, I'd suggest focusing on one Chaos God (Khorne, most likely, but that's just a personal pick). Someone would surely feel slighted by this, and balancing the teams while making them 'true to fluff' would really take a lot of the oomph out of the god-specific units. No fun for anyone.
Dark Eldar and Eldar: These *could* work. They would again basically require a complete rework of hand to hand, but they have a very wide variety of equipment to choose from. They are very dependent on their special rules, however, and those would be so hard to implement into game into a non-abusable way that it would **** the fun right out of playing them (to people who know the TT and related rules, that is).
Sisters of Battle/Inquisitors/Adeptus Arbites/Squats/etc: Too obscure. Though I'd jump for joy at the chance to be a squat biker or burn up some enemies of the Emporer in my righteous flame, or beat them back with riot sticks and double-barrel scatterguns, most people who pick up the mod probably wouldn't be as amused by them
Fun thought to keep in mind for later, but focusing on the popular at first would help the mod sucede enough to make it enjoyable for all.
Necrons: No way. The only way to do it would be to make the Necron side have zero or next to it reinforcements and tough as brass balls. Fun, until you finally DO die and have to wait out the last 15 minutes of the match.
Space Marines: In my mind, overdone. Instantly recognizable, yes, but would be too hard to do well. Perhaps a Terminators versus Necrons mod would work (they're both tough as nails, with very few reinforcements if any) but against anything softer, it would feel pretty bland. The intensity that is in RO now (which is something you want to preserve) would be gone.
IG and Tau: Both shooty armies (fit the current game mold well), both have a decent selection of vehicles, and both are quite capable of surviving without bringing into play their extra units and excessive special rules. While they are greatly enhanced by those units and rules, they don't depend on them to the extent that Cheaters and Dark Cheate...whoops, I mean Eldar
p) do.
The basic unit for each is pretty similar. The Imperial Guardsman is the lowest of the low for infantry. Crappy armor, crappy gun, get in there shoulder to shoulder and make whatever the commander wants to happen happen. Sound like any WWII armies you know of?
What I propose is beefing up player hit-points by a bit instead of going into a complex system of armor values. Simpler, and the effect achieved will be about the same. The Tau would have slightly higher HP total (better armor, for those that don't know the TT) but not by too much. More on them later though.
The Lasgun can be equivelant to a fast and easy to manage semi-auto, code wise. Almost identical, just some graphic work and of course it's a small blast of laser instead of a bullet.
Give IG current HP +10-15%. I don't know what it is currently, but it's tweakable.
Their strength comes in Reinforcements (10% higher than the Tau, at the least) and their vehicles.
Tau would have roughly equivelant in firepower, with a longer range, but make it slightly slower firing (or heavier on the recoil) and do more damage per hit. Give them 15-20% more HP than the IG have. Reinforcements are around 10% less than the IG total. Their vehicles are good, too, and better at knocking out vehicles than the IG ones are, but overall a tad weaker (structurally). All in all, the Tau will stand a fair chance, but won't be able to 'zerg', where the IG can possibly win if they 'zerg' agressively enough.
In an ideal situation, a Tau shot should get a one-shot kill on a Guardsman 70-80% of the time or more. The Guardsman should average about 60-70% of the time against the Tau. The individual Tau will live longer one on one, but the smart Guardsman is never alone.
I've attached a convoluted image that hopefully shows 'victory lines'. If a particular unit type were to meet up with another particular unit type, what would the expected outcome be. The end of the line that has a cross-bar on it shows where the victory should land most of the time, in my mind at least. If there are two lines and both sides are crossed, then it could go either way or be a mutually assured destruction kind of thing.
I'll go into more on what I think for specific units and individual weapons and strengths later if anyone would like, but for now it is wayyy too late for my sissy ass. Gotta work in the morn, damn that real life thing
. Hopefully the above made SOME sense, and at the least inspired someone into getting the mod up an running. I have no code or graphic/modeling knowledge, but my head is full of ideas (good and bad
) and ideas to counter those ideas, and some pr0n.
