Battle system for Mecha game

[Mixia]

Hello everyone,

I want to make a game with a mecha battle system. I have a vision of what I want, but I don't have a lot of experience with the battle systems and scripts.  

Overview: 
I want a dynamic battle where attacks are done through commands (since the characters are sitting in a machine). I would like to keep the ego-perspective, since it fits quite well.



1+2) IText windows for storytelling and as a reaction of what is going on are needed in the fight (some should be linked to events like low hp). They don't need to pop up at the same time.

3) I would like the action bar to be spread out at the bottom, side and above in the form of actual buttons and wheels to fit in the 'mecha window'. It would be a nice touch but no must.

4) It would be cool to have something with three dimension and movements in the battle.

5) other characters: the player should only be able to control his own mecha. Action of other characters should be shown, yet not choosen by the player.

6)Ego-view, maybe an atb-system? I also want something I call 'synchronation' which should display in a success rate for various actions. 

I would also love a way to 'pause' battles to give the player a chance to return to the base and get the mecha repaired, since there is no healing possible for mechas in a fight.

What do you think? Is this possible? Do you have better (other) ideas for a mecha battle system? I want it to be a little bit like the battle system in Persona 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmT59MMtAZg, which I really loved for there was going on so much.
 

Thanks a lot

Mixia

 

[Mixia]

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[Mouser]

Hello everyone,

I want to make a game with a mecha battle system. I have a vision of what I want, but I don't have a lot of experience with the battle systems and scripts.  

Overview: 

I want a dynamic battle where attacks are done through commands (since the characters are sitting in a machine). I would like to keep the ego-perspective, since it fits quite well.

1+2) IText windows for storytelling and as a reaction of what is going on are needed in the fight (some should be linked to events like low hp). They don't need to pop up at the same time.

3) I would like the action bar to be spread out at the bottom, side and above in the form of actual buttons and wheels to fit in the 'mecha window'. It would be a nice touch but no must.

4) It would be cool to have something with three dimension and movements in the battle.

5) other characters: the player should only be able to control his own mecha. Action of other characters should be shown, yet not choosen by the player.

6)Ego-view, maybe an atb-system? I also want something I call 'synchronation' which should display in a success rate for various actions. 

I would also love a way to 'pause' battles to give the player a chance to return to the base and get the mecha repaired, since there is no healing possible for mechas in a fight.

What do you think? Is this possible? Do you have better (other) ideas for a mecha battle system?

First: The best way for you to learn the battle system and scripting at the same time is to read through the Battle classes, see what classes inherit from whom, and what methods get called and when. Trace through a mock 'battle' until you understand what is going on. Almost all of the syntax is straight Ruby, so you can use any source of information to help you understand the different commands and constructions.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'ego-perspective', so I can't answer that. Remember RPG Maker is a 2D engine, so anything 3D is pretty much out (yes, there are ways to simulate 3D images, but if you really want to go down that road, this probably isn't the engine for you).

1+2) Messages tied to battle conditions like low HP isn't too hard.  You'll be looking at the methods in Game_Battler and Game_ActionResult. Story based messages would be evented, though I haven't had any experience doing that - other than opening and closing messages, none in the middle. You could put in a case statement where you check for the boss when you do the general low HP check, but there's probably an easier way.

3) Go through Window_Base and it's subclasses. You can move those all around the screen - no problems there.

4) See what I said about 3D. The best I think you could get would be a top-down view of the battlefield, but that would be a complete rewrite of the battle display code.

5) Doable. Game_Battler has a force_action method and Game_Action gives you lots of actions. Basically follow what happens when a player is in the 'confused' state and build off of that.

6) I think somebody has done an ATB type system, but I could be wrong on that. You can adjust the speed different actions take, which would affect the order in a turn, but that still leaves you with everyone getting one action/turn. If you made two passes through the actors array and had some sort of check to give a second action to certain characters (ie: the 'fast' ones) that could work.

Pausing battles is already built into the system: it's called 'escape'   Done with an evented battle you could cause things like damage done to stick around in the escape conditions section. Random battles are just gone.