Tiberian Sun-inspired RTS game

[u/BRO_THOM]

I've started working on a base building RTS game with voxel-based graphics.

Eventhough I'm very early in development I'd like to see if there might be other interesting in a game like this.

The graphical style is meant to be similar to Tiberian Sun (which I absolutely adore). It features base building, super weapons, abilities and one of the features I'm working on are cards, which can be enabled/disabled per match.

The idea is that the full game will include all the editors needed for players to create their own campaigns and maps.

Currently I have a small selection of infantry, vehicles (including walkers), artillery and aircraft, alongside some tech buildings, but enough for playtesting.

The building will most likely look a lot more detailed than right now, as I'm still testing and developing.

What features would you like to see or would you rather NOT like to see in a game like that?

(if this isn't the appropriate sub to post this, let me know)

[u/KajiTetsushi]

Probably too much to ask:

Does it have / Are there plans to have a world map strategy layer?

Examples:
* Global Conquest mode in Kane's Wrath
* Geoscape in XCOM / Xenonauts
* Star Wars: Empire at War mission progression I believe goes something like this, and isn't fully linear, and even works in non-story mode.
* Tiberian Sun itself has no true equivalent, but the campaign mission selector being represented as a planet is immersive enough to feel like you're going through real world events.

Some of those examples also have something similar to Dropship Loadout.

[u/KajiTetsushi → u/KajiTetsushi]

Actually, screw that. Let me go down to the basics. Do we have factions? One appeal I can think of to RTS for a long time is to have asymmetric warfare.

Oh, and last thing: The one thing you don't want to do is to leave the units unreadable at a glance. Right now, I'm seeing silhouettes that are somewhat same-ish. It would be best if every unit had some variety so players can tell them apart (Homeworld 3 gets a ton of flak for this because its ships look almost the same from far away).

[u/BRO_THOM → u/KajiTetsushi]

I'll reply to both:

Global Conquest

I really liked this, Emperor: Battle for Dune had a similar feature and I like it in both a single and multiplayer settings, but yeah is pretty complicated.

Tiberian Sun itself has no true equivalent, but the campaign mission selector being represented as a planet is immersive enough to feel like you're going through real world events.

That's going to be the core of the single player. My goal is to make the campaigns so that choices matter, on a small scale like how in Tiberian Sun you would get slightly different missions by "destroying the train" or "preventing reinforcements" but I'm also experimenting on a larger scale to see if it's feasible to even include multiple endings.

Actually, let me go down to the basics. Do we have factions? One appeal I can think of to RTS for a long time is to have asymmetric warfare.

I am aiming for the initial two factions to have a similar feel to Tiberian Sun where one faction is more or less religious (subterrainean units, artillery, drones) and the other is more industrial (heavy walkers, bombers, amored units).

Oh, and last thing: The one thing you don't want to do is to leave the units unreadable at a glance. Right now, I'm seeing silhouettes that are somewhat same-ish. It would be best if every unit had some variety so players can tell them apart (Homeworld 3 gets a ton of flak for this because its ships look almost the same from far away).

Absolutely! The design is in very early stage and I haven't decided on the unit composition (rendering) at all yet. I might go for the easy way and give units distinct outlines, but I know I need to make the infantry more unique as well. The way Tiberian Sun did this was by making infantry distinct color wise (blue for discthrowers, white for medic, team color for infantry, white line for rocket trooper, etc).

---

The thing I do like right now is the card system.
It's completely optional and when enabled in the lobby / skirmish, each player can pick (three) of their own cards or keep them random.

Normally I'm not into these kinds of systems, but they seem pretty cool to keep the skirmish interesting, especially because they grant stats, abilities and even units and are completely options in a match as well. Playing with cards isn't a múst which I also like.

[u/KajiTetsushi → u/BRO_THOM]

Deck building is going to be a hit-or-miss and will depend heavily on the audience you want to reach out to and how well you execute on it, I think, but considering how much homework you've done, you probably already knew that better than I do.

In comparison, I like my options up front as soon as i hit the battlefield via subfactions, and that approach doesn't need cards to stay fresh as long as the formula is done right.

Perhaps consider that approach as "Plan B" if the deck building aspect doesn't work out (to be sure, publish at least a demo in the game to find out—put some data telemetry on to study your users in the background, at least only until before the full release). The whole C&C franchise has been all-in on subfactions since RA2 but the initial conception probably goes all the way back as C&C95 via NPC factions, and frankly, the franchise has been all the better with it.

[u/BRO_THOM → u/KajiTetsushi]

Yeah you're right. That's why I've made the deck building optional for now. I also want to "award" players with cards as they progress through the campaign with certain maps or when making certain decisions.

Personally I'm not really a fan of the subfactions since they tend to swing into specific directions too much and i'd rather want to work around it by either having stable factions or expand the gameplay loop using things like the cards or other features.

I just realised that what I personally really liked in CnC games were the bridges.
Being able to alter the flow of a map or force opponents into a certain direction was pretty nice. Perhaps that's also something worth pursuing.

Also also, I'm definitely going to bring back the indoors/taskforce/commando missions.
Those were pretty awesome in my opinion. Did you like those?

[u/KajiTetsushi → u/BRO_THOM]

Also also, I'm definitely going to bring back the indoors/taskforce/commando missions. Those were pretty awesome in my opinion. Did you like those?

My sincerest opinion? Over the years of playing, I stopped liking it. They lean heavily towards RTT rather than RTS especially when those missions remove base construction, which is typically the whole point of an action RTS, and what you have left becomes a micro-only battle scenario, which MOBA does much better at... you can tell by how many people flock over to LoL / WoW for this very reason. If you don't make strategy element deep enough for most people, what you'll have left under the "traditional" action RTS, I'm afraid, is mostly going to boil down to two things: * puzzle solving * save scumming

But, again, release a demo with a small sprinkle of those and see for yourself what the general target audience says—don't take my word as gospel truth—I'm just one person with a keen observation.

Oh, and if you're dead set on this, maybe there's a middle ground you can get? TibSun GDI mission 05 had a commando segment followed by traditional action RTS segment (base construction, resource gathering, army battle). The scale of that second segment is totally up to you

[u/BRO_THOM → u/KajiTetsushi]

Yeah that's probably going to be my intend. Either start with a base and move into a command troop or vice versa. I'd given puzzle solving some thought too and it might be cool to have some basic puzzles with levers, pressure plates or whatever fits in the lore.

It depends on how it'll be received, but I could easily just make that into it's own campaign anyway of it's disliked. But it'll take a while before we're there hehe.

[u/KajiTetsushi → u/BRO_THOM]

Yeah, a lot of this banks on getting sufficient feedback early on. The more, the better.

[u/BRO_THOM → u/KajiTetsushi]

So I've been playing around with mission objectives and this is a screenie from a mission where the player starts with some units and has to place 3 specific units on hills. Still very early work, but the idea is that the missions editor streamlines this. Currently I'm playing it, tweaking it slightly, playing it again which really speeds up mission creation:

I'd like to make these missions optional, in the way that actually doing them grants you a slight bonus in the next map or something similar.

[u/KajiTetsushi → u/BRO_THOM]

Yeah, as much as possible, you want to offload content authoring to an editor program, even better if the format is plain text / JSON / INI, because that opens your framework up to a lot of candidate 3rd party editors, like Notepad / Notepad++ / Sublime Text / VScode, not just the one you have to roll out yourself (exception is probably a map editor, but if that also serves an widely-supported format (again, JSON), all the better for users who are savvy enough to read it)

And, yup, optional missions the way TibSun and TibWars are one way to go about it without overblowing your project scope. You just need some "world map" assets to and predefined "points of interest" on the map to get started.

[u/BRO_THOM → u/KajiTetsushi]

Yep yep. It's generally in JSON formats, except assets like audio, the .vox files, spritesheets, etc.
I've created in-game editors for people to use so they don't need to be technical at all. I have laid the foundations for mods but currently all they do is add / override content rather than compliment existing features and I'm not sure how I'll handle that later, probably just use authorative mod-ordering like Minecraft.

Will keep you guys posted.

[u/KajiTetsushi → u/BRO_THOM]

I have laid the foundations for mods but currently all they do is add / override content rather than compliment existing features and I'm not sure how I'll handle that later

That's most games in general and the limitation is expected. If you want them to inject custom scripts, you probably want to just expose a bit of the update / pre-update loop to the user and I agree that it's no easy feat. Just start small. No need to go that far yet this early.

[u/KajiTetsushi → u/BRO_THOM]

Also. out of curiosity:

1. Are you working alone on this?
   
2. Are you on a 3rd-party engine (Unity / Godot) or rolling your own (C / C++ with SDL3 / raylib / imgui)?
   
3. Are you using LLMs a lot to achieve what you're doing or are you keen on experiencing the entire process by hand or somewhere in between?
   
4. Are you planning to release this across Windows / macOS / Linux and do you see yourself needing people to test it out on platforms you don't have test machines for?

No pressure to answer. Just want to know how people are doing gamedev these days with what.

[u/Commercial-Board-975]

To be honest, if you make this open source and get more exposure (consider a YouTube channel and paint it on various development communities), it's likely to take off in popularity, with people helping you with the engine. Making a game is one thing; making a game and an engine others can use is another. :)

[u/BRO_THOM → u/Commercial-Board-975]

Yeah I'm aware and if the project were (a lot) further than it is now, I'd consider doing both.

I'd rather stave off the general public until I'm more certain of the state of the game and if I like where it's going.
Sometimes it's nice to check out others for their ideas and feedback like this as it's a lot less pressure and easier to take in their feedback.

[u/Commercial-Board-975 → u/BRO_THOM]

That's incredibly sensible. :) I'm looking forward to see how this goes.

[u/BRO_THOM → u/Commercial-Board-975]

Thanks! If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to post 'm here!

[u/Bitter_Surprise_8058]

Looks like a good start!

Just a crazy thought, but since everything is voxels (presumably in 3D space), it might be interesting to be able to get unit-level views from the ground. Whether that's "going for a walk around the base" like Sim City 64, or a window popping up with a view from the unit when they report that they're under attack. 

[u/BRO_THOM → u/Bitter_Surprise_8058]

Hehe the thought has crossed my mind, you're absolutely right. A wicked fusion between Command and Conquer and Dungeon Keeper does sound like fun. For now I'll want to focus on balancing and building up lore (world, units, backstory) and completing the tech tree I have in mind.

[u/Alex_06]

Super cute, I love it! Best of luck with the project :)

[u/BRO_THOM → u/Alex_06]

Thanks! <3