XBox One wireless controllers not working.

[-M-]

Hi,

Thank you for making such a fun game. I hope you can still find some time to work on it and make some new additions or fixes.

Here are a few issues I had.

[BUGS]
Both of my Xbox One wireless controllers are not picked up by the game as default when it starts. In the settings i can switch it over to use them, but when i exit the game and start it again it loses them. It seems to wrongly identify them as xbox 360 controllers and keeps switching back to that.
2: Also when in the settings/controls page pressing the Esc key or any button on the controller to go back out of it does not work even though it displays this as an option in the bottom right corner of the screen. I actually thought the game had locked up until i saw the 'Done' button in the upper left corner. I think pressing Esc or the back button on a controller should also work and maybe ask if you want to save the changes.
3: Could you add a an ability to cap the frame rate of the game in the options to a custom number as I run it on my laptop and the graphics card gets very hot because it is always pushing out as many frames as possible.


[Feedback]
Your game is really fun, it reminds me a lot of 'Combat' an old game i used to play many years ago on the Atari 2600.
With that in mind here are a few extra additions or modes you could add to make the game more fun.
1: an invisible tank mode where you can't see your vehicle until you fire and then it only stays visible for a second. You could have a map with less walls to go with this mode.
2: a tank that's turret does not turn but instead it fires straight and then it's bullets curve in the same direction as the tank when you turn it. This is how it worked in 'Combat' the Atari game. Though those tanks were very slow to move and turn. Really slow tanks and slow firing and turning are also fun ;-)
3: Maybe you could add a standard toy soldier character as an option. Not sure how you would get them to work but thought it would be nice. Maybe the soldier could climb over walls or he could be the one that could turn invisible with camouflage or something. Maybe he could get inside buildings or bunkers?
4: You could also have maps with tents or covers anything a vehicle could drive under and not be seen until it drove out.
6:I think it would also be great if you could increase the game to allow 6 or even 8 players.
7: perhaps you could add a base defense / capture the flag mode where. With each team has a nice army base on opposite sides of the field.

Anywho, sorry for bombarding you with loads of ideas. Hope you don't mind. :-)
Thanks again for the fun game,

M

[Mighty]

Hello!

Thanks for the feedback! Supporting more than four players is actually something we've discussed, and we're keen to add it. We appreciate all the suggestions, however (the invisible tank gamemode sounds pretty fun)!

As to the bugs:
1) I'll see what I can do, so fingers crossed! Unfortunately, we use a third party input system and it will really come down to whether or not they support XBox One controllers. Because the game is getting a bit old now that may not be the case, but I'll do my best to fix it.

2) Related to the issue above, that controller configuration screen is handled by the third party input system. I wasn't aware that Escape didn't leave it, and I agree that it definitely should, but this too may be out of our hands. If we allow selective inputs to work on that screen then it may cause issues when trying to bind those keys. I'll look into this as well, but we'll have to see what happens!

3) Better news on this one. I'll add an FPS setting to give you some control over your framerate. Hopefully it will land in the next couple of days!

Thanks again for your feedback, and for reporting these bugs. I hope you continue to enjoy the game!

[-M-]

Hi,

Thank you for your quick reply.
I am really happy to see that you are still working on this game and can hopefully fix these issues.
Glad that you liked some of my suggestions.
I really think Toys of War is a great party game, and sadly these kind of games seem to be coming less common. To me there is nothing better than having a group of friends over for a fun night of gaming. So if you could boost this game to allow 6 players that would be awesome!

Thanks again!
M

[Mighty]

We've just updated the game!

So about your issues:

1) No luck on the controller issue, unfortunately :( The third party input system doesn't support XBox One controllers due to its age, and we can't change systems at this point. Sorry!

2) In lieu of being able to leave the controller configuration screen with the back button, we made it black out the background and gave it a title to reinforce it being 'separate' from the game. While this doesn't fix the issue directly, it should make it less apparent for new players.

3) We added a VSync option to the graphics settings, so let me know if that solves your problem please! If not we'll look into additional fixes.

[-M-]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick update.
That's a pity you couldn't fix the controller issue. It's weird because it is able to use an Xbox One controller and picks it up straight away when you enter the controls page but just doesn't save it when you exit the game :-(

1} Seeing as their is no way for you to fix the control issue, could you add an option in the settings that makes the game go directly to that 3rd party Controller setting page on startup if checked. As I use my laptop like a console connected to my projector, and suddenly having my controllers not work until i go get my keyboard is not ideal.

2} The black controls page is much more understandable now so that was a good change :-)

3} As for your VSync option, that does not seem to get saved when you exit the game now either.
While it is good it does not really fix my problem as my laptop is only able to get around 45fps on low settings, while Fubar (Ultra low) is ugly as has no shadows but I get 70 fps.
What I really need is to be able to cap the frame rate to around 36 fps just to take the load off my card while still looking reasonably smooth.
It you could add a custom fps cap option or an ability to at least cap to 30 Fps that would help me a lot.
I know it is not a bug, and probably most people wouldn't care so sorry for bothering you with this one.

Thanks again for your help.
It is much appreciated :-)
M

[Mighty]

No worries, I'll look into #1 and #3 again and hopefully get some fixes into a patch late next week!

[Mighty]

Just chucked up an update that should address all of your remaining issues!

1.0.2
- All quality levels now default to 'VSync' on
- Saved 'VSync' quality setting between play
- Added 'Max FPS' graphics setting (does nothing when VSync is on)
- Added 'Remap on Launch' controls setting (shows before title card on launch)
- Removed duplicate resolutions from 'Resolution' quality setting

Let me know if these changes don't alleviate your problems.

We've done some early investigation into 8 player support. There are a number of UI issues blocking it at the moment, but we're hopeful!

And if you're liking the game, could you consider throwing it a review? Just your honest opinion positive or negative will help us grow the game!

Thanks,
Mighty

[-M-]

Hi Mighty,

Those fixes you did are great. It works now with my Xbox one controllers as soon as i start the game, though i do have to assign it to a player slot but that is fine.
I did notice one issue though, when the remap screen opens on start, the main menu of the game seems to still be active behind it as I could hear it moving and when i exited the remap screen it had gone into the online game page.

The max fps limit works great and my laptop handles the game much better now. Thank you!

I had some friends over this week and we played your game and now i have a few more suggestions to make the game menus etc less confusing.

1) When selecting mini games it would be better if you displayed the rules of the game on the screen to the left the small video example rather than having to press Y to display rules. It just makes the flow more awkward.

2) When you enter the player select screen, you immediately see the P1,P2,P3 etc over the vehicles but you can't move them until you press a button. So you should add a message like "Press A to Join" game etc. Or maybe also hide those P1,P2 labels until a button is pushed.

3) If two people join the same team i.e Blue team etc and pick the same vehicle type, then when the round starts you can't tell who is who until you start moving as it puts your steam profile name over both vehicles. It would be better to put a P1 and P2 etc over the vehicles on round start.

Thanks for all you great work.
I will put up a very positive review soon ;-)
I hope you get many more sales as your game is really great.

Thanks again.
M

[Mighty]

Thanks for the feedback! I wish we had have had someone like you during early access!

I'll get onto those suggestions next week, have a great weekend.

[Mighty]

We've just launched 1.0.3 to the live game, which fixes #2 and #3 in your suggestions.

The reason I'm posting this however is to give you access to the beta version of the game. If you right click the game in your games library and go to Properties, under the Betas tab you will find a field to enter a beta unlock code. Enter the following code and click Check Code:

y8Uow2p9pT453hAWaIVaXLN57m6yUVgZ

It should then say that you have access to a beta named 'beta', which you can select from the drop down list above where you entered the code. When you launch the game you will see in the top left corner that the version is 1.1.0rc3 instead of 1.0.3. If this isn't the case, restart your steam and the changes should take effect after a small download.

The reason for giving you access to our beta game is that it now includes the invisible tanks minigame that you suggested when you first contacted us. We have named it 'Covert Ops' and made some additions to it, such as a radar sweep that periodically reveals invisible tanks. We're not looking to release it until some other timings line up, so for now just you and our other testers will have access (and anyone that reads this I guess).

1.1.x also fixes the menu being active behind the controls screen on launch.

So let us know what you think of Covert Ops! We're happy to make additional changes.

[-M-]

Hi Mighty,

First off, thank you so much for including me in your beta program and for adding the Covert-Ops mode. My first impressions of it are very positive. I have not had a chance to play it with friends yet but against the AI it was very good. Though I’d imagine with friends it will be even more interesting and fun.
Seeing as you have included me in your beta program, I will do my best to give you my honest opinions and suggestions to help you with your game. So here goes 😉
This is a long post so please forgive me.

[My thoughts]:

Invisible Tanks/Covert-Ops:

1)Vehicles maybe should have engine idle/ movement sounds so you hear them moving vs going quieter when not moving.
I think this should be in all game modes as when you switch off the background music the game seems unusually quiet with the tanks moving about. In covert-ops mode maybe the bgm could default to a lower volume or be turned off. This mode should be more about being sneaky than all out blasting each other like in death match. And without music I found it more suspenseful. But it definitely needs tank movement sounds then. Tank movement sounds will give you a better clue as to what the other player(s) are doing, i.e camping in a spot or coming for you.
[If you do add sounds, I was thinking, seeing as it is a Toys game it could be funny (or annoying, I'll leave that for you to decide :-) ) if the sounds were just like people making funny sound effects with their mouths, like the way kids do when playing with toys. If you really want to go crazy each player could choose from a selection of effects, like Realistic, Comic, Child Male, Adult Male, Child Female and Adult female. So it would be like people going "Vrroom vroom, and pew pew when shooting etc" whatever was funny. A bit like how you can choose the voices of your worms in the Worms games. :-D

2)I think the visibility time should default to 1 second as I found at 2 seconds sometimes the AI just all started shooting right away and never went invisible at all.

3)Maybe you could use controller vibration to give players more clues as to what is going on when they are invisible. Like if an enemy tank is very close to you the controller would start to slowly vibrate like the ground shaking etc. to give you a clue while still not seeing them. Or vibrate when your tank bumps into another player or wall. This could be an optional feature of Covert-Ops mode, as if not all players were using controllers with rumble features it might not be fair.

4)I know it is beta so you probably have this planned already but I’ll list it anyway, I think it would be nicer if there was some quick transformation/cloaking animation as vehicles go invisible, like blue electricity around them as they disappear.

5)I noticed when in covert-ops if I used the shield while invisible a circular cloud of smoke would give away my position but the AI never appeared and fired at me. Maybe this is a good thing, I found it helped me to defeat them 😊. I am not sure what your plan was for this feature but just thought I’d let you know. Also, sometimes after I died, I used the drone to knock out one of the AI while invisible as I guessed where he was but even though he was lit up the other AI didn’t attack him. Maybe you could make it that the drones electric strikes can disable the cloaks of all tanks near it for a few seconds. Would make it fun for dead players to try and find the hidden players who are still alive.

6) I noticed you mentioned me in the Rules description 😊 That was very cool of you. Thank you.
Though I think saying “Limited visibility unless you shoot” is not very clear. Might be better to say “Vehicles will cloak and go invisible when not shooting.”

7) If all human players are killed and only AI are left then there should be a way to speed up the round to see which AI won without having to sit and wait. This is especially important for Covert-Ops as you can be stuck looking at a blank screen waiting for them to kill each other.


Now for general game improvements.
The Menu system:

8) I think your menu system needs rethinking as the circular wheel with spokes on it that don’t match the number of options around it is misleading.
When you start the game you have Play, Minigames and Online as different options yet they are all a type of play, so this is confusing. What is Play vs Minigames for example? I know the answer but I am just saying it is not clear. To me you need to combine all forms of play into one option, as really your “Play” mode/Warpath is just another minigame mode. So, for example your opening options could be Local Play, Online Play, Settings, Tutorial and Exit. I would remove the tutorial from the minigames menu and put it in the main menu.
Local play would bring you to the player selection screen and then on to the Minigames board where Warpath i.e your special random mode would be another option on it.


Player selection:

9) I think Player selection should come before the minigame selection screen. [As if it came first then when a player finishes one minigame and wants to choose another they wouldn't have to go back through the vehicle selection screen to get to the minigames board.] I know you have some minigames that only allow certain vehicles and, in these cases, they should say so in their Rules display, eg “Humvee’s only” for war spoils etc. Or in brackets next to their name e.g. “War Spoils (Humvee’s only)”. What is the point in letting people go to a vehicle selection screen only to discover they are limited to one vehicle anyway?
If the player/vehicle selection screen came first then you wouldn’t have Rules or Options for the minigame listed as options at the bottom of the Vehicle selection screen which would free up those buttons for better things like “Add AI” which would add one randomly selected AI vehicle each time you press it, or “2 vs 2” which would auto assign players to 2 teams.

10) When entering the player selection screen, you need “Press Enter/Start to Select vehicle” to be the main line you see, not the “Press Space/Play button to select AI.” The most important thing for a player to do after entering the player selection screen is to join and select their vehicle not to add AI.
To me pressing the Start button should start the game not select AI. Currently if you want to play a 1 vs 1 both human players game you have to still press the start button to select AI and then go and choose None twice as the AI option. This is more steps than should be needed and is not obvious to a beginner. It should be Player one joins, player two presses a button and Joins and then pressing Start, starts the game without AI by bringing you to the minigame selection screen.
You could change it so pressing Y on an xbox controller adds AI, and defaults to a selection of random vehicles for the AI, so if that suits the players they can start right away without choosing vehicles for each AI. If you eventually do add up to 6 or 8 players this will be important as picking 7 AI vehicles for a single player would be tedious. You should only go to the AI add screen automatically on pressing Start if just a single player/team joins and presses start without choosing an AI opponent.

11)The “Select”, “Lock in” and “Undo” descriptions should be changed to “Move”, “Select” and “Back”. I think this would be more consistent and clearer as on your other screens you use “Back” not “Undo” etc.
Also, I don’t think you should have “Difficulty” displayed at the bottom of the screen until you are in AI adding mode.

12) I run the game at 1280x720 and at this resolution I find the written vehicle descriptions on the player selection screen blurry and difficult to read although other text like the button descriptions are clear.


Minigames screen.
13) I think you need a better way of moving through your minigames map like pressing in the direction on the map moves toward that option rather than only up and down moving through the map. If you do this then you should also add the names of the minigames in small print next to their icons on the map.

14) I think you should add a custom tournament mode which let players select which minigames they would like to play and then it takes them through those games, a bit like your Warpath Random mode.

15) When you choose a minigame it should then display that minigames options, like Visibility time for covert-ops etc. [You also need to include a setting for the sudden death/round time as players may want adjust how long they have before the flames come in to finish the round]

[Bugs]
1)I came across a bug in the new selection screen where after playing a game with two players, that when re-entering it, player 2 was showing up right away but was not actually there so when I pressed a button on my second controller, I saw two P2’s listed on screen. It could have been caused by my second controller turning itself off as I wasn’t using it for a while but I’m not sure. I did notice that when backing out of the player selection screen with the player 1 controller, player 2 stayed in so when you re-entered, they were still selected. I haven’t been able to repeat it so it might have just been a glitch.

2)When in any of the options i.e main options or minigame options; any feature that is turned on or off with a checkbox, can only be ticked by pressing left and right even though in the description in the bottom right corner it shows pushing the A button on the xbox controller should also check it. For example, pressing A on the Xbox controller will not change your new VSync option.


Sorry again for this huge list :-)
And thanks again for being so helpful and for adding my ideas to your game so quickly. I am really surprised and happy. I think Covert Ops is a really great addition to your game.
Looking forward to seeing what other changes you make.

Regards,
M

[Mighty]

Thanks for the extra suggestions, they're very much appreciated! I'll discuss them with the team over the next few weeks, before we launch Covert Ops.

[-M-]

You are very welcome. I am glad that you found some of my suggestions useful! :-)
I edited my big post to explain some things better and fixed a few spelling errors.

I was looking into that blurry text on the Vehicle selection page and I noticed that in FUBAR mode everything seemed a lot clearer. I think perhaps the Bloom effects or Anti-aliasing could be causing the text to get blurry. It would be great if you could put checkboxes for the graphics effects like bloom, anti-aliasing, and ambient occlusion etc as that way I could adjust the graphics settings to improve performance and hopefully fix the blurriness issue also.

Thanks again.

[-M-]

Hi Mighty,

Hope you are doing well.
I've discovered a new unusual bug in the game.
[BUG]
If I start the game while steam is offline and my laptop is not connected to a router the games frame rate drops extremely low. No mater what graphics setting I choose I am only able to get about 15fps. Soon as I connect, go online and restart the game, it jumps back to a normal frame rate.


Now on to what i am excited to tell you.

[Game mode Idea]
After playing the new Covert Ops minigame more it has triggered my imagination and i have thought up a new major game mode for you that i think will really transform Toys of War, and a small optional variant that can be added to Covert Ops.

The addition to Covert Ops is:

Covert-Ops Buzzer mode:
Covert ops could have an option where if invisible vehicles bump into an object, they become half visible again for a quarter of a second or so and make a slight electrical buzzing sound, thus making bumping into walls or other invisible players dangerous as it would give away your position. If this was on then the radar sweep could be optionally turned off.

In Covert Ops, I think vehicles should go invisible soon as the round starts. If you did this then maybe a 2 second visible time would work. In the Atari Combat game, tanks stayed visible as long as they had an active bullet on screen; When their bullet disappeared, so did they. They could also only have one active bullet on screen at a time. thus you had to wait for your last shot to stop bouncing or explode before you could fire again.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I said in my first post, I thought a team base defense/capture the flag type game would be a good addition for Toys of War so now i have spent some time thinking up what i hope will be a very fun one, with a lot of strategy to it. It incorporates a mix of the new invisible tanks and standard tanks ;-)
First off there are some general additions you need to make that will compliment the new Game mode.

These are:

Player Switching (Right Shoulder Button):
In any team game where you have a human player with one or more AI on the same team, that player should be able to cycle through the AI team mates and take control of them, like switching through your players in a sports game.

Team AI Commands(D-Pad):
AI team mates can be given orders.
“Assault(D-Pad Up), (Actively seek out enemies and attack them; Normal AI behavior ),
“On me(D-Pad down), (Go to the player and assist them where possible),
“Hold position(D-Pad Left)” (Stay where they are but shoot anything that comes in range, and
“Go Heal(D-Pad Right)” (Don’t shoot unless fired upon, stay invisible if possible, stay away from enemies, collect health pickups if needed, heal team mates if possible once own health is 100% )


Now on to the new game. Hope you like it.

Intelligence War:

This would be best played 3 vs 3 or higher, but should also work 2 vs 2. The player switching system and AI Commands mentioned above should be used in this game. A battlefield that uses the whole screen and is viewed more from the top might also be better for this game.

In this game there are two bases on opposite sides of the map with random walls and maybe a few spike traps and rolls of razor wire in between them. Each base would contain one teams Top Secret Intelligence(”Intel”) Room, an Ammunitions depot, a Repair Station and a Radar tower The Radar can be activated once every 60 seconds to show the location of enemy vehicles. If a Radar tower is shot it is disabled for the remainder of the round.
The Intel room would have laser beams across its’ entry so any enemy vehicle driving through it would set off an alarm, with flashing red lights and collect the Top Secret Intel. Cloaked vehicles would have their cloaks deactivated for 2 seconds upon hitting these lasers. Inside the Intel room would be a set of rolled up secret plans, “The Intel”, that when driven over by any vehicle would be picked up. Any vehicle carrying the plans and that is not cloaked would have a marker above them showing that they have an Intel. When carrying Intel, a vehicle cannot fire their standard weapon but instead pressing fire causes them to shoot the Intel papers (with a “Fooosh”, vacuum tube sound) a short distance. If shot at another player in range, that player will automatically receive it unless they are using their Hunker ability or are already carrying another Intel. If playing with AI team mates, passing the Intel to an AI team mate will automatically switch that AI to the players control. A vehicle can only carry one set of Intel at a time. Bringing or shooting the Intel back into its’ Intel room would shut off the alarm. If a friendly vehicle picks up their Intel no alarm would trigger and the laser beams would be turned off until it is put back into the room. If a vehicle is shot by an enemy it drops the Intel and cannot pick it up again for 3 seconds.

The first team to bring their opponents’ Intel back to their Intel room while still being in possession of their own Intel or destroy all the vehicles of the other team wins the round.

Players can choose from two classes of vehicles, Stealth (Helicopter, Hovercraft or Humvee) or Assault (Tank, Artillery or APC), which have different abilities.

Vehicles have 4 possible Health states: Normal, Damaged, Disabled and Destroyed.
Normal: The standard perfectly healthy state.
Damaged: Assault vehicles drive 50% slower, Stealth vehicles are unable to go invisible or fire their weapons.
Disabled: vehicles can’t function in any way, but may be assisted by a team mate.
Destroyed: vehicles are knocked out for the round and become a drone observer.


Stealth Class Vehicle features:
1) EM Beam(RT) (medium range weapon with red dot sight). Shoots an electromagnetic beam in a straight line but that can bounce off walls or hunkered vehicles. Firing the EM Beam disables cloaking in the vehicle that fired it. After firing the cloak takes 4 seconds to recharge and the EM Beam takes 8 seconds.
Holding down the fire button activates a laser sight and releasing the button fires.
EM Beams impact on vehicles:
Hunkered vehicles are unaffected.
Assault vehicles get temporarily disabled for 3 seconds but take no damage.
Cloaked Stealth vehicles(S.Vs), have their circuits overload and are damaged, thus they can no longer cloak or fire until repaired.
Uncloaked S.Vs, have their movement controls inversed and their cloak and EM abilities disabled for 5 seconds.

2) Invisibility Shield(A), a cloaking device that must charge and then can be turned on and off at the push of a button to make the vehicle invisible/visible. While the Invisibility Shield is switched off and not charging, the Stealth vehicles EM Weapons charge twice as fast. Stealth vehicles have light armor so it only takes a single shot from an Assault vehicle to disable a S.V when its’ invisibility cloak/shield is down.

3) Magnetic Link(LT). The Magnetic link allows a stealth vehicle to magnetically attach itself to any vehicle next to it while staying cloaked. When linked, using the turret aiming (Right stick) will instead reposition the S.V around the vehicle it is attached to, so for example pressing up on the right stick would make the S.V move to the north side of the vehicle it is linked with. Driving the S.V with the left stick will combine its movement with the vehicle it is attached to, thus pushing, pulling and increasing/decreasing the speed of the attached vehicle is possible. It the S.V wishes to be guided by the attached vehicle then it should not use its movement.
Effects on team mates:
While linked with team mates, a stealth vehicle cannot fire its’ EM Beam. Instead pressing the fire button will send a surge of power into the team mate and Recharge the Hunker/shield of a Healthy Assault vehicle team mate or heal a damaged one by 1 hit point. This has the downside of uncloaking the Stealth vehicle for 4 seconds and disabling its’ EM Beam for 8 just like firing it at an enemy. Note: It cannot use this method to repair a completely disabled team mate, to do that it must either push or use the link to tow the team mate back to a Repair station.
When the link is active, a stealth vehicle can be towed by, or give a speed boost to any team mate(s) it is linked with. When two or more friendly stealth vehicles attach to one another, the one(s) creating the link can transfer power to the other(s) thus reducing its’ team mates cloak and EM Beam recharge times to 1/(the number of stealth vehicles linked + 1). So for example, if 2 were linked, the recharge times would be 1/3 of normal.
If two Stealth vehicles attach to an Assault Class team mate and both activate their cloaks, the Assault class vehicle is also cloaked. This only lasts as long as they stay attached to it.
Effects on Enemies:
The Magnetic Link can also be used offensively. By attaching itself to an enemy, a stealth vehicle may send a special concentrated EM pulse into the enemy vehicle(s) it is linked with which will temporarily disable them for 4 seconds and cause damage to them(Damaged Health state rules apply). If they are already damaged this high-powered pulse will permanently disable them. Note: The stealth vehicle must turn off its’ cloak before it can fire its’ special linked EM Pulse. Doing this as quickly as possible is key as if the enemy spots you and shoots or activates their Hunker ability you are in trouble.
Using the linked EM Pulse will uncloak the Stealth vehicle for 4 seconds and disable its’ EM Beam for 8 seconds just like firing it normally.
Note: Stealth vehicles do not have their usual special secondary attack, this is replaced by the Magnetic Link.

4) Speed Boost(LB). Stealth vehicles can use their generators to boost their speed by 50% but this draws power away from their cloak/shields and weapons, and prevents shield and EM Ability charging while active. So, while speed boosting, they become visible and can’t fire.


Assault Class abilities:
1) Standard Attack(RT): Has 4 standard shots which can damage or permanently disable an enemy vehicle. Whether it damages it or disables it is based on the strength/hit points of the vehicle it hits, weaker vehicles like the Humvee will be disabled instantly whereas the Tank will have to be hit multiple times getting damaged first and then disabled. Assault vehicles can replenish ammo at a base by driving into it and collecting an ammo pickup. Ammo respawns every 30 seconds at the Ammo Depot in a base.

2) Super Attack(LT): A one use per round special attack which can destroy any un-shielded vehicles that it hits and place shielded vehicles into a damaged state.
The super attack is your current existing power attack for that vehicle.

3) Smart Mine(A): Can lay 1 smart mine. A landmine that explodes and damages any enemy vehicle that passes over it. Cloaked enemies will lose their cloak until they return to base and get repaired. If the vehicle passing over it is already damaged or disabled (and being towed/pushed by a team mate or enemy) it will be destroyed. Mines can be shot to remove them. Each Assault vehicle can have only one active Smart Mine on the field at any time.

4) Hunker(LB): Has 3 charges of standard hunker/shield ability which can deflect attacks when active. Hunker will break any enemy Stealth vehicles Magnetic Links with it causing them to detach and disables their cloak and EM Beam for 4 Seconds.


Okay, that is it :-)
I hope when you read through this you can see the possibilities.
It would need to be play tested and tweaked to get the balance right. Ideally a team of all Stealth vehicles against all Assault vehicles should still be fair, though the play styles of each team would be very different. I'd expect most people to choose a mix of Assault and Stealth for their teams, to give them the most play options.
I am not sure how the current vehicle types will work with these classes. In my mind i see the Assault Class as a standard slow heavy tank and the Stealth class as a lighter futuristic hovering tank. As the hovering would work better with the Magnetic ability of attaching to a vehicle and being pulled along with it. etc.
My aim is that vehicles will rarely get knocked out/destroyed as not much ammo is given, mostly it will be a battle to grab and defend the Intel. With a lot of interesting strategies as to how your team works together to achieve this.
When the Intel is grabbed it should hopefully become more like a sports game passing it between team mates in a mad dash to get home.


Thanks for reading it all if you got this far :-)
I hope you like it.

Michael.

P.S. I edited this many times to make it more readable with formatting so I apologize if that resulted in you getting a lot notifications.

[Mighty]

Thanks again! I like the new game mode, I can see you put a lot of thought into it! It looks great. It would be a pretty big undertaking though, so I'll pass it around the team and we'll discuss it. If we get the time to add another game mode, maybe you'll see it again in the future!

The buzz idea for Covert Ops is another good one, it would incentivize actually exploring while you're not visible. We're quite busy right now, but we'll see what we can do!

And I'll look into that bug. Thanks heaps for the report!

[-M-]

Hi,
Glad you liked it. I'll keep my fingers crossed that you are able to add it someday. :-)

While trying out the game I came across a small bug so thought i'd report it to you.

[BUG]
If you start a standard Deathmatch minigame with all human players or just 2 players and no AI etc. And then never move the players vehicles from the spot they started at, then when the flames come in to end the round they take no damage. As soon as you move one off its spot it then dies.
I was trying out different vehicles and left one player sitting there and was surprised that when the flames came they would not die and I would lose the round even though they were engulfed first.

Thanks again, for all your help. I look forward to your official release of Covert-Ops.
Best of luck with it all!