Ten ideas to play with.

[nephilimnexus]

1) So far I've been really digging "Z-Com" but have been lamenting that I can only bring four troops with me. Oddly enough, the game itself says that you need two Blackhawks for every Chinook, and you can indeed have that many on your carrier & in bases, but so far I see no advantage to doing so, as the Chinook runs just fine with only one Blackhawk while adding a second doesn't seem to do anything.

Which leads me to suggest the following change: Buying and bringing a second Blackhawk should allow you to bring an extra four soliders along on missions, bringing the total up to eight. While four is fine for dealing with zombies, when it comes to taking on rebels it would be really nice to be able to have both foot soldiers and a vehicle operating at the time.

2) Also would like to suggest a better pause function for the RTS part. Right now we have to right-click a soldier and pull up their inventory to pause the action, and we can't issue any orders while doing this. The space bar simply switches from normal to pseudo-infrared. I would like to suggest switching the IR mode to something else, and make the spacebar into a pause button (as with many other games) and allow us to issue orders while paused.

3) While it is possible to pick up extra weapons in the field, thus allowing soldiers to switch between guns and, say, a rocket launcher, there is no way to send them out thus so equipped. Nor does it seem to be possible to swtich their pistols other than finding them in crates - and the newfound pistols do not go into permanent inventory and/or unlock afterward. Could this also be fixed?

4) Not sure if bug or not: Some pissant country sent a plane to attack the carrier, so I retaliated by blowing their entire airfield into dust. Thus reduced to zero, their airforce was now permanently removed from the game. Satisfied, I figured that they were now prime bait for my Vulture to do salvage missions in. So I sent it out... and it was immediately shot down. WTF?

5) Why can we salvage any vehicle except the tank? I love the tank. I want to keep it. It makes me sad that we can't. And while we're at it, perhaps we can expand that vehicle list more? Not just ground units, but aircraft as well? For example, F14s/Mig25s which would be better at interception but bad at bombardment, while the A10/Su25 would excel at bombarment but suck at interception.

6) The onboard factory could use more options, such as using the weapons to lab to copy any nation-specific designs we have access to in case we happen to lose that access later ("Sorry about nuking your country!"). While we're at it, letting us fabricate our own vehicles at a reduced cost would also be nice. Buy/steal one, send it in for "reverse engineering" and then be able to make our own at half the cost afterward.

7) I get that katanas are cool, but they really shouldn't be a primary weapon. Getting that Bravery stat to 10 was enough work. Making us have to ditch our other weapons to use it is just silly.

8) I can see no tanglible reason in the difference between the kukri (not machete - please fix name, thanks!) and the pistol, since both only work at melee range. I suggest making the kukri into a proper melee weapon, used for when a zombie actually tries to grab someone. The pistol should be something used when a zombie moves into "fight or flight" range (read: Bravery check circle of effect), say about ten meters, and only if the soldier is busy reloading their primary weapon at the time.

9) It seems like diplomats only have any effect when tossing bribe money at nations. This seems... lacking. I'd improve this by giving them a static daily boost to relations with whatever nation they are assigned to. Not much, just 2 or 3% per day would do. This way you could spend time instead of money. Also would like it if country relations affected buyinjg/selling prices on stuff to/from that nation.

10) New mission type: Raid. It's like sending the Vulture, but can only be done to hostile countries and actually brings troops along to take down enemy defenders. Higher risk, obviously, but should allow better rewards. While it wouldn't nab you any VIPs, it should let you get access to other stuff, like weapons, vehicles, etc.

[vdvgames]

Will try to reply to your list as best as possible.

#1:The idea behind the 1 chinook per 2 blackhawks is that you can do 1 mission per day with each black hawk (1 black hawk, 1 mission, 4 black hawks, 4 missions). To use up to 4 black hawks in a single day would require your Ark to have 2 chinooks, as 1 chinook is assigned to work with 2 blackhawks.

We are looking at being able to bring up to 8 marines per mission but that will be in a future update as we will need to change quite a bit of the game logic.

#2: Pause with SPACE BAR is a good option, right now you can also pause game by pressing the red hand button (which pops up a mission progress window with restart/load/save mission options) top left next to options icon. We will look into the ability to give orders while paused.

#3: We are working on changing how the inventory is displayed for marines so, additional equipped weapons from the start is something that will be possible as well as keeping melee weapons.

#4: Taking out a countries airforce only stops them from being able to send out fighters against you but it does not rid the country of its anti-air batteries. Adjustments are in consideration.

#5: Although WOTZ is just a game we do try to keep some of it more realistic and airlifting a tank with a chinook or even a more powerful helicopter isn't logical. We are open to suggestions of more power lifting helicopters or much lighter tanks with similar capabilites. We also introduced the MGS Thumper (a stripped down version of the M1128 MGS) that has the same cannon as the M60 but is a much lighter vehicle that can be airlifted in and out of mission zones. You can actually retrieve a tank from a mission zone if you do a deployment from one of your FOBs, as all vehicles will be driven back to your FOB in place of being airllifted out which is the case with Ark deployed missions.

#6: Interesting idea on manufacturing own versions of vehicles. Something that has been on the drawing board for future expansions when we introduce SAFE factory plants in countries that have been abandoned.

#7: You have a valid point. This will already change once we introduce multiple weapons equipped within mission briefing.

#8: Appreciate feedback on proper name for the blade we call machete. Will definitely change the name in future. Both weapons were actually design as last ditch effort weapons when a zombie actually touches a marine, but your feedback gives food for thought.

#9: There are actually a few hidden diplomat effects such as willingness of countries to offer to buy equipment from you with requisition orders as well as money countries are willing to pay. The other use for diplomats is for spying on a country prior to entering a mission zone. The longer a diplomat spies in a country the more local mission zone intel can be obtained. This comes into effect even more when trying to find syndicate underground base entrances in Clear Outbreak missions.

#10: Raid is a godo idea for a new mission type. Other mission types we are considering right now are assassination, convoy escort, important data file/package retrieval.

Appreciate your time in coming up with this detailed feedback.

[nephilimnexus]

Spiffy!

As an alternative to using choppers, TLAMs or the current "bombard" mission it would be neat if we had the option to do air strikes via our planes in RTS mode. Basically working exactly like the TLAM, but not costing a million bucks every time we click the button.

The reason I say this is because even though we currently have the off-screen bombard option for before the mission launches, frankly it rarely does what I really need it to do. Which is, to say, close air support.

1) When facing rebels we currently have no off-screen aerial bombardment option, and the helicopters are just way too squishy to send in after rebels considering that both die instantly from a single RPG hit.

2) When facing zombies are really just want to clear all those buildings out of the way, and unless there is a proper tank on the map (and there isn't) then my only choice is to fire off a dozen TLAMs all over the place, which blows up my profits even better than the zombies.

For both of these issues being able to just call in a fighter and dump some old fashioned iron bombs - either in a circle (F18) or, better yet, carve out a strip of death (A10) - would be awesome.

Maybe from there we can think about researching napalm and minelet bombs later...

[vdvgames]

Originally posted by nephilimnexus:

Spiffy!

As an alternative to using choppers, TLAMs or the current "bombard" mission it would be neat if we had the option to do air strikes via our planes in RTS mode. Basically working exactly like the TLAM, but not costing a million bucks every time we click the button.

The reason I say this is because even though we currently have the off-screen bombard option for before the mission launches, frankly it rarely does what I really need it to do. Which is, to say, close air support.

1) When facing rebels we currently have no off-screen aerial bombardment option, and the helicopters are just way too squishy to send in after rebels considering that both die instantly from a single RPG hit.

2) When facing zombies are really just want to clear all those buildings out of the way, and unless there is a proper tank on the map (and there isn't) then my only choice is to fire off a dozen TLAMs all over the place, which blows up my profits even better than the zombies.

For both of these issues being able to just call in a fighter and dump some old fashioned iron bombs - either in a circle (F18) or, better yet, carve out a strip of death (A10) - would be awesome.

Maybe from there we can think about researching napalm and minelet bombs later...

Mission zone Air support from which ever type of fighter jet your Ark currently has (F-18S/ F-35S / EF-S TYPHOON / T-50S PAK FA / J-31S FALCON ) is a good idea, many fans have previously brought up adding in wart hogs to do a mission zone bomb run but that will require a lot of game overhauling. It shouldn't be too difficult to add in air support using your Ark's fighters, although therer could be no complaining if your Safeteam gets wiped out by mistake. There is one other device which guarantees no Safeteam / VIP casualties and massive zombie annihilation (in and around the outskirts of a mission zone), and that is the orbital nano-pulse cannon, the controller device for that is available on rare occasions from the blackmarket, but at a hefty dore bar price. We won't delve to deep into that so as not to spoil discovering all he game has to offer.

[nephilimnexus]

True, but I think that a direct bomb drop wouldn't be that hard to code in. It would basically be identical to the TLAM button, just with a different picture. Straffing attacks would be harder, though, as you said, as that would require a new damage profile.

[vdvgames]

Originally posted by nephilimnexus:

True, but I think that a direct bomb drop wouldn't be that hard to code in. It would basically be identical to the TLAM button, just with a different picture. Straffing attacks would be harder, though, as you said, as that would require a new damage profile.

Yes, was actually referring to adding in a new fighter type would not be so easy, however we do have alternative advanced fighters that can be had on an Ark, so perhaps we will think about the possiblity of letting players change their standard f18 fighters to modified A-10 warthogs or SU-25 frogfoots. The idea of dropping a line of bombs OR better still napalm has made our trigger fingers itchy.

[nephilimnexus]

New ordanance types does sound like more work, as that would need all kinds of new graphics, plus a new shape for the area of destruction (as opposed to the nice, neat circle the TLAM uses).

The planes themselves, though, should be easy. Figure all you need is a pair of sprites to put on the carrier deck, a graphic image for the shopping window, and then just updating the database with different stats for them. To keep it easy I'd suggest just removing the intercept ability from CAS planes entirely (just don't count them at all when doing intercepts) and then doing the same thing in reverse to dedicate interceptors when on the ground and adding up how many planes are available for local air strikes (read: F14s would just count as zero planes for that total).

[nephilimnexus]

I just lost two vultures in a row to an island with no air defense and a population of 126.

This seriously needs to be fixed. Not adjusted, fixed.

Thanks!

[vdvgames]

Sorry took a while to reply, we'll look into this and sort it out.

Originally posted by nephilimnexus:

I just lost two vultures in a row to an island with no air defense and a population of 126.

This seriously needs to be fixed. Not adjusted, fixed.

Thanks!