new art in progress

[davidlallen]

Plus, I've always felt that the map should have little Warlord 'kingdom's' that are just one city, but a tough one because they have hoarded old tech. They are a menace close to their city, but since the Warlord isn't into much more than living well, they never grow and eventually any major Civ will take them out later in the game.

That is an interesting idea. In another thread we were discussing about intelligent mutant races (ghouls and deathclaws, from the Fallout series). These "could" be added as full civs with a set of unique units, but it would be a lot of work to make sure that they were fully balanced as playable civs. It would be less work to add them as lower powered civs and make them only playable by the AI. What you are suggesting sounds similar -- a lower powered civ that is only playable by the AI. I am not sure why a warlord who did have a few tanks would not strike out on his own to take over the world; but I guess you had in mind some limitation where they just didn't feel like it.

 

[arkham4269]

I'm tolerant. It's just nice to take a break from all that and go post-apocalyptic. I think the art in this mod represents the nature fairly well. I mean if it was aiming for realism, there wouldn't be giant spiders for a start.

Although you sound like you could write a good civlopedia for this mod, and I admit it would be more interesting if it could be detailed on how it's supposed to make sense. Interested?

Well as I've said before, I think Fury Road is a mod that is just screaming for scenarios. I mean how the we got to the post-apocalypse is going to seriously impact how the game runs. I mean general war might not leave much as opposed to a more Necro Christi variant where Mankind is over-run with zombies. Obviously in a post-War of the Worlds, it depends on how much damage the aliens did in wiping us out before the start of the game. General environmental collapse and/or plague would leave a lot more stuff but everyone would be really, really hurting for people

So doing an anything for the game really depends on the disaster. That being said, that's what I like about this mod; with just a tad bit of tweaking you can have zombies, remains of aliens, more traditional 'Road' Warriors or if someone wanted to invert the current game, you could even do a scaled back Waterworld. Lots of potential.

 

[Refar]

I think the most important thing for this mod is to carry over the "Post Apocalyptic Feeling".

Right now "Ammunitions Depots" represent the ressource needed for firearms. This does have the right "feeling".
I do not think it is entirely unrelaistic - ammunition does exist in huge stashes now, and if some human made things are to survive the apocalypse, those weapon/ammo caches would probalby be among them.

Manufacturing new ammunition on the other hand... Sure, it's easy to make a round at home. Or 10. Some people do it as hobby. But manufacturing enought ammunitions to fight a war ? This is quite a task without any industry. Modern firearms amunitions is a lot more than "Sulfur+Coal=Black Powder" - there are complex chemical components to increase the efficiency while reducing the weapons wear. Huge and complex chemical installations are needed to produce those.
Huge and Complex chemical installations are needed to make sulphur from gas. These chemical installations are just not there.

 

[davidlallen]

By taking a look at how you make gunpowder might give you more avenues of game play. [...] I don't want to be the "Road Warriors"; I want to be the guys you see running off with the 'precious juice' to start fresh. With a little work, both styles of play can be accommodated and the mod is better for it.

I think the ammunition factory I have added in version 9 sort of accomplishes this. We could view the "small arms" tech as rediscovery of how to extract sulphur and also whatever types of small scale metalwork are needed to make simple rifles and ammunition. The rifle armed units like guardian and jeep can now only be constructed in cities which have this building.

Regarding steam-powered units, I think there is an excellent opportunity to add something like a "junkyard tank", perhaps as a UU for a junkyard-focused leader. It may have the same combat strength as a humvee or even tank, but only a movement of one. I would like to do something with "reliability" so that this type of unit might break down more, and then a "mechanic" promotion which improves the reliability and allows reactivating totally broken down units.

Regarding building tech up totally from scratch without using artifacts from the ruins, I agree that would be an interesting theme to investigate on its own. I have tried a strategy of cavalry plus utes, which works OK in case a civ has a starting position with no access to oil. Maybe adding some steam units would strengthen that type of strategy.

However, there is certainly room for another whole mod in the steampunk theme. A couple of people have said, "You know what this mod needs? Zombies!" and I have pointed them to NecroCristi. For "You know what this mod needs? Flintlocks!" it may be worthwhile to consider another whole mod for that.

 

[arkham4269]

I am not sure why a warlord who did have a few tanks would not strike out on his own to take over the world; but I guess you had in mind some limitation where they just didn't feel like it.

Well not every Warlord is a megalomaniac. As you have said, the Fury Road world is a frickin' dangerous place! Much better to stick to what you have; it's safe, the people 'love' you because you protect them and well, those people that don't love you make great sport in The Games! >=)

Plus, I think that is one of the reasons I sort of like the "After Alpha Centauri" model for this mood. Many people after The End are going to be mostly content just to be safe and content and think about the future later on. It's the real leaders, those with vision and purpose who are going to inspire their people to want to do more than just be 'safe'. So the factions that appear on the UNS Unity would have followers that couldn't fit on the ship and thus would be the nucleus of different factions and visions back on Earth.

In fact, in the seminal, post-apocalyptic book "Lucifer's Hammer" the characters are faced with just this sort of choice. Do they play it safe or do they stick their necks out to fight the Cannibal Army to save a nuclear plant that might bring them back out of darkness? It is the hero that inspires them to look past basic safety that will keep them basically peasants for years to come and gets them to want to 'reclaim the lightning'.

 

[arkham4269]

Manufacturing new ammunition on the other hand... Sure, it's easy to make a round at home. Or 10. Some people do it as hobby. But manufacturing enought ammunitions to fight a war ? This is quite a task without any industry. Modern firearms amunitions is a lot more than "Sulfur+Coal=Black Powder" - there are complex chemical components to increase the efficiency while reducing the weapons wear. Huge and complex chemical installations are needed to produce those. Huge and Complex chemical installations are needed to make sulphur from gas. These chemical installations are just not there.

I don't know about that. As I've mentioned before, S. M. Stirling shows in his "Island in the Sea of Time" trilogy that with the know how left in books that probably not that uncommon, coupled with tools that you'd find in your average metal shop, you can do a lot. Plus, remember that blackpower in the use of hand-held firearms goes back to 1437. They didn't have massive factories and they didn't know about chemical short-cuts that we know now and they were able to field pretty large armies. Plus, from what I understand, the scale of Fury Road is that every unit is very small personnel wise so you don't have to be trying to outfit the Grande Armee.

Again, I feel that the issue with ammo is that there are a few roads a Civ can take early in the game. Do you commit to gathering up old tech early and try to blitz the other players? Do you commit to older techs that you hope to overwhelm your opponent. (I mean if you focus on agriculture with things like the McCormick reaper, you can feed LOTS of people who in turn can be given lots of low tech weapons - Sure you have a M-16; how many can you kill in the face of 50+ with crossbows) Or do you commit to making things new weapons that require gunpowder or steam or the like.

Personally, as a steam-punk mavin, if it were up to me, I'd go the steam route. You can adapt cars & trucks to steam without much more than 19th century know-how and a high-school auto shop so you're not dependent on oil. Compressed air for dart throwers and the like so you're not overly dependent on gunpowder initially. I mean you could convert something as simple as a M113 APC (which the US has around 50,000 in Guard armories across the nation) to steam with Road Warrior dart throwers and you'd be hard pressed to stop it without something like a RPG, which are a lot harder to find.

 

[davidlallen]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "After Alpha Centauri". Do you mean, what happens in a Civ game after the space race victory? In Fury Road, there was definitely a nuclear war due to all the ruins and fallout. I suppose one of the civs may have won a space victory also, but that would be kind of outside the scope.

I have imagined the leaders in Fury Road as exactly the same as the leaders in Lucifer's Hammer, or the Jeremiah TV show, or Jericho, or any of the other similar ones. They are the ones who are trying to lead us back to civilization. The mod might be playable as a single civ game, say with "raging barbs" turned on, where the goal is just to survive at all. But I think it is more interesting if you have multiple leaders who each start out rebuilding on their own. Then the game focuses on what happens when their new centers of civilization start to contact each other.

With the vision victory, maybe you can get them to agree that you will be the leader relatively peacefully. More likely, you need to burn down a few of their cities, with regrets of course, so that the others will agree that you can be the leader. I have tried to accomplish this a little by increasing the "weight" for AI's to capitulate, although I still usually have to stomp them pretty badly before they agree.

 

[arkham4269]

Regarding steam-powered units, I think there is an excellent opportunity to add something like a "junkyard tank", perhaps as a UU for a junkyard-focused leader. It may have the same combat strength as a humvee or even tank, but only a movement of one. I would like to do something with "reliability" so that this type of unit might break down more, and then a "mechanic" promotion which improves the reliability and allows reactivating totally broken down units.

I think that the mechanic unit (represented by a tow-truck?) is needed regardless of steam or not. I would think that even the oil vehicles are going to be jury-rigged. I was around Army mechanics for many a year so I know how much someone with good auto knowledge can fabricate. That being said, I also know had badly running around off road affects vehicles. A Warlord's Junkyard Dreadnought isn't going to do him much good if the vehicles tracks come off to the inside (which I have personally seen and it's a mechanics nightmare, especially at 2am in February in the snow). People tend to forget that while tanks can go anywhere, they tend to be trucked around on flat-beds since the longer you run the tank, the better chance your going to screw up it's treads. Those DO wear out andquicker than people realize.

However, there is certainly room for another whole mod in the steampunk theme. A couple of people have said, "You know what this mod needs? Zombies!" and I have pointed them to NecroCristi. For "You know what this mod needs? Flintlocks!" it may be worthwhile to consider another whole mod for that.

As I've pointed out, while Necro Christi is a good mod, the fact that you start out in an empty world isn't realistic. I still think a Zombie scenario for Fury Road is defiantly the way to go.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Erm, this whole post was written before the last 5-6 posts or so, so half of it probably no longer applies. Spoiler'd for convenience to readers.

Spoiler black powder :

Although, consider that modern gunpowder is radically different from the first black powder. Black powder is basically Sulfur, Charcoal, and Potassium Nitrate (Saltpeter), ground up and mixed together. Modern smokeless powder is nitrocellulose stabilized by various amine compounds, which would likely be beyond the abilities of your basic survivor groups. Black powder would quickly foul and jam any modern guns, especially repeating firearms.

Spoiler Small-cal ammo :

However, ammunition for many guns would be available almost anywhere in the US, especially common calibers like 9mm Parabellum and .22 LR. Furthermore, .223 Remington can be used in 5.56 NATO-chambered guns, like for example the M-16. Oh and don't forget police armories and gun shops as a potential source of small arms ammo.

Spoiler tanks, gunships, and rockets :

Antiair and anti-tank rockets would be difficult to obtain though, as mentioned. One thing that's always bugged me is that the tanks are basically WWII-era, while the Gunships are 30-40 years more advanced. Maybe we can find a Cold-War era Soviet tank or something?

 

[arkham4269]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "After Alpha Centauri". Do you mean, what happens in a Civ game after the space race victory? In Fury Road, there was definitely a nuclear war due to all the ruins and fallout. I suppose one of the civs may have won a space victory also, but that would be kind of outside the scope.

I take it you've never played "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" or the follow-up game "Alien Crossfire"? It wouldn't surprise me since they came out back in like 1994.

Briefly, the UNS Unity leaves earth, like someone just finsihed the Space Race Victory in Civ. However, factions on the ship cause problems and right before landing on Planet, the ship is sabotaged and the factions all land on Planet in life boats with very, very little in the way of tech. The original factons can be found here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Alpha_Centauri#Factions
More factions were added later in "Alien Crossfire" but most of them really wouldn't work, I think, in Fury Road as well.

The point I was trying to make is that these factions come from people who were working to get their people off planet before The End(tm). They were organized, they had a mission and they each had their own vision of what they wanted. So when the fit hit the shan, they probably were a bit more ready for it. Plus, when working to get your people into space, you know not everyone is going to get to go so the people left behind aren't just going to say, "Well there goes the ship, I guess were Jolly well screwed here" No they probably had their back-up bunkers ready. These factions could be, in a scenario, a basis for groups that might be a bit more a head of the game. Sure they still have to deal with the 'barbarians' the mutants and the Warlords, but they at least have something they all lack: a unifying purpose which I think dove-tails very nicely with your Vision victory.

 

[Chuggi]

Antiair and anti-tank rockets would be difficult to obtain though, as mentioned. One thing that's always bugged me is that the tanks are basically WWII-era, while the Gunships are 30-40 years more advanced. Maybe we can find a Cold-War era Soviet tank or something?

A beat up Abrams would look cool. Or maybe a T-72.

 

[davidlallen]

As I've pointed out, while Necro Christi is a good mod, the fact that you start out in an empty world isn't realistic. I still think a Zombie scenario for Fury Road is defiantly the way to go.

As I've pointed out, I still think adding ruins and highways to the necro cristi map is the way to go, which I have offered to the necro cristi developer in his thread.

 

[arkham4269]

One thing that's always bugged me is that the tanks are basically WWII-era, while the Gunships are 30-40 years more advanced. Maybe we can find a Cold-War era Soviet tank or something?[/spoiler]

I've always felt that some of the best early weapons would simply be old tank that are kept in war museums and the like. How many towns do you know that have to pieces of artillery in front of their courthouse? Most towns where I grew up did. I live in Vancouver, WA and we have the historical Fort Vancouver as well as Pearson Airfield (oldest continuous operation airfield in North America) and they have an air museum. There is the Air museum not far that has the Spruce Goose of all things, to say nothing of the Oregon Nat'l Guard base Camp Wythecombe that has lots of old WW II vehicles.

While none of these vehicles have operational weapons, there rarely is anything 'wrong' with them that someone with a decent auto shop couldn't fix or fabricate. I mean while you wouldn't have the 75mm cannon on your WW II era Sherman, even if you put a 'Road Warrior' compressed air dart cannon on it, how are you going to stop it? I mean even I, after lot's of training' would have a hard time trying to remember how you could create an IED from a propane tank, a detonator and a garage door opener.

Which once again brings up my point of different strategies. Do you go about scarfing up these old relics, make them into new weapons and hope your enemies can't recreate 'new' old weapons to defeat you? I mean in the S.M.Stirling series I keep referring to, one of the enemy kingdoms thinks up a way to make a what is pretty much a bronze age bazooka: gunpowder warhead on a alcohol fueled rocket. I don't know if that would work, but it does show that if you know something can be done, you have a better way of trying to recreate it, even imperfectly.

 

[arkham4269]

As I've pointed out, I still think adding ruins and highways to the necro cristi map is the way to go, which I have offered to the necro cristi developer in his thread.

Yes, you've been very generous!

 

[davidlallen]

One thing that's always bugged me is that the tanks are basically WWII-era, while the Gunships are 30-40 years more advanced. Maybe we can find a Cold-War era Soviet tank or something?

I'm not any kind of expert about tanks. I just used the "tank" unit from vanilla. Should I use the "modern armor" unit instead? Or something from some other mod? The nuclear war takes place in 2050, and these would have been active tank units at that time.

 

[arkham4269]

A beat up Abrams would look cool. Or maybe a T-72.

Considering that the T-72 and it's variants is probably the most widely produced tank in the world, I'd definitely vote for the T-72. Plus the problem with the Abrams is the fact that is basically powered by a jet engine. It needs a lot of maintenance and it would be much harder for 'shade tree' mechanics to repair. Now something as 'crude' as the T-72 or even the old M-60's would be much easier and also both are diesel powered.

Plus, I think the M113 APC should be included. As I mentioned earlier, there are 50,000 still in use in the US inventory alone and we've imported them to a LOT of countries. It's a simple vehicle, found in many Guard units in armories around the country. It's basically an armored box on treads with a diesel engine. Doesn't get much simpler than that.

That being said, I think the M4 Sherman tank should also be used, since as I pointed out, it is probably the most common tank you find in front of courthouses, military museums and the like. If there is going to be a tank available for people to scarf up, it'll be the M4.

 

[davidlallen]

I take it you've never played "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" or the follow-up game "Alien Crossfire"? [...] These factions could be, in a scenario, a basis for groups that might be a bit more a head of the game. Sure they still have to deal with the 'barbarians' the mutants and the Warlords, but they at least have something they all lack: a unifying purpose which I think dove-tails very nicely with your Vision victory.

I never played SMAC but I know the basic idea. We don't have detailed backgrounds for all the leaders, and some of them are only published so far in the leaderhead backgrounds thread. But at least two of them did come into the post-apo world with a "plan" : Christopher and Viktor. Most of the others just happened to survive, with whatever people were around, and they weren't anybody you would have wanted as a faction leader. For example, Ironhead and Jane.

We are still missing backgrounds for four leaders, in particular for a junkyard type guy; so maybe there is an opportunity to put in more people who did have a plan.

 

[davidlallen]

Considering that the T-72 and it's variants is probably the most widely produced tank in the world, I'd definitely vote for the T-72. [...] Plus, I think the M113 APC should be included.[...] That being said, I think the M4 Sherman tank should also be used

Those are all fine ideas. Although the mod is "sort of" set in Australia, so it's a little unlikely there would be any Russian tanks around. Does anybody know offhand if there is existing unit art for any of these? I have not poked around through all the modern armor modpacks.

 

[arkham4269]

I'm not any kind of expert about tanks. I just used the "tank" unit from vanilla. Should I use the "modern armor" unit instead? Or something from some other mod? The nuclear war takes place in 2050, and these would have been active tank units at that time.

Well I don't think you should have modern copters at all, in the sense of modern combat helicopters. They are a warren of complex electronic, computers, parts made with highly technical alloys and composites. I don't think it's realistic that you'd get them running.

That being said, there are plenty of 'regular' helicopters all over the place. I mean how many cities have police, air rescue, medical and traffic copters? Even if you can't put weapons on them, there is nothing stopping you from having people in them shooting down or dropping bombs.

Actually, in regards to combat aircraft, I think the best bet would be to take some mid-sized air-plane, cut out a side-door and fabricate some sort of compressed air-machine dart gun to make a jury-rigged AC-130 gun ship. You'd probably have a lot easier time finding such a plane, being able to find parts for it as well as having someone who could fly it.

 

[arkham4269]

Those are all fine ideas. Although the mod is "sort of" set in Australia, so it's a little unlikely there would be any Russian tanks around. Does anybody know offhand if there is existing unit art for any of these? I have not poked around through all the modern armor modpacks.

Well once again, I think this mod works better with area specific scenarios. However, for Australia:

The Australian Army is primarily a light infantry force equipped with equipment which may be carried by individual soldiers. However, the Army's equipment includes a substantial quantity of armored vehicles and artillery. Moreover, the Army is introducing additional armored vehicles into service as part of the 'hardened and networked army' initiative.[44] The Army's armored, mechanized and motorized units are currently equipped with 59 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, 700 M113 armored personnel carriers (of which 350 are to be upgraded) and 257 ASLAV armored reconnaissance vehicles.[104] 693 Bushmaster Infantry Mobility Vehicles are being introduced into service (including 12 which will be used by the RAAF).[105] The Army's artillery holdings consist of 349 105 mm caliber towed guns, 36 155 mm towed howitzers, 296 81 mm mortars and 30 RBS-70 surface-to-air missiles.[106] Australian Army Aviation is equipped with 91 helicopters, including 14 of the 22 Eurocopter Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters which have been ordered and two of the new MRH-90 transport helicopters.[107]

As of right now, I can't find out what equipment other than planes and infantry weapons (which are all British) that the Australians used in WW II. However, I would think they either used the M4 Sherman (gotten from the Americans) or some British light tank.