Persistent bodies

[goldenhorde44]

Subject:
Persistent bodies

Description:
the bodies/wreaked hulks for killed units stay on the map. you can attack vehicles wreaks or bulldoze them aside

Positive Effect:
more realism

Negative Effect:
might slow down the engine. could make it an option you can flip on and off

[stormgear]

They might have done this long time ago if hardware performance is not an issue especially on a game like this were you can produce a lot of units that adds strain to your computer.

Maybe they can add some sort of balancing manager to handle how much husks will be left behind like they did in CoD

[sgfan206]

Uhh, I don't think that's a good idea for C&C. The golden rule of C&C always have been and is: Keep it simple. No need to get things too complicated by adding such a feature.

Also ... the requirements, don't you think this would overstress almost any computer? Especially in huge freakin battles? I prefer them to disappear.

[goldenhorde44]

maybe the body can be a simplified model

[stormgear]

But that doesn't answer the problem on handling their volume on the map, then again my CoD idea is there to do it.

[Commander32]

Hm, lets see......

I Spam 1000 infantry,

All Get mowed down by quad Cannons

PC blows up.

That good news for ya?

[puzzabug]

I'd love to see more rubbish, fires, smoke, junk on the battle field, and unlike units, this stuff could be made with very few polygons, and potentially even be destroyed, at which point, it would turn into a heap of scrap and fade away into the ground ... OR ... stamp itself into the ground texture using normal mapping and other tricks like that.

No huge resource hog, but definitely a possibility for fun here.

If you killed units infantry with a nuke, they'd probably be vaporized, and if you blew up a unit powerfully enough, it would end up as shrapnel instead of needing a wasted model.

But everything instantly vanishing isn't that exciting.

[Harrrr]

Not really a fan of long-term persistent bodies. For one, seeing mounds of dead troops is disgusting, and should only be used to drive an effect home. For example, if GLA launches an anthrax attack on a town, then it would be really really powerful to see all of the civilian dead in the streets, slumping over other object and the like. That would be incredibly powerful visual imagery, something too powerful to waste on every game for simply the fact of "realism". I attribute it to the generic "BLOODY DEAD BODY!!!!" in every FPS; when used correctly, it can drive the emotional moment home, but otherwise it's a corny and cheap trick.

Second, when you have specific gameplay implementations for persistent dead bodies (the requiring of pushing them over to access paths), you better darn well make sure that everyone will have the capability even those who need to have the lowest of low settings. It's never a good thing to give people who pay more money for better hardware an advantage, but it's even worse to punish them by requiring them to do more work.

[GeniusCodeMonkey]

All you need to do is limit the number of persistent bodies. You create a pool of say 1000 'bodies' that the PC can handle; then as more die, the oldest one disappear (get pop'ed off the stack). You can also remove the bodies after 1 minute or so from the stack so they aren't drawn. If you have a 'system monitor' that checks the speed of the system, the first thing it can do if it tracks things slowing down is remove bodies from the screen and tidy up memory. You only need to store 3 bits of information anyway, the bodies location, type, and 'time of death'. You only draw what's viewable by the player anyway (so you could limit it to only show 50 bodies on the screen at once). Its low system intensity if done right.

[Desolate_Hybrid]

DoW1 has this feature. It is kinda cool unless you get blocked in a corner and are trying to hold out. Then all you have dead bodies all over the entrance to your base.
I think if you are going for realism, then focus more on the terrain. TS had the option to turn on terrain scarring. I really enjoyed that feature of the game because you could literally change the terrain around the map to fit your needs. Also, it was cool because if you bomb somebody's base extensively, there would be craters and potholes to reflect that. I haven't seen that feature on many games lately, I would love to see it return.