Video Game Concept - PC - Can Torque Handle It?
by Robert Bonner · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 11/01/2006 (3:36 pm) · 5 replies
Okay, first off, this forum is acting very weird... I tried posting here, and it's not working well at ALL! It's not posting all of the thread only one quarter of it...
I have a 49 (continually adding content) page document that is near finished of the game mechanics for a video game I would like to create, however I am trying to decide on an engine that will run something of this scale; after reading 'Advanced 3d Game Programming All In One" centered around the torque engine, I believe torque can do it. However I need professional references and expertise to help me decide if Torque is the engine to do it for me. Here is a small bulleted list of feature's that the game has, which requires an expert's knowledge for if Torque can handle it.
-Real-Time Strategy
-100 Square Mile Playfield
-40 Towns/Cities, 1 Capitol
-Evolving Landscape: Labor induced landscape revisions
-Physics
-100's of animations
-Possibility of over one thousand units on screen at once without major latency problems.
-Military, Economic & Civilian Managers
-Unit Inventories
-Learning Unit Skill Tree's and Variables
I wish not to go into the fine print detail of the game, but I guarantee you this is revolutionary. I do not have a development team or investors as of yet, but this is something that I would like to attain, but the document is protected under international copyright laws never the less. Can torque handle something of this magnitude? I understand that with evolving technology and hardware, anything is possible - however a game of this size will take a large development team and a substantial budget, which is a major concern of mine.
I have a 49 (continually adding content) page document that is near finished of the game mechanics for a video game I would like to create, however I am trying to decide on an engine that will run something of this scale; after reading 'Advanced 3d Game Programming All In One" centered around the torque engine, I believe torque can do it. However I need professional references and expertise to help me decide if Torque is the engine to do it for me. Here is a small bulleted list of feature's that the game has, which requires an expert's knowledge for if Torque can handle it.
-Real-Time Strategy
-100 Square Mile Playfield
-40 Towns/Cities, 1 Capitol
-Evolving Landscape: Labor induced landscape revisions
-Physics
-100's of animations
-Possibility of over one thousand units on screen at once without major latency problems.
-Military, Economic & Civilian Managers
-Unit Inventories
-Learning Unit Skill Tree's and Variables
I wish not to go into the fine print detail of the game, but I guarantee you this is revolutionary. I do not have a development team or investors as of yet, but this is something that I would like to attain, but the document is protected under international copyright laws never the less. Can torque handle something of this magnitude? I understand that with evolving technology and hardware, anything is possible - however a game of this size will take a large development team and a substantial budget, which is a major concern of mine.
#2
11/01/2006 (4:20 pm)
As far as the physics are concerned, I would like some form of building physics for destructible buildings and walls, with some simple rag doll for the dead units. Evolving landscape's as in the player will be able to take laborer's and make certain traps, dig holes of various sizes etc. Animations as in motion capture types, specific and general variables (through coding) for certain situations. For instance: Unit A has 5 Skill, Unit B has 10 Skill, Unit A has 25% Probability to win, Unit B has 75% probability to win.
#3
11/01/2006 (4:25 pm)
Also physics will be in place of siege munitions like large rocks, massive scorpion arrows... or general small arrows.
#4
11/01/2006 (5:15 pm)
Torque can do this, but you'll need engine modifications. It wont work like that right of the box (compiled executable). 
#5
11/01/2006 (5:39 pm)
I'd recommend TGE with the RTS Starter Kit (just to give you a small head start on the RTS theme). I'm hoping you are going to group the units similiarly to armies in the Total War series. Doing so will defintely help with game and network latency, and if you make the right changes, you won't take a big hit to video performance. 
Torque Owner Badguy
eg:
evolving landscape, currently unsupported.
1k units on screen with no video lag.
100 square mile field. (in what scale tho?)
physics for tge are not super there is a basic implementation of Rigid body physics.
100's of animations, this is pretty vague, but lets pretend you want a single object to have 100's.
this is prolly doable. if anything have to modify some identifier used to store a max.
the rest of that stuff is all game specific and you will be coding it up no matter what engine you use.
you might want to consider a more modular approach using an engine that has modularity built into the framework.