8 replies to this topic

[Lightfoot]

I suppose this has been suggested, it is kind of obvious that the Enemy Team's Dropship would be a primary target for attack by any Recon/Assault Mech Lance. However, I have never seen "Dropship Assault" discussed as a gametype, so.

This gametype could replace Assault or not, but in Dropship Assault the opposing team must actually destroy the enemy dropship rather than just run down a timer. Now the Dropship could be on a slow power-up, gradually getting it's weapons online or it could have weapon ports to target or it could be just a passive destructable Hrothgar or similar. Obviously to be successful the assaulting lance would need to arrive with enough firepower to take it out as quickly as possible so the teams would likely try to split into two groups, one to engage any mech force and one to strike the Dropship. This would create a more realistic tactical enviornment than base capping on a timer.

Besides, you know deep down you want to assault an Overlord!

To add depth, the spawn points for the dropships and teams could be random, say, one of 3-5 alternating dropzones. Give scouts something to do, quickly.

[Novakaine]

Hell Yeah!

[Lightfoot]

That got me thinking of this other mission-styled gametype: Dropship Attack/Defend where one team has 15 minutes to prevent the Enemy Dropship from blasting-off. There can be a countdown timer. The attacking team could destroy the dropship or takeover the spaceport/landing pad(s). Or destroy all enemy mechs of course.

[Lightfoot]

The real value of these types of missions is that they allign to MechWarrior lore and are concrete objective based missions that Battlemech units actually do, unlike capture the drill in regular Assault, which I always thought was just a place-holder for a Spaceport or Mech factory or Dropship.

You could take these mission types a step further and give pilots a tactical briefing as they descend in their dropships with cutscenes as the mission loads. I am going to use that word again... 'immersion'. Food for thought anyway.

[Colonel Fubar]

Outstanding Idea, I like it!

[Lightfoot]

And I keep thinking of the kinds of explosion types that taking down an Overlord would create. Like something that could finally have a full Core Breach nuke explosion. (That of course didn't kill mechs, but could do damage since this would end the match in a few seconds.)


mmmm, the first destructable object!

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

I'd actually argue that in a Dropship Attack/Defend or Dropship Assault game mode, the game would not end with the defeat of all defending mechs (killing all attackers would still end it), rather it'd end only if the target Dropship either blew up or launched. I'd give the attackers a sizeable tonnage advantage for the drop, and the defenders some kind of spaceport turret defenses in addition to the dropship's weapons.

[Corvus Antaka]

we need dropships so bad. i cant believe we still havent even seen one on a map yet.

[Johnny Z]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 17 February 2014 - 09:48 PM, said:

we need dropships so bad. i cant believe we still havent even seen one on a map yet.

What he said.