playing as one of the units yourself is one of the things ive always wanted from a rts game, im impressed for a game made by 1 person. gonna keep an eye on this for sure to see where it goes
RTS/FPS hybrid games deserve alot more attention than they currently receive. Some other notable ones include: Battlezone (and the sequel), Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, Sacrafice, Dungeon Keeper (and the sequel), Uprising: Join or Die (and the sequel), Urban Assault and Executive Assault (and its sequel). There are probably a few more, but those are the ones I know off hand. It seems like it was more popular in the late 90s and early 2000s and it's died off for awhile now.
Natural Selection 2 has been the gold standard of this for me since it came out. Nothing else has gotten quite that level of polish or balance, and I really wish they'd make a third, but Unknown Worlds is more focused on the Subnautica series (which is, funnily enough, set in the same universe). Executive Assault and Executive Assault 2 are also worth a look!
X4 Foundations does this in terms of a 4x Space RTS. It has a learning curve but being able to jump into any of your thousands of ships in your fleets, or your space stations is really is a game changing feature for me.
Watching this my first instinct was that every player should be able to just choose a unit on the map to become that unit thus jumping directly into the action and gaining control over the next closest unit whenever they die, or can just open the map and choose a new unit whenever they want. Essentially making it so that they see the same map as their commander, but instead of being able to command vast swaths of units they can just take control over a single one at a time in an FPS kind of way.
It just occurred to me while I was farming container delivery missions in the rain to buy some beachfront property in Korea, I don't think you've done a video on the architecture in Motortown Behind the Wheel. There is a free demo on steam, that lets you check out the world, but my personal opinion is that for a $20 low-polygon game, it punches well above its weight in terms of depth and immersion.
I haven't seen this hybrid concept very often, the last one I played specifically was Battlefield 2 and I absolutely loved that game. Here's hoping this gives me that same enjoyment, will be watching its development
It's kind of sad that we'll never see another has Unknown Worlds have basically moved on from the IP and only seem to want to make Subnautica's now, not that subnautica is bad, but a 3rd NS could be glorious
The issue with players running off solo with valuable resources isn't a unique problem... It happens it nearly all games these days, the modern gaming crowds aren't that interested in teamwork, they just chase a K/D. Honestly a pretty difficult issue to solve, the only real way is heavily punishing solo play, stuff like long death timers, but allow for revives if nearby friendly. You could also control the delegation of resources. The commander could delegate vehicle permissions to specific leaders, so solo players become unable to take valuable resources.
Looks really awesome. Hope the dev gets a lot more support and help to improve the current issues. This also has a good potential as a "party game" for the evenings with the boys. Will definitely buy and check it out!
So it's basically Natural Selection 2 in an open world instead of a fps style map. If you're not familiar with that title it's worth looking up though development finally ended after 10 years. Maybe it should lean more towards Battlefield type objectives then RTS kill the other base goal
Honestly, the fact that even your Rig seems to be struggling, in a genre that is already very niche (RTS/FPS hybrid, hell I loved Savage Battle for Newerth, Giants Citizen Kabuto and Battlezone growing up) means I don't have much hope for this, Battlebit is showing that people would rather have something that runs fantasticly for alot of people, over looking very pretty, but only managable performance wise for a small minority.
the rig isn't really struggling, the low frames are mostly due to the high load on the host/server side, and the synching with physics across all units, which, if you have hundreds of units on the map at once, simply overwhelms the host system currently. It was originally intended to have a max unit cap, however currently you can build like 100 shrimps, 200 crabs, a hundred nodes, etc. I'm playing with a 2017 rig still running ryzen 1700X and a GTX 1080ti, towards the end of the game where the amounts of units is the highest, my GPU runs at like 30% load and the game is at ~10fps, this is true for most players, and will be addressed by the dev after the Air Units Release (which will happen quite soon). While I agree that Battlebit "runs fantastically", so does every other pure FPS game! Like look at literally every Call of Duty or Counter Strike game, they are made to run adequately, even on potato systems. But they lack the physics, they lack the huge sized map, they lack the RTS aspect that Silica offers. That and battle bit is just so fucking tilting when you just want to casually play after a long day at work, you join a 128v128 where all you do is constantly getting sniped... But maybe that's just my experience from the past 7h of playing that game and trying to grind for that M249 LMG.
This game looks real interesting, cant wait to check it out one day. Maybe I'll buy into it when the next big update comes out. Love RTS and FPS mixes like this. And i get to do my part and kill sum bugs!
I've mostly played Silica in RTS mode and my biggest complaint is the almost complete lack of unit micro like other RTS games have. Not being able to tell units to hold position, hold fire, etc, especially with burrowed crabs, can be really frustating coming from other games like Starcraft. AI pathfinding is of course another issue but the game is already improving it, but I'm worried about micro since it doesn't seem to have been a consideration.
Think I’ll stick with Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. Not really comparable but this game looks messy, and yeah, the worst thing about MMOs is other people.
It isn't. Yeah, this game seems like it is doing a lot. However, This kind of thing is still alive and well, just look at Call to Arms: Gates of Hell: Ostfront.
I wonder if allowing humans to also switch to vehicles or other foot soldiers would help give them agency as well. Allowing a player to create a squad to have various units and then be able to switch between them even without line of sight for example. And it would only work for your squad ao if you get it slaughtered you need to build up a new one. This would also lower the penalty of dying a bit, since you do not have to wait for as long only to get one shot. You are in the action so long as your squad survives. Also makes it 10 times easier to get the harvester unstuck if you do not need to climb to the top if you assign a soldier to be in there.
love the game, arena and prospecting are just hilarious with the mood and atmosphere its just a hoot, harvesters have been patched, the ai thing is not a thing imho and your vid is late to the dance bleahhhhhhhh
Older gamer here. I've been looking for a game like this for nearly 25 years now. You see, back in the days of Quake 2, one of the amazing mods that came out was called "Gloom". It was sort of the exact same premise, but with all the typical limitations of Quake 2. Aliens vs Humans. Was such an amazing game. So glad to see something like that come out now but brought into modern gaming.
@@Morphologis I was holding off on buying Silica for a while now. I just wasn't sure if it's as good as it sounds like. I was especially worried about it receiving enough support while having just a single person work on it. But you mentioning near weekly updates made me buy it.
I hate RTS/FPS hybrid games because it's a dumb gimmick that never works and not a proper genre. I did enjoy Natural Selection 2 a bit tho. But playing Silica I was pretty pleasantly surprised. I doubt it will make the genre worthwhile but for the time being it is pretty promising and the updates did seem to fix most issues I had at launch. Edit: Just gave Silica another chance and the core gameplay is so riddiculiously imbalanced it's amazing this game got released.
As much as I enjoy the concept and have for a few decades. Unfortunately it always boils down to the same issue, either no one wants to command, so the game doesn't go anywhere, you get a new commander and you're basically boned, or you get a bad commander and get the same result
@@rock2k14 Most of the issue, yes. To have a good game of RTS/FPS in multi, you need not only two equaly skilled teams, but two equally skilled commanders, and THEN the teams need to be willing to cooperate with the commanders. The chances of this occuring are just 0.01%, like a perfect storm. Most NS2 games I played were absurdly one-sided because of that and this issue is a core tenet of the genre and one of the reason this stupid gimmick never works. Or RTS games where as a commander you can control individual units but that means you're either microoing a single unit and letting the rest of the game go to waste (because in RTS every second matters and if you leave your units be, even with orders, that's just your time wasted) or ignoring a core mechanic of the title to focus on everything else, which begs the question why the direct control mechanic is there in the first place. The only game which did this good was Battlezone 1 & 2 but y'all zoomers don't even know we had PCs back then. RTS/FPS is the most idiotic gimmick in the history of gaming and it will *never* work.
Not really seeing the Dune connection. I mean, it's a desert world, and you have harvesters, but Planet P in Starship Troopers was a desert world too and just harvesters seems a bit tenuous to me. Those bugs aren't really much like Troopers' either, but they have the feel.
I used to be forgiving and patient. But honestly, i've played a few multiplayer games. And i'm done with that. So i'll be honest and harsh. And its specially true for this game. This is, at the heart, a rts game. If they're getting into that game, and cant keep it inside their pants and proceed to rush off wasting ressources and score. Then the game is not for them and they shouldnt waste everybody's time. End of the story. Now, seeing thay the aliens can switch control to units they can see, wich reminded me a lot of that one battlefield game years and years ago, where you could essentially do exactly that. Need to snipe a MG nest blocking your troops, there's a qniper up a tower, switch to it. You start as a para trooper and want to get quick in the action, switch to an unit already on the ground. Etc etc. So i don't see why not just do that for humans too. That at least would make map traversal quicker for a unit player. Granted they'd only get what is available and can be seen. An easy thing to implement tho, would be secondary objectives in the form of worward operated bases, to extract or salavage ressources and abandonned vehicle, players would find those places and have to secure and defend them. Perhaps get a forward factory that can produce some jeeps and light tanks, allowing players to have something to do while waiting for the next wave rather than rushing off on their own. Perhaps a player could take temporary control of said outpost as a on field officer, and produce and command units affected to that place. Taking off some weight off the main commander.
I know that Dram, the Developer, wants to keep working alone. But I wonder if a team wouldn't be a lot mroe helpful. It doesn't have to be much? Battlebit and other smaller developer Team Studios proof they can what Corpos can't, so having perhaps 2 or 3 more Developers helping out might just be a good idea. that said, Dram has to decide that not me.
