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What if...? Unreal was an RTS.

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Neon_Knight
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What if...? Unreal was an RTS.

Post by Neon_Knight »

For a long time I thought the lore of the franchise could lend well to a specific kind of game genre: Real-Time Strategy. So I thought... how would Unreal play if it was an RTS?

I'm putting all of my ideas (still WIP) in this page in the Unreal Wiki: https://unreal.fandom.com/wiki/User:Pum ... l_Universe

For those who don't want to read, here's the resume:
Unreal Universe is (should be) an RTS ambiented in the Unreal universe, which uses settings, characters, and other assets from, well, the Unreal Universe.

Why an RTS?
The Unrealverse has a lot of lore which gets lost in the mid of the firefights present in the FPS genre, and even more in the Arena FPS subgenre. So much lore... so what about putting it to good use? There are plenty of events in the game about mass-scale wars and invasions and so on. These events could be replicated more easily with an RTS than with a RPG, for example.

In UU, players can take control of one of three races. The main objective is to wipe the enemy base ASAP. There's a catch, though: the main units and technologies for each race are just basic enough to destroy just a tower.

Enter the Subraces. By building a special structure, each race can access to one out of three possible subraces (Humans call them Factions, Skaarj call them Clans, and Necris call them Castes), each of which has military and economic specializations. Subraces are race-dependant, so don't expect Necris armies using Axon vehicles in the same player army. Each of these Subraces have a leader. There are also the Superraces, late-game tiered units and technologies meant to destroy the player's enemies.

Alongside playable units, each Subrace and Superrace has a Leader, a Hero unit with unique abilities, usually a well-known character from the Universe. Each Leader has an extra resource called "Energy" (the cost being expressed as Energy Unit, EU), and a bunch of commands and skills at their disposal which consume these skills.

Every RTS has resources and UU is no exception. Available resources are Population Units (PU) which dictate the maximum of units of that population at a specific moment. PUs can be increased with a specific building (houses for Humans, huts for Skaarj, and bases for Necris), each of them adding 10 to the Population Unit total.

Resources which can be collected are Tarydium Mines (represented by green fields of crystals), Geyser Gas (represented by Geysers), and Food (represented by local animals, harvesting fields and food trees). We're referring to the costs of these resources with TU, GU and FU.

Playable races and factions

Humans: Can build and repair own buildings and build everywhere. Have average durability and speed. (Equivalents: Every Terran/Human faction in every RTS) - Subfactions: Axon, Izanagi, Liandri. Superleader: Malcolm (NEG)
- Axon: Specialized in vehicles and heavy units. +20% armor of all units and buildings. Leader: Gorge.
- Izanagi: Specialized in Covert Ops and Special/Support units. All units and buildings can use Cloaking. Leader: Kensai.
- Liandri: Specialized in Robots and cheap/expendable units. -20% resource cost and training cost for all units and buildings. -20% HP of all units and buildings. Leader: Xan.

Skaarj: Can build everywhere, buildings inflict damage to nearby enemy units, military buildings can attack units at range (double as towers), Skaarj military foot units self-regenerate. (Equivalent: Orcs in Warcraft 3). Tribe Hut raises in level with XP collected from killing enemy units or destroying enemy buildings. - Subfactions: Iron Skull, Red Claw, Black Fist. Superleader: Skaarj Queen.
- Iron Skull: Specialized in Skaarj Warriors. +10% melee attack of all units and watchtower buildings, +5% regeneration factor of all Skaarj foot units. Leader: ClanLord.
- Red Claw: Specialized in non-Skaarj units. -10% unit training resource cost, -10% research resource cost. Leader: Baetal.
- Black Fist: Specialized in vehicles, robotic and big monster units. +10% armor on all units including Nali Slaves, -10% research speed. Leader: Mekkor.

Necris: Can build only in specific areas which they can extend with Nanoblack. Can also infect other Human and Skaarj buildings with Nanoblack tubes. (Equivalent: Zerg in Starcraft, Undead in Warcraft 3) - Subfactions: Blademaiden, Assassin, Cultist. Superleader: Akasha.
- Blademaiden: Specialized in foot units. +10% melee attack of all units, +10% research speed. Leader: Visse.
- Assassin: Specialized in heavy foot units and specialized tech. +10% training speed, +10% attack, -10% training cost. Leader: Loque.
- Cultist: Specialized in vehicles and economy techs. +10 gathering rate of worker units, +10 vehicle armor. Leader: Necroth.
P.S.: NO, USkaarj isn't going to cut it.
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Hellkeeper
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Re: What if...? Unreal was an RTS.

Post by Hellkeeper »

Neon_Knight wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:49 am P.S.: NO, USkaarj isn't going to cut it.
Seems obvious since it didn't go anywhere, was never fully functional and hasn't been developed in about 15 years. Too bad though, it seemd like a nice idea.
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Leo T_C_K
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Re: What if...? Unreal was an RTS.

Post by Leo T_C_K »

There was the Command and conquer inspired mod by dots though, there was also a ut2k4 version i remember playing on his server. But not sure if that was released separately.

Either way, one thing that should have been explored in RTS are the Strider Wars, its something we only hear about so it would be natural to see that. Unfortnuately no U2 build with them inside was found apart from the sfg leftovers and stuff in the 2001 alpha and the release version (but it has less of that), there was a war multiplayer gametype in developement that would have been like RTS and it evolved into the XMP gametype which was then scrapped and turned into U2XMP but with each iteration it was different.

We only know how the strider devices looked like like the relays/energy station etc and as i said in the released game one of them have bad skin.

EDIT: While some people think the strider were never made, I think they were but they were dropped like early 2001 already or maybe late 2001, i can't really tell, but if anywhere they would be in those versions before the e3 demo on the further updated engine. Strangely enough one of the artists that "touched" unreal 2 had something called striders on his site and models/skins for them but I believe those were his personal works that had nothing to do with U2 as such, unless they changed stiiders appearance to be humanoid later on or one of the types.

Plus just like the shian, there was a skin found the blackened one with the alpha maps intact, so...again those were made at some point but then cut out to appear only in an expansion set later on. So its possible those humanoid strider designs were redesigns for the expansion but then they were more like the geist/necris whatever you have again. They were more like borg, which doesn't make much sense since the n were described kind of like borg but i guess the "n" idea was dropped completely for the expansion pack.

EDIT2: It was on this site btw but probably just personal works but who knows how it really was given the many design and direction changes

http://kevinjohnstone.com/Love/3D.html
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Turboman.
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Re: What if...? Unreal was an RTS.

Post by Turboman. »

If Unreal were an RTS I'd imagine it to look and play like Giants Citizen Kabuto, an RTS-FPS hybrid, great game and reminiscent of Unreal in so many ways:
Much like Unreal it features huge outdoor area’s set on a beautiful tropical alien world, there is a marooned Terran faction intent on escaping (Mekks), oppressed meek and benevolent natives (Smarties), and a dominant alien empire that conquered the planet and who oppress everyone (Reapers).

While they certainly have a very similar Lore, the biggest differences between both games would be the humorous and goofy narrative in Giants (I mean: Mekks are British and they got lost on their trip to Majorca), opposed to Unreal's much darker plot (Prisoners are hunted and slaughtered by an alien race who then instigate a war against humanity).


Just writing this out kind of made me realize how identical their backstories are, perhaps if Unreal never was, I’d be making Giants maps/mods for sure :D
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Leo T_C_K
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Re: What if...? Unreal was an RTS.

Post by Leo T_C_K »

I remember seeing that name back in 2000 and thought it had something to do with Pokemon because of Kabutops or how was he called, lol
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