Carrier Command!

Lodbrok

So, do you remember the classic 16-bit era game Carrier Command? I remember sinking many hours into this game on an old 386 back in the days. I would say that together with Elite and Midwinter, this is one of my absolute favourite games that really made it feel like you were THERE. Wikipedia has a nice write-up of the game here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_Command

Apparently there is a guy working on a remake of sorts.... he decided that he wanted to learn 3d-programming and that a remake would be a suitable project. That guy sure has balls... but he seems to be really getting somewhere, which is somewhat surprising considering how many fan-projects just die after a while and the scope of what he aims to do. Here is the page for the project:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/martingbell/projects/

I find it really impressive that someone would undertake such a huge project just for the fun of it... So, lets talk about carrier command, games like it, fan-made remakes that might be of interest... and nostalgia. Perhaps it is just me getting old, but that was the time when I really enjoyed games the most.

Szechuanosaurus

I had the demo. Demos were pretty much all I could afford back then. I remember sinking many hours into the demo sinking my various vehicles into the sea.

Games like this and Midwinter really need a remake. Or at least, developers need to make games in the same spirit as these games again. True free roaming, where even the next mission objectives are decided by you.

GertBeef

Personally i'm looking forward to this more.

http://www.carriercommand.com/

CONCEPTS!




Inspired by something?

MAIN FEATURES

    * For the first time, fight and command from a First Person viewpoint.
    * Lead your teams on dangerous assault missions deep into enemy territory.
    * Multiplayer with Join-In-Progress.
    * Supports Large Dynamic Maps in a cutting edge 3D engine.
    * Command a multi-role Assault Carrier. You make all the decisions, assign your missions/troops/vehicles -- then follow them into combat.
    * Pilot advanced UAV (Manned and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) in multiple roles from air-to-air and air-to-ground, including VTOL jets and ultra-realistic flight dynamics.
    * Drive amphibious tanks into battle.
    * Choose from a massive variety of weapons based on realistic Military projections of warfare 50 years in the future.
    * Customize all payloads, from conventional weapons to long range communication and security devices.
    * Simple but comprehensive, interactive Command-and-Control planning and action map.
    * Defend your Carrier with a variety of countermeasures.
    * Manage your campaign logistics, ensure enough resources to push on with your assault.
    * Disrupt enemy supply lines, and defend your own.
    *
      Solid story based on a series of science fiction novels. (coming in 2007)

Of course WE know it isn't coming this year..... : (

Szechuanosaurus

So, which one of these guys (if either) holds the actual rights to the carrier command franchise?

No. 2 looks better, but I'm impressed by the fact that the guy working on No.1 appears to be learning how to program games as he goes along. Hell of a first project.

Lodbrok

So, is that an official remake? I remember looking at that site maybe a year ago, but as far as I can tell nothing has been added since then. And sure, the concept art looks nice, but.... there is nothing about any actual development taking place. Does anyone have any more info? I'm getting strong vapour-ware vibes here, but one can always hope...

subedii

Anyone remember "Hostile Waters"? In a lot of ways it was the spiritual sequel to carrier command, taking control of a super-vessel and manufacturing your units to lead assaults on the islands you were taking out. It would have been so brilliant if they had just included a multiplayer aspect.

Anyway, I have to say I want to hear more about this. The Carrier command website (the one with the concept art, not the one being made by the student (props to him on taking on such an ambitious project)) doesn't even appear to say whether or not it's going to be a PC release (although admittedly I just glanced at it).

leaf

subedii wrote:

Anyone remember "Hostile Waters"? In a lot of ways it was the spiritual sequel to carrier command, taking control of a super-vessel and manufacturing your units to lead assaults on the islands you were taking out. It would have been so brilliant if they had just included a multiplayer aspect.

Anyway, I have to say I want to hear more about this. The Carrier command website (the one with the concept art, not the one being made by the student (props to him on taking on such an ambitious project)) doesn't even appear to say whether or not it's going to be a PC release (although admittedly I just glanced at it).

The CC website reminds me of this place for Deep Angel:

http://www.deepangel.com/html/supercavitation.html

They both seem fairly similar, and are both entirely 'concepts' which I'm not going to hold my breath for.

(Though I admit that both of these seem really cool and interesting, I won't get my hopes up, or wait around for either one of these to come about)

Lodbrok

Yes, I played Hostile Waters as well. I liked it, but it was no carrier command. The personalities of the soul-catcher chips were great, it was fun blowing up the aliens and I liked the overall feel of the game. But it was to linear, and the story was rubbish. It missed the overall strategic picture of carrier command. When I build an aircraft or tank, I dont want it appearing after half a second, nano-bots or not. In CC you actually had to descide where to focus you efforts and think about strategy. Hostile waters felt like a glorified arcade-game...

Oh, and about those concept arts... I get a definite console-feel by looking at them. But who knows.... I just can't imagine such a game on anything other than the PC.

subedii

Yeah it would have been good if HW had a larger scope to it that allowed you to think things through more strategically.

Glal

Which would've made it far less appealing for fans like myself who don't really care for overly complex strategy much, so hey. To each their own.

Lodbrok

Yes, nothing bad with a more shooty game, like I said, I liked hostile waters. But it did not really live up to the promises... I had the feeling that they had to cut a lot of things out of that one that was supposed to be in the game from the start.

Speaking of Midwinter, one the ways of getting around the map in that game was hanggliders. You started from the top of mountains and gained altitude by ridge soaring. I remember spending a lot of time just flying around trying to stay airborne for as long as I could. I was really happy when I found the hangglider in Far Cry, but sadly, there was no way to go up in that game... to bad. It would have been fun just soaring around a tropical island, picking off mercenaries from the sky....

Why aren't there more games made that allow for free roaming? Far Cry was pretty good in this regard, it feelt like you could choose your own routes to achieve your objectives, but it was still a FPS of course. Actually, now when I think about, I think I enjoyed Far Cry more than half-life 2 just because of this...

chevluh

Why aren't there more games made that allow for free roaming?

Mostly because these kinds of games require either procedural, streaming or very light data to hide or dispose of the seams in their worlds.

Most of the Quake-descended games use a heavy, monolithic data set (high details environments still using the old BSP technique) which is not suited for streaming or representing large areas. Procedural data usually isn't too well-liked because of the *apparent* lack of low-level artistic control, but Spore and the likes aim to change that perception.

Game design for free roaming games is also more complex to most current game designers, as the liberty offered to the player makes him less predictable, and so the game can't be scripted around his progress as well as in a linear game, which is the current process.

Lodbrok

Ok, that makes sense. I guess that as a developer, you have to work within the constraints of the engine. But again pointing to far cry, it can be done in a better way... although like you said it forces to developer to approach the problem from a different angle, not just from a technology standpoint but in the way the player interacts with the world.

It is interesting that procedural generation of the game world is something that is starting to have a renaissance... I remember playing Frontier (Elite 2) and finding it fantastic that a whole galaxy (and the rest of the game) could be contained on one 1.44 Mbyte floppy. It will be nice to see what spore manages to do with this concept. It think that it is far more interesting to see that emergent properties that comes out a game that works this way even if it might not be as coherent in all aspects as a game designed completely from the ground up by humans...

Chenjesu

So I got this up and running this morning with the help of dosbox.

The thing I've run into is that the Walrus AAVs seem to have really short control ranges, so I'm not sure what the point of having four of them is. The only way I got anything done is to park the carrier right next to an island, and then sit there while it goes out, drops the command pod, and runs back.

I was hoping to park the carrier between two islands, and send them each on their way, but they end up out of range and destroyed before they get anywhere near the destination.

Lacking documentation, there may be something I'm missing, but I've not had much luck with finding strategy info, other than the Wikipedia article on fighting the enemy carrier.

I also haven't figured out how to move your stockpile to a new island.

GrimReaper

I miss free roaming games, there seems to be few of them nowadays. I would kill to have a modern day equivalent of Midwinter 2.

Anyone remember Hunter? Class game, Armageddon was great too.

Although I think MW2 was probably the ultimate.

I think the only good free roaming type games nowadays are essentially Oblivion, the GTA series and a few MMO's (the good ones).

Lodbrok

Chenjusu:

The long range communication pod on the Manta also boosts the signal for the walruses. You have to keep the manta in pretty close range to the walrus though, so set the autopilot waypoint gradually to keep the plane in range of the tank. This way it is possible to send a walrus with a virus bomb to an island while the carrier is doing something else. Wow, I can't believe I still remember these things after all these years...

Grimreaper:

Was MW2 Flames of freedom? Or was that the third one?

loflo

GrimReaper wrote:

Anyone remember Hunter? Class game, Armageddon was great too.

Mercenaries always reminded me a bit of Hunter. If you're looking for another free-roaming game, it could be worth checking out.

chevluh

GrimReaper wrote:

I miss free roaming games, there seems to be few of them nowadays. I would kill to have a modern day equivalent of Midwinter 2.

Anyone remember Hunter? Class game, Armageddon was great too.

Don't you mean Armour Geddon? Go that one in 3 parts in a computer magazine. 2 vehicles per part. Never finished it, and one day my parents threw away a page I'd cut out from the magazine, which had the instructions and, more importantly, the neutron bomb coordinates
It was really open-ended, but also kinda empty, it took ages to get anywhere interesting. it was really easy to lose vehicles too.

It's a game I'd love to see remade though.

Lodbrok> Yeah, Midwinter 2 is Flames of Freedom. Third one was Ashes of Empire.

It's kinda silly but as far as free roaming go, I also had terrific fun playing with Operation Flashpoint's level editor, since the whole island as available in one chunk anyway. I'd put empty vehicles and enemies here and there, and have a terrific time.

GrimReaper

chevluh wrote:

GrimReaper wrote:

I miss free roaming games, there seems to be few of them nowadays. I would kill to have a modern day equivalent of Midwinter 2.

Anyone remember Hunter? Class game, Armageddon was great too.

Don't you mean Armour Geddon? Go that one in 3 parts in a computer magazine. 2 vehicles per part. Never finished it, and one day my parents threw away a page I'd cut out from the magazine, which had the instructions and, more importantly, the neutron bomb coordinates
It was really open-ended, but also kinda empty, it took ages to get anywhere interesting. it was really easy to lose vehicles too.

It's a game I'd love to see remade though.

Lodbrok> Yeah, Midwinter 2 is Flames of Freedom. Third one was Ashes of Empire.

It's kinda silly but as far as free roaming go, I also had terrific fun playing with Operation Flashpoint's level editor, since the whole island as available in one chunk anyway. I'd put empty vehicles and enemies here and there, and have a terrific time.

Yeah, armour geddon. Old grey matter ain't what it used to be. I don't recall ever using any guides to win armourgeddon, pretty sure I clocked it without any cheating.

chevluh

GrimReaper wrote:

chevluh wrote:

GrimReaper wrote:

I miss free roaming games, there seems to be few of them nowadays. I would kill to have a modern day equivalent of Midwinter 2.

Anyone remember Hunter? Class game, Armageddon was great too.

Don't you mean Armour Geddon? Go that one in 3 parts in a computer magazine. 2 vehicles per part. Never finished it, and one day my parents threw away a page I'd cut out from the magazine, which had the instructions and, more importantly, the neutron bomb coordinates
It was really open-ended, but also kinda empty, it took ages to get anywhere interesting. it was really easy to lose vehicles too.

It's a game I'd love to see remade though.

Lodbrok> Yeah, Midwinter 2 is Flames of Freedom. Third one was Ashes of Empire.

It's kinda silly but as far as free roaming go, I also had terrific fun playing with Operation Flashpoint's level editor, since the whole island as available in one chunk anyway. I'd put empty vehicles and enemies here and there, and have a terrific time.

Yeah, armour geddon. Old grey matter ain't what it used to be. I don't recall ever using any guides to win armourgeddon, pretty sure I clocked it without any cheating.

Right. The coordinates were actually available somewhere in-game, there were mission texts or something. I merely forgot to point out I didn't know much english back then and that page was in my native language instead :P