3DVIA®

In my previous blog we talked about individual vehicle design.  In this blog we will explore vehicle design for games. There are a few considerations you must keep in mind when designing vehicles for games, today we’ll cover 3: Mobbing up, Flavor, and Balance.

Mobbing up

No man is an island, in games, no one vehicle can win a game. Sure there are mega/epic units but by themselves they will get over powered and destroyed. Build vehicles that can accomplish their one particular role well.  Don’t add weapons and abilities “just in case”.  You want the player to build all the wonderful units you made and use them all as one cohesive swarm. Each vehicle performs one role well, and all others badly, but in a group, it can’t be defeated.  The best real world examples are Navy Battle Groups. Large formations of ships supporting one another with specific combat roles. 

Flavor

Here is where we get creative.  All games have factions or races, each one with a particular flavor.   You can’t give a vehicle with laser gatling guns to a nomadic faction that cobbles together their technology from various junk piles.  When building for a particular faction, write down their strengths, weaknesses and what makes them unique from the other factions.  Keep this in mind when you create a new vehicle.  That laser gatling gun vehicle could be an excellent anti infantry unit for a techie cyborg based race.

Balance

Here is where we make sure the game play remains fair for each faction.  The main point of balance is to keep the game fun but challenging.  No one likes a game they can’t win, and no one really enjoyes a $50 game they can beat in 15 minutes with 2 units.

Vehicles for each of the armies in the game usually have a direct corresponding vehicle in each of the other armies and a suitable counter vehicle.  In this respect, you see many armies have an anti aircraft vehicle. You use the flavor to make them really different from each other, but they perform the same function, thereby creating balance.
 
A popular balance method is the old Paper-Rock-Scissors. Where class A vehicle defeats class B vehicle – class B defeats class C vehicle – class C defeats class A.  

You’ll find some games that don’t follow these general rules, and go so far as to create units that one faction will have more trouble defeating than another, attempting to create a 3 way faction balance. These games usually give you other alternatives like super weapons/units, or the ability to pair up with another player using diplomacy rules to defeat a stronger army.

Recently some games have allowed you to customize special modular vehicles, allowing you to alter the role of the vehicle to meet your needs. These tend to be a unique vehicle, and allow you to create some real power houses adding an element of unbalance in to gameplay but creating a really fun (albeit unfair) experience as a trade off.

No mater the method you chose for balance, always keep in mind that each vehicle you create has a role within its flavor/faction/race, and it is best supported be an army of specialist vehicles covering each others’ weaknesses.  All working together to defeat the latest evil nasty nameless army that has threatened your people with ever lasting elevator music!

Till next time,
Fight well, honorably and often
-Juan

-Models in the Tittle Image where created for a GI-Joe mod by Brendan Fennimore, Chris McCune, Jonathan Millman, and Juan M. Del Rio.