Airships

FOREWORD : I've checked the list so don't kill me for duplicating. Thanks.

As I mentioned in the building thread, airships would be a nice addition to KAG to make it so games don't last forever, or at least until its turned into a scene of countless knights plunging into a crater of bedrock and smashing into massive stone monoliths.

Basically, there could be two versions, weak and strong, mirroring the weak longboat and the strong warboat.

1 -Weak version would be the balloon. Some time ago randomly we saw balloons in a match, like UFOs. Probably the devs trying this new thing out. Like the longboat it would allow fast access to the top of a tower, while being weak enough to be taken out by a couple archers, bomb arrow, or siege weapon.

2 -Strong version would be the Airship. Like a flying version of the warship, it would fly over a base and spawn players. It could even have a mounted turret to take out any unprotected archers below. It would have a similar health pool to the warship and enough damage will take it down. A skilled bombjumper could even get into it and capture it if lucky. Two opposing Airships could even clash, which would be pretty epic.

To implement their system, there could be an invisible line in the sky similar to the water surface line. Once the Balloon or Airship takes off, via a command, it would rise until it reaches that line. It would then remain on that line as it crosses the map to the enemy. Another command could be to land it, but I imagine trolls or noobs could land it into the enemy base and it would be then overrun by the enemy... so its maybe not a good idea.

Here's an example, owned by mr. StormAndy on DeviantArt! ( http://www.deviantart.com/art/Airship-Sprite-245842071 )


Please discuss!

 

HELL YES

 

These are already files in the game.

Spoiler

Anyone can just put them in their server.

 

Wouldn't that totally destroy the point of making towers and fortresses and walls? If you could just fly over them then there's no point. It would encourage really tall and obnoxious single block high walls.

 

Well it would encourage not only building tall towers, but also defending them well. Making a tall tower wouldn't be enough : you'd also would have to make it thick enough to support a siege weapon. A single ballista would be enough to easily take down airships, at least until it ran out of ammo. And the line that I mentioned that determines the airship's max height, could be tweaked to be fair, so not too high. You can't soar into space with it, its a fixed height and it has to remain in range.

There would be countless counters. Knights would throw bombs at it, or bomb jump into it. Archers would pepper it with arrows, burn it with fire arrows and do massive damage with bomb arrows.

Plus, it would have to be VERY expensive, at least 100 for balloon and 300 for airship minimum. And if the devs don't convert the boat shop into a general ''vehicles'' shop, you would first need to build a airship shop, which would take rare gold to build and could be sabotaged if the enemy gets to it.

It would essentially open up a new lane, the air, to add to the ground and underground. It wouldn't undervalue towers at all.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 11, 2013, Original Post Date: Nov 11, 2013 ---

You can check out this prototype here, specificaly at the 5:30 mark :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VAcDxjO_nM

Crazy stuff, not really what I have in mind, but entertaining

 

I really like it. Its not overpowered because they are easy to destroy. Its flying so it is really cool. And it ends the games that take forever.

 

Yes. Maybe, make it so it has to take a while before getting researched, like demolition, that would fix the problem of just rushing it that way.

 

I would love to see airships as like the final of the final upgrade during a game. Even if in a mod. In fact the advertisement poster for the game semi-falsely advertised with the Bomber which is unfinished and can only be modded into servers or !bomber in SP...(the poster also has food that I cannot find in-game, Knight's fire ammo, and a Bat that isn't in-game...tisk tisk MM, putting things on your ads then never finishing them or removing them...kinda like the original ads on the site which I am slightly disappointed were never added).

Though if they are going to be a mod or in-game I feel they will need a few bits of change to them. The Bomber should be slow, weaker than the ship, and not have ramming damage...but of course, able to drop bombs it is loaded with. The ship should also be slow, but stronger, should have slight ramming damage too, and should be a good bit larger than the warboat!

I could see airships making archers important for taking flying ships down!

 

Maybe a bicycle flying machine , just kidding.
If the baloon thing get implemented pls something like this
#Simple Balloon (like the sprite already in the game)
-cheap (similar to dragonboat)
-really low health
-weight limit (to much and the balloon starts falling)
-hard to maneuver (like slow direction change, adjusting high only possible with changing weight or damage the balloon)

#theDragon (upgrade the Dragonship with a with something zeppelin like)
-expensive (because Dragonship + upgrade needed)
-health similar to the Dragonship
-no weight limit
-builder can adjust height and speed with pedals
-but importantly make the thing explosive as its flaw like the hydrogen zeppelins in reality
- 'maybe spawnpoint
-'maybe Dropping Stones as a Weapon

 

Or how bout firing arrows from archers on the airship! Weve been having a huge debate about what archer need added to the game. This might be something that could make them more useful.

 

inb4 they give knights some airship related buff instead of archers.

Also I built an airship just to entertain myself with the idea of GIANT ships, and now I kinda wanna have a mod with huge ships like this.

 

Reminds me of Guns of Icarus

 

Make a giant sky island map out of airships! Classic had one that was two giant water boats and a small island. Was pretty great.

 

You know, I was looking at my first beta map the other day, which was an airfortress kinda map, and realised I could do MUCH better in terms of airship quality! I think I might do that later!

 

>.< Found some unused files in working on a cool avatar. i'll post images here there are three built in airships. I haven't seen them implemented. To those of you here excited by this topic be really excited then! To the Devs: The Zombie file, and Airship files are there. Will we see them implemented?

Crab: I do love your ship, wish there was a way to use sail materials and have it function like walling.

The Image: found these in the files pieced them together with paint. My blimp is a little funny because I accidentally sat my character to high up but I think it still looks good. The Glider was also in the airships folder. There is a third file that's a War ship with propellers. The glider looks very ornithopterish in my opinion but still would be great to fly around. There were no screenshots on the forums so I guessed where the wings would go based on normal gliders. the builder and scenery are for fun more than anything. Posting this here because of the topic at hand. would love to see these and possibly a flight factory. that would be amazing. Maybe requirements for the full airship would be a naval factory and the warship researched. Working on piecing together a couple nifty images for Air Warship.

 

Bump.

I think airships is awesome idea if you make it balanced. Maps designed for airship battles would be fantastic, for example two islands with huge deathly gap in the middle so players should build as much airships as possible.

It should not be expensive but the airship workshop should be expensive. Also airship should be spawn only at the workshop so you can not make it in the middle of the battlefield.

On normal maps a sky limit will make it an easy target for archers.

I also think that a big airship should not have a spawn point, because it's expensive and unbalanced. A knight/archer workshop with bombs and kegs would be more fun. And would be cool if an enemy fire arrow gets into the workshop the whole airship will explode.

I'm not an artist so here's a quick mockup. There are a ladder so you can climb on the top and jump on the balloons, a chest with arrows/bombs and a helm to control the airship:

And a .psd if someone wants to modify it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dxxxcx66pblgn2r/airship.psd

 

@kuroko

It would be nice if they had airship battle maps, but it would have to be a modded server since airships are no longer part of the base game.

You should get in contact with the role play server owner, can't remember who it is. Having something like what you made on the server would be pretty sweet.

 

Yeah, an airships mod would be nice. Sadly I don't have time to learn modding so if someone wants to use my texture I will be happy.

 

Quite a nice image. Photoshop or gimp?

 

I would love this. It would encourage good placement of siege weapons, and encourage roof design alot more. (I can already think of alot of ways to defend the roof)