Just Imagine.... A Lego RTS...

 

But not just simply themes bashing it out for your enjoyment. Many themes were released with absolutely no aquatic component. Many themes were solely aquatic. So why not bring two factions to bear, one fighting for control of the land and skies, the other sending aquatic incursions? Submarines, boats; anything to skim the waves and provide devastating firepower to bear on your opponents on the shore having wrestled the sea from your opponent's control. Ships like the Neptune's Carrier from Atlantis could be enough to provide amphibious landings as well, though I have different ideas for that submarine; I previously mentioned the idea of "king units;" highly powerful sets that you looked at in the store and drooled at; the Mobile Devastator, the MX-81 Hypersonic Operations Aircraft, or the LMS Explorer (though maybe that one's a bit too big... you could still have "orbital bombardment" or "teleport a team of Rock Raiders anywhere on the map"). Perhaps the Neptune's Carrier functions more like it did in the Atlantis online animations, whereby it functioned as more or less a submerged LMS explorer, containing all the ships that the team needed; unlike the sets, where it barely contained a small wheeled vehicle. A mobile base is always something appreciable in an RTS, if you have the micromanagement for it...

 

 

Yet the theme which created this forum is subterranean. Perhaps that could be a feature. I've seen Digging implemented extremely well in Impossible Creatures; units that dig are simply stealthed until they "undig," except notably digging units cannot attack other digging units Why not here? Chrome Crushers mining the filthy Power Miners mechs to bits while zapping them with laser fire, whilst scores of Rock Raiders hurry behind keeping the vehicles at high HP; all while the troops on the surface are entirely unaware of this, perhaps only hearing muffled explosions. There would be two "maps;" one of the standard ground and sea we know so well from any RTS, then below that, a slightly transparent underground cave network with natural entrances, obstacles, and exits (of course, unnatural minifigure-made entrances, obstacles, and exits can be arranged), which might focus on a key press like Tab as the foreground fades to invisibility, allowing you to control your units with ease.

 

But there's a more potent force on the battlefield beyond an underground threat; I was contemplating Master Builders. Unlike simply being just high HP high attack heroes, these could have a unique function to create units on the fly with the bricks around them; the bricks of course having come from your fallen enemies you just smashed. Similar to World Builder, whereby you could create units if enough bricks were together (a lot of the gameplay revolved around getting such bricks together), these legendary heroes would have the ability to create units with the nearby bricks, replacing your lines as they fall.

Of course, such a system would be extremely abusable on lower population caps, whereby a Master Builder could rebuild your army faster than your feeble units can shoot them down, and downright useless on higher population caps where replacing 1 in 100 really isn't worth it. Thus a simple solution would be to scale build speed with population cap, and perhaps make an automatic function (though autonomy in an RTS always results in stupidity) whereby your chosen Master Builder focuses more on rebuilding your units as they fall.

 

Such a system would be possible because unlike other games where killing units just creates graphical corpses, destroying giant mechas should give you vast hordes of bricks from which you can summon your own creations!

Perhaps, in the sake of ceasing endless spams, the amount of bricks dropped by a unit could be less than the amount it took to build; in the interests of preventing endless Master Builder reconstruction.

 

 

But that's all about one half of an RTS; the unit composition, the micromanagement, the lasers (my favourite part... you know you're playing an RTS right where the sounds cease to play because there are so many PEW PEW PEWs already sounding).... how about the economy?

 

 

If you were playing Rock Raiders, you wouldn't exactly care about white bricks. However, you'd be extremely interested in the rare Teal resources around the map, something that other themes wouldn't care about. But your Mars Mission ally would be more than happy for you to harvest those white bricks and tribute to them; and if you have an eco bonus of extracting bricks from rocks faster, being a mining theme, perhaps it's in your best interests to help fund his war effort. Tribute might even be automatic for these resources you don't care about.

 

All this makes for perhaps a confusing HUD, showing bricks in all colours of the rainbow; a system similar to the online Lego game Monster Fighters would work well, whereby your most important studs are detailed and the others that are only needed rarely or not at all can be accessible via a drop-down menu.

 

 

At the front lines where your constructs are rising and falling all the time, but mostly falling as your Master Builder cannot be everywhere at once, the bricks are free resources, if your Small Transport Truck is able to dodge the laser fire which will inevitably scatter. Such plentiful resources means that you'd be interested in getting them back as soon as possible; thus whoever had the resource dropoff closer to the front line would easily accumulate the greater resources. Perhaps this could be fixed by extremely expensive resource dropoffs, unlike the classic 100 Wood seen in Age of Empires II. But this still wouldn't stop a lategame grind where you're rolling in every resource except spare population. Ideally you wouldn't be rolling in resources due to the presence of ludicrously expensive, ludicrously powerful units. After all, why stop at one? Why have one LMS Explorer providing constant beaming down of raiders with laser beams when you could have two? Intergalactic space might get a little crowded, but such a ground-focused RTS wouldn't need to go into detail on that...

 

 

 

 

My coding has improved since last I wrote a wall of text on this, but alas it's still only cin >> and cout << , so such an idea remains in the imagination; hence the title, Just Imagine....

... just imagine a fleet of Chrome Crushers drilling upwards from the surface right underneath Lego City with supercharged lasers...

... just imagine Johnny Thunder saying "Aw crikey!" as laser bolts from Exo-Force mechs whizz past his face as he frantically repairs your long-ranged Classic Castle cannon...

... just imagine a stealthed Neptune Carrier emerging from the sea and unloading a cargo of Lego Universe Maelstrom bots onto your precious economy, before disappearing beneath the waves...

... just imagine the spam of Rock Raiders with Laser, Freezer, and Pusher beams constantly popping out of Tool Stores to fight off an endless horde of elemental spinning ninja dragons....

... just imagine summoning Space Police I, II, and III together to bring the various criminals of the galaxy to 'justice,' if your idea of 'justice' is 'pulverizing their vehicles to pieces and driving over the rubble....'

 

.... just imagine.... a Lego RTS.