Pardon me if my questions regarding UE4 are very novice, I come from a Web Development background using JavaScript mainly. But my passion has always been developing video games.
Q: Can you guys please tell me if making a fully functional RTS game (such as Company of Heroes 2) is viable in UE4 or I should just forget it because there will be far too many technical drawbacks using Unreal Engine 4. Will there be too many performance issues? Will I have to make most of the RTS features because UE4 has built in features primarily used for First Person or Third Person? Basically is this a dead end path I’m taking?
Here’s the short pitch
I intend to make a 5v5 team based real time strategy game that builds upon the qualities that I enjoyed playing Company of Heroes 2.
Each player will have control over ~ 5 units. So let’s say 3 soldier squads and 2 vehicles. So that’s a total of ~17 asset characters and ~170 user controlled characters in total. This means we aren’t talking about Total War-esque, hundreds of characters controlled and moved simultaneously. Easy on the game engine.
Destroyable terrain (artillery making holes in the ground). I’ve read into this a while back and have read that this is currently impossible in UE4 without making custom tweaks.
Limited AI. I don’t plan on providing any single player experience for the game. It’ll be strictly multiplayer 5v5. In this case, I don’t have to worry about advanced AI mechanics. On the other hand there will be AI required for basic auto-fire, navigation, priority targets for user controlled units.
My Inspiration
I was an avid CoH 1 & 2 player. I’ve played it since I was 13 and stopped about a year ago for career goals and a journey to finally make a game like CoH 2, with my own twist.
I am not the biggest expert around, but I’ve been working rather intesively with UE4 for almost 2 years now, and I’ve been programming as a hobbyist all my life.
I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be able to make an RTS with UE4. Yes, you will have to make most “RTS features” yourself, because UE4 is not RTS-maker. But that’s actually the easiest part.
UE4 should be fast and has easy-to-use LOD support, if you are worried about performance. The dynamic landscape you will have to do yourself or find an existing plugin for.
If network traffic turns out to be a problem on your simulation scale, you will have to send less data and try to find ways to simulate things locally instead. I don’t think it matters much, what engine you are using here.
The only reason I would consider using Unity instead is that it’s more popular. So you will get more answers quickly on their answer hub and you can find much more plugins and stuff for all purposes.
Yes. The unreal is a very viable option for rts games. As with any game, the devil is in the details but as I’m sure your aware of from Web Development that that goes with any development.
As a starter, in the following video they are talking about AI but they build a god mode style character controller. Which would be the beginning for any rts I would think.
Making Game Ready AI live training:
Looking for to your take on the rts genre been awhile since we had good ones.
If anybody is curious, my project is very much alive and thriving, I stream its development everyday and also help out & motivate other game devs to make their games: http://twitch.tv/syedaman
It’s still a 5v5 team based strategy game, but it is no longer WW2-themed like how I originally planned it to be.
Great concept and Syed is very enthusiastic about the game. It’s quite entertaining to play and watch and I’m not even a huge fan of RTS games. Very community driven too
