lately i been thinking up of ideas for a new Army selection to be in CC, and then it struck me there a lack of vampires. now i know Vampires are overrated / may have been killed off due to Twilight, but I'm going to do a new approach to the idea of vampirsm.

First i really need people who are skilled with Lua (since I'm going to making almost each unit have special abilities as well as make some other things related to blood)

Now the main idea is that the vampire army doesn't spend a lot of gold, they only spend gold on the ship and weapon the basic (human units) as well as extra cost to balance out the power of the stronger vampires, some units don't require gold but they do require blood to last long.
Now the basic units of this army are enslaved weak humans or cultist as well as Ghouls (I'm going in a similar idea as the anime Hellsing where vampire convert everyone to ghouls but virgins but a slight twist) the role of these units is to harvest blood from enemies (or even your own units if you wish) they do this by shooting a drug infused needle into the enemy, This will then allow the player to control this enemy (for a short period of time) then they can move the enemy to a glass tube which can be placed during build mode or have mobile versions of the tubes in which the tube will then Drain all of the target health (blood).

Now I'm not fully sure how to do this but i was thinking of having the glass tubes at 1 HP at the start with the max HP of 100, and depending on how much health human actor has it restores the tube to that much health 100 being full. Now these tubes can support Vampires as restoring places / need for blood.

The unit are:

Ghoul : a human that been bitten by a vampire and transformed into a mindless ghoul, Weaker than zombies and humans themselves, vampires tend to create them into cyborgs taking away the limbs of there original form and replacing them with spider legs and arms to harvest blood.

Cultist: a human that gladly worships vampires, while not as useful as ghouls they can be used as a blood supply as well as basic cannon fodder

i will add more over time.


Vampires will all start at 100 health but will steadily drain over time. and they can only take blood from alive actors / Tubes, doing so will restore health and any destroyed limbs. However if the Vampire health goes below 30, (maybe 25) they enter a berserker state, it will go towards the closest living target and destroy it for there blood, This will carry on until the vampire health goes to 100 in which they can be controlled again, However if it drinks the blood of another vampire it will then turn into a Krsnik ( a vampire that feed on other vampires) this will result in making them stronger and easily destroy any vampire or actors with ease.

the vampire order will start with Newblood, Newbloods are basic humans that just been converted into a vampire, they will have basic health regenration (by being behind cover) as well doesn't require the ability to feed on blood they will also lighter and move faster by a small amount over normal humans, The downside is they need a jetpack as well as being killed the same way as every human.

The next is the basic Vampire, while they retain similar abilities to the newblood, they require blood once a vampire had been fed it will regain health at a faster rate (compared to a newblood) as well as regain limbs but over time the speed of regeneration lowers as the vampire will require blood again. Vampires most striking ability is that they can hold heavy weapons as if they was pistols , resulting in vampires being able to equip with a lot of weapons along with this they can "teleport" (think Flash step from Bleach or how wesker moved in Re5) over short distances, along with this the vampire also lacks a jetpack but doesn't require it as they can jump over large distances however only once until they land.

Vampire count: These are vampires that been alive for over 100 years they have developed stronger abilities at the cost of requiring blood more often. the most striking new ability is telekinesis, at a limited form they can only pull or push actors away or towards them (Think Raizel / Kain from Legecy of kain but without the ability to hold them in midair) along with this they can also grab weapons and pull it towards them, counts also have the ability to teleport farther than vampires itself and being able to jump over large distances twice in one jump.

Vampire Lord : vampires that been alive for 1000 years, the strongest ability these have is improved telekinesis they can now grab actors and swing them about, grab weapons and shoot them from afar, as well as being able to jump three times in one jump, however as a result of the age of these vampires, Blood tubes cannot sustain them as they will require fresh blood. (this is the use of cultist since the vampire lord will need to go in close combat to drain the blood, Same with vampire counts and vampire itself)


Lastly the brain unit: Vampire elder: each vampire group require a leader vampire, most of the time it's the vampire lord who leads the army of vampires and it's minions however in rare cases there is a vampire elder, which had been around since the dawn of time where the first human rise. due to this age they must stay in a eldar tank which pumps pure blood from 5 cultist, but only enough blood to keep the cultist alive, however this is only to sustain the vampire elder from dying or going insane to wake him from his slumber there must be 10 tubes filled with pureblood and have them sent to the elder tube, when this happens the elder vampire will be awaken and will destroy the tube and become a mobile brain unit. (the way i want this to happen is that the elder tube will have 100 health at the start, when the pure blood is pumped to the elder tube it will make the health go up by 100, until it reaches 1000 once it reached 1,000 the player can choose if the vampire elder to be spawned.)

the vampire elder will be the strongest and deadliest unit, it has mastered all of it powers as well as gained more. the length of it's teleport power is twice as far as the vampire lord, as well as the ability to jump at most 6 times, the telekinesis power had grew to the part where he can crush actors or weapons at long distances as well as draining their blood from long distances (think Kain from Legecy of kain again)along with this the elder and pull chunks of the ground out and use it as a weapon and unknown how by even the vampires the elder vampire has pyrotechnic abilities by being able to summon fire from his hands or to the target far away, the most powerful ability the elder vampire have is the fact it can deflect bullets around him at will (that woman from Metal gear solid as the bullet goes around her rather than at her).

I will most likely add new units over time or change the units in slightly, i have yet to sprite anything since i only just thought of this for awhile.
if anyone wish to sprite for this they can as i will accept any help from anyone if you think the army is too overpowered then say why and i'll change it if i see fit.

If anyone has any better suggestion on how to do things then please go ahead and say them, And if anyone willing to help sprite, Code or even just suggest new unit ideas please do so. I shall post all of the sprites I done (which is none as of yet) in the next post to neaten things up.

(this post shall contain images over time not all of them will be filled all Concept art / similar appearance or how i believe they should look will be in spoiler tags)

Cultist

Ghoul

Newblood

Vampire

Vampire count



Vampire Lord


Vampire Elder


Blood Tube

Elder tube

Weapons

Hmmm, from the sounds of it, it will be very complicated, especially the part where you 'mind control' enemy troops. So far, there's no techniques which can 50% reliably control enemy troops for a temporary time. Maybe you could place the victim in a 'stasis lock' or 'stun', and then, depending on the situation, drag them back to the 'juicing' station or drain them of blood on the spot.

Also, there is the problem of differentiating fleshbag bloodsack units from those which don't have blood, like robots or aliens.

So maybe, here's just my 2 cents... they're not 'blood' vampires, but more like energy vampires. This could open up chinese Jiangshi and Draugrs as possible actor choices. Also, by them being energy vampires, they could drain not just fleshbags, but also robots and other phenomena.

Or maybe, since this is a sci-fi game, you could have blood-generating stations hooked to the 'juicers', which actually sap energy and converts it to blood for the vamps to use.

About the 'going to auto-rage when blood is below 30' is also a problem currently unsolvable by Lua. Perhaps, get the vamps below 30 health to 'lose' their power temporarily or something as an alternative. But, teleportation does work reliably, as well as telekinesis powers for the count/lord. Vampire Elder's pyrotechnics and other powers is also very possible. But there may be some complications in getting the elder to 'awaken'... maybe have him in a special lua-d up bunker module which contain his 'coffin' tank in the beginning, then having a part of the module 'detect' how many cultists 'enter' it.
Alternatively you could get portable blood-generating stations set up near it, and once enough stations are up, you could revive the elder...

How 'bout that? Anything that can be salvaged from the wall of text?

Yea it may have to do that for now until a sure way to control them works out, that why i put a the cultist in the army as a generic human.
the other idea was that the Ghoul shoots a Harpoon with a tube/wire conected to it and drains the health into a Backpack tube on the ghoul in which it can move to a tube and put the blood into there.



indeed, i was thinking as gold is really just terrian object and mining it gains you money a simliar thing can happen with blood Although i may have used blood in a loose term rather than just saying what you said in the next statment.



The last option may be the best part.



This isn't really a full on requirement but it more of a balancing thing



i was orginialy thinking of having the Tube as a "craft" and have the elder vampire inside it, so at a certian part it will open up/ blow up. but your idea may be better for it.

Regarding the teleportation it isn't really a full on teleport it just a very fast burst of speed in one direction.

Edit: how should i go around to design them? for example should i give them a more German Look
(german vampires are always awesome) or should i go into more medieval appearances and generic gothic vampire appearances?

Ooh, your idea of Ghouls carrying blood-syringes is possible. Have the Ghouls spawn with a weapon which uses Lua to drain the enemy's life 'energy', then make a HeldDevice in the inventory of the actor after getting enough energy(representing the 'batteries'), which can be dropped near a 'juicer' or blood-generating station to supply it. Maybe it could also fuel the Elder's coffin.

As for the looks, I say go make whetever you want! You're the one who came up with the idea, and you're not a bad spriter, so I'm confident that whatever you deem 'cool' will also be deemed 'cool' by us.

And yeah, I haven't seen any vampire-themed factions around, so I'm kinda excited.

i have a habit that results in me re-using designs from other games without realizing so i tend to rely on artwork i see and if i should start spriting, It should be somthing that i can do with ease which will be the weapons. Which comes to another thing, Should There be guns? i mean i'm going to have a few guns just for the cultist / ghoul But for the vampires themselves? along with this i'm not really sure which type of guns.

For now i could just go with the Underworld Style of vampire, (or look at Hellsing) same with weapons.

But really regarding guns it's pretty much for anyone to decide, i mean unitec pretty much uses most of the modern age guns

(just so people know, i'm not bothered if anyone wishes to create stuff, and join in on this creation, the mod is purely for the public and the public will have it's control on what goes in and out, as well as myself and the coders)

Hmm.... I'd say we add some sci-fi with some traditional 'transylvanian' style. Probable color scheme for the mod is primarily black/white/red, with lots of black and red and a side of white. Maybe the guns could be styled like Morrigan's special in MvC, with bat designs incorporated. An alternative to bats would be skulls and bones.
It's your call in the end.

I rather want to avoid going sterotypical Vampire / Cartoonie with the weapons since i want them to have more Modern like weapons, Maybe weapons that uses different things like a gun that shoots bullets that "steals" health for example.

Regarding the design of the vampire i decide to go with a nice way depending on the vampire themselves for example newblood and vampires will have more modern apperances, Maybe Vampires will be soldiers (modernized vampire soldier) while the newblood are more like Milita, While Vampire counts will go in a Victorian german era style and the vampire elder will just go all out Knight look (with a cape if it's possible to put a physic on a cape itself but i oddly doubt it.

Hmm, agreed on the 'not looking cartoony' part, but still, I'd guess the color scheme would have a lot of black, red, or grey, with some white parts.
I like the idea that the 'newer' vamps would look more modern/futuristic while the 'older' vamps have their own style.
So maybe
newbloods: futuristic
vamps: futuristic/modern
vamp counts: WW2/WW1
vamp lords: victorian
vamp elder: renaissance/medieval or earlier

As for the cape... so far they're undoable. So your vamp elder would probably have no caped but a badass armor instead.
as for guns... maybe the newer ones would look like 'normal' guns except for the color scheme or something, while the older melee ones will have more ornamentation, maybe one two bat symbols or something. You know how eccentric the old vamps are.

I'd love to help with sprites and any .ini code you need done. I'll be studying for the next week, but after that I've got nothing to do for a few months.

EDIT: Just read thread all the way through, and I agree with a modernized theme. For some reason when thinking of vampire guns, the MP7 comes to mind. I don't know why...
Also I think a heavy vampire in heavy knight's armour would be kewl.

I tend to feel the same Ketten, i always mix Heckler and Koch guns with vampires (and most "evil" corporations oddly i think it due to Resident evil with umbrella using almost all of the HK weapons with the exception of a few odd one out)
@ carrion, The Elder will be in pure full medieval armour and stuff I know that for sure.
Regarding the weapons i Might just do a full Heckler and Koch armoury for them (with a tad few exceptions)
The colour scheme will mostly be based off Holy Roman Empire or around that time (i dunno i always feel vampire and german mix a hellva lot better than anything else)
Also i'm thinking of "Hero" vampire as Brains as well as the elder vampire.
Also any help is welcome, and i'll be busy next week as well so not much to expect from me either. (Jobs searching comes first sadly.)


On a side note i also oddly thinking of expanding this army to go into a number of other armys Although this is most likely WAY too soon to be thinking as such.

Trololololololol!

Here, have one antagonist, I didn't wanted to make his bullets evaporate all the actors,
it would be a ridiculous nonsense what actor which aren't vampiric die in ashes and missery...


Made of dissected piece of mussels and flesh?

i'm hoping to avoid most modern look / viewpoints on vampires which is why Blade, Although as epic as the series is (or was i should say) i rather skip the whole that idea,

However the idea of the "daywalker" will be in the other armies, the other armies i'm thinking creating are demons angels, Vampire hunter and a Merc guild.

the Merc guild i may go around to different mods and ask the auther permission to use and edit one or two of their designs and make them as a merc for the guild but we see how it goes for now.


As the elder vampire he's more of the Vlad the impaler era type of a vampire,

speaking of which Vlad the impaler will be a hero where his ability will spawn "pikes" out of the ground and impale enemies at the cost of his pyro ability and possible his telekinesis.

a little change to the Idea, Newblood vampire will basicly be human with the ability to Drain blood or require blood, that it as which all Vampire style guns will be heavy and have large recoil (for humans, this idea is massively based off Hellsing where Alucard wield two .50 cal or larger pistols and Seras uses a massive anti tank cannon as a sniper/rifle) the main reason for this is to stop Non Vampire unit having vampire weapons and make vampire hold normal heavy weapons as if they're pistols (i may bring in a idea that vampire can duel wield any weapon)

Also as a curious note is it possible to make it so each unit is unique, For example if i buy two vampire, one may be a female the other may be a male, and each one has a different stat / ability to one another, But it the same name / Cost in the buy menu.

Listen, Blade was just a joke, don't feel forced to anything
but I don't understand how do you exactly want your troops to look like,
not stereotypical Draculas of Transylvania nor futuristic neo-blood-sucker looking...

Just pale elfs with overgrown canine tooth outfitted like renaissance, blood-crusades and nazis?

Notice than you're reading a completely crazy person and that's a non-sense.

i'm aware it's a joke Nax, what i really mean is something Different than what's already been done.
which is sadly a lot,
You got your Modern neo-future vampire in blade, and other games, Your classic vampire in shitload of games and films, as the nazi vampire in Hellsing.
from what i know that haven't been done is Steampunk Vampires.
regardless i believe the main selling point of this mod instead of the Vampire will be the amount of differences per unit. in other words a less chance of getting the exact same looking vampire. as well as abilities and stats.

Regardless i should set up a priority list to what need to be focus upon first.