Battlefront.com, the developer of the popular World War II strategy series Combat Mission, has announced that it will publish the science-fiction tactical simulation DropTeam in the second half of this year. Capable of handling up to 16 human and computer-controlled players on a public server, DropTeam puts gamers in the middle of a fight over a wide variety of planets, from Earth-like worlds to desolate globes.
Drop ships deliver vehicles, sensors, mines, automated turrets and other assets to each planetis surface, where they battle against the other playersi militaries for dominance. DropTeam features realistic physics and ballistics systems as well as true line-of-sight when determining whether or not a vehicle can fire on a target. TBG Software, the titleis developer, notes that they have eschewed hit points and other "gross simplifications that are typical of many other sci-fi games."
Each world map in the game is between 50 and 400 square kilometers, with support for maps up to 1,000 square kilometers. TBG says that the gameis engine stores scenario and unit data in XML files, with terrain data handled by standard topographical and geological file formats, so any user on any platform can create new maps, vehicles and assets. DropTeam will run on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows 98/ME/2000/XP. Pricing was not announced.
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