New Concept For Troops and Fighters

PvK · #1 January 7th, 2007, 01:56 AM

Actually that's not what I was saying. In SE4 it would suck for that reason too. I assume SE5 is better and tracks damage to each component, so as Atro says, you could have one 2000 kT unit with 2000 1-kT components (or maybe 20 100-kT components, or whatever) that would degrade with damage and could be made to only repair kind of slowly so damage would mean something.

Which would be kind of cool and solve the micro-management nightmare...

But, I think there would still be another issue with the damage, in that I assume there is no way to mod in a resource cost to repair damaged components (except for the maintenace cost of damaged components as you wait for them to repair). So the problem is that large-sized units would regenerate with no real cost in resources.

Two examples of where this would not make sense:

You attack with ten Divisions, and they all take about 80% damage. It only costs you time to repair them all up to full. Then in a second battle 8 of your ten Divisions are destroyed, and two unhurt. You have to reconstruct those divisions at major cost, and no repair time is involved. The same damage was inflicted, but for arbitrary reasons, the repair cost and time can be either huge or small. Some units representing major forces of thousands of men and their equipment could be practically wiped out and yet recover to full strength for no cost at all.

Even worse would be if you do this for fighters, which I assume in general would tend to be destroyed in combat. Some squadrons could be almost wiped out in combat, and then restored fully for free, even though the losses should represent nearly all of the fighters being blown to shreds.

PvK

shinigami · #2 January 7th, 2007, 02:22 AM

Ah..., now I see what you're saying, PVK, and you are quite right.

But, if we shift our thinking a little bit, the initial cost of a unit could also be considered laying out the unit's support network, personnel, supplies, replacement parts, and actual replacements. Maintenance costs (which would be scaled up too) maintain that network.

Sure it is unrealistic to think that an army that has been almost completely wiped out would bring enough stuff with it to replace all losses but if the repairs per turn numbers are low enough it would encourage a player to scrap the unit and build a new one, especially if he needs the cargo space for an effective combat unit.

Atrocities · #3 January 7th, 2007, 04:19 AM

Quote:

Even worse would be if you do this for fighters, which I assume in general would tend to be destroyed in combat. Some squadrons could be almost wiped out in combat, and then restored fully for free, even though the losses should represent nearly all of the fighters being blown to shreds.

This is how they do it Star Wars Empires At War and in Rise Of Nations.

Spectarofdeath · #4 January 7th, 2007, 04:51 AM

I think for troops it would work, and be a great idea, I hate building one unit at a time, it just seems so unrealistic (And today congress authorized 50 more soliders to be trained and 10 tanks built!! wooohoo universal domination here we come) but I'm still not sold on the fighters yet. I can see the repair of the troops working the way Shinigami says but for fighters I don't know how you could do that. I suppose you can give them a extremly high repair time to simulate the time it would take to get new fighters and pilots into the squadron, but the fact that these fighters and pilots aren't costing any resources to train/build seems a little unrealistic on this front. Even boosting maint. and const. costs.

President_Elect_Shang · #5 January 7th, 2007, 05:25 AM

You could boost the maintenance cost on fighters but repair time for units is generic. If it takes 2 turns to replace (repair) 10 tanks it will take 2 turns to replace (repair) 10 fighters. And as I said below, I don't like the thought of a brigade or corps or whatever taking 80% losses, repairing/replacing those losses and coming out with a higher experience rating than before the fight. That is flat out impossible!

shinigami · #6 January 7th, 2007, 09:33 AM

I have a silly question, since when do anything other than ships and fleets get experience? Have I missed a memo?

President_Elect_Shang · #7 January 7th, 2007, 01:06 PM

Units don't get experience? I guess I better stop moding and start playing. Oh wait; can't do that the darn thing is so broken it can't be played!

Seriously if units don't get experience than why the heck not? That is just nuts! Is it really that impossible (from a coding perspective) to keep track of experience for units if you can already keep track of experience for every other vehicle? I think it's time for yet another email.

PvK · #8 January 7th, 2007, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Atrocities said:

Quote:

Even worse would be if you do this for fighters, which I assume in general would tend to be destroyed in combat. Some squadrons could be almost wiped out in combat, and then restored fully for free, even though the losses should represent nearly all of the fighters being blown to shreds.

This is how they do it Star Wars Empires At War and in Rise Of Nations.

Those are lite mass-market games which I am not interested in playing because they don't make enough sense to hold my attention, exactly because of game design decisions like that (and worse).

Suicide Junkie · #9 January 7th, 2007, 08:25 PM

Yeah, Atrocities... are you arguing for or against this?

Atrocities · #10 January 7th, 2007, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Suicide Junkie said:
Yeah, Atrocities... are you arguing for or against this?

I wouldn't say that I am arguing for it, but it does have its advantages. Right now in SE V it is a real PITA to deal with troops and with all the great minds here I figured that the concept proposed would be workable and a welcome alternative to the current status quo. You guys are the ones who can make such a system work because you all know the inner workings far better than I do.