New Concept For Troops and Fighters

[Kana]

On the population front, I wish there was a more quanitative tracking of population vs crew. Crew I guess is abstractly represented by the Organics resource, but I would much rather have crew as a fourth resource. Crew could the represent the amount of adult aged, trained personel available for either ship crews, or for ground combat armies...Small populations will be limited in the number of armies, and ships they can field because of the lack of trained individuals. Also if we can track the crew amounts and their experience, then we should be able to have special 'individuals/heroes' that could add their special talents to a ship or army.

[President_Elect_Shang]

I would have to give that thought; however, just off the top of my head. The SFTC is only using 2 of the three resources. Minerals which I will probably rename to MC (Mega Credits). Then Organics which I made focused more on colony demand but also used in scarce amounts for ships/bases and in larger amounts for troops. I won't rename that one but if I were to I would rename it FS (Food Stuffs). That leaves a third element unused. I could make that into CP (Crew Points or Crew Personnel). Then I could charge based on that. Unfortunately I do not know of a way to keep the cost of an item down (i.e. you only pay a few hundred crew points) to build something then inflate the maintenance cost of that item. I may not need to inflate it. It could be argued that the high initial cost isn't just crew but workers and support personnel who are building the item/ship/base/whatever. Another problem is the maintenance can be explained away as crew rotation and/or new members replacing those that had to leave the service and/or wanted to separate. However, there is no way to control the originating source. See what I mean? A Spaceport ships all production and I have never heard of a way to limit that. So your restriction based on planet population wouldn't work. More experienced crews could be simulated by Military Academies which raise the experience of the ship. Then you wouldn't need to worry about tracking crew experience. Also the AST allowed you to build captains. That could be brought back and implemented the same way I did my XO Weapons. They are 0 HS items with 1HS damage absorption. Then you could give the captains bonuses as in AST and call that experience. You could also take that one step further and make whole bridge crews. It would be simple to limit a ship to just 1 Science Officer. You could also make a science hull size ship that can handle 2 science officers instead of 1. That would add another dimension to the value of hulls because you could make whole components that will only work on a science hull. Now add another component called a Command Center and make it so that you have to have an Admiral with the Command Center. Make the Command Center big and poof; you have an admiral in charge of your ships/fleet! Oh dinners ready...

[President_Elect_Shang]

The Science Hull was just one example of the hulls you could make. Also SJ did implement a crew requirement of sorts. However, that is not the same as you or I are talking about here. Eat now talk later...

[AstralWanderer]

While an interesting idea, it does have 2 downsides not mentioned so far:

• No Partial Construction - if a build order for 100 ground units reaches 50% completion when the planet is attacked, the defender has 50 units to play with. If one "100-strength" superunit is 50% complete, the defender gets nothing.
• Scale on map - scaled-up units won't require proportionately more space on the tactical map making very large (100+) scale combats less realistic. This could also result in tactical exploits like using large numbers of single-units to tie up opposing troops while having one super-unit tackle them piecemeal.

Adding the option to manage ground units in "fleets" would seem a better option for simplifying control but perhaps a better way is to implement auto-stacking where similar units are grouped together once they exceed a certain threshold (e.g. more than 20 units results in each model representing 2 units, more than 50 makes it 5, etc - such stacks having the number of units displayed alongside). This is how large numbers of units are handled in Imperium Galactica II and it keeps numbers down without imposing too many other compromises.

[President_Elect_Shang]

The no partial construction is not a problem and not anything new. To me that would affect my decision to build the 2000 man army or the smaller quicker 200 man army. Either way I just can't see it as a problem that you don't already face now. Do I build the 1550kT Baseship or the 350kT Destroyer? Maybe that's not the best of examples but do you see my point? Don't build the large powerful 2000man unit if you know you are about to get invaded.

The scale on map can be manipulated by changing the picture called on or in the vehicle size file. If I am not mistaking it should be this line: "Maximum Model Size".

You are right that one person could use many smaller units to try to tie up a larger unit. What you are forgetting about though is that the smaller units (by the way there wouldn't be any single units) have less weapons and armor. So 20 smaller units each with 10 weapons equals 200 shots at a single large unit with 2000 weapons. Your small units will get chewed up pretty quick. You will need to invade with something that has a bit more endurance and fire power! Keep in mind in SE5 the program decides; based on the strategy, how many weapons to fire at each attacking unit. Put another way I may need to fire 20 shots to knock out one of your small units. 20 shots times 20 (from the above example) is 400 shots. If I have 2000 shots (again from the above example) that leaves 1600 shots. Still think you can tie my unit down?

[AstralWanderer]

President_Elect_Shang said:
The no partial construction is not a problem...if you know you are about to get invaded.

Well, there is the AI to consider as well...

President_Elect_Shang said:
The scale on map can be manipulated by changing the picture called on or in the vehicle size file.

Interesting - but will that affect a unit's ability to navigate around buildings and other obstacles? That should be the main disadvantage for really large units.

President_Elect_Shang said:
Your small units will get chewed up pretty quick...Still think you can tie my unit down?

I was thinking about a more extreme case - say you have player A with 1,000 units total split into 10 stacks of 100 each. Player B has 1,000 units arranged as one 800-unit stack and 200 1-unit stacks. Simply by swarming A with the single units, B can ensure that his 800-unit stack gets to tackle each of A's stacks in turn. Attrition will be high for the single units, but much of A's firepower will be wasted on overkill.

Having large stacks supplied with lots of small weapons will mitigate this but the weapon graphics overheads would presumably then be a problem.

Having the stack sizes set automatically would prevent this but for a mod, one workaround could be to give large stacks a "virtual weapon" usable only against much smaller ones which destroys them automatically (in effect giving them the ability to "overrun" smaller units).

[President_Elect_Shang]

Those topics have all been touched on in one post or another already. For more details you will have to weed through but here is shrink wrapped version:

We already agreed the AI would have fits and need heavy scripting. Essentially it will need its hand held and the "most effective" unit scripted which in turn would be controlled by the current state the AI is in.

We didn't talk about navigating, really I am addressing that point now. There are many ways to work around this. If it is a problem the buildings can be spread out on the ground. It can be made to prevent armies of certain sizes from moving through cities or allow all armies plenty of room.

I do see what you are saying with the swarm tactic. Once again the problem is that you will not be able to make 200 1 unit stacks. The smallest "unit" has not been set; however, I think the idea of a platoon has been forwarded. Anyway lets say you can build 200 1-unit stacks for the sake of discussion. The 200 1 unit stacks would all be knocked out in one or two rounds. It would not give the 800 unit stack a major advantage. The problem with your example is that the total offensive and defensive power of the 800 unit stack will give it dominance over all other units. Swarming with 200 small stacks may be possible; I will give you that. However, swarm tactics are old school. I can already do swarm tactics with the current space combat. Does it work there? I haven't tried it in SE5 yet. I am trying it with one empire in the SFTC beta and not having any luck. The program is splitting the larger units fire power and smoking the swarm ships. Maybe what you are saying is that I need to build a new swarm ship!

[Shadowstar]

There is also the fact that you can't animate the units, so your troops would essentially appear to be skiing around the planet. Course, alot of people don't care about that...

Then what about atmosphere types? Can you make oxygen-breathing troops have penalties on non-oxygen planets, for instance, they have to use enviro-suits which reduce thier speed and hitpoints (breach the suit and you're dead), and so on?