Detailed Ground Combat

[leo1434]

I was thinking to add some modifications to make ground combat a little more detailed and as well to add some eye candy...

Bearing in mind that combat vehicles value are measured in firepower, mobilty and protection... and that firepower and protection are already represented, I was thinking about simulating mobility for ground units (troops).

The idea is to add an engine component which can be made more compact by researching the adecuate tecnologies. The idea is that more advanced engines take less space which can in turn be used to improve armor or armament. Besides some degree of mobility (taken as protection here) can be simulated by giving engine comps some "Combat Defense to hit plus" ability.

One important aspect supporting the whole idea: is the "Requirement uses engines" effective when used in Troop type Hulls? By the way will the "Requirement Min Crew Quarters" or "Req Min Life Support" work in the same way as in a Base or Ship hull? Anyone tried some a similar idea before?

[Captain Kwok]

It works for fighters so I suspect it might work for troops too...

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Lifesupport and Crew Quarters requirements work for weapon platforms, that much I tested, so I guess they work for troops too.

[Suicide Junkie]

Dont use the To-hit modifiers!
One component will share its ability to all of the troops on the planet.

Instead, I suggest simply merging your engine with your cockpit.
That way, it is still required, and you can pay for your extra space with a simple cost increase.


Alternatively, you could go with a GritEcon style troop system...
It has extra troop sizes, but the main thing is that the hull build cost is proportional to size cubed. The light infantry are very weak, but you can build them 200 per turn.
The heavy tanks cost tons to build, but can carry thicker armor and bigger, more efficient guns.

The result of that, is you need to have some heavy tanks to dish out damage, and you need infantry to act as cheap-to-replace "ablative meat" armor

[TurinTurambar]

You said "ablative".... you win.

TT

[PvK]

Might want to look at Proportions mod for a starting point, too. Version 2.x and version 3.x have slightly different values for the troops.

I do use the attack and defense modifiers, figuring that "combined arms" principles can explain why an entire army is more difficult to damage if it has a mix of things with different bonuses. E.g., tanks are less easy to bazooka when they are screened by infantry, and vice versa.

PvK

[leo1434]

Yes, Proportions v3.05, GritEcon v1.06 and Carrier battles v1.4 are the mods where I started looking the VehicleSize.txt files from...

Too bad defense / offense modificators apply to all units in a planet. I think SE4 surface combat system is a bit over-simplified (for my taste). I always wented to drop my troops on a planet and then start a land/air (and sea?) battle... "Panzer General" style. Luckily SE5 seem to be much better in this aspect of the game. At least this is was I was able to see in some screenshots of surface combat.

As I told before, this "troop engines" idea is to add some variety to land combat. About the idea of merging engines and cockpits... may be it is effective, but to merge equals to "simplify" and what I want is to give some more flavor to game, even if most of it is "eye candy". Some "mobility as protection" can be modded, if not by defense / offense abilities by giving proportionally more structure point to more advenced engine components.

By the way, I like the PvK idea of combined arms, this is the idea: you can have high attack units with a defense modifier penalty (i.e. Artillery) and to compensate for this defensive weakness you have to mix them up with, say, some Tank units which have less attack value but higher defensive modifier to compensate.

I would like to try the "engines" or even "crew quarters" (if those requirements do work for troop units) for land units to see if the idea is "workable". Besides it adds one new dimension to land units evolution as you have to research on power plants, as well as armament, armor and hull sizes.

By the way, anyone knows about any other mod where to look for new ideas from? I know there is an Invasion! Mod somewhere, this as the name suggests must have some depth added to land combat, any other mod which is known yo have a more detailed surface combat?

[Suicide Junkie]

Using the attack/defense modifiers is still not good...

Only *one* unit is needed to get the full bonus, and you can't get penalties, since only the best value is used.


"Mobility" seems like such a tacked-on thing, with no actual mechanic behind it...

The cost method is simple, effective and straightforward, on the other hand.
If the goal is to increase variety, this is the way to do it.

For example:
In Gritecon, your artillery have 50 hitpoints and 300 attack. And they cost thousands to build.
In order to win a ground war, you must add infantry to that (or at most, light tanks). Light infantry give you 50 hitpoints, one attack and cost only 20-30 resources to build.

The infantry can't kill anything on thier own, and the artillery can't survive on their own.

Basically, the bigger the troop;
- more firepower per kt
- far far more expensive per kt
- about equal hitpoints per kt, maybe less.

Thusly, the player wants big troops, but can't afford the time and resources to make their army *all* big troops. In practice, you get ten or twenty apocalypse tanks, maybe two hundred light tanks, and ten thousand infantry.

The infantry die really fast, but get built fast and often... 100 per turn even on small colonies.
The apocalypse tanks are built one per turn on industrialized worlds, but win battles, and survive thanks to the infantry absorbing the hits.
And then there are the intermediate sized tanks to round things off.

Do you really need more variety than that?

[Tampa_Gamer]

leo1434 said:
I always wented to drop my troops on a planet and then start a land/air (and sea?) battle... "Panzer General"

Same here - I still have Star General on my hard drive for that very reason. Moo3 was awful, but I did like their ground combat unit system and the modular approach to forming units. I have taken that similar approach to a mod I have been working on during the beta. My mod approaches ground combat from the opposite end of what SJ describes. In my mod, the ground units are expensive (on the scale of ships). When you form/build a ground unit (division/corps/army), you are basically building a TOE for that unit made up of brigades which will provide various attributes formerly provided by components. So instead of having possibly hundreds of units to control in ground combat (near impossible), you may have 5-10 units which may be army-heavy divisions or perhaps cheaper and all-infantry, etc. I think this also makes it easier from a micro-management standpoint as you can simply order 4-5 divisions/corps/army to a planet. At the end of combat, you may have several formation down to 10-20% and you must wait for them to repair/replenish before continuing your campaign. I cannot say too much more right now as some of the things I do in the mod depend upon whether features will be kept/stricken/added before se5 is finalized. Bottom-line, now that ground combat is tactically represented (again, assuming that stays in) you can bet there will be many different mods building on this feature.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Oh, one more thing; the Lifesupport/Crew Quarters requirements do work on troops. Tested that too, but forgot it when I posted earlier. It works.