Unit control and Cohesiveness

red · Post by **red** » Dec 11 2007

Legend,

TOAW.

dust off · Post by **dust off** » Dec 12 2007

Lightbringer: I believe an operational AI would go some way to what you are saying. An improved operational AI would perhaps kill two birds of micro management and AI gameplay.

Feltan: I'm with you all the way with your last post.

Legend · Post by **Legend** » Dec 13 2007

red wrote:Legend,

TOAW.

Hmmm... can you be a little specific?

Feltan · Post by **Feltan** » Dec 14 2007

Legend,

I was a bit more specific in my previous post. Your silence in response is deafening.

Regards,
Feltan

red · Post by **red** » Dec 14 2007

Legend, I like how it can combine units. That's the main thing. Single, composite units.

Legend · Post by **Legend** » Dec 14 2007

Feltan wrote:
1. The ability for the player and the AI to group land battalions, sea units, and air units. Other than Libya and Indonesia, no modern army conducts operations as an oort cloud of independent battalions in a swarm (and for those two countries, this is not a good thing). Furthermore, playability is severely compromised when you have so many individual units to track. Similarly, like ground brigade sized units, naval task forces and air groups are the unit of measure in modern operations. While we all agree that 100% realism is not a goal for the game -- this shortfall is such a glaring gap that SR2020 playability and realism were negatively impacted.

2. Headquarters/Logistics. The game needs some representation of what makes military operations difficult -- planning and supplies. A headquarters unit (or something like it) that acts as a supply container, and can be grouped with combat units is needed. Some of us used trucks in SR2010 to try and show this, but the results were far from satisfactory. Again, I can clearly see the oort cloud of South American battalions swarming against any incursion by U.S. land forces -- no seeming organization or logistics considerations constrained this action by the AI. For that matter, no such constraints bounded the human player's actions either. Logistics separates the men from the boys in real life -- and SR2020 needs a more serious attempt at modelling this concept.

Regards,
Feltan

1) We are working on a system to work with units in a way that may include a form of grouping to make things easier to use. This probably won't allow naming groups and will probably not replace map icons as units will remain in their actual locations. We are still designing some elements of the entire system which is why we are vague. To reiterate... we are introducing something new to the game that will allow players to manage their forces. This may not be exactly as the world does it but will help with gameplay.

2) It's safe to say that we are not drastically changing the way our supply model works. If you were to have a "supply source unit" then you could encircle a group of units and they wouldn't run out of ammo or fuel. What I can suggest is that we may make supply trucks work a bit better... perhaps an AI rule may be implemented to attach a supply truck to a unit or group and when empty leave to get more supplies and then return. This runs the risk of supply trucks moving around on their own possibly getting attacked but we'll have to try to write the AI to help with that.

As for the logistics, we have also been working on something to help with that, although it may not be exactly what everyone wants we think it will be useful.

Feel free to further reply, however we are devoting more time to design, so it may be some time for some replies to certain questions you may have.

Feltan · Post by **Feltan** » Dec 14 2007

Legend,

Thank you.

It seems the goats have made some decisions already, and are busy designing. So, I guess we' have to wait and see what you come up with. I won't offer more suggestions as this topic has quite enough of them already.

Best of luck. This is one area I suspect will get a lot of scrutiny and comment once the plebes and non-goats get a chance to tinker with it.

Regards,
Feltan

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Dec 14 2007

/em tkobo gets up from his chair sighing and looking dissapointed.

/em tkobo says :"You people are poor excuses for rabble.If you keep this up i might lose my certification as a rabble rouser !"

/em tkobo says : "i see ill have to give a little instruction/ example here"

/em tkobo says :"This is how the I are an doctrine bound engineer should post"
/em tkobo says :"Now the "I" below will represent the doctrine bound 'i are an engineer'"
----
D.B.E.- I think the game needs hq units, that act as supply and efficieny bonus givers.Players should be able to tie a certain amount of units to such a hq unit, and it should act as their command and support center.
Loss of this unit should remove the bonuses.

I think that units should be able to be added to a composite unit, much the way your new buildings work.AND that all units in that composite unit should move as one, same speed and course.

I think that all composite units should be able to set up as the player wants (as long as it mirrors some old foggies idea of the current mainstream unimaginative accepted doctrines) so that a build order can build a composite unit, as well as the parts of it.

etc....
--------
"Now some of that is over the top,which even an i are an engineer can probably see.So the haggling should begin,with the engineer willing to give some and the devs willing to give some"

-------------

/em tkobo says :"Now the devs should respond with a counter offer"

/em tkobo says :"We will now represent the devs speaking"
---------

"We are against the hq units thing giving bonuses,but we will offer a capture the leader victory condition and possibly expand that to include multiple leaders"

"We think we can do some of the composite unit thing, units moving as one in particular, but the composite unit bit about "conforming to current doctrines in respect to their parts is out"

-----
/em tkobo says :Now the "doctrine bound i are an engineer" should make a counter counter offer......
Etc...
/em tkobo says :Now get to it you rabble, i want to see you all hammer out a good system !AND entertain us while you do it !
Soooooo get to iiiiitttt !

Legend · Post by **Legend** » Dec 14 2007

/em Legend thinks that tkobo will get tired standing... as he hasn't sat himself back down, and hungry because he didn't mention popcorn in his last post.

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Dec 14 2007

/em tkobo finds his popcorn , adds some more salt to it, and sits back down

ainsworth74 · Post by **ainsworth74** » Dec 14 2007

/em ains stands up yells "hear hear" for no apparent reason other than to rouse the rabble, sits and consumes more popcorn.

Legend · Post by **Legend** » Dec 14 2007

/em Legend is getting hungry from all this popcorn talk.

ainsworth74 · Post by **ainsworth74** » Dec 14 2007

/em ains thinks that legend should stop worrying about popcorn and start worrying about getting this game made, with every whizbang and gadget that the rabble can think of...

Draken · Post by **Draken** » Dec 14 2007

Legend wrote:
red wrote:Legend,

TOAW.
Hmmm... can you be a little specific?

The Operational Art of War

/em Draken asks: "Anybody has and extra chair? And, while at it pass the popcorns...

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Dec 15 2007

/em tkobo passes Draken a folding chair and some popcorn (he has secretly put ALOT of hot sauce on the popcorn )