Combat Rework: Armor and Attack Tiers

[Traslogan]

This is a proposal mentioned a few times on the Battlegoat discord, always meant to put it on the forums so here it goes:

A big issue in current SR games is many bad vehicles can best substantially stronger vehicles. A bunch of T-54s are still going to trump a unit or two of Challenger 2 or 3, cheap spam of okay-ish units trumps limited quantities of high-end units. Even in a 2030 scenario I think it's realistic the issue will still apply, so the proposed remedy is tiers of armor and damage.

To signify where the unit is technologically, their armor and attack values (At least for Ground Defense and dealing Hard Attack) could have a tier system on top of their actual values. If a unit attacks another and the defending unit has higher tier armor, the calculated damage dealt will be much lower depending on how many tiers of difference. Hypothetically, you could say a Challenger 2 has, for instance, Tier 8 Armor (an arbitrary specific for this example), and when a T-54 attacks, perhaps it does Tier-5 Hard Attack. Let's say that T-54 does 30 damage usually, well because of a tier imbalance it perhaps does only 10 now. When the Challenger 2 fires back, let's say it fires Tier 7 Hard Attack into Tier 5 armor, and it gets a massive boost to how much damage it does since it'll be gutting older-generation armor. The better unit doesn't become impervious to enemy attack, but rightfully earns its much higher costs to build and maintain as a newer-generation fighting vehicle. The system could also be extended to infantry anti-tank as well.

The existing values system would still remain, a vehicle can have a high or low amount of modern armor after all, but the tiers help indicate generational leaps and advantages that are otherwise absent in SR games. Going forward I think this could be a great system especially if we ever see the older eras make a return and we suddenly have to address countries using tech from decades apart. How many tiers specifically would be down to the needs of the system to support it.

[George Geczy]

Thanks for the post, there has certainly been discussion on these ideas and we've managed to develop new equipment list additions to address these issues.

For SR2030's implementation we've taken a really close look at all the options - flags, tiers, and all that. The balance is between the engine, the User Interface, and players being able to understand what the relationships are.

In the end I think that integrating with our tech system and tech effects is the best combination of flexibility and features. This is pretty much the same as the idea of "flags" or "tiers" except that we (and modders) can just add new techs whenever we need them, and adjust their effects.

So the proposed changes are broken down into two sections - changing the baseline attack/defense numbers to reduce the total numeric spread, and addition of the tech attack/defense modifiers system. These two changes are independent of each other.

Part I - Attack / Defense Values

• Make combat values an exponential curve to reduce the "range" overall
  Bulk Reduce Equipment file (square root)
  Change to Floating point to allow more granularity (shown to player as rounded integer)

Part II - Attack/Defense Modifiers

• Use a "Unit Requirements" system (previously, "flags")
  Require a Technology
  Can be mandatory or optional
  Can include a tech effect buff (ie when optional), or represent baked-in value
  Requires all Attack Target types / Defense types to be part of Tech effects in new section (not global buffs)
  The effect buffs require a 'reserve refit' (return to base to gain benefit of the tech buff)

• New Data Items in Equipment List (in addition to prerequisite techs):
  Attack Modifier Required Tech
  Attack Modifier Optional Techs (total 3 optional)
  Defense Modifier Required Tech
  Defense Modifier Optional Techs (total 3 optional)

• New Tech Effects - only affect units that reference this tech
  Attack Target Type modifiers (10)
  Attack Range modifiers (4)
  Defense Type modifiers (4)
  All Effect modifiers are cumulative when multiple tech buffs are active

Example
An M1A1 Abrams Tank Entry could hypothetically have (examples here only for description purposes):

- Unit Preqeq of M1 tank
- Tech Prereq (existing data item) of Armor Designs Level VIII
- Attack Modifier Required Tech 120mm Smoothbore Cannon - (Note 1)
- Attack Modifier Option Tech Tandem Rounds (Note 2)
- Defense Modifier Required Tech Depleted Uranium Armor - (Note 1)


Notes:
1 - Like a tech prereq, a required tech must be researched/traded before unit can be build. Since a required tech is 'required', the bonus to attack/defense values can be right in the base numbers of the unit, and do not have to be tech effect modifiers unless there is a useful reason for this (maybe for display information?)
2 - Optional Techs are not required for the unit to be built; once the optional tech is researched/traded for, the modifier bonus of the tech will be applied to the unit specs. Unlike general-purpose techs that affect *all* units, techs used like this will only affect units that specify that they can use this tech.



Display to user improvements - we need to add more features to the UI (Unit popup etc) that will tell the player what the "effective" attack and defense values will be, after all buffs and modifiers are incorporated. We have some design ideas on this already.


While this doesn't have a natural "tiers" system, it does allow us to duplicate this in the equipment list design. Among other things, the use of exponential values for attack and defense values means that moving up 1 value (attack 6 to attack 7) is actually an attack value of 36 to 49 - so units moving up one or two on the attack scale will more realistically represent a generational "tier up" progression. Tying these in to the new Attack and Defense Tech links will allow that "unit X requires a generational tech" feel, or "unit X can be buffed by this other research" option.

-- George.

[Zuikaku]

Can you clarify a part about attack and defense modifiers. are these two only allowed? What i want to say, if we got AESA radar tech, it can be also used to modify spotting and initiative (along with attack and defense values). Techs like multispectral camouflage improves stealth of the unit and cloaking camouflage improves attack and defense values along with stealth levels.

P.S. Is 3 optional tech engine limit or can it be increased? I propose more.

P.S.S. Is 6 engine limit for initiative or can it b more? 6 is somewhat limiting considering 1914-2XXX unit range.

[George Geczy]

An update to this thread for people searching for this information - the above system was made an official part of the game engine and has been implemented for SR2030 and GR.

It is covered with a game wiki article here:

https://supremeruler.fandom.com/wiki/UnitUpTech

To answer Zuikaku's questions in this thread:
- Each tech itself can only have two effects, as before, although a unit can have/support up to the 10 tech preqreqs (2 general prereqs, 2 required tech buff prereqs, and 6 optional techs)
- The limit on the number of tech prereqs (required and optional) is fixed.