Land combat could work in Rebellion

from Stardock Forums

 

Invasion: The new player ability allows players to take eachother's planets hostage without bombardment. The player who's planet has been invaded can bomb his own planet but at a large penalty to culture on the same planet and a small but permanent allegiance loss on each planet. When a player invades a planet he gets to keep whatever planetary upgrades that were researched, and now controls the gravity well.

 

Ground Control (GC): This serves as the buffer between invasion forces, and ultimately determines who wins a land battle. This new ship resource serves to represent a ships capability of fighting invasion forces. GC can repel hostile culture up to twice the regional net of friendly culture against a minimum allegiance.

Planets will still be considerably weakened by enemy culture, but GC makes sure that the planet still retains a minimum allegiance. As previously stated all allegiance below the minimum is up to twice as hard to change as everything above it.

GC is a constant ability that is only in use on the planet whos gravity well the ship in question inhabits.

Every structure in the game has this as well, but only hangars and starbases have a decent amount capable of defending a planet. GC doesnt actually give any benefit to the player using it unless an invasion force is sent down to the planet from the following ship types.

 

Warship: capital ship that has a large amount of temporary GC points and whos invasion ability allows a large but temporary GC bonus.

 

War Corvette: lands on the planet to supply a permanent GC bonus up to a maximum of (X). The ability that allows it to do this also is capable of starting an invasion.

 

Planetary upgrades and research: Planetary upgrades can be researched to give planets a small GC bonus, but any serious defense against GC should be invested in war corvettes and other things. Planetary research can be attained in which ground forces gain an air to space weapon whose power is dependant on the amount of GC.

 

No matter how immaculate the defenses, a planet always falls to the sheer numbers of fleets. This is no less true with GC points as they apply to fleets. A very large fleet's GC will always be superior to the planets without a friendly fleets help.

 

Simulated GC animations: A kodiak for example can provide GC realistically because it has a small number of surplus armed personnel onboard, and can also provide planetary laser guided bombardment as air support for friendly forces below where previously its weapons were insufficient without the support of ground forces.

A transporter cruiser also has surplus personnel aboard and can also provide strike craft support. These simulated effects dont infringe the ships dps (damage per second) against enemy fleets at all, but they are simulated for the sake of realism. For example; miniature transporters go to and from the planets from the ships, small vehicles appear on the planets surface, strike craft circle it, and small explosions (smaller than normal planetary bombardment) sometimes appear.

The normal traffic stops due to the planets conflict.

 

When a planet actually gets invaded, unless there is opposing GC it is instantly subjugated. If there is opposing GC, the allegiance will shift slowly in one direction according to whos GC is greatest. Ten way invasions are possible, as are joint invasions.

 

The system, while it could do without, would greatly benefit from realtime land battles:

There would be another window which you could expand according to your preference. The window represents a battle on the planets capital.

If computer performance is an issue, land forces could be very simple 3 dimensional polygons made to represent land forces as if you were commanding them through a computer terminal, still maintaining a sense of realism yet alleviating computer performance issues.

According to the amount of GC, certain units could be created similar to ships in which each is useful in their own way.

The battlefield would be decently sized for a 10-20 minute game against the other players ground forces. I can see ten way battles being a problem however... maybe they would still be possible.

Many units are similar to the ones in space. A land equilvalent to a light frigate would be a simple rifleman, a LRM a sniper, a protev a drone that sets up outposts on designated capture points, kodiak a shock trooper in powered armor, capital ship a tank, flak frigate a ATA trooper, a transporter doubling as an APC and drone carrier, and the support cruiser medics and engineers, etc. And no, Im not saying that those units would only be available if you had the corresponding ship type in the gravity well, Im merely making an analogy.

10,805 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I won't argue one way or another about the use of orbital defenses or GC as long as it presents a fair benefit for the additional amount of time taken to invade. Orbital defenses are tried and true in mods, so it can work. GC is a 'marine frigate' concept for planets and is mechanically doable from the dev's angle.

I will say that the use of real-time ground combat doesn't strike me as a good idea, largely for two reasons.

First, most games do a poor job of pulling this off and I believe that here too it would either feel derivitive or be swept aside in favor of finishing the battle quickly from orbit. Most games that have 'mini-games' in them, feel burdening or less polished. Not saying that it can't be done, but I don't feel any promise in this case (no offense SD or IC).

Second, You would have to pull a greater amount of focus from what is going on in orbit and in other gravity wells in order to micro manage yet another field of play, which would increase the possibility of failure elsewhere. The MP community, which relies of the fastest of settings, would be severly put off by this and either agree to abandon it or make their own outcry to have it subsequently removed.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Yes a feature like this would just overcomplicate the game entirely if we are talking real time ground combat

I would like added ground defense upgrades but I believe IC said they will never attempt the actual ground combat stage.

You will probably kill off the already small MP community as it is with this feature. We don't have the ability nor the time to manage this much. I doubt even someone like Auqia, DT, Bia, or w/e could pull it off.

 

This is also counter productive againsts Sin's philosophy.

The shining factor in Sins is that unlike other 4x RTS games is that it isn't overcomplicated as hell and manages to bring all the current features in a nice simple interface. There arn't a whole lot of 4x games that are really all that much alive due to being you are overwelmed to the point where it stops being fun and becomes a chore.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Draakjacht, reply 1

I will say that the use of real-time ground combat doesn't strike me as a good idea, largely for two reasons.

First, most games do a poor job of pulling this off and I believe that here too it would either feel derivitive or be swept aside in favor of finishing the battle quickly from orbit.
End of Draakjacht's quote

There would be huge allegiance penalties for doing so.

Second, You would have to pull a greater amount of focus from what is going on in orbit and in other gravity wells in order to micro manage yet another field of play, which would increase the possibility of failure elsewhere.
End of quote

Exactly. It forces more strategy into the game.

The MP community, which relies of the fastest of settings, would be severly put off by this and either agree to abandon it or make their own outcry to have it subsequently removed.
End of quote

Multiplayer games would still end as quickly as they always have. Invasion is just an alternative to bombardment, pretty much just a parallel. If invasion speed is an issue, players can speed it up upon games setup.

this would just overcomplicate the game entirely
End of quote

I disagree. You could just as easily use this argument against diplomacy.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting JCD-Bionicman, reply 3
I disagree. You could just as easily use this argument against diplomacy.
End of JCD-Bionicman's quote

No one in MP uses Diplo except for the balance updates to units.

Quoting JCD-Bionicman, reply 3
Multiplayer games would still end as quickly as they always have. Invasion is just an alternative to bombardment. If invasion speed is an issue, players can speed it up upon games setup.
End of JCD-Bionicman's quote

It's not so much a question of whether or not the invasion would be swift enough, but rather that the invasion of a planet would take micro-management and, at the fastest settings, other battles and actions would make this a compounding problem for MPers to manage.

Quoting JCD-Bionicman, reply 3
Exactly. It forces more strategy into the game.
End of JCD-Bionicman's quote

True, but some might argue that more is less depending on the ease of the interface. The idea and the execution are two very different beasts.

Quoting JCD-Bionicman, reply 3
There would be huge allegiance penalties for doing so.
End of JCD-Bionicman's quote

I predict some might enjoy the overall idea, but there will be those that accept the penalties for what they are and others that produce threads asking for the elimination of this component to the game. Although the silent majority are always a mystery, I think about 2/3 of the posters that speak up would not care for it.

The PD and GC ideas are not bad. The PD has been done and you just want it to be made official. Understood. The GC idea has promise if carefully designed and balanced, keeping in mind that it shouldn't interfere with cultural dynamics, which I expect that Rebellion might very well introduce since it sounds like they intend to make up for the Advent's weakness by culturally buffing them in a unique and, finally, useful manner.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Draakjacht, reply 5

Quoting JCD-Bionicman, reply 3I disagree. You could just as easily use this argument against diplomacy.

No one in MP uses Diplo except for the balance updates to units.
End of Draakjacht's quote

Rebellion then.


It's not so much a question of whether or not the invasion would be swift enough, but rather that the invasion of a planet would take micro-management and, at the fastest settings, other battles and actions would make this a compounding problem for MPers to manage.
End of quote

But... thats what every expansion does to sins; it adds more strategic depth.


PD is already there
End of quote

Well, I guess the GC bonus and "anti space" weapon could both be the same planetary upgrade so as to avoid redundancy (see below).

who="Draakjacht" reply="5" id="3079524"]


I predict some might enjoy the overall idea, but there will be those that accept the penalties for what they are and others that produce threads asking for the elimination of this component to the game. Although the silent majority are always a mystery, I think about 2/3 of the posters that speak up would not care for it.
End of quote

Planetary research can be attained in which ground forces gain an air to space weapon whose power is dependant on the amount of GC.
End of quote

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting JCD-Bionicman, reply 6
PD

Hmm?
End of JCD-Bionicman's quote

Planetary Defense

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Maybe players could negate part or all of the allegiance penalty by some sort of... ability like with vasari it would be "ruthlessness" and with advent it would be "sacrifice" and TEC "Justification". This would cost a set amount of credits based on how large your empire is, and would soften or eliminate the allegiance penalty for bombing your own planet.

Hey, and Draakjacht, I see what you mean about overcomplication. Managing all those war corvettes would probably be a nightmare. Its a similar problem to managing starbase constructors (albeit more of a problem). The solution to that problem is in that other thread I created about empire management.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Land combat could work in Rebellion
End of quote

Not going to happen. They've said repeatedly they wanted the focus in Soase to stay in space, not ground. This is why you don't manage buildings on your planets themselves. Instead you need to build them in space where the gameplay resides. Thankfully this feature won't be in Rebellion.

That said, I would be for a separate game based on Tech, Advent and Vasari that captured the RTS 4x scale of Soase but was limited to land based battles only (i.e. NOT Rebellion).

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

I've an idea how it could be simulated, but I'm gonna be selfish on this one and run it by peeps with 7DS. 

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 9

This is why you don't manage buildings on your planets themselves.
End of ZombiesRus5's quote

Never said you would.

 

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Distant stars is a great mod, developers should improve planetary takeover to allow modders to make some really cool "fight in space, and on planets" mods.  I am waiting for a space game to actually realize that planets can be fought over with boots on the ground, just like all of human history has shown us.  Too bad CCP failed and had their rights to Dust bought by playstation to become a playstation 3 only game.  I was so hoping to check that game out, but now I never will, because i'm anti-console.