Commandos/Elites and things for them to fight

[Theodidactus (OP)]

Just spitballing here: wouldn't it be cool if in addition to ground units, players could create teams of commandos or elite fighting forces or something similar?

Frankly, I do not understand Aurora's ground combat system well enough to come up with hard and fast rules for this, but maybe someone else can.

The basic Idea I'm proposing is that "teams" of 5 officers can be created, in a manner similar to xenology/espionage/diplomacy/geology teams. The teams would have a variable (maybe just their summed ground combat bonus or whatever) which would determine their effectiveness at...I dunno, killing things really well.

Things for these teams to do:
- affect full scale ground combat in some way
- board ships
- protect geology/xenology teams from hostile alien lifeforms (incidentally it'd be cool if there was a mechanic for that as well. Hostile xenofauna. Currently aurora worlds are lifeless rocks or alien capitols, but maybe that's how the the fermi paradox shakes out here)

[Erik L]

Marine Companies already are used to board ships.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

Marine Companies already are used to board ships.

I know, I know, but that's so...impersonal. 

[swarm_sadist]

I know, I know, but that's so...impersonal. 

Maybe more specialized espionage teams? Maybe a Special Forces Unit, Special Operations Unit, or Special Reconnaissance?

Or perhaps something more to do with their purpose, like a Black Ops Unit, Sabotage Unit, Infiltrator Unit or a Psychological Ops Unit?

[Theodidactus (OP)]

a lot of those would require more robust political/NPR interaction rules.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd LOOOOVE an Aurora where you can decipher naval intelligence codes, pinpoint a hardline admiral in the alien high command who is furthering their war effort, and send a team of commandoes into his luxury star palace to kill/capture him Nifty Package style...since a lot of my Aurora playing is imagining things like this....but for a lot of those suggestions to work, you'd need ways to:
- identify individual acting NPR officers, who currently exist in a totally different reality from the player until captured
- Identify and/or change NPR government types, like my "politcal system": http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,7348.0.html (though that explicitly disregarded NPRs)


But yes, a "sabotage team" is definitely a fun idea and I can see it work very easily in aurora's current system. They blow up ships "anchored" around a particular world. Might be "broken" unless an NPC can easily protect it, which would again necessitate more robust NPR relations...

[swarm_sadist]

a lot of those would require more robust political/NPR interaction rules.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd LOOOOVE an Aurora where you can decipher naval intelligence codes, pinpoint a hardline admiral in the alien high command who is furthering their war effort, and send a team of commandoes into his luxury star palace to kill/capture him Nifty Package style...since a lot of my Aurora playing is imagining things like this....but for a lot of those suggestions to work, you'd need ways to:
- identify individual acting NPR officers, who currently exist in a totally different reality from the player until captured
- Identify and/or change NPR government types, like my "politcal system": http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,7348.0.html (though that explicitly disregarded NPRs)


But yes, a "sabotage team" is definitely a fun idea and I can see it work very easily in aurora's current system. They blow up ships "anchored" around a particular world. Might be "broken" unless an NPC can easily protect it, which would again necessitate more robust NPR relations...

I was thinking more like an espionage team, except assigning them to attack a certain faction would almost certainly result in damaged engines and blown up magazines, instead of stolen research notes. Randomly attacking enemy assets is more viable right now than targeted ops.

[ardem]

Espionage teams are useless against enemy planets, cause they get blown out of the sky because you cannot sneak  them in. So they are never used, one of the more useless Aurora teams there is.

You can only use them against friendly AI.

If there was a way to sneak the team onto a enemy planet they might become more useful.

[alex_brunius]

Espionage teams are useless against enemy planets, cause they get blown out of the sky because you cannot sneak  them in. So they are never used, one of the more useless Aurora teams there is.

You can only use them against friendly AI.

If there was a way to sneak the team onto a enemy planet they might become more useful.

My feeling is that transponders or captured civilian ships would be good ways to enable this kind of gameplay. Would need some balancing though so its not too easy to sneak in several divions the same way...

[MarcAFK]

Espionage teams are useless against enemy planets, cause they get blown out of the sky because you cannot sneak  them in. So they are never used, one of the more useless Aurora teams there is.

You can only use them against friendly AI.

If there was a way to sneak the team onto a enemy planet they might become more useful.

Can't you just create a colony at the planet and shove the team there?

[ardem]

I suppose, I never think of pushing teams out that way, its like geo teams, I board them on craft and send them there otherwise it seems like cheating but I guess considering without further option I guess that is a way.

On a side note does the enemy colony attack your colony and wipe it out, especially with no ground forces.

[alex_brunius]

I suppose, I never think of pushing teams out that way, its like geo teams, I board them on craft and send them there otherwise it seems like cheating but I guess considering without further option I guess that is a way.

If you want it to feel less like cheating an option to RP it yourself would be to SM deduct a sum of credits from the budget ( for deployment cost ), and roll a dice to see if the insertion is successful.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

variously, I've pretended they were "actually" listening to emissions from the planet on a nearby asteroid, smuggled in on alien civilian liners, dropped via massdrivers to some remote spot on a distant part of the planet, or "visiting" as part of some diplomatic summit.