Posted by: Droll
« on: August 08, 2020, 09:07:39 AM »I mean planets are big places so right now there is no option to 'land on the other side of the planet' and go on defense for a month or two while I build combat power. If the defenders want to break entrenchment and push me off planet before I build enough force to overwelm them, than go for it.
Obviously the easiest thing is to never allow defensive lines to hit each other at all. In addition there also should be a maximum capacity in how many attacking size can attack any combined (attacking and defending) size as well. This could then be modified be general traits and stuff... but it would make things more dynamic and realistic. In addition the larger two armies get the less of the forces would engage all the time... so to show that a combat against a small garrison at an military outpost might take a few days given the right attacking force but invading an enemy home system could take years to resolve. One way to solve it would be to make combat rounds shorter if the forces are smaller and longer if the forces are greater to simulate that large conflicts are way more drawn out and can't be as intense in general. really small conflicts might have a combat round every two hours while epic wars have a combat round every 5-10 days. Having 8 hour combat reports for two years might be a bummer.... there even could be a sepparate combat event log so as not to clutter up the regular event log... I actually think they game could do well with a separate combat event log in general.
Looking at what has been done with Stellaris and with Terraforming in Aurora you could tie the front size considering:
Dimension of Planet
Water extension
Terrain
All the above in a formula should result in a max amount of tons involved in a battle to match Aurora ground units mechanic.
Now I think a 50/50 split would be fair and that is personal but assuming Steve would really retouch the orbital mechanics I think a 50/50 could lead to some interesting combats where bombardment or STO will be essential to win.
Of course only in case both armies fill the max ton allowed.
So maybe on Earth you could have a front of 500,000 tons while on Luna only 150,000 tons. Anyway the formula and the best way would be up to Steve of course.
All formations set as attack on front will contribute to the max tons allowed when the others are back either bombardment, echelon or support.
I just guess the above might be very hard to code.
This would also provide a way to make frontline defence a sensible formation position to use when attacking. You could have it so that defensive formations do not or only contribute a % combat width to the max active combat tonnage in the front. Effectively creating a realistic defensive and offensive line for the attacker through gameplay mechanics.