Minor Ground Unit Suggestions

[xenoscepter (OP)]

I've been on a Command and Conquer kick lately, so these suggestions come from a few too many hours playing C&C: Red Alert. I was considering how to most accurately represent the Ranger and the Medium Tank, both Allied Units. The former is essentially a Jeep with an MG and the latter is a glorified, up-gunned and up-armored Light Tank. Both the Light Tank and the Medium Tank only have the one gun, best represented as the MAV, but the up-armoring is something I can't duplicate. In Red Alert, the Medium Tank is about 30% tougher overall, which incidentally is how much of an improvement my proposal for Improved Light Vehicle Armor would be over the regular stuff. This Improved Light Vehicle Armor would protect well against LAV, Bombardment weapons up to Heavy, but would fall quickly to MAC and anything with AP values better than it.

The Ranger, that is the MG toting Jeep, well it's really hard to represent in the current model. It's a fair bit more fantasy too, if I'm going to be honest. I figure the best way would be to have a new vehicle class and so I came up with the Ultra-Light Vehicle. It would be a little tankier than Infantry in terms of Hit Points and a little better off in terms of armor, but would suffer from a near non-existent Fortification Value, making them almost useless in a defensive role. Their main draw, like the Red Alert unit that they're base on, is S P E E D. They would have a Hit Mod of 0.2, making them very difficult to kill in the offensive role. To balance out this fantastic element, they have a few problems overall. Their armor is 1.25 or 1.5 Base AR at best as they are unable to mount anything heavier. The former let's LAC kill them 3:1 while HCAP kills them 3:1. This means INF armed with HCAP can kill them by the droves, while Light Vehicles with LAC or HCAP can also come out on top... ton for ton that is. This is further restricted by forcing Ultra-Light Vehicles to mount INF modules only and limiting them to just one Slot. A niche unit, but after a good bit of tinkering I thought it'd make a good, and far more importantly FUN, addition to the game.

I could forsee Ultra-Light Vehicles representing helicopters or Sci-Fi VTOLs of similar frailty, popular RTS standbys like the Vulture from Starcraft or maybe even some flavor of Drone.

As always, feedback is welcome.

 --- Ultra-Light Vehicles w/ Ultra-Light Vehicle Armor: Ultra-Light Vehicle Armor would have 1.25 Base AR and would be available to Ultra-Light Vehicles and heavier. Ultra-Light Vehicles would have 2 Hit Points, a 0.2 Hit Mod, a 1 Max Fort and a 0 Max Self Fort. Ultra-Light Vehicles would have a Size of 8 and One Slot for modules. Ultra-Light Vehicles could only mount modules that INF could mount. Ultra-Light Vehicles can only mount Ultra-Light Vehicle Armor or Improved Ultra-Light Vehicle Armor. Ultra-Light Vehicles would be a separate technology, requiring 1,000RP to research, to better represent the very niche and/or more fantastical applications of such units.

 --- Improved Light Vehicle Armor & Improved Ultra-Light Vehicle Armor: Improved Light Vehicle Armor would provide a Base AR of 3, while Improved Ultra-Light Vehicle Armor would provide a Base AR of 1.5 which is identical to Powered Infantry Armor. Improved Light Vehicle Armor and Improved Ultra-Light Vehicle Armor would fall under a technology requiring 1,000RP to research.

[Migi]

I'd like to see some more options for ground unit types.

I think your tech costs are too low to fit with the current tech tree, the vast majority of ground research projects cost 5k RP, and most of the rest cost more not less. The only ones under 5k are Heavy CAP at 4k, the first 2 levels of Ground Unit Construction rate at 2k and 4k and the Infantry Armour techs at 2k and 4k.

[nuclearslurpee]

I don't understand why these units cannot be modeled in the current system? "Jeep with a MG" can just be LVH+CAP, and a Medium Tank can be VAH+MAV+CAP with 4 armor - while in the C&C games it may be represented as only having the main 90mm gun, in real life a medium tank always has a secondary armament, usually a MG, but it is very common for this not to be modeled in games so I don't see it as a problem to add the MG even if it is not represented in the source material.

Personally, I do not like the idea of adding more stuff to Aurora purely for the sake of adding more stuff, which is what this seems like to me. RP in Aurora is not about trying to match the exact statistics of another setting as closely as possible, the strength of Aurora has always been that you can RP nearly any setting you want but it always requires at least a little bit of hand-waving and suspension of disbelief. Frankly, if it really bothers someone that the armor difference between Medium and Light Vehicles is +100% instead of +30% there is always the option to add this to the DB quite easily, but beyond such specific cases I don't see a need for it. I am not saying that adding something to benefit RP is a bad thing, but it needs to have a clear mechanical purpose in the ground combat system besides just "having more options" - with such a complex system as it is already, more options is not always a desirable thing from a gameplay and mechanics viewpoint.

If we are going to add new ground units types, I would rather see something that is actually new and not just an existing unit type with a new coat of bulletproof paint. Something like a flight-capable base type to replace/reimagine the air-to-ground support fighter niche, for example, would be a worthwhile addition.

[cdrtwohy]

I don't understand why these units cannot be modeled in the current system? "Jeep with a MG" can just be LVH+CAP, and a Medium Tank can be VAH+MAV+CAP with 4 armor - while in the C&C games it may be represented as only having the main 90mm gun, in real life a medium tank always has a secondary armament, usually a MG, but it is very common for this not to be modeled in games so I don't see it as a problem to add the MG even if it is not represented in the source material. 

Isn't that what a LVH is i always considered them a HMMWV equivalent, As For Medium tanks there are many ways to model them like as you said an LVH + MAV+Cap is one way, I also will use MVH+MAV+CAp for my mediums. 

If we are going to add new ground units types, I would rather see something that is actually new and not just an existing unit type with a new coat of bulletproof paint.  Something like a flight-capable base type to replace/reimagine the air-to-ground support fighter niche, for example, would be a worthwhile addition.

yes please let me also model an airforce please,

[Blogaugis]

New unit types for ground forces... Hm...
Aurora pretty much models most of stuff that is at least semi-realistic and believable. Anything more than that, and we're approaching space magic and... wild sci-fi territory...

Anyway, since some asked for something new, here's an idea: cloning vats component. Useful for static... Hm...
Super Static units!  Make bunkers great again! they generate inf+PWL units out of thin air. Well, actually, maybe it does need that vendarite...
Kirov airships from Ra2... I'm wondering, if Super-heavy unit cannot be it, then what can..?

How about underground stuff? Tunnel digging things...

But on the other hand, do we really need more units?

[Bluebreaker]

If we are going to add new ground units types, I would rather see something that is actually new and not just an existing unit type with a new coat of bulletproof paint. Something like a flight-capable base type to replace/reimagine the air-to-ground support fighter niche, for example, would be a worthwhile addition.

This, and then implement some planetary fighter hangar for ships and completely remove the current (and painful and worthless) ground fighters.

[Tavik Toth]

If we are going to add new ground units types, I would rather see something that is actually new and not just an existing unit type with a new coat of bulletproof paint. Something like a flight-capable base type to replace/reimagine the air-to-ground support fighter niche, for example, would be a worthwhile addition.

This, and then implement some planetary fighter hangar for ships and completely remove the current (and painful and worthless) ground fighters.

Yeah, the reason I've never used the current ground support support fighters is just due to how many you need to be effective making them impractical and annoying to use.

[Bluebreaker]

If we are going to add new ground units types, I would rather see something that is actually new and not just an existing unit type with a new coat of bulletproof paint. Something like a flight-capable base type to replace/reimagine the air-to-ground support fighter niche, for example, would be a worthwhile addition.

This, and then implement some planetary fighter hangar for ships and completely remove the current (and painful and worthless) ground fighters.

Yeah, the reason I've never used the current ground support support fighters is just due to how many you need to be effective making them impractical and annoying to use.

And after you assign your 100 fighters ONE BY ONE, they get swathed in a couple of ground combat cycles, leaving lots of wrecks and lifepods.

[Droll]

If we are going to add new ground units types, I would rather see something that is actually new and not just an existing unit type with a new coat of bulletproof paint. Something like a flight-capable base type to replace/reimagine the air-to-ground support fighter niche, for example, would be a worthwhile addition.

This, and then implement some planetary fighter hangar for ships and completely remove the current (and painful and worthless) ground fighters.

Yeah, the reason I've never used the current ground support support fighters is just due to how many you need to be effective making them impractical and annoying to use.

And after you assign your 100 fighters ONE BY ONE, they get swathed in a couple of ground combat cycles, leaving lots of wrecks and lifepods.

Thing about ground support fighters is, they can do decent damage for their weight if you destroy the enemy AA before launching the fighters, but by that time the ground battle is probably won already.

Because of the ridiculous micro around fighters you can't really field them on masse. So you'll end up like me with 120 fighters flying against 20k+ AA tanks and 60k+ AA infantry.

Add to this the fact that ECM doesn't affect enemy AA. Further add that shock damage mechanics make fighter armor largely irrelevant by the mid game and CAS becomes impossible effectively field to any capacity.

[Jorgen_CAB]

If we are going to add new ground units types, I would rather see something that is actually new and not just an existing unit type with a new coat of bulletproof paint. Something like a flight-capable base type to replace/reimagine the air-to-ground support fighter niche, for example, would be a worthwhile addition.

This, and then implement some planetary fighter hangar for ships and completely remove the current (and painful and worthless) ground fighters.

Yeah, the reason I've never used the current ground support support fighters is just due to how many you need to be effective making them impractical and annoying to use.

And after you assign your 100 fighters ONE BY ONE, they get swathed in a couple of ground combat cycles, leaving lots of wrecks and lifepods.

Thing about ground support fighters is, they can do decent damage for their weight if you destroy the enemy AA before launching the fighters, but by that time the ground battle is probably won already.

Because of the ridiculous micro around fighters you can't really field them on masse. So you'll end up like me with 120 fighters flying against 20k+ AA tanks and 60k+ AA infantry.

Add to this the fact that ECM doesn't affect enemy AA. Further add that shock damage mechanics make fighter armor largely irrelevant by the mid game and CAS becomes impossible effectively field to any capacity.

If you land on a planet with a million or more troops then you can't expect a few thousand fighters to do anything at all, you probably need a few hundred thousands of fighters to really have an impact. You could then hunt for AA as well which is less micro and suppress it before you start focusing on ground troops... you could even do suppression before you land your troops so you can focus on support bombardment of enemy troops directly.

The biggest drawback of the fighters are the horrible micro surrounding them.. I also wish that AA suppression mechanic was better as well.

[Bluebreaker]

If you land on a planet with a million or more troops then you can't expect a few thousand fighters to do anything at all, you probably need a few hundred thousands of fighters to really have an impact. You could then hunt for AA as well which is less micro and suppress it before you start focusing on ground troops... you could even do suppression before you land your troops so you can focus on support bombardment of enemy troops directly.

The biggest drawback of the fighters are the horrible micro surrounding them.. I also wish that AA suppression mechanic was better as well.

In essence the problem is that ground fighters are implemented as a ship/fighter rather than a ground unit with special rules.
If they were a ground unit there would be little issue with deploying/using them in the thousands.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

if you want something closer to air-breathing fighters, just use long range bombardment and RP them as ground attack fighters.

[Droll]

if you want something closer to air-breathing fighters, just use long range bombardment and RP them as ground attack fighters.

That works until enemy artillery becomes the new AA.

Also frustrating as enemy AA wont actually shoot at them ever. I definitely wouldn't be able to suspend my disbelief.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

that's enemy artillery bombarding the landing facilities.

[Blogaugis]

At least VB6 had Planetary Defence Centers, that were half-ships, half... ground facilities.
Good times, when you could have missiles on the ground. But, well, had to think on the armament, when atmosphere exists...
And now... It's just STOs...
I suppose the last bit would be to make space-borne facilities, that can produce ground units... But, it a construction rework territory.