FreeOrion

In the past when we talked about space combat, there was talk of including ground combat with space combat, so you could have scenarios like the following:

"You space ships are seeking to wipe out an enemy planet, but its long range laser battery is keeping your ships from getting too close. You figure that they have a lack of point defense, so you feel that a ground squad could easily get rid of this laser battery. You send off a few assault pods which fly torwards the planet at great speed. After landing the squad takes out the laser battery, overwhelming the enemies pathetic ground defenses. With the laser battery gone your ships are able to waste the planet, and send recovery vehicles to pick up the ground squads."

What happens in that scenario is that space combat initiates ground combat which affects space combat. This can be very useful, which is why we should have ground combat linked this closely with space combat.

Now, here's how we could do it, regardless of what type of space combat we have.
(this assumes that the entire system is with a single space combat)

Lets say we launch assault pods at a planet or have some troop ships drop off some troops, we could give a mission. So we choose a mission type for the ground combat team to achieve.
Missions:
-Capture [Objective]
-Destroy [Objective]
- (if only i could think of more)

Anyway, then we choose the [Objective]. It could be a specific building or the entire planet.
Objectives:
-Missile Base
-Laser Battery
-Other buildings etc
-Sector A
-Sector B etc
-Planet

So you would launch an assault pod, then chosse mission and objective:
eg. Capture [Missile Base]

Assuming the ground troops land, etc we would then see a progress bar. When the progress bar completes, the mission/objective is acheived. So basically ground combat would be auto calculated 'under the hood'.

Deciding ground combat factors could be:
-Quantity of troops
-Quality of troops
(we could make the calculation work any way we want with any factors we want, but those two above are the minimum factors we need I guess)

As simple as that, we could make it more complex, but it would be more useful the way I have said.

Well, if the one-phase idea goes through, then even space combat will be 'under the hood' so there's no reason why the fleets ground combat stats couldn't affect its spce combat result.

But if we do have tactical combat, then that would be good, although I'd propose something a little more like
Ground forces come in two types
'Commando'
'Troops'

'Commandos' are designed for your suggestion, (they were already in MOO2 all this would be doing is giving the ability to 'board' a 'ship' that is actually a planetary weapon.... now they would probably have to stick with Blowing it up, but capturing it might be possible for a short time). They are small groups that operate in space combat time scales.

'Troops' would work on the ground combat time scale (ie longer than or after space combat) but would still show up... Troops could be dropped from equipped ships like 'bombs' that would be on the planet for a ground battle even if their fleet lost the space battle. (of course 'battle dropped' troops would probably suffer high casualties)

This is a good idea utilae, and would add to the stratagy and story approach.
As long as it doesnt cause micro-management hell. Id like to see a rescue/evacuation option.

Like:-Mission was successful/ not succesfull and X amount of troops servived and managed to withdraw to the LZ, for evac.

The idea is to stop the player viewing highly trained specialist troops as no more than an expendible weapon like a missile.

If your fleet didnt have the resources to effect a evac next turn they would be lost.

I was thinking this...

= = =Space combat starts= = =
You begin the battle. Your ships enter the system.
You start attacking, you launch 5 squads of battle shuttles. You manage to get 5 out of 10 frigates close to the planet. They fire a total of 5 squads of battle pod bombs.

2 squads of battle shuttles are destroyed by incoming point defence. You land a total of 8 squads.

You retreat the rest of your fleet.
= = =Space combat ends = = =


++ Ground combat begins ++
- A menu pops up for your 8 squads. You can choose to "Raid Planet" or "Capture Planet". You know you won't be able to capture the planet because you didn't land enough troops. Or, you know you won't be able to hold it for long.

- You choose "Raid Planet". A submenu pops up. Infrastructure or Defence. You select Defence. Your squad makes an attempt at destroying planet defences. A roll is made. They destroy a planet battery cannon and a missile defence platform.
++ Ground Combat Ends ++


Your next turn, your big beefy fleet arrives.

= = = Space Combat = = =
Without the lion's share of planetary defences available, they make short work of the starbase and the enemy fleet.


- - - -
Kinda like what happened in Star Wars. The reason I would suggest that 1 or more turns must pass, is to give the impression that the planet is slowly being torn apart of it's defences. Otherwise, if it happeend immediately during space combat, dropping troops or dropping bombs would pretty much have the same effect.

Plus, it would give the defender a little time to react. He could predict what you are about to do, and quickly send in a reserve fleet to complement his defending fleet, now that his defences are gone.

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There are three kinds of people in this world - those who can count, and those who can't.

Except, when bombing you destroy the infrastructure/population/intelligence which you might conquered when using assault troops.

If it comes to me, conquering a whole planet at the same turn ground troops are dropped is quit ok. Dropping troops without having air superiority might not be a good idea;-)

I have been proposing this right from the start.

But I think we should go further.

Firstly we dont need to have a "space combat stop" "ground combat starts" kind of thing. We simply have 1 turn of combat inwhich space and ground combat happens. Idealy a common map is used with the Planet being an "island" in space much like Moo2 but now the ground troops and any assaultable facilites apear on it too and can be targeted specificaly in bombardments or movments of ground troops.
So for example

Turn 1

Attacker orders Drop Ships to Drop Troops on Planet

Exicution - Drop ships are shoot at, some are lost, Troops disembark from transports and try to form a "space head" on the planet. They fight the defenders and both sides take losses.

Turn 2

Attacker orders Fleet to move in and bombard the planet. He orders his Ground troops to make an attack on the sheild generators.

Defender orders his Ground forces to counter attack the enemy ground troops, he orders the Garrison guarding the Shield generator to make a "Stalingrad Defence" manuver (not the actualy name).

Execution - The defenders Garrison holds off the attacking ground troops and the shields stay intact. The Orbital Bombardments prove ineffective as a result and the attacking forces suffer heavy losses from ground based Ion Cannons.

Turn 3

Attack desides to move his fleet away and cut his losses on the planet. The ground troops are ordered to move to a nearby City and "Masacure Civilians".

The defender expecting the attack to continued and reinforced picks more defencive actions for his ground forces.

Exicution - The remaining ground forces of the attack masacure civilians and the Defenders troops do little to interfere as their protecting themselves.

Turn 4

Attackers ships are ordered to Hyperspace out of the system.

Defender now angered at the atrocities comited against his Civilians and seeing that the attacker is abandoning his ground foces orders an all out attack.

The attackers forces now worn down from battle and lack of supplies decide to make a final stand and use "trap" as their tactic.

Exicution - The defender (now on the offensive) falls into the trap suffering heavy casualties but their weight in numbers is still sufficient to crush the oponents weakened forces. Some POW's are taken and interogated for inteligence.

It would work almost the same under a 1 or 2 phased aproatch. Under the 1-phase each of the above turns was a normal game turn, under the 2 phase its 1 turn of a combat event ocouring between 2 normal turns.

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Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

Thats what I proposed in this thread from the begining. That the ground combat would be in space combat. Of course if you did drop off ground troops and all your ships left or were destroyed before the ground combat 'progress bar' completed, then it would just wait until it does complete. I imagine that the ground combat would not need to take more than 1 turn. I mean if it is simplified as much as I have proposed then it would me more fun to play, even if it isn't realistic for ground combat to be resolved so quick.


I would also see it as a planet being there in space, all the planets in the system. Though I would not go into as much detail as showing the units and targets on the planet. I mean managing squads as well as ships, when there could be as many as nine planets, it would be overwhelming and verge on too much micro.

In a way the method I have proposed in this thread would be similar to how boarding works on Moo2. Boarding resolves instantly in Moo2, and that worked well. So if ground combat worked the same, but you picked a mission and an objective, a planet would basically be treated the same as boarding a ship in Moo2. Only thing is that ground combat would take time, a progress bar. So you could drop ground troops off, but they will take a little while to get the job done, unless they fail.

We could have icons on the planet showing what defenses/buildings are there, so when picking a target for ground troops or even ships to destroy you just click on the icon. You could select the planet iteself to say attack the whole planet, etc.

"Ground troops" include air craft, tanks etc.

But dropping troops is dangerous if there are planetary defences. Basically they get to shoot on the way down. Better armor helps survive. Planets should be able to buy Anti-Landing Guns (ALGs) which can only shoot at dropping troops, not missiles because missiles can go a lot faster.

Assault shuttles would be a ship system available at the start. Ships with assault shuttles could load up troops at your planets. Tech developments allow more survivable shuttles or give a bonus to the first rounds attack (assuming we're having multiple rounds in a a turn).

There will be a chance of civilian casualties but you have the option to minimize them through Rules of Engagement.

e.g.
ROE
Genocidal +100% civilian casualties -10 combat
Blast away +50% civilian casualties +10 combat
Aggressive +0% civilian casualties +0 combat
Cautious -50% civilian casualties -20 combat
Liberator rules -80% civilian casualties -40 combat

I think he meant "space superiority", meaning the planet's defense grid and other enemy ships could target your ground troops from orbit.

Yeah, but it should probably start with just troop "pods" that have to be dropped from orbit, then work its way up to "shuttles" which can be launched from anywhere (and maybe even board ships), and then transporters (which also might be able to board ships), which can deploy troops instantaneously if the ship is in orbit.

"Genocidal" should probably just be a different ground combat goal. The troops might be there to capture the planet, or they might be there to destroy a particular building, or they might just be there to kill as many civilians as possible. Adding collateral damage might actually be too complicated for FO. There should be an option though, to take the battle more slowly, which takes more time in-combat, but has a higher chance of success, or to just blitz through, which has a lower chance of success. The choice to select either of these would be based on how fast you need to get the job done, and how many troops you had. If you brought lots and lots of troops, you can afford to blitz through if the mission will give you an immediate tactical advantage, for example, maybe you need to blitz through because your troops are destroying the interstellar lighthouse, which is making visible your stealthy ships in that system, and you need to shut it down so you can go back into hiding. Or, if you have full space superiority, and you just want to capture the planet, it's OK if it takes a bit longer to ensure the success of the mission.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Here's how i could implement it:
once à Ground Combat is started, à New FO Client window will Pop up.
Since you can resize FO in windowed Mode to any scale, you could arrange them in any Way on your Desktop. If you have à multihead configuration( 2 Monitors) you could use it effectively.
I think since there are Large battles (about 50 -150 objects are normal) and the battles can Be paused to give Orders, there should Be à fixed length of the OrderSet Round.
Otherwise the battles would last too Long.

There is already an ai Interface ( opensteer) Inside the Code.
The ships can already take Orders like " Attack nearest, Launch Fighters, etc."
only the graphical represantation Must Be given.
That means "Physics" Must Be built in like consider, with which Speed the Ship should turn and Move.
Together with à real bullet Handling,
the result could Be à interacting with the Game like SQL:
"ship1(troop Ship): 'Drop troops on' 'Planet x' 'and' 'avoid Enemy Fire'"
"ships2,3(battleships):'defend' ' Ship1' 'and' 'formation Delta'.

The Player can lean back and Look what the ships do and what they encounter.

once the Player notices that they are involved in defendee Fire by the Planet, Action is required.

He has for example the Option to do nothing and let try the battleships take out the defenses.
Or He reconsideres:
ship2,'scan' 'weapon Radius of' 'planet x'
ship1, 'avoid Fire of' 'Planet x' 'and' 'Move to' 'Planet x'

this would result in Ship 2 scouts the " Dead firing Zone" of Planet x Flying in Formation with the two other ships. Ship 3 still defends and ship1 trys to Drop troops.

Sounds cool, or?

It's better if ground combat is managed via an in-game window. Since control over ground combat won't be tactical, like space combat, a simple pop-up window that appears when the planet is selected and shows all relevant data should be adequate.

Obviously in single player, the player can pause for as long as he wants, but for multiplayer, yes that will be necessary, and that's mentioned here.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.