So, a stealth-oriented unit still. Now, tell me honestly: do you really think that there are gonna be a lot of situations where there's a sudden and urgent need for a stealth-oriented unit, as opposed to another kind of elite? Sure, there's that one example from before, but it seems awfully specific, so I don't suspect that those situations (or similar ones) will crop up enough to warrant adding a stealth unit to every 50-man group. Finally, good luck hiding all that hardware while still being stealthy.
Because if you wanna have that nice 50 number, you could still include something like a stevebot or modified Renen-type robobody as a choice for elite. Wouldn't one of those make more sense to include in a combat unit as standard? And then the actual stealth work could be done by teams/individuals actually designed solely around that.
I don't there will be a lot of those situations, but I believe that there will be enough (and other situations that would benefit, like a well-protected enemy VIP) to justify having one of these units per fifty man group. They don't cost much more than a heavy robobody, and we were going to have thirteen of those.
If you think a Stevebot or Renden body would be a better investment, I'm fine with that.
Nah man, that just means you're playing the wrong game, or with the wrong people. Would you care to tell what game it is?
Specifically, Ghost Recon Phantoms, a F2P almost-P2W* cover based tactical shooter. I like it because it has some of the best mechanics I've seen in a team shooter, and it doesn't generally
feel P2W to me. Also, when people do coordinate their team, it can be really awesome.
If you have a better suggestion, I'm willing to try it.
*For thirty bucks, you can buy guns that are statistically 30% better than the basic stuff. Then again, a good player with the basic stuff can easily cream a few poor players with the premium stuff. They give an edge, but it doesn't often seem to matter. And you can buy everything with the free cash, but it's often so expensive that that doesn't really count.
While this might work, I do think it'll be awfully unflexible and complex on a logistics scale, because you could be abandoning squads without any support like this. And more importantly, it assumes that this squad of 50 dudes is the right answer to every situation. what if the nature of the deployment means that one time you need a lot of vehicles/battlesuits, and the other time you can't use any?
As I said before, with the 50 sod method we should have a similar ratio of troops to tanks to aircraft as with the full 250/1000 sod method. If we can't, then yes, the larger one would work better, as I said before. If we
can, then having five groups of 250 is basically the same as one group of 250, except we can split them up without having to keep track of whether this group has extra tanks or no tanks.
With a system of a fixed amount for every small squad, it could mean a very sub-optimal division of forces (eg leaving a 50 man unit to guard an underground base, and their tank sitting useless outside). If you have a system where companies have a separate division for gathering stuff like vehicles and specialized units, you can more easily apply them where necessary. And on the off chance that you do need to leave some dudes to guard a base while the rest skedaddle on, that can still be done in a company system, where the specific gaps in the company are then later refilled.
I find it strangely difficult to parse this... I think the correct answer is that the 50 sod system is based on the idea that we don't want to keep track of sixty different companies, and whether each one had the artillery nuked, or the tanks left behind, or the aircraft shot down, ect. Yes, a company would work better for these reasons, but we don't want to actually split them up because it produces more work. With the 50 sod system, we can leave them behind and just reduce the number of armies on the ship by one. With the 250 or 1000 sod methods, we either have to abstract it away and ignore it (which is worse, IMO), or specifically mark "This group has the full number of vehicles, but fifty less infantry".
Oh, and if you say a troopship can hold multiple 50-man platoons (and perhaps say that each troopship has a storage of stuff to deploy as necessary), isn't that basically the same as the company system? Only you aren't deploying the whole company at once all the time, but as I mentioned before "1000 dudes to fling around" isn't primarily for the number we deploy per mission, but also for stuff like logistics and how many we put on a ship and such.
Well, yeah. It's just that it's easier to split the 250 sod group into five 50 sod groups if those are your basic unit. It's also easier to add, say, 850 sods to our forces if we can have loose 50 man groups.
I fail to see how one group of 1000 sods is simpler for logistics than twenty groups of 50. Just multiply by twenty. And it simplifies logistics when a group is split into smaller units. This is the entire point.
A Mk.III will never adequately replace a dedicated aircraft, nor is the battlesuit equal to a tank. I know you know this.
I didn't say a MK.III can truly replace an aircraft, or a battlesuit replace a tank. I said that they can work in those roles decently if we're not going to have any vehicles either way. We, at the moment, have no vehicles, nor any plans for vehicles, so it looks like that might end up being what we do regardless of how large our basic unit size is.
Well actually I... Oh wait, that's all still classified. Erm, let's just say there might be ways.
ಠ_ಠ
I guess I know what my next job is, huh? After the sapient gun and vehicle designing, that is.
Anyways, as M17 proofs, QEC are expensive. So, you wanna give one to each and every squad we have, plus train and maintain their commanders? Might be more expensive than just getting a smarter sod.
Huh? At most, I meant we'd be having a single QEC per
planet, which doesn't seem unrealistic at all. Anyway, the commanders are more likely to just be in the spaceships, where they're safe from ground forces.
...We are going to have space superiority before beginning major planetside operations, right? I
have been assuming that, but anything else seems like it would be pretty stupid to me.
Secondly, there are no systems in place whatsoever to recruit and train these commanders, and we'd need a bunch, whereas we do have the infrastructure and most of the know-how for sods.
...We have the infrastructure to grow and train sod commanders? Is this the classified stuff you shouldn't be telling me?
Also, we
don't have the infrastucture to train human commanders? I'd think all you need for that is VR systems (check), A planet that you can recruit from (check), and a few people working on building a training regimen (not check, but easy).
Finally, those flesh sods we are growing specifically for use on more backwater worlds? Are they too gonna be commanded by some bored schmuck behind a computer?
Probably, yes. If they can't hide a QEC, set up some hidden places for command centers, and don't even have a few people capable of commanding a sod team, are they really worth allying with?
Anyway, we're gonna need to do something different with the flesh sod groups. For one, they can't use heavy robobodies, and could benefit from Mk.IIs. I could see giving them sod commanders, just so that we can have some operational forces completely cut off from our command structure. I don't think it's that important, but the ability to do it is nice.
We should really check if QEC equipment that powerful (and small enough to fit in a backpack) for every squad isn't too expensive, and see if there aren't any possible signal delays and such. And if you put them closer to the action, then you still run the aforementioned risk of losing some.
I guess I should add "research QEC capabilities, cost, and limitations" to my list of stuff to do before personal projects.
We Heph personnel really need a salary.
True, but get this: we can still use the system of a QEC commander if we also go for sod squad leaders, then you just put them (or a small group of 3 or so) in command of that 50-man unit of yours, instead of one for every single squad. And you could use him to replace your 1-unit elite, keeps the numbers nice and round.
Uhh, why? If we're going to have the commander on the battlefield with the group, why would he have a QEC? Why would there only be one? If there's a QEC, why is he on the battlefield?
This feels like something that was just said to placate me. >.>
Hmm, we seem to be in some agreement for the important parts, so I think we can reach a consensus here. How about this: we use your 4*7+1=50 man system as the basis for a platoon (with 7 squads each). However, we group those into a company/regiment of 3 'Army' each, with two additional units that consist of a mix of vehicles, specialist units and the like (these two units are about equal in resource cost to the regular platoon, not in number). That gives us units of about 150 people + support as a basic unit to put on a ship, and if for example 1 50-man army and some equipment needs to stay behind while the rest moves on, that gives and easy way to quantify things should it ever be needed.
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This is okay, I guess, but it still leaves the problem that we have to keep track of more detail for each company. I don't see an easy way to simplify that company system. What do you mark down if arty gets taken out? One support group? What if arty gets taken out again, but the aircraft and armor is fine?
How about this: seven platoons per company, four of them being infantry, with the other three being specific types of support (Aircraft/aRmor/arTillery, or whatever else you like). That way, every company's status can be described with a seven letter string: IIIIART. If the armor gets taken out, remove the R. If some infantry gets left behind, or gets killed, remove an I. That should be simple to keep track of, provides versatility, can be easily split, and
utilizes the luck of seven provides a decent ratio of infantry to support. If we split fifty sod brains between the support platoons, it also has a nice round number of 250.
Also, 4*7+1=29. 7*7+1=50. :pI have a question though: Are you going with the seven squad system because I convinced you, or just because it's easier than arguing about it?
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