Well, I'm going to suggest this again:
INFANTRY QUALITY OF LIFE:
There are a number of small things our infantry have been requesting for a while now. By themselves, they are not worth our time. Combining them changes matters. We will dedicate ourselves to either creating or acquiring non-weapon items that improve our infantry's performance. For example:
-Boots. A good pair of boots. Infantry love boots. Goal: excellent hiking boots with minor protection from shrapnel (As in, made of tough fibers. Not metal.)
-Binoculars. We've enough experience with lenses that we can surely design a decent pair.
-Medkits. A little first aid can save hundreds of lives. More to the point, knowing that help is available improves morale.
-Sunglasses. You try shooting someone with the sun in your eyes.
-Bayonets. Sometimes you just need a knife. On the end of your gun. A big knife. (possibly with non-bayonet serrated variety?)
-Engineering equipment (more sandbags, dedicated tools like wire cutters, barbed wire/razor wire, small axes, pickaxes, etc). Aimed at improving the quality of our minefields, traps, and defensive positions.
-Vests, bags, bandoliers, pockets and pouches, even elbow ones Carry capacity for soldiers---more ammo means more bang-bang-bang-bang-bang means more kills, means more survivability, means a place to put everything we're about to drop on them
-Knee and elbow pads.
-Gloves, fire resistant and capable of fast-roping or rock-climbing or similar hard-wearing activities.
-Flashlights. Hands free, attachable to guns or helmets. Different coloured lens filters to use for signaling.
-Improved compasses and navigation equipment.
-Cricket (or other innocuous animal) noisemaker. Sounds like a cricket. "Operation was simple: If someone approached, you clicked your cricket, making the most innocuous of night-time sounds. If the passer-by clicked back, you knew you had encountered a friendly comrade." (This is based on a real thing, by the way)
-Mosquito nets. Our soldiers in the jungle will praise our name to the high heavens if we can deliver this.
Bay12 has such dramatic vote turnarounds!
I should remind you that if you want a normal-ish heavy machine gun, you can just reinstate the Moskurg M1 Stallion, which fires .60 caliber Horsekiller rounds. It's arguably a bit unrealistic but right now both sides have been using autocannons in the "emplaced machine gun" type role; perhaps I will do a mention next battle report of how portable they are (or aren't) after doing a little research to compare them to normal HMG's.
I'll go through the list of infantry stuff you have here; I feel like some of it is outside the scope of the game in the same way that I said no on military bulldozers in the first game; most "Construction Corps" type stuff that's easy to make you should probably just automatically 'have' and it's assumed to be someone else's department, in the interest in keeping the game focused on the cool stuff since you only have so many turns anyway.
Since some of this is seriously negligible in terms of how the game works (remember, I like to usually think in "big steps", if stuff is worth less than whatever a full +1 would be I like to think of it only as a tie-breaker normally) I may re-add some things that were in the full Infantry QoL proposal if I deem it fair, since I don't want to either gyp you guys on this, or to boot you back to the debate on this again. I just can't really imagine a battle report saying "The Forenians are equal to the Cannalans in most ways, but because they have more comfortable boots, they have an infantry advantage." It also doesn't prompt any creative counters from the Cannalans, the only thing they can do to catch up is "Well, I guess we also make some more comfortable boots. Since apparently that's a thing in this game."
Normal, maybe??: 6
Infantry QoL:-Boots: You already have good boots that don't reasonably stand to be improved.
-Binoculars: You have created binoculars which are Cheap to manufacture. The lens are made of "acrylic glass" and the quality isn't as good as the ones on your rifle scopes but it's fine for this purpose.
-Medikits: You already have some medical officers equipped with bandages, disinfectant, surgery tools etc.
-Sunglasses: Sunglasses take the form of wide goggles with a single acrylic lens across the face.
-Bayonets: Combat knives which fit on bayonet lugs replace single-purpose knives or bayonets.
-Engineering Equipment: You already have sandbags, barbed wire etc. You could maybe benefit from metal detectors to find mines, but those would at least need their own revision.
-Pockets, etc: Your current uniforms leave no real room for improvement, but a lot of important straps are replaced with slightly lighter and more durable nylon fabric. The weird elbow pouch nobody uses is kept as a matter of tradition.
-Knee and elbow pads: Solid metal knee and elbow pads fit over thick cotton ones sewn into the uniforms. Most of the time, soldiers eschew the hard pads for flexibility unless they know they'll be crawling through gravel or something.
-Gloves: Right now the best gloves you can make are the leather gloves you already have. They're available in full or finger-less cut.
-Flashlights: The UF standard flashlight uses leak-resistant zinc-carbon batteries, in an aluminum frame. It fits on weapon rail mounts, or on helmets. It's rather heavy though, so soldiers prefer to hold them by hand when they can, possibly with a pistol in the other hand. Also includes colored lenses for signalling.
-Compasses/navigation: You already have compasses, sextants and parallax rangefinders- they work fine. Soldiers always have a compass but sextants and rangefinders are only issued where deemed necessary.
-Cricket: Sure why not.
-Mosquito Nets: Soldiers are now given these standard issue instead of buying them with their wages before they deploy. The few Arstotzkans who scoffed and said, "They're just bugs, right?" really appreciate it.
-Other Stuff: Steerable parachutes or plastic explosives should probably be a revision on their own, so that's where I'm stopping.
Out of all this, binoculars and flashlights are the only things truly worth mentioning in the battle report. Fluff wise, your uniforms will be considered comfortable and modern looking into the early cold war.
Poll
17 (16%)
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Topic: Intercontinental Arms Race: Finale (Read 602435 times)