Land battles in SoaSE

I actually want this. While it would be hard to manage, it would be cool. Like a merge of Supreme Commander and SoaSE.

Star Wars : Empire at War but it's a bad game.

It had fun space battles.

Agreed, even the space battles weren't that good (I need more than 5 Star Destroyers max with no support ships), and the land battles were just plain annoying. Besides, I kind of like the Nuke 'em from space philosophy (if it only took less time).

It's kinda difficult to make a *good* game with both of those elements.

What is realistic, though, is the ability of capital ships to send down little pods of marines to take control of the planet without infrastructure/population loss (but takes much longer than planetary bombardment). It's a bit crazy that you have to commit nuclear genocide every 10 minutes in SOASE.

"What's that? Enemy planet is defenseless? BLAST IT WITH NUKES!"

It certainly isn't easy, but, imho it isn't easy because if implemented, one wants to do to much in too little time, therefore, make a base game out of it for instance, when clicking on a planet (habitable one of course) you automatically go threw the atmosphere and see your first infantry troops.

The overall idea is to then expand step by step, abit like this:

1) Standard openfield battles between infantry men, but, this worked out to the limit.

2) Artillery support (driving/stationnary vehicles) that act like tanks, again worked out to the limit and tested separate and with the infantry.

3) Cavalry (Small spaceships, fighters), ones again, worked out to the limit, tested in combination with infantry and artillery.

Each number would represent a separate add-on that get's incorporated into the previous game(add-on) so all becomes one big game.

THen you could add for instance certain planets habitable by certain races, etc....

Sure. Though, seeing as how Ironclad scrapped the 3rd expansion, I don't think they'll do this. Unless, they add it in Sins 2, if they do that. It would be really cool.

MOO2 does this pretty well... transports and a nice animated cutscene but it is of course a turnbased game. Well, you could commission a invasion transporter and let the ground combat be AI handled, displayed by red and green areas on the surface during battle or some other nice grapical representaiton. It would work. Also strikecraft deserve a more active role there.

Lol.... land battle? Then im out of here for ever and never coming back

I really do not see much difference between bombarding a colony and recolonizing it and sending troop transports (wich saves you the recolonization efford). Both should be possible, no?

Would be simple to avoid it, just don't click on the planet for a battle and let it automatically be determined.

They'd have to essentially make an entire second game to add land battles to Sins.  Maybe they could make a separate land battles type of game using the same engine and same 4xRTS type of micro-management minimization theme.  That might not be a bad idea.

The board game I am nicknamed after had a ground combat phase after space combat and planetary bombardment.  Regular or Jump troops could be dropped from transports and capital ships and they were pitted against the ground troops defending.

Ground troops were subject to space bombardment and then Regular troops were subject to defensive fire from the ground troops already present as they landed. Jump troops were more lightly armed but did not suffer defensive fire landing (Regular were assumed to use landing pods, Jump used personal re-entry suits and glide landing). Combat was resolved as a result of the attacker defender ratio by a simple die role nd was repeated round to round until only one player had troops remaining.

It was a simple and fast paced add-on to the space game that fit smoothly and didn't take emphasis away fromn the ship tactics and strategies.  Can't imagine it would be that hard to allow troops to be provided as a capital (or other) ship ability.  Planet-side you could buy planetary defenders just like infrastructure and the like.

Not going to happen. They've said repeatedly they wanted the focus in Sins to stay on space, not ground. Which is why you also don't actually manage buildings on your planets themselves, you build in space around them.

Isn't the Dawn of Victory major overhaul mod trying to do this?

http://www.dawnofvictory.com/

Of course, I don't really know how much they're still working on the mod...

I think the best way would be a simple ability or ship that launched little pods (like the colony pods that come out of TEC colony ships) and took a period of time to conquer the planet, which would be mitigated by indigeonous ememy ground forces (and all the while you see none of this, just as you see none of the normal colonization). If you have enough troops, you win the planet with some damage to infrastructure and population based on how long the battle took (but a lot less than scrubbing it with nuclear fire).

To make it worthwhile, have orbital bombardment temporarily decrease possible population and slow planet health regeneration.

Wut?

What a thoughtful reply...

Planet bombardment already takes a long time. Either you wind up with invasion being the best choice every time, or it takes so long as to be unusable.

To have any more detail then that, and it won't fit the scale and pace of Sins at all.

i want the HOLY GRAIL of Gaming. FPS run by RTS

Imagine logging in to a FPS game and be a space marine taking over ships or ground, even fly the fighters and bombers while the RTS guys command the battle.

I know this is a ways off but as Jean Luc says "Things are only impossible till there not."

Im currently designing Enterprise with Hammer for FPS.

It is very doubtful Ironclad would make this expansion so keep scanning the mod section. When I imagine a sins land battle, Section 7 keep coming to mind. You go halo ODST and drop out of an orbiting starship and you can land anywhere on the map but if you try to land in the enemy base, automated flak cannons blow you out of the sky.

And those posts at the top that talked about SW: EAW, I agree. It ballanced land and space very well, but was very monotnous and got very boring very fast. And I truely dispised the land battles.

Sins focus = space.  Yes!  Good...  In a "perfect" world we'd have it all... and a toaster... and directional armor, etc., but I'm happy to see Sins focus on key strengths.  That said, I couldn't help having some fun...

Conventional Combat Integration Method

Objective: Retain space focus of the game, do not overtax player attention / resources by engaging them "on planet", do not overtax low-end computers running sins, enhance gameplay experience, do not require major substantial engine changes, etc. 

Based on that, I broke it down into five subjects, which might do it:

PLANETARY UPGRADES; generic "Upgrade Defenses" + tech tree aspects.

ASSAULT SHIPS (as differentiated from long-range weapons ships): concept examples.

CONVENTIONAL COMBAT MECHANICS (resolved "off screen"): worked only in principle.

ANNEXATION & ASSIMILATION  You've got a planet!  What do you do with it.  Or did your really want it?

CONVENTIONAL COMBAT TECH TREE Various example techs of basic branches listed.

Note: I'm not suggesting Ironclad or tired modders do this... if it gives you cool ideas, I'd be delighted, but I like thought experiment.  Respect to the all your hard work, as is.

PLANETARY UPGRADES: Defensive Forces.

Like the other upgrades, this would be a "generic" green button.  It will generate defensive forces according to your planet's population and tech level.  To get more special abilities, rather than building any planetary structures, you just purchase the tech.

Uprade, per level: defensive forces = to increasing % of population.

Bonus for High Security Protocol

Type of Forces & Abilities: See Tech Tree.

SHIPS

FRIGATE RAIDER

(TEC Example): Frigate designed for light raiding, suitable for asteroids or *very* lightly populated planets.  If used on asteroid, remains in existence.  If used on planet, is consumed (once you drop it to the surface in a gravity well that big, it ain't coming back out).  In either case, the ship itself is the troop delivery vehicle.

ARMAMENT: Non or a few light autocannons; nominally to help with fighter-defense and provide a little close fire-support.  Fairly negligable.

UPGRADES: Fast Raid (gets to the target faster), Grapples (can be used to latch onto an enemy construction craft, and reel the ships together, allowing a hostile takeover of construction craft.

CRUISER: EXPEDITIONARY ASSAULT SHIP

(TEC Example): A large cruiser which carries a battalion-scale element, with vehicles & support, and delivers them via company-scale dropships.  Dropships are launched at planetary bombardment range, and must fly to the planet with little avatars alike to frigates.  During this phase, hostile ships present could fire on them.

CRUISER ARMAMENT: Flak

UPGRADES: Pinpoint Ortillery, Drop Pods, Theater Command, Grav Armor, etc.

Why Not a Cap?  Dedicating a capital ship to ground assault / infantry makes little sense, as well as detracting from the space-battle-focus of Sins.  In real life, assault ships aren't "capital" ships either.  The assault cruiser should remain a support ship... which also grants greater flexibility in force composition, and does not detract from the "battlefield centerpiece" role of Caps in Sins.

BASIC MECHANICS

Conventional Combat Units can be divided into 5 primary categories:

1. INFANTRY

2. ARMOR

3. ARTILLERY

4. AERIAL

5. FORTIFICATIONS.  

The basic objective of course would be to enhance the playing experience, so probably the best way to do this would be to have a complex countering system (as Sins has for space combat), make it possible to gain some pre-intelligence about your foe (otherwise what you've readied is a total crap shoot... not sure how you'd handle that), and give different units different planetary affinities, etc (which might handle the former question quite well).

EX: "Desert worlds have good atmospheric conditions and open terrain; that means Aerials and Armor have the advantage.  Maneuver rules the day.  Expect a lot of both going in."

Most streamlined way to handle it might be of course to have the computer resolve combat, and display a simple pop-up with ongoing planetary combat results.

COUNTERS & AFFINITIES:

INFANTRY: Backbone force.  Counter: Artillery & Armor.  Infantry is strong vs. Infantry, Planet Aspects, and Special.  Affinity: Home Planet Type.  Infantry is only force that can actually take and hold ground a planet.  If you have no infantry left, you may beat down the defenses, but you can't "take possession."

Special Tech: STA (Surveilance and Target Acquisition, to borrow the USMC Acronym).  STA troops are stealth recon operators who can provide targeting information, improving hit rates & effective countering.  Within the Sins context, they use things like chameleonic suits, relay ortillery targets, and tag enemy craft with long-range target designating rounds for homing missiles.

Special Tech: Saboteurs (Assault).  Specialize in attacking enemy infrastructure.

Special Tech: PsyOps, etc. possible.

ARMOR: Counters: Artillery, Aerial.  Affinity: Open terrain worlds - Dessert, Ice.  [Unless you implement a feature of "Crevasses" or "Sand in the Treads" which will make armor sad.]  Armor excels where it can move fast and hit hard, outrunning its counters or their firing solutions & closing to favored engagement ranges.

Special Tech: Grav Engines.  Provides "Hover" armor, with increased mobility.  Negates some terrain "bog down" problems.

Special Tech: Networked Gunnery.  Improves effectiveness via networking with other vehicles and ground troops.

Special Tech: Cavalry Rush.  Upgrade to Grav Engines; large propulsion powerplants provide almost aircraft-like speeds to armor, assisting in evasion & rush assaults. 

ARTILLERY: Counters: other Artillery, sometimes Armor, other Aerial.  Affinity: Rough terrain worlds - Volcanic, Terran.  [Terrain slows mobility, the bane of artillery].  Artillery, when well supported and in affinity terrain, tends to inflict the majority of death and destruction, but unprotected or in non-affinity terrain, it fairs not so well.

Special Tech: Counterbattery.  Aids vs. other Artillery.

Special Tech: Smart Warheads.  Aids vs. Armor, by providing intelligent seeker warheads.

Special Tech: Strato-Flak.  A nickname for HV artillery that puts shells very  high in the atmosphere, where they burst and tear apart incoming drop pods with immense volumes of very fine, hypervelocity shrapnel - the idea being that, at the speeds and temperatures the pods are moving, it takes very little to make a whole lot of unhappiness.

Special Tech: Fire Haven.  Self-forming networks of in-flight smartshells, close weapon systems, and artillery batteries co-ordinate to create "fire havens," zones often recognizable only by the dome of mutually annihilating ordnance surrounding them.  Fire Havens have the potential to protect not only their inhabitants, but extend outwards in detached hemispheres or globes of active protection.  + to Protection, can establish mobile fire havens around advances.  Particularly potent in combination with high-speed Armor.

AERIALS: Counters: Special (AA), other Aerial.  Affinity: Anyplace with good flying conditions.  However, all units get a bonus vs. Aerial attack on Terrain worlds (due to vegetative cover, which makes targeting harder for the Aerials) or Volcanic worlds (all the crap & fume in the air obstructs long-range visibility, etc.)

The standard Aerial unit is multi-role interceptor.  Unlike space strike craft, aerial strike craft are tailor-built for atmospheric operation.

Special Tech: Knifefighters.  50% of standard Interceptors are upgraded into high performance air-superiority craft.  Hard Counter: Aerials.

Special Tech: Gunships.  25% of standard Interceptors are upgraded with higher performance anti-infantry weapons and given a Close Air Support bonus.  Hard Counter: Infantry.

Special Tech: Interdictors.  25% of standard Interceptors are upgraded with improved armor-piercing missiles and and low-level, high-velocity flight avionics.  Hard Counter: Armor, Arillery.

Special Tech: Vertical Intercept.  Aerials are improved for mid-descent launch and engagement (assault) or vertical, high-altitude attack (defense).  The objective on the defense side is to bring more weapons to bear on an invasion at one if its most vulnerable points (atmospheric entry); the objective for the assault is to counter that action, and/or distribute craft early to avoid losses of strike craft if a dropship goes down.

FORTIFICATIONS: This is a bit of a pseudo-category... perhaps a way to quantify the "dug-in-ness" of defenders, or the advantages of - say - a dropship whose armor and heat shields reconfigure on landing into blast shields to protect a central artillery battery.  Realistic?  Who knows... but we're fighting Jutland In Space, so "cool" is reason enough.  

So, mechanics-wise... [Units + their techs/upgrades + other modifiers (planetary tech, terrain, strategy tech, etc.)] vs. [same for opposition forces] leads to an autoresolution.  Now you've captured a planet...

ASSIMILATION & ANNEXATION

The objective of seizing a planet, as opposed to bombing the ever****** **** **** **** **** *********t out of it is to seize infrastructure and/or inhabitants intact.  Infrastructure is instantly seized.  However, productivity is penalized until the inhabitants are assimilated.  Fortunately, Ironclad gave us a pre-existing tool for this: Culture.  If the player's culture is dominating (their "culture influence" is strongest on that planet), assimilation occurs at a rate of X/second, calculated off of the amount/degree of cultural dominance.  Cap ships are of course factored in when present.

Obviously in a "zero culture" zone, there is no real change... the planet won't assimilate, but won't rebel and try to go neutral either.  It just kinda sits there.  Fortunately, in a "nil zone," if you can keep you cap ship(s) parked in orbit, you'll keep assimilating, since they provide cultural influence.

However, if another culture is dominant at the location, the population will not assimilate.  You might as well just bomb them: as long as another culture dominates, the planetary population will exist in a state of insurgency, and productivity of the planetary system will be zero.

CONVENTIONAL COMBAT TECH TREE

I'll divide this into branches, each delineated by a green header.  Omitting every tech mentioned previously, under the specific unity groups.  (Consider it all just a branch "unit tech").  These are just some (sort of random) ideas; use your imagination.

THEATER COMMAND: The cruiser hosts a special ground-combat CIC.  Ship-mounted sensors, rapid-dispersal microsatellites, and a commo/sensor network with ground troops and dropships allow the cruiser to co-ordinate intelligence and operations for the ground war.  

ECM: Massive electronic countermeasures are brought to bear on the planet in an attempt to destroy the communication and co-ordination of defensive forces.

PRE-BARRAGE: Theater Command is better at co-ordinating pre-barrage of a planet with other vessels, directing the otherwise "meaty fist" of siege craft to hit select strategic targets, leaving most of the population alive and perhaps the civil infrastructure intact.

PINPOINT ORTILLERY:  Assault Cruisers do not prrovide massive "pre-bombardment"; those services are rendered by siege frigates or cap ships; most space on assault ships is dedicated to their assault forces, delivery systems, and supply.  However, an upgrade above Theater Command provides batteries of highly-accurized kinetic kill weaponry, capable of being guided all the way to impact, and hence used in close proximity to ground forces.  (Think "a chunk of tungsten rebar with actuated fins, falling from low orbit.")  PO assists ground forces directly.

PLANETARY INVASION:

ARMORED DROPSHIPS: Dropships use some variant mixture of energy shields, ablative shielding, and massive slab of armor on their belly to mitigate re-entry.  Armored Dropships up-armor against ground-based fire at this, their most vulnerable stage, when their signature in unmissable and their trajectory is basically set until they hit "thick air."

DROP PODS: Standard assault mechanism for Assault Carriers is high-velocity dropships, each usually carrying a platoon or even company-size element, essentially short-range, less expensive equivalents to the assault frigate.  This is generally advantageous because a drop ship can be more heavily armored than a drop pod, and delivers larger units intact to the battlefield.

Drop pods require development because - though the actual construction of a pod for a single soldier, fire team, or even squad is technically quite manageable, stealthing the signature of atmospheric reentry vehicles is extremely difficult.  As such, small drop pods tend to fair much more poorly against ground-based AA defenses than dropships.  Drop pods require the development of hardened pods and substantial ECM.  They are considered most effective in combination with special operations forces... otherwise you're just scattering you forces all over an area.

HYPERVELOCITY SAM SILOS: HV Surface-to-air missiles intended to engage dropships high in the atmosphere, during their most vulnerable stage.

KINETIC DEFENDERS: Guided Kinetic-Kill weaponry that rides down into a gravity well with dropships, seeking to take out SAMs and other upward-coming weapons in suicide attacks, defending the dropships.

FLEET ASSETS

FLEET ARMSMEN: I like this branch of the tree because it focuses on Sins great strength: Space.  All ships get a security complement, according to size.  These Armsmen can do microgravity raids (asteroids; you'll need to "park" next it) and seize structures.  They can also board immobile ships or repel boarders (another ball of wax and set of rules, weapons, etc... sorry, it was the MoO2, not me, talking.)

Next Tier: VAC COMMANDOS: EVA-specialized elite Armsmen.  Vac commandoes aren't of much use in battle ("sir, you want me to go outside the hull NOW?") but can cross open space and potentially board moving vessels, like trade ships or refinery ships, to capture them, or cut into structures.  Vac Commandoes are something you'd run a scout or light frigate, etc. alongside such ships to "seize" the prize.  Although it would be wonderful poetry if you captured a pirate ship.  Speaking of which, pirate ships don't have shields, do they...?

Next Tier: DENIABLE ASSETS: Mercenary or Bionic Vac Commandoes who aren't traceable back to your empire.  Run a scout through an Ally's grav well or an asteroid field, drop a sleeper group of 'em, wait a little while, and the prizes start sailing into port... or that laboratory suffers a mysterious explosion.

Next Tier: ANTIMATTER BOMB: Isn't this a Scout Power?  Well... yes.  But I like the idea of it being done by a group of heavily tattoed VACies bailing out of a tiny ship, and patiently free-falling across 120,000 klicks with satchel charges of antimatter and profound social dysfunctions.

STRATEGY & TACTICS: Because conventional warfare is auto-resolved, player skill does not enter.  Therefore, various levels of tech can represent sophistocation in this area.  Example possibilities:

PROFESSIONAL ARMY: You have moved beyond conscription; all troops are professional volunteers.  + (x) to effetiveness.

STRATCOM: HQ is well integrated with field units; sub-commanders have reasonable autonomy and contingency training.  Your conventional war apparatus functions well at a strategic level.  All units gain + (x) effectiveness.

STRATEGIC AI: AIs augment your decision makers and manage resources and logistics at higher efficiency.

PLANETARY RANGERS: All infantry are upgraded to "elite" status, thanks to improved recruitment, training, health care, etc.

COMBAT SPUs: Vehicles are equipped with AI augmentation or, in some cases, fully autonomous drones.  +(x).

etc.

Well, that was kind of a... tome [edit change: "no, it is a Monster."]  Realistic?  No... but I had fun!  Time for beer.

Sins in its current form is not conducive of ground battles or FPS's.  This is not to say that IC couldn't create some FPS or RPG that takes place within the Sins timeline, but doing ground battles is a worthless venture.  Games simply should be one or the other.  The reason is that you don't have time to.  Sins is too fast paced to allow you to do both land and ground battles.

There just isn't a point.  Nuke them from orbit.  Problem solved.  Who cares about a ground invasion if you can kill them all without risking a single one of your own people.

@myfist: there actually is a game online somewhere where one side plays an RTS with AI controlled units while the humans play as an FPS where you play as an individual soldier.

Yeah like the game Savage. But on a sins scale game. Probably gotta wait until technology advances.

I'm for this, for the sole reason that once you start bombing, there's no interactivity involved and i have a very short attent...Hey look, a cookie!

-Exile Ascendant