Feature Request: Equiping Militia through salvaged weapons/armor/etc[message #315316]
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Mon, 11 February 2013 20:53
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AliceInChains |
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Messages:16
Registered:January 2012 |
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The subject line basically says it all. But some background info and explaining:
Personally I dislike drop mechanics that do not give all the equipment a character carried at the time of death. In JA2 however, drop all unbalances the game quite a bit. Especially when one also enabled the feature for Soldiers to always wear some armor. And yet that is exactly what I want to have enabled, considering we're dealing with military units here. As such, seeing them run around with .38 revolvers (or any kind of pistol as main armament)is just... Weird.
Same goes for Merc initial equipment (let's invade a country, engage the army and use a single pistol + 2 ammo clips for that) but that's another story (and will be brought up in a scenario change suggestion soon enough).
So I've been thinking off a way to make these settings viable without ruining balance (current game I have over $ 400.000 and enough weapons to make another 20 runs to Tony at least). Sure, one can choose not to sell them (or use ALT + Left for <10% or something) and/or simply destroy all items found this way but I was hoping for a more story driven solution. With Deidranna ruling Arulco and the army basically controlling every aspect getting equipment for militia would be difficult at best. So where did they get it from? And what better way to equip them than using the salvaged items from killed soldiers? Implementing some mechanics that would allow you to provide (give) equipment for your newly trained militia using whatever you scrounged up so far would be a nice idea in my opinion. It could also be a great feature to limit the amount of militia training one can do just like that (I've always found it way too easy to train large numbers of militia and yes I'm using all sort of changed settings to counter that. I also use story driven arguments: I only train Militia after liberating Alma for example).
One of the obvious cons would of course be the imbalance for those games where one is not using the 'drop all' setting. But this new way of militia equipping could simply be an optional setting as well.
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Re: Feature Request: Equiping Militia through salvaged weapons/armor/etc[message #315360]
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Tue, 12 February 2013 20:51
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Thor |
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Messages:423
Registered:February 2007 Location: Belgium |
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As I would like to have "some" control on the militia's equipment, I opt for the second: a kind of armoury in every sector or group of sectors (in case of a city). Militia should drop their gear again when dead.
And as I prefer quality above quantity I would also prefer 5-10 blue militia above 10-20 green...
So maybe this could be also an option to work on. I think in-game this option could be covered in the question that you are asked when you can continue to train more men... Instead of a yes/no question it could become a different question:
"Spend $xxx to continue training or $xxx to upgrade militia?"
[Continue] - [Upgrade] - [Cancel]
[Updated on: Tue, 12 February 2013 20:53] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Master Sergeant
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Re: Feature Request: Equiping Militia through salvaged weapons/armor/etc[message #315368]
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Tue, 12 February 2013 23:10
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TBCoW |
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Messages:6
Registered:December 2012 |
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Another solution to this could be making militia to pick up weapons at the beginning of the fight.
When militia is trained some random weapons based on current coolness are made (don't ask)
All militia while exploring a sector during peace are unarmed
When enemy attacks sector all weapons in the sector that are accessable are divided between militia when tactical screen is loading.
It could work however i see 2 problems:
There is a need to think of a formula that takes into account equipment coolness, stats of generated militia and their traits, division of ammo.
Second problem is introduction of class-divided gun choice which makes militia better than green stay with 'old' weapons
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Re: Feature Request: Equiping Militia through salvaged weapons/armor/etc[message #315373]
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Wed, 13 February 2013 10:26
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AliceInChains |
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Messages:16
Registered:January 2012 |
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DepressivesBrotArmor is a non-essential feature of typical militias
It seems like as usual everyone is talking about something else, but the two basic lines here are:
1) Guns as an abstract resource, adding 'militia points' for each [collection of] x items yet otherwise leaving the situation largely unchanged.
-OR-
2) Maintaining an actual equipment pool from which militia is equipped for a battle, i.e. the closest we'll ever get to actual control over their equipment while still keeping files reasonable.
It very much seems so. My initial (and much preferred) idea still is to have militia equipped with actual equipment salvaged and not to create some abstract pool from where items are generated based on points. But limitations of the game engine and amount of coding/work required are very important factors to consider of course. If creating a militia storage can be done, I'm all for it.
Following up one of your later posts; I actually like the idea of withholding militia who did not receive a weapon. And to add: Militia would be equipped with whatever is stored/available. No armor at all but still a gun? Then that poor bastard will go to battle wearing nothing more than an 'I love Fox Deidranna T-Shirt'...
jpgThere is another problem with this solution: some players may not like having militia use (and damage) some of their stocked weapons or, more important, use some rare ammunition, rockets or grenades carefully hoarded for the game end.
Which is why I opted for a storage feature; You add weapons for militia to a separate container. Their equipment is taken from that container while sector inventory is left untouched. Mostly. As militia sometimes pick up items from the ground during battle even now.
Flugente
Concerning 2)
- A local storage per sector would have to be separated from normal sector inventory. There needs to be a sort-of second inventory.
- Needs a functionality to move items to and from 'storage' to 'sector inventory'.
- If we assume militia uses storage once the sector is loaded, exactly this gear has to be removed from them once the sector is unloaded. Thus we need to mark 'stored' gear.
- What happens to standard militia gear that is replaced by storage gear?
- Outdated gear could 'overwrite' more useful standard militia gear. How should that be handled?
- Ammo is a problem. Either there is a need to store ammo as well - resulting in much bigger storage - or ammo magically appears on militia. This opens a new (though propably purely academic) exploit, where you can get expensive ammo by storing an empty gun, training militia, and then killing them for their ammo.
I've left out 1 as I simply prefer approach 2. Points 1, 2 and 3; Can this be done and how much effort would be involved?
Points 4 & 5; My preference > Militia has no standard gear. They get everything from that storage. But this may cause a huge imbalance between 'Drop all' on and off.
Point 6; Ammo would be needed as well. You couldn't just equip militia with all the fancy stuff but need to make a conscious choice based on available ammo. Most AR magazines can be stacked to 24 at the moment, 10 slots for 240 magazines would allow some 20-32 militia to hold out in a few battles I think.
[Updated on: Wed, 13 February 2013 10:43] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Re: Feature Request: Equiping Militia through salvaged weapons/armor/etc[message #315377]
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Wed, 13 February 2013 14:27
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DepressivesBrot |
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Messages:3658
Registered:July 2009 |
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AliceInChainsFlugenteConcerning 2)- A local storage per sector would have to be separated from normal sector inventory. There needs to be a sort-of second inventory.
- Needs a functionality to move items to and from 'storage' to 'sector inventory'.
- If we assume militia uses storage once the sector is loaded, exactly this gear has to be removed from them once the sector is unloaded. Thus we need to mark 'stored' gear.
- What happens to standard militia gear that is replaced by storage gear?
- Outdated gear could 'overwrite' more useful standard militia gear. How should that be handled?
- Ammo is a problem. Either there is a need to store ammo as well - resulting in much bigger storage - or ammo magically appears on militia. This opens a new (though propably purely academic) exploit, where you can get expensive ammo by storing an empty gun, training militia, and then killing them for their ammo.
I've left out 1 as I simply prefer approach 2. Points 1, 2 and 3; Can this be done and how much effort would be involved?
Points 4 & 5; My preference > Militia has no standard gear. They get everything from that storage. But this may cause a huge imbalance between 'Drop all' on and off.
Point 6; Ammo would be needed as well. You couldn't just equip militia with all the fancy stuff but need to make a conscious choice based on available ammo. Most AR magazines can be stacked to 24 at the moment, 10 slots for 240 magazines would allow some 20-32 militia to hold out in a few battles I think. 1,2,3 is theoretically doable, but requires a lot of overhead and largely redundant code. How about we simply 'tag' equipment and overlay it with, dunno, a green version of the ownership pattern? That way we'd also know what mobiles and reinforcements are allowed to take with them.
4,5 Since obviously we're talking about an optional feature, anyone activating it without drop all has to deal with it.
6 No real need to stack stuff, they can just take what they need from a crate.
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Re: Feature Request: Equiping Militia through salvaged weapons/armor/etc[message #315390]
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Wed, 13 February 2013 21:17
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Flugente |
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Messages:3509
Registered:April 2009 Location: Germany |
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The one solution I currently prefer is to equip militia entirely from storage. with a little twist: Use the current sector inventory itself as storage. Once a sector is unloaded, all gear on militia gets stored in the inventory again. This way militia stealing items would be no issue.
One problem is that militia then has access to everything that isn't on your mercs. Wouldn't be a problem for me, as I loot every sector anyway. Apart from the HQ sector... battles there would be bad
Beauty of this would be that one can define the entire militia-equipment very easily: just dump it into the sector. It would also bring logistics to a whole new level, as oen can only have as many militia as guns, has to provide armour, repair gear, and occasionally update item selection. If a sector is not loaded tactically, one could still see all items in there, and replace them.
A significant problem with all storage-based approaches, however, remains: how to equip militia reinforcements, and how to equip mobile militia? While some ugly hacks could be made to load adjacent sector inventory for reinforcements and auto-equip them from there, this would be pointless for mobiles.
I'd thus advise to still equip mobiles as usual, but simply increase their training cost significantly. This could be justified by them having their own gear. If a mobile then enters a city, he'd bring his gear along. It would simply enter the item pool, and could still be used by him/others in the future.
Edit: Added bonus: if done right, the required interface could provide an easy way to later switch to a separate sector storage, should anyone later code something like that.
[Updated on: Wed, 13 February 2013 21:18] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Re: Feature Request: Equiping Militia through salvaged weapons/armor/etc[message #315401]
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Wed, 13 February 2013 22:54
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Flugente |
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Messages:3509
Registered:April 2009 Location: Germany |
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Which is pointless for moving squads, unless parts of the inventory move along with them as Depri advised.
Which will be a bit tricky, but would be needed for my reinforcement handling idea.
Now, if we add the idea of restricting militia item access by colouring it in strategic inventory via a simple key command, and add a comfort 'militia drops everything in peace times on key press' command, we are done. Apart from coding everything.
[Updated on: Wed, 13 February 2013 22:59] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Re: Feature Request: Equiping Militia through salvaged weapons/armor/etc[message #315568]
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Tue, 19 February 2013 00:07
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Thor |
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Messages:423
Registered:February 2007 Location: Belgium |
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Why not stick to the weapons and the armor? Will become pretty expensive if militia fire all your expensive ammo and there will be many without any after a few turns... How will you divide the ammo, etc? After all, it's the bit of ammo in most cases that you looted yourself... and they won't handle it economically witty like a player does.
What happens if there are a few attacks? Everybody will be out of ammo rather than with... Enemies also don't run out of ammo, right?
[Updated on: Tue, 19 February 2013 00:08] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Master Sergeant
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