Suggestions: Community Improvements

[Severyane]

If you've a suggestion for improving the community, feel free to post in this thread. If you feel there'll be ample discussion, you can just make a thread for it in this forum. In either case, discussion can happen between all those relevant.

[STRATCOM]

Suggestion: Unified Combat Guidelines
Area of the Community the Suggestion is aimed at: All nations partaking in warfare.

How can it be implemented?: UCG is a combat logistics system implemented by the MANINTERN in the MANAOI combat interface, allowing for completely fair and realistic combat. Each side assesses its units engaged in battle and assigns them point values of Health, Attack, Range, and Ammunition, with the baseline for a light infantry/milita unit being 6/1/2/6. Additionally, they determine which unit types the Attack can target: rifles can only effectively assault other Infantry, but a MANPAD gives the unit anti-Aircraft capability. The combatants each review the other's point values and tweak or agree on them. For simplicity, this can be done with national armories far before combat ever occurs.

-Then, combat proceeds for each combatant in logistics and movement/combat phases.

-In the Logistics Phase, the player determines how many actions their forces as a whole will have for the movement/combat phase. They roll a D6 die and add the strength in companies of their logistics unit. For example, a Chiri commander rolls 3 on his 1D6 and has 6 logistics units, and so he receives 3+6=9 actions. Conversely, the Vestor commander rolls 6 on his 1D6 but his logistics section is decimated down to 1 unit, so he only receives 6+1=7 actions.

-In the Movement/Combat Phase, the player spends one action on either moving or firing for one unit. For example, six actions could cause one unit to fire six times, six units to fire once, one unit to move six times, six units to move once, three units to move and three units to fire, or any combination in between.

-When Firing, the attacker must first be within the Range distance of the foe. They then roll 1D20 plus their Attack value for the unit. The defender rolls 1D20 plus their Health value for the unit. If the attacker has the higher number, the defending unit takes an amount of Health damage equivalent to the attacker's Attack value. If the defender has the higher number, the attack fails and no values change. Regardless of success or failure, one Ammunition is expended. If a unit has zero Ammunition remaining it cannot attack.

-Logistics units are a special type of unit with Health and Ammunition, but no other values. Logistics units adjacent to a combat unit may transfer all but one of their Health and all of their Ammunition to the combat unit, with one unit of Health or Ammunition transferred at a cost of one Action. Logistics units that are wiped out are subtracted from the amount added to Actions during the Logistics phase, so they must be protected.

-When Moving, the unit may move up to one-half of their Range per Action spent. If both participants agree on an area of Difficult Terrain, that terrain costs 2 Actions to move one-half of Range. If both participants agree on an area of Impassable Terrain, only Aircraft may pass it. Water terrain may only be passed by Naval and Aircraft units.

-Transporting is a special kind of move. If a unit has transport capability like an APC, it may load one unit smaller than itself (Infantry into APCs, armor and infantry into transport ships and planes) at the cost of one Action to the unit being transported. The transporting unit may then move normally. When the player desires the transported unit to disembark, the transported unit pays a cost of one Action to disembark and may otherwise move and act normally.

How will it benefit us?: Unified Combat Guidelines will prevent unrealistic, unfair, and unenjoyable combat from ruining a warfare experience by giving both participants an equal chance of victory, modified by the balance of forces. The UCG can be scaled down to small unit tactics or up to theatre-wide campaigns, as the size of a Unit is irrelevant to the mechanics.

[Flo]

Hey, interesting idea. For future reference, It's much easier to read if you set spaces between each line item. I've edited your post to reflect this. It's not so easy to notice as you're typing, but its much easier on the eyes when reading o/

[STRATCOM]

Thank you, esteemed administrator. For further information on this system, access to the MANAOI system can be granted.

[DeSchaine]

That sounds like the rule set from Axis & Allies Minis or MechWarrior: DA

[STRATCOM]

Esteemed diplomat Deschaine, the comparison can be drawn. Additionally, more or fewer rules can be applied depending on the complexity of the combat the combatants desire. For example, a naval vessel with CIWS system may have an additional ammunition variable for anti-missile rounds, which are expended to boost the defender's defense roll.

[DeSchaine]

How do you reconcile differing kinds of the same type of ammo vs differing aim points on vehicles?

[STRATCOM]

Esteemed diplomat Deschaine, an excellent point. The rules are built for one weapons system per unit, but can be scaled to have an arbitrary number of weapons systems per unit by adding Attack and Ammunition variables for each additional weapons system.

[Jamzor the Jaxxor]

I have been thinking that we need something like this. I definitely think this should be explored more.

[Raz]

I remember wanting to implement something similar to this WAAAAAY back in Alterra. While I wasn't wrong per se, my opponents weren't wrong. Combat in the MTRP needs to be easy to access while also being interesting. This ventures into Tabletop Gaming which isn't something for everyone.