Ground Warfare and NPCs

[Tellos]

Ok so I saw earlier that somebody asked about NPCs and ground warfare and some mention was made of scale. I figure this might be a good place to start taking about what we might do to deal with that. Also I'd guess first is how do we want it run for different scales? Or do we want a more uniform system to avoid confusion?

 

[The Red of Sinner]

I like uniform system. I got the Drakon Regiment http://starwarsrp.net/topic/46756-the-drakon-regiment/
All very detailed for warfare, in fact, I have a specific way I will start doing it now when I make NPCs and the above is how.

 

[Tellos]

Not so much yet looking at units as how do we handle them.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

[member="Tellos"]
It’s complex. Whilst fleeting battles are somewhat respect, ground battles are not really. It’s generally treated as the preserve of PVP fighting.

Did you have any suggestions in that regard?

 

[Tellos]

[member="Valiens Nantaris"] Possibly forming a small sort of metrics we can fill in so that the NPC ground forces have a general ability to effect the battlefield. While I know the main character of players will decide total outcomes possibly use these as sort of a NPC modifier on how well some aspects go. Like lets say no players go after one objective thats someplace on the battlefield only NPC forces. Give each perhaps an overall modifier based on equipment, training, tactics etc and roll see who wins and use that to change outcomes slightly. So maybe a win still happens but later it's noted your guys had to go mop up a force who held out cause the NPCs didint take a hill.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

[member="Tellos"]
If you have some ideas and want to try and work out a system go for it! I'll help where I can.

 

[Veino Garn]

I'll second the offer, although I have no experience with game systems.

 

[Caius Flavian]

Has anyone perhaps looked at the fantasy flight system for handling large scale combat?

Now since I'm no longer state side I don't really have access to getting ahold of these things but if anyone has ever used or have seen the ruleset from Age of Rebellion that might be useful in working up a system!

If anything it can help inspire or give us some direction.

I've in the past used the Rogue Trader system and that has worked out pretty well in integrating the PVP (we had a few black crusade types to rp with). Handling NPC versus NPC combat was tricky because I was roleplaying with a couple of my military buddies and the system in the book was cut and dry with little effort in separation of units so we had to create our own that were realistic in look and feel.

My suggestion would be to initially play test with a tactical level of units rather than the sum operational units.

For starters take a platoon of storm troopers and pit them against another platoon of storm troopers. With a single player each side. From there you can work your way up in scale. Suddenly it goes from maneuvering a platoon with the squads as the component units to a company with the platoons as component units.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

[member="Caius Flavian"]
I fear it would be too complex and more damningly (to most RPers anyway) too much 'like a wargame'.

However, if anyone wants to try it out I'll be happy to assist.

 

[sabrina]

[member="Valiens Nantaris"] one my character is going to be rping a platoon scouts in prakith invasion, if you want to try a basic level out

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

[member="sabrina"]
Ah...I don't have anything to give you, I fear. I've been focussed all on the fleeting.

My hope is that after the event I can get something else written up.

 

[Veino Garn]

[member="sabrina"]

I'll be working on an alt with NPCs as well, so we can set aside ourselves apart and work on stuff if you want to try anything out.

 

[sabrina]

[member="Veino Garn"] cool we can do this in duel thread, or a invasions.

 

[Veino Garn]

[member="sabrina"]
Cool! Which would you think is best? If we do it in a duel, we can have it non-canon as a test run for any system we might think of.

 

[sabrina]

[member="Veino Garn"] we could do it after current invasions

 

[Veino Garn]

That sounds like a plan. I'm trying to run a regiment of NPCs and it's a bit of a headache.

 

[Tellos]

I'd like to suggest perhaps a simulation RP possibly to see if we can get some development going. We can have a simulated invasion on smaller scale with a number of chosen players if needed and go from there to maybe hash out the details. See where any ideas we have stick where others don;t.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

Here's my general suggestion, because everyone asked:

A test run is great. Let's come up with a general sort of guideline for warfare first and use that. Nothing heavy, we'll just pick each aspect of battling and draw up a light "this is how we'll do it."

As a side note, since force size was mentioned:

[member="Valiens Nantaris"], writing as a small, cohesive unit has always, in my experience, the preferred manner for doing things. This is because you can account for all the rounds fired and fired at you, versus in a large scale battle for instance, where player A states "I shot a ton of stuff at you!" and player B has to figure out "Well what's a fair amount of damage to take in this instance?"
When you're running a squad, you can account for the actions of each character, when you're engaged in a massive battle, you have to account for forces by the dozen, the battalion, you always have to generalize. As a result, your damage intake and damage input will never be truly detailed, or accurate.

I've rp fought for years, and I had a lot of fun. I also won a lot of fights. The way I did that was by being detailed. I don't mean writing long as heck posts, but even when I'm talking about five vehicles firing on a target, I'll write from the perspective of only one of them.
That way the defender gets an idea of what my actions will probably do to him.
All of this gets lost when you heap on forces upon vehicles upon starships upon soldiers' shoulders.

So for practice, at least, I would recommend scaling back. Severely. [member="Tellos"], I will gladly do a skirmish run with you, just to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Other things we should use: Map generators that put a hex system in place. This doesn't have to be used for anything other than range of weaponry and distance moved per post. Keep it simple, but it's important that players have a quick-reference for the game field, because when people start getting confused, but still have to write posts and don't want to hold up everyone else, mistakes are made and things get confusing.

Range: IS important. No offense, but relegating all ranges to the same distance per class eliminates the tactics from the situation. When it comes to combat, "out-thinking" and "out-maneuvering" your opponent aren't really the key to winning.
It comes down to "Who can shoot first, farthest, fastest."
When I attack someone with a vehicle, I don't just show up and fire, I'll do something like this:

"...with a sharp lurch, the AT-TE stepped forward and brought its turret into line with the enemy armor 100 meters down the road. After a quiet moment, the muzzle flashed brilliantly and the street shook with a BOOM, and immediately the vehicle lurched back into place behind the government building it was using for concealment."

Now, instead of just saying I've shot, I've included actions that affect how my opponent is able to react. He can't just say he shoots me back, he's got to account for the fact that I might no longer be there.
What he could do is take the hit and fire his return round through the building at my vic. Sure it'll take reduced damage, but he has a good chance of scoring some sort of return hit.

If he's not as detailed as I am, in my return post, when he inevitably fires back, I have leeway in what I'm allowed to claim for damage. I can claim the return round glanced through the ferrocrete support pillar of the building and showered my victor with stone debris. I can claim any number of things. The point is I put him on the defensive as a writer, not just a character.
Instead of just "shooting back" you can aim for a particular area of a vehicle, enemy, structure, etc. There are a million ways to make RP battles easier to manage, and it all starts with writing style.

That doesn't mean some guidelines aren't helpful though, and I think we should account for them.

That was a long diatribe of me showing off, but I hope that helps convey what I'm trying to get at.

 

[Tellos]

[member="Ali Hadrix"] I'd be fine with that. And I agree in test runs small scale is the best place to start, for the reasons you indicated. Also you did forget something in shooting. Accuracy. I have IRl seen a guy shoot first and miss easily. It's not just who shoots first but who hits first. Maneuvering and tactics are important and out maneuvering for foe can negate range but you are correct range matters greatly. Some weapons have minimum ranges like missiles to arm a warhead or you just get it bouncing off stuff. All weapons are not made equal in all things and so as best we can we need to be sure we take some account into them. Now obviously large scale will have to be done more general but even then some things can be deduced. Infantry generally will be last to fire unless using heavy weapons compared to say tanks or artillery etc.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

IRL accuracy is a huge issue. In RP, it's not so much important as it's an abstract topic, more so than range, elevation, etc. But I would like to see it taken into account somehow, and I'm wondering if bonuses and demerits can be given to weapons depending on their type and the range at which they are designed to operate.
Basically, if my assault rifle has a range of 100-200 meters, then my shots should be counted as more accurate at 100 meters than 200 meters, and demerits can be added at 200+ meters.
However, there's little easy way to account for that without hard stats and the ability to make rolls, etc. I don't necessarily want to get THAT complicated with it.

Of course arming distances with grenades and missiles are easily accounted for, and should not be forgotten.

Let's do a 4 on 4 tank battle.

I've already got a tank in mind, we can each use them, that should keep things balanced and easy to account for.
Each tank comes with a compliment of one squad of 9 typical soldiers (for a total of 4 squads / 36 soldiers each). Not super soldiers, but not idiots either.

Squad break down:

1 = Long range marksmen
1 = Anti-tank
1 = Riflemen
1 = Grenadiers

Weapons allotment doesn't need to be complicated. An anti-tank rocket launcher can mess up a tank depending on how you write, we don't have to staticize everything. A grenade won't do much against a tank, but it'll mess up infantry. You can't out run a tank. A tank can't out run a rocket.

Here's the link to the vehicles we'll use; they're of my own design and they're amazing.

C1M2A Modernized All-Terrain Tactical Enforcer: http://starwarsrp.net/topic/55817-c1m2a-mat-te-armored-attack-walker/

Here's the situation:

http://scrum.maptactic.com/700397437042077305

I'll play as the Red Forces, you play as the Green. We each have the same vehicles, with some minor changes:

Speed
Attack
Defense
Accuracy


Your vics:

-Speed: You move at 250 meters per post
+Defense: You have 3 layer armor Front and Sides, 2 Rear
+Attack: You attack at a strength of one round per layer of armor (thus 2 hits to break through)
+Accuracy: 1/4 shots misses

My vics:

+Speed: I move at 500 meters per post
-Defense: I have 2 layers of armor, Front, Sides, and Rear
-Attack: I attack as a strength of 2 rounds per layer of armor (I have lesser armor, so maneuvering is important for me to keep you from hitting the same side multiple times)
+Accuracy: 1/6 shots misses

This is a quickly made up form of simple stats, just to get us flowing with ideas during the RP.

The situation is:

Each of us have a check point that must be destroyed/captured by infantry, with armor support.

We will transport our infantry wherever we want to, but keep in mind they're vulnerable to armor (save for the anti-tank, who have weapons that can damage / disable armor.

You don't have to stick to the outline I designed for the battle plan, it was a suggestion.

But here are some key factors that MUST be included in each post:

Grid Location + Total Movement: 1, 1; 1,2; 4,3; etc. and "1,1 - 2,4"
Description of Terrain: This is crucial. Select and describe any cover elements, advantages in elevation, etc. All the information about your current battle space that can help the other side make better decisions in reaction to you.
Post Objective: Not overall objective, but a summary of the post. i.e. "Able Squad to fire on Enemy Baker Squad. / Alef-1 Tank to ambush Bay-3 Tank."
Overall Objective: Self-explanatory
Distance Covered (in post): 200 meters.
Rounds Fired by Type: 13 HEAT (High Energy Anti-Tank), 33 Blaster Rifle, 2 Artillery Rounds
Ammunition and Consumables Remaining: This isn't just ammo, but any consumables, such as charges for countermeasures.

At the conclusion of this RP, we can make suggestions on what to add/take away.

If there's anything you want to add now, let me know. I'll make a first post in the thread, making edits to fit anything you think to add: http://starwarsrp.net/topic/56473-testing-rudimentary-ground-combat-armor-infantry/