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2 hours ago, Decius said:

Laser target designation from ground troops is for when the opposing force has enough AA capability that your air support has to be under  the horizon.

Would you want los to your aircraft from directed energy weapons in the 80’s! I would think even a crashed UFO still might have it’s main weapon systems on line.

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3 minutes ago, stewpidbear said:

Would you want los to your aircraft from directed energy weapons in the 80’s! I would think even a crashed UFO still might have it’s main weapon systems on line.

If the AA is functional, then after the dropship arrives gameplay shifts to a hidden object game to get enough of the squad to fill the appropriate number of body bags.

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Air support is utterly unfair. Utterly unfair, and boring. You get to face it in Phantom Doctrine. An invisible, invincible monster with LOS to all points of the map and weapons which if you stray into their AOE, kill you instantly. It's "balanced" in Phantom Doctrine by giving a timer before it hits the player, and making it unusable inside buldings, which are invulnerable. It adds tension to Phantom Doctrine because the player can't use it. Honestly, the more people ask for air support, the more tempted I am to try and mod a simulation of the kind of air support they think they want, and find out that when they can kill everything across the map with no effort just how boring that is. 

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45 minutes ago, Max_Caine said:

Air support is utterly unfair. Utterly unfair, and boring. You get to face it in Phantom Doctrine. An invisible, invincible monster with LOS to all points of the map and weapons which if you stray into their AOE, kill you instantly. It's "balanced" in Phantom Doctrine by giving a timer before it hits the player, and making it unusable inside buldings, which are invulnerable. It adds tension to Phantom Doctrine because the player can't use it. Honestly, the more people ask for air support, the more tempted I am to try and mod a simulation of the kind of air support they think they want, and find out that when they can kill everything across the map with no effort just how boring that is. 

I agree to your statement. I think that if CAS is to become a thing, it would have to be well balanced in terms of costs (material and opportunity), precision, effects and use limits. I can only speak from X-Division experience, but in that scenario I would find it okay if I had to equip a fighter plane with a special one-time use air-ground weapon that costs materiel and time to build (binding engineers), send it alongside the troop transport (which means range limits as the fighter usually has less fuel), then have it shoot that stuff on demand, but with a one turn delay, and it likely doing more of a suppression effect than killing due to accuracy limitations and cover. Targets in buildings would not be as effected, even more so in the UFO. Also, you'd risk killing civilians, but that is always a danger present.

Basically, it would be a high cost larger radius rocket with high suppression effect.

You could make it even harder by having to have a soldier throw out a signal flare or grenade for the CAS to hit its mark.

Basically, it should come with costs appropriate to the effect granted.

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14 minutes ago, Dagar said:

I agree to your statement. I think that if CAS is to become a thing, it would have to be well balanced in terms of costs (material and opportunity), precision, effects and use limits. I can only speak from X-Division experience, but in that scenario I would find it okay if I had to equip a fighter plane with a special one-time use air-ground weapon that costs materiel and time to build (binding engineers), send it alongside the troop transport (which means range limits as the fighter usually has less fuel), then have it shoot that stuff on demand, but with a one turn delay, and it likely doing more of a suppression effect than killing due to accuracy limitations and cover. Targets in buildings would not be as effected, even more so in the UFO. Also, you'd risk killing civilians, but that is always a danger present.

Basically, it would be a high cost larger radius rocket with high suppression effect.

You could make it even harder by having to have a soldier throw out a signal flare or grenade for the CAS to hit its mark.

Basically, it should come with costs appropriate to the effect granted.

Totally agree the cost does have a big part to play if this is used. It could be another tool in the tactical game as long as it’s not overwhelming.

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Anyone play EDF? I'm thinking air raider. A laser marker or marker grenades that let's you call in support. And what support you have available is somewhat random (since it depends on allies in vicinity)

Mortar/artillery strikes and gunship support (if you have a dedicated gunship with air-to-surface weapons deployed).

It can always be balanced in terms of accuracy, collateral damage, number of uses and of course, enemy numbers.

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Guys, guys. I think air support is a nice idea.

1. Close range calls only. So for instance a grenade ( optionally which marks affected tiles around it ) which gets thrown in an 8 to 10 tile radius. No laser pointer which can point at the other side of the map.
2. The air support takes a full turn, and gets executed at the beginning of your next turn. This means "in theory" no air support ability will ever hit anything, unless people dont move away. Its more of a zoning tool.
3. Air support for both sides. Aliens can also call in a limited number of air support abilities, which again take a full round to get executed. This means you have a full turn to withdraw soldiers in the effected area. Suppression and or panic together with air support makes for a more dynamic gameplay
4. Buildings can be affected, but bullets should be simulated "from above".
5. Obviously it needs to be balanced. Light MG Fire, area suppression, napalm, etc ... .
6. Aliens could have different air support abilities which they can only use a limited amount of times in battle.
7 Obviously high production cost. Maybe ... maybe ... you can even build your air/ground support and station them in your base like any other aircraft. Upside is that you can call in air support, the downside would be that you have to keep a hangar, a plane, and can only call in as much as you have. That would be a nice crossover between Ground Combat and the Geoscape.
8. Timers on air support grenades. So you could throw an air support grenade, which triggers in 2 turns, after which it needs a full round to execute.
9. Geoscape time cooldown. Which means you cant use them nonstop by going from one Crashsite to another. I think that is a very important point.

 

Yes, this can already be modded in in X1, except for the GC - Geoscape connection.

Edited by Charon
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1 hour ago, Charon said:

Guys, guys. I think air support is a nice idea.

1. Close range calls only. So for instance a grenade ( optionally which marks affected tiles around it ) which gets thrown in an 8 to 10 tile radius. No laser pointer which can point at the other side of the map.
2. The air support takes a full turn, and gets executed at the beginning of your next turn. This means "in theory" no air support ability will ever hit anything, unless people dont move away. Its more of a zoning tool.
3. Air support for both sides. Aliens can also call in a limited number of air support abilities, which again take a full round to get executed. This means you have a full turn to withdraw soldiers in the effected area. Suppression and or panic together with air support makes for a more dynamic gameplay
4. Buildings can be affected, but bullets should be simulated "from above".
5. Obviously it needs to be balanced. Light MG Fire, area suppression, napalm, etc ... .
6. Aliens could have different air support abilities which they can only use a limited amount of times in battle.
7 Obviously high production cost. Maybe ... maybe ... you can even build your air/ground support and station them in your base like any other aircraft. Upside is that you can call in air support, the downside would be that you have to keep a hangar, a plane, and can only call in as much as you have. That would be a nice crossover between Ground Combat and the Geoscape.
8. Timers on air support grenades. So you could throw an air support grenade, which triggers in 2 turns, after which it needs a full round to execute.
9. Geoscape time cooldown. Which means you cant use them nonstop by going from one Crashsite to another. I think that is a very important point.

 

Yes, this can already be modded in in X1, except for the GC - Geoscape connection.

Agree with everything above, though balanced and napalm in the same sentence did make me laugh........the scene from Apocalypse Niow and the line of palms comes to mind!

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1 hour ago, Charon said:

Guys, guys. I think air support is a nice idea.

1. Close range calls only. So for instance a grenade ( optionally which marks affected tiles around it ) which gets thrown in an 8 to 10 tile radius. No laser pointer which can point at the other side of the map.
2. The air support takes a full turn, and gets executed at the beginning of your next turn. This means "in theory" no air support ability will ever hit anything, unless people dont move away. Its more of a zoning tool.
3. Air support for both sides. Aliens can also call in a limited number of air support abilities, which again take a full round to get executed. This means you have a full turn to withdraw soldiers in the effected area. Suppression and or panic together with air support makes for a more dynamic gameplay
4. Buildings can be affected, but bullets should be simulated "from above".
5. Obviously it needs to be balanced. Light MG Fire, area suppression, napalm, etc ... .
6. Aliens could have different air support abilities which they can only use a limited amount of times in battle.
7 Obviously high production cost. Maybe ... maybe ... you can even build your air/ground support and station them in your base like any other aircraft. Upside is that you can call in air support, the downside would be that you have to keep a hangar, a plane, and can only call in as much as you have. That would be a nice crossover between Ground Combat and the Geoscape.
8. Timers on air support grenades. So you could throw an air support grenade, which triggers in 2 turns, after which it needs a full round to execute.
9. Geoscape time cooldown. Which means you cant use them nonstop by going from one Crashsite to another. I think that is a very important point.

 

Yes, this can already be modded in in X1, except for the GC - Geoscape connection.

This sounds awesome. If the napalm works like the incendiary from XDiv, it could be pretty balanced. I'd love to see it work as a massive flashbang as well, or maybe a chaff variant to suppress Androns. Like I'd prefer to see it either do nothing or mass suppression, rather than raw damage. Then again, everything has other uses. Xeno 1 wanted the Hunter to be a scout, I used it as a long range cheap plasma sniper. 

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On 8/2/2019 at 12:18 AM, Max_Caine said:

Air support is utterly unfair. Utterly unfair, and boring. You get to face it in Phantom Doctrine. An invisible, invincible monster with LOS to all points of the map and weapons which if you stray into their AOE, kill you instantly. It's "balanced" in Phantom Doctrine by giving a timer before it hits the player, and making it unusable inside buldings, which are invulnerable. It adds tension to Phantom Doctrine because the player can't use it. Honestly, the more people ask for air support, the more tempted I am to try and mod a simulation of the kind of air support they think they want, and find out that when they can kill everything across the map with no effort just how boring that is. 

The entire point of air support is to be unfair. The entire point of any development in warfare since at least the Greek Phalanx is to be unfair. (No fair, you're using other people's shields for defense!) In warfare, it is desirable that there be negligible chance of losing.

But the point of a game is for there to be generally balanced playfield. If there is a simple course of action which results in a negligible chance of losing, it is a degenerate strategy and the game should be modified to remove that case.

 

*Alien* close air support, in a single player situation, doesn't need to be 'fair' or 'balanced', it needs to be 'counterable'- it's an additional challenge that the player needs to overcome, and since the scenario is asymmetric what is left is balancing difficulty.

If I had to balance player air support, I'd make it cost strategic resources. Not just money, but panic/relations or some other defeat mechanism directly. (Air support is not nearly as subtle as heavy machine guns; while the machine guns are only audible for a couple of miles, the aircraft firing are visible for dozens or hundreds of miles; the amount of effort needed to cover up that is substantially different). I'd make a small portion of that be incurred merely for having the support available, add a large cost to the first time it is fired, and a substantial cost for each additional shot fired per mission. And then I'd make it realistically effective: The air support can see the entire outside area and can fire six rounds a minute anywhere on the map, with a six tile diameter (30m kill radius).

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