SEV suggestions/gripes

[Barnacle Bill]

thorfrog said:
1. Troops that are not just small hovering space ships. I'd like to see real ground combat with infantry, tanks, battle mechs, ect. I have to say I hate the current format. This part really bothers me the most.

I don't like it either, but it is consistent with SEIV. In other words, in SEIV troops were presented like vehicles, and SEV has just added a tactical resolution to it.

I used to mull over the potential of a mod for SEIV in which I reworked all the troop components into "battalions" (cockpit => HQ, defensive components => infantry, weapons => armor, etc...) and replaced the troop pictures with NATO symbology counters (small, medium large troops => regiment, brigade, division). Never got around to working on it, though...

thorfrog said:I wish the ground combat was more like Galactic Civ 2.

I don't. GalCiv II uses population as troops, with a victorious invasion eradicating the original population of the planet. I find this completely unacceptable. I mean, in WWII the Germans didn't send 10's of millions of men, women & children into France to fight to the death against the 10's of millions of French men, women & children living there - they sent a couple million trained soldiers to defeat the French army and then left a few 100,000 as occupation forces to control the 10's of millions of French civilians. As opposed to that, I'd prefer no ground combat at all just the old "Stellar Conquest" system - upon elimination of defending ships/bases the planet surrenders and is controlled by the victor as long as at least one warship remains in orbit, reverting to the inhabiting race's control if the warship garrison is removed/eliminated.

However, what I'd really like is a system with different troop types as you suggest, designed more or less like the units in SMAC (except a better design system UI, of course), then fighting on a tactical map of some sort.

Better yet, a more or less operational level game on a hex map of the planet (a Goode-type projection like used in the board game "Invasion:Earth", only fewer hexes per planet - that one is on a 20 x 36 hex grid, which is too big for a 4Xer ground combat module). Units would be designed from "equipments" (vehicles, crew served weapons & infantry squads) similarly to Norm Kroger's OPART, with the "equipments" designed a la SMAC. That's probably too much to ask for, though...

[Captain Kwok]

In my Space Food Empires mod, I represented troops as "weapons" that could placed on troop vehicles. Different troops would have different damage and hitpoint amounts.

[Fyron]

Have you seen the troop model in Carrier Battles Mod? It uses infantry as small, cheap, high HP, low damage units and tanks as big, low hp, high damage units. The infantry are there to soak up damage, the tanks to absorb it. I'm sure something similar can be devised for SE5.

[Baal]

I think it's too quick to invade a planet. There should be a time limit as to how long the combat can go so that it can take several turns to effectively invade a planet. Plus there needs to be more militia seeing as how I land with 100 troops and all they can muster is a couple weak militia (this is on their homeworld.

Also, where are the anti ground troop weapons. There should be weapons to put on weapon platforms to repel invading troops. All in all I think using troops is a cheap tactic to gain territory very quickly seeing as how if you manage to land at all the planet is yours.

[Phoenix-D]

Perhaps your opponent should be building troops of his own? I mean, would you call it "cheap" if you attacked his systems and glassed his planets without issue because he had no ships to oppose you?

EDIT: and yes, I realize this is an AI issue in that case.

[Baal]

I was going to suggest AI issues seeing as I don't PBW. It makes it kind of a deal breaker for me to buy the game if the AI can't build enough ships to fight me.

Also, the reports of 50 troops being contructed clutter the news.

I find that my ships refuel in enemy systems off of enemy resupply depots.

[arthurtuxedo]

I still maintain that troops should be treated more like ships than fighters. The quantities of troops that can be easily landed on a planet brings my system to its knees, often causing the game to freeze, and is rarely necessary anyhow. I say make them cost ~3 times as much and weigh ~10 times as much. Giving weapon platforms the ability to hit ground troops at ranges and damages far exceeding them would also make things a lot more interesting.