I think land battle in EAW/FOC is not really the best part of the game. Why? For me it just doesn't feel right, I think maps are too small and too fast for a RTS, units are not really well balanced, some of them are outright useless. Not able to build buildings (except towers) and units (in GC) is not a bad thing, actually I like it better if you have a starting force and some limited reinforcements. Reinforcement system is another thing I don't  like in this game, some maps are freakin hard with only 2 or 3 starting unit caps, meanwhile the rest of your forces are sitting in space. Unit purposes aren't really clear, so I play most of my land battles with 3 kinds of units, and do not use the other 20. 

I'm curious if you agree/disagree, and what you think would make land battles better. 

For one I think mixed units would come in handy, so I'd use some other units too. I'm thinking of infantry mixed with vehicles, as in real life. Hence my second question: what vehicle in the SWuniverse do you think would serve best as a light/fast/attack troop carrier (like a real life hummer or light apc) for a single squad. My first guesses are the QH7 chariot for imps, and the freerunner for rebels.

Edited by megabalta, 01 April 2014 - 06:31 PM.

Edited by skie9173, 01 April 2014 - 07:10 PM.

As far as I know supreme commander sized maps are not something alamo could handle, so I think the second solution is the better. 

I rarely use juggernaughts do to their low maneuverability and low grade anti vehicle weaponry.

Yeah I like this speeder truck, it says it can carry 25 people (two full squads and some more people) and looks nice. How about the imps?

Hmm, the imperial apc is not bad, but it didn't really won my beauty award. I was thinking something like a ww2 german Sd.Kfz. 251.

Edited by megabalta, 01 April 2014 - 07:54 PM.

Unit purposes aren't really clear,

It's not so much the unit as the weapon.
Read the tooltips when you mouseover the units, see what weapons they have, and what they're strong against.
Look at the tooltip on stuff you're fighting, and see what it's weak against, and what weapons that has.

While the PR team has done great work, the game is still a rocker paper scissors counter one ship with another game at heart (or in the case of PR, counter one ship with a ship with the right gun).

The same applies to land battles.

That said, I do agree that the limited landing zones are annoying as hell, and would be infavor having a ground pop of 10 instantly available on all maps.

I feel as though I can shed some light here. I do agree that scale is something of a problem. However, I also think that for the most part the current scale of land combat in PR strikes a good balance between the large and small scale. Initial landing zone ratings are very much map-dependent, though I try to make the first pad worth 5 on the majority of new maps I make. Do you think this should be the case for all land maps? I feel that would create too much uniformity.

The usage of land units is ultimately up to the player, though there are clear roles for some units. Infantry come in four primary flavours: cheap line troops that are okay for defense (army trooper, secforce), competent offensive infantry troopers (stormtroopers, specforce rangers), anti-vehicle troops (shock troopers, specforce vaguards) and dedicated anti-infantry specialists (scout troopers, specforce infiltrators). Light speeders (Arrow, scout bikes) and walkers (AT-ST) are excellent for reconnaissance and cleaning up enemy troops. For both factions heavy vehicles, there is a clear dichotomy between the fast and lightly armoured repulsorcraft and the slower heavy walkers and tracked units (with some crossover in the Juggernaut). For example, the T4 series tanks and the Armored Freerunner: both can fulfil the same role of an armoured unit for breaking up both infantry and enemy armour, however the Freerunner is fast and low HP/armour while the T4 series is slow with high HP/armour. Finally the airspeeders act as multirole interceptors/ground attack craft.

I would strongly disagree that this is a rock-paper-scissors arrangement, however. Unit special abilities and grenades can make a big difference (e.g. Specforce Ranger triple shot to destroy light armour). The strong against/weak against boxes are pretty useless, especially in space. Many ships have overlapping roles that make them competent in a variety of situations. A number of weapons are indeed naturally strong against certain types of unit, but that's just part of the SW universe, which is what PR is trying to portray.

Actually I wasn't referring to PR, more like the whole land battle game mechanic at the start, but of course this is a PR forum.

Landing zone limitations are frustrating from two aspects: unit caps, and beeing tied to a single starting place (at least in GC you always start in the same spot). Playing (the same) maps against the AI with these limitations gets the game repetitive, enemy unit variations don't matter that much (at least if they're not heavy units). Since random generated maps are out of the question, maybe more starting landing zones on different parts of the map, and/or the disregard of landing zones for certain types of units (infantry, both for landing and retreating) could give land battles more variability (the latter could also help to organize guerilla raids for specops). From the defender aspect, unit (infantry) presence could be needed not just to capture but to hold a landing zone (like radars). 

Unit caps are frustrating mostly because I can't use a wider variety of units (I always stick to infantry+anti-infantry units+heavy anti vehicle units combo) and the enemy has unlimited units in waves.

Another thing is the lack of missions in EAW: the only mission is to drop there and kill the enemy base (sure players could search for the power generator, but it is not a must, you can simply go trough shields). "Side missions" are more like easter eggs than real missions (kill 3 rancor caves?).

Some sandbox type missions would be nice, playing with the altitude maybe, hills with good defense abilities could give range advantage and be used as strategic points for artillery (also having artillery shooting across the map), some maps with real hard base defenses (walls, gates, towers) not just 2 pieces of wall on a road, some city maps with streets and lots of civilian buildings to occupy. Since GC maps are played against the AI, a fair number against neutral AI which doesn't really build, a fixed initial enemy unit deployement could give a challange (e.g. artillery hill) instead of suffering endless hordes of defenders ramming against your sole landing zone. 

Unit details are nice to read, but if I have 3-5 slots to start I'll always bring down ATATs maybe some ATSTs and some infantry (maybe they had limited landing zones in ep.5 on Hoth too).

Infantry close quarters anti-vehicle weapons are a great improvement, I wish my infantry wouldn't be crushed while using them. 

Edited by megabalta, 02 April 2014 - 08:48 AM.

I would strongly disagree that this is a rock-paper-scissors arrangement

Then why does the tooltips for most units show three units it's strong/weak against.....

That said, it's still much better done than Vanilla, but you're stuck with some of the flaws of vanilla regardless.

 

Finally the airspeeders act as multirole interceptors/ground attack craft.

And once again that makes no sense when we have perfectly good fighter craft for that role as well.

The unit cards show the strong/weak stuff as a relic of vanilla and to provide some suggestions for use. They aren't exhaustive and are often somewhat incorrect.

Starfighers are not perfectly good on land because of their insanely high top speeds and powerful weaponry. They don't fit our maps like craft designed for atmospheric flight can (and even they are too fast in most cases).

What do you guys think about hoverbikes (besides I want one now)? I think they are not really useful right now, because of their low health. If maybe they would be harder to hit (statistically) and moving around and attacking like the airspeeders, using their high speed to their advantage instead of just sitting there, I would surely use them more often.

Bob, maybe you should do a 10000x10000 Cato Neimoidia map, where only starfighters would be used as land units to satisfy certain needs 

Edited by megabalta, 03 April 2014 - 09:55 PM.

The unit cards show the strong/weak stuff as a relic of vanilla and to provide some suggestions for use. They aren't exhaustive and are often somewhat incorrect.

 

Starfighers are not perfectly good on land because of their insanely high top speeds and powerful weaponry. They don't fit our maps like craft designed for atmospheric flight can (and even they are too fast in most cases).

The unit cards are mostly useful for, when taken as a whole, judging which gun mounts a unit is weakest against in the current build.
It's worked great for me, anyway.

As for the speed/weapons of starfighters.... well I think it'd make sense for them to loose some speed in atmosphere, as well as loose maneuverability as well depending on the craft
Basically, set up a universal reduction in speed/maneuverability for the craft (with an extra penalty for craft with poor aerodynamics).
As for weapons... they're not any more heavily armed than some of the craft already in use on ground maps.
Look at the LAAT, it gets mini proton torpedoes and multiple laser turrets.
In comparison a TIE fighter would still have only two light lasers.
For the snubcraft with missile/torp/etc weapons, well that needs massive overhaul anyway.
Why not take away snubcrafts infinite supply of torpedoes, etc, and give them some sort of special weapon akin to the ion torpedo the Y-Wings get in vanilla, just re-write the weapon's data so it does normal torpedo damage instead of ion damage.
Note: whatever special weapon gets used for that, doesn't matter really, you just have to set the projectile to match the weapon, and make it's use limited.
 

What do you guys think about hoverbikes (besides I want one now)? I think they are not really useful right now, because of their low health. If maybe they would be harder to hit (statistically) and moving around and attacking like the airspeeders, using their high speed to their advantage instead of just sitting there, I would surely use them more often.

 

Bob, maybe you should do a 10000x10000 Cato Neimoidia map, where only starfighters would be used as land units to satisfy certain needs 

speederbikes are useful, but only for a limited number of things.
Scouting is their primary purpose, and they do it very well against up to medium resistance, they're useful for quickly seizing landing zones and build pads as well, and they can also zip in and do some damage to infantry, kill build pad structures, etc.

As for that proposed map....... it'd be the best land map in the mod.

Yep, that particular unit is on our Big List of Things We Want to Add along with the A-A5 speeder truck and various other personnel transports.

Very cool, thanks evilbob. I figured as much since they are fairly easy choices.

For the record, I just like doing the research and posting my findings in my free time, same with that hero list I made. I am not pushing for one thing or another I know how difficult it is to get new models ect ect

Will the loading times of transports be increased any ?

Combined with the games horrible pathfinding, I've found loading LAATs and other transports often takes a while.

I don't think the loading time is the problem with the LAAT. It just has to land to load, and it lands somewhere in it's shadow, which is not visually under the unit, hence the great number of error beeps when clicked to load. A landed LAAT and other units load fine by me.

I don't think the loading time is the problem with the LAAT. It just has to land to load, and it lands somewhere in it's shadow, which is not visually under the unit, hence the great number of error beeps when clicked to load. A landed LAAT and other units load fine by me.

I've found the best way to get it to land is to just rapidly click on it with some infintry until it drops, and that's the problem with the LAAT, finding a spot it wants to actually set down in can take a minute sometimes.
Ditto for unloading it.

Not that, if managed right, it really matters, because despite being a relic the LAAT is a flying APC that shits infantry and the best we have in the mod, since none of the other troop transports transport troops, they just toss torpedoes.

Edited by a.fake.name, 09 April 2014 - 12:52 PM.

I like Rebel speeder bikes for their turrets. Zip the bikes into a base or choke point and drop their turrets for some nice harassment. Also they can cap landing zones letting you bring in reinforcements behind enemy lines sometimes. Of course, the Alliance artillery/command unit can build reinforcement pads for a similar effect (forgot the name of the unit sorry)

Any plans for a similar unit for the Empire?

I know the unit, it's only useful for it's +1 ground pop weapon.
The rebel tanks are FAR better as when upgraded they get two light turbolasers and conc missiles (and people say transports and snubcraft would be over powered, rofl)