Apart from the campaigns, one of my background projects has been land combat. After a few false starts it was obvious that nothing short of a total overhaul would suffice to make land combat work in a balanced and above all fun way. However, none of this would have been possible without all of the extensive background unit development by PR. While land combat is now very different from before, I have had a solid base to work from. The fundamental key to land combat is the multitude of different weapon systems that were introduced in the last revision – namely the large variation of pirate forces (which will now be explained in more detail) and the huge variation in hand guns, grenades and heavy weapon systems that were already in place.
Immediate changes:
The first thing you will notice in the revision is the range, pace and speed of combat. All fire has been desynchronised and the rate of fire, especially for the infantry, has been dramatically increased. This has been done for visual effect to get something closer to the final battle sequences in AOTC. The entire damage and armour system has been rebuilt to accommodate this fundamental change. One positive benefit of this has been to increase the tempo and tension in land battles, as infantry units blaze away almost constantly, filling the sky with tracer fire. One key intention of land combat, unlike the vanilla, was to avoid the scissors/paper/stone basis of combat and put the realism back by preventing infantry units from destroying an AT-AT with pistol fire! To this end a completely new armour system has been introduced that is non-linear in effect. This means that armour may be highly effective against one weapon, yet almost useless against another in extreme cases.
Please refer to the weapon listings for full details. Infantry Armour ranges from none to an Elite Stormtrooper grade, and vehicles cover light and civilian usage through to light military vehicles. At this point vehicle armour increases dramatically in effectiveness, so that medium military vehicles are pretty much immune to most infantry weaponry, with a final jump to the super-heavy armours of the AT-AT and HAV Juggernaut that defeat most modern weapons systems.
Minor changes.
Other minor points of change include scale tweaks (please comment if some of these are not quite right), spacing variations between units (better infantry units are more widely spaced to reduce the effect weapons with a blast radius) and the number of units in a squad. Cost and production parameters have also been tweaked for balance.
Infantry Wepaon Systems:
Infantry units have an enormous variety of weapon types, and it is vital to know their strengths and limitations as the infantry unit will be a decisive factor in most battles especially in fire suppression of anti-vehicle infantry units and light support vehicles, which while poorly armoured can still put a dent in most heavy tanks, given time.
Unarmed combat: At under 10m range, units engage hand-to hand. Beware the lethal combat skills of assassins, wookies, and Combat Droids at this range.
Pistols: Hold-out blasters, Sporting Blaster Pistols, Blaster Pistols and Heavy Blaster Pistols (the latter exemplified by Han’s DL-44) have reasonable effect against light infantry armour, but Stormtrooper grades tend to absorb most pistol shots fairly well. Pistols are only effective against civilian vehicles.
Rifles: Sporting rifles are usually the favoured weapon of colonial civilians, and are more effective than pistols, especially due to their long range. Rifles have a slow rate of fire.
Slugthrowers: While the low-tech slug thrower may be weaker in many respects, it has one advantage. It is better at drilling through modern infantry armour, which is mostly designed to absorb blaster fire. Careful observation can spot the slower moving slugthrower shots or the fast high speed sporting blasters compared to normal blaster fire.
Blaster Rifles: Stormtrooper rifles fire a deadly 3 round burst with very effective penetrating power, often capable of defeating even medium armour with enough concentrated fire. In proper hands, infantry units can even storm bunkers and large structures without vehicle support, although casualty figures tend to increase rapidly without support units.
Repeating Blasters: These illegal hand guns fire streams of bolts that coalesce and cause huge damage.
Disruptors: Short ranged and deadly, these weapons are very, very rare.
Fragmentation Grenades: Most basic infantry units carry these, and while they are extremely effective against infantry and civilian vehicles, the grenade fragments tend to bounce of even light vehicle armour doing little real damage.
Concussion Grenades: The Stormtrooper’s favourite. The shockwaves from these hi-tech grenades both stun infantry and shatter moderate armour, making them an essential tool when assaulting buildings or taking on armoured vehicles.
Toxin Grenades: Lethal to Infantry, useless against droids, only buildings and hi-tech war machines with environmental control systems are protected against nerve toxins. However, the enclosed Stormtrooper armour at least forms a partial defence.
Anti-Infantry Flechette Canister: These giant shotguns are used by terrorists to devastating effect against large crowds and are lethal against all types of infantry. Mercifully their range is short.
Anti-Vehicle Rocket: While the shaped charge on these rockets merely frightens infantry units, the focussed explosive fires a jet of molten plasma to burn through even the toughest armour plate, immolating light vehicles and forming a significant threat even to the giant AT-AT and HAVw Juggernauts.
Proton Grenades and Thermal Detonators: Both of these items cause massive damage in their blast radius, and ignore most armour systems. Buildings are especially vulnerable to these charges.
Vehicle Weapon Systems:
Vehicles are normally armed with either blaster cannon or laser cannons, which come in light, medium and heavy categories. Laser cannons as a rule are more effective against heavy armour, while the light blaster cannons are mostly found on anti-infantry platforms. Both the medium and heavy varieties of blaster cannon and laser cannon have significant blast effects and this may prove more effective against infantry than the actual laser/blaster bolts.
Infantry variations:
There are a multitude of different light infantry units, most of which are independent forces, ranging from insignificant civilian units to the lethal assassin which drops soldiers with a single shot. There is also a significant variety of different command posts each of which has a different mix of ground units as a garrison.
Alliance Army Trooper: The basic alliance infantry unit. Light/Moderate armour, armed with a high quality blaster pistol and fragmentation grenades.
Bounty Hunters: Crack shots armed with rifles, the bounty hunter will stun victims for capture, while the Exterminator collects death marks.
Civillians: Unarmed, Urban, Rural, Colonial and Backwater civilians are lightly armed, and often are more dangerous due to the distraction they cause than the actual weaponry they carry, although the tougher civilians in the rim territories tend to be well armed with rifles, they are no match for hardened troops. Weapons range from hold-out blasters and pistols to single shot rifles.
CompForce Trooper: A cheap conscript unit for the Imperial Army, quick to build, armed with a cheap blaster rifle and fragmentation grenades. This unit has poor range compared to other Imperial forces.
Criminals: These vary widely in effectiveness. Hooligans have short range Anti-Infantry Flechette Canisters to cause mayhem in crowds, Gangsters, Thugs and Enforcers a variety of blaster pistols, blaster rifles and slug throwers, while the Henchmen carry illegal repeating blasters that cause heavy damage.
Imperial Army Trooper: The standard Imperial unit, armed with Blaster rifle and fragmentation grenades.
Mercenaries: These battle-hardened troops are well armed with Stormtrooper grade armour, heavy blaster rifles and concussion grenades. In addition they are often supported by Heavy Mercenaries carrying mini-rocket launchers tipped with armour piercing Anti-Vehicle rockets. In combination, these two units are a serious threat to most forces. Illegal Mercenaries are found in the roughest parts of the galaxy their common use of disruptors and thermal detonators is to be feared.
Outlaws: On the run from the law and ruthless – Assassins and slavers have long range and deadly aim. Assassins can kill at 1000m while slavers fire stun shots for live bounty.
Pirates: Pirates, Corsairs and Marauders are all well armed with rifles and pistols, but little else. Corsairs have heavy blades for close combat.
Police: Police, Riot Police and Special Response Officers are normally used to quelling social disturbances with stun weapons and heavy pistols, but still have good short-range combat skills. However they are no match for regular army units.
Security Police: The security forces of the CSA are heavily armed legalised bullies armed with heavy assault rifles, good armour and strange ‘Glop Grenades’ to stun unruly citizens into submission.
Smugglers: Most smugglers are excellent pistol shots, but sometimes realise this is not enough protection and rely on Freelancers to provide extra muscle with the use of a trusty blaster carbine to keep their smuggling activities working smoothly.
Spacers: Spacers are normal civilians that work in the spacing industries, and usually have access to a heavy blaster pistol or two for safety in the rough and tumble of spaceport life.
SpecForce Heavy Weapons Specialist Vanguard: These elite alliance troopers carry potent anti-vehicle rockets that can even penetrate the heavy armour of AT-AT’s and HAVw-6 Juggernauts. These units are, however, vulnerable to infantry fire, and must be escorted.
SpecForce Infiltrator: Often defecting from the Empire, the Infiltrator carries a high performance assault rifle, smoke grenades and a stealth ability.
Stormtrooper: The Empire’s elite assault trooper – this unit carries both blaster rifle and hi-tech concussion grenades for use against light and moderately armed vehicles.
Exceptionless structures:
Finally, we’ve just recently tracked down and eliminated a longstanding bug in Galactic Conquest that will allow us to reintroduce independent ground buildings, the fix for which will be bundled with this overhaul! This particular issue caused the game to crash whenever a battle was initiated against a non-player faction that involved more than one land special structure. Indeed, this was a problem dating back to v1.0 with the CSA. Now, for the first time, you’ll be able to play the v1.1 campaigns as we intended: with structures.
Ghost's Assault Patch is available to download here.
Edited by Ghostrider, 31 July 2009 - 10:06 AM.
