24 replies to this topic

[CDLord HHGD]

Let me preface this by saying I neither support nor oppose the idea. I just plain don’t care. I assume it’s going to happen so I figured I’d give my lore friendly ideas on how it could be implemented.

Firstly, as indicated above, I want to stick with lore friendly units. That means that IS units have the potential to be larger than Clan units (leaner and meaner). I also want to stick with sizes that are in lore and give us something to do with unit coffers (yes, that long forgotten cbill sink).

Inspired by another idea by Karl Streiger (his idea is in his post below), there will be different levels to unit size; the first being free, the others coming at a cost payable with the unit coffers.

Inner Sphere
Level 1 – Lance (4 members)
Level 2 – Company (12 members)
Level 3 – Battalion (36 members)
Level 4 – Regiment (108 members)

Clan*
Level 1 – Star (5 members)
Level 2 – Trinary (15 members)
Level 3 – Cluster (30 members)
Level 4 – Galaxy (90 members)

*At the cluster and galaxy levels, the Clan unit sizes are not as specific as IS units so I chose an increment of the previous level to get as close as possible to IS equivalent not going over IS numbers (again, leaner and meaner).

Now, how much should it cost to upgrade your unit size at each level? I have no idea. Level 4 should be astronomical like 1 billion cbills I think. Maybe we can also tie it into the lore cost of the transportation needed for that many members.

Source material for my research can be found at Sarna.

Edited by cdlord, 29 October 2015 - 06:02 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

cdlord, on 29 October 2015 - 05:44 AM, said:

Based on an idea by Karl Streiger, there will be different levels to unit size; the first being free, the others coming at a cost payable with the unit coffers.

no no no that wasn't my incentive

i simple posted the structure of ComGuards or BlakeMilita - organized around the number 6
So a level 4 is 216 for those

but the idea has some merrit -
the PHL (my unit tag) has currently 200 members - not all of them are participating in CW - so they can reduce numbers - or split into 2 units. So while i would remove my self from the "CW reservist" to keep their numbers low. But if i want to play CW of course i can try to "sync" the attack with them right?
Or there is a splitting - into 5 battalions - all of them sync dropping.

So there should be more restriction for smaller and a gain for bigger units.
For example only 2 units can attack a planet?
But what about the gain of bigger units?
Can attack more planets per attack window?
Lower costs while moving the troops?

But there are 3 attack windows - how can a big not 24-7 unit hold a planet if CW is populated?

Edited by Karl Streiger, 29 October 2015 - 05:54 AM.

[CDLord HHGD]

Karl Streiger, on 29 October 2015 - 05:50 AM, said:

no no no that wasn't my incentive

i simple posted the structure of ComGuards or BlakeMilita - organized around the number 6
So a level 4 is 216 for those

but the idea has some merrit -
the PHL (my unit tag) has currently 200 members - not all of them are participating in CW - so they can reduce numbers - or split into 2 units. So while i would remove my self from the "CW reservist" to keep their numbers low. But if i want to play CW of course i can try to "sync" the attack with them right?
Or there is a splitting - into 5 battalions - all of them sync dropping.

So there should be more restriction for smaller and a gain for bigger units.
For example only 2 units can attack a planet?
But what about the gain of bigger units?
Can attack more planets per attack window?
Lower costs while moving the troops?

But there are 3 attack windows - how can a big not 24-7 unit hold a planet if CW is populated?

Ok, wanted to give credit where due but I'll just blame you for giving me the idea then.

[Alistair Winter]

I would like to see individual rewards decrease as units grow bigger. I also think there needs to be a 24 hour delay when someone wants to change units, to prevent 5 different Clan Wolf units from swapping all their members around to gain maximum rewards or avoid the "big unit tax".

[CDLord HHGD]

Alistair Winter, on 29 October 2015 - 06:03 AM, said:

I would like to see individual rewards decrease as units grow bigger. I also think there needs to be a 24 hour delay when someone wants to change units, to prevent 5 different Clan Wolf units from swapping all their members around to gain maximum rewards or avoid the "big unit tax".

Absolutely, any mechanic to prevent gaming of the game. Maybe make rewards static to be distributed amongst all the members regardless of population (everyone wants their cut of the profits). Call it overhead for operations.

[Hellcat420]

This idea is bad and will only hurt cw and the game in general. It will affect more units that do not participate in cw than units that actually play it, and it will make some people quit playing cw altogether. If you want to make the player base smaller this is a great idea. Instead of trying to punish units because people like to be in them you should improve your own units so people actually want to join them.

[Alistair Winter]

cdlord, on 29 October 2015 - 06:06 AM, said:

Absolutely, any mechanic to prevent gaming of the game. Maybe make rewards static to be distributed amongst all the members regardless of population (everyone wants their cut of the profits). Call it overhead for operations.

I would argue the opposite. Really small units should potentially get huge rewards, to disincentivize people from forming large units. But you need some mechanic to prevent players from just swapping units multiple times a week, and you need a mechanic that makes it more profitable to pick unpopular factions instead of making huge alliances. It's not impossible, it just depends how the reward system works.

[Karl Streiger]

just brainstorming in my unit:

a "price" would help to prevent the creation of "admirals"
a nice benefit would be a unit "decal" on your Mech

how the unit handles the "price" to pay the "maintenance" is their own business (for example each player have to pay his part into the unit coffer)

Hellcat420, on 29 October 2015 - 06:11 AM, said:

This idea is bad and will only hurt cw and the game in general. It will affect more units that do not participate in cw than units that actually play it,

so what is the point of having a unit and not playing CW

as said i would not have any problem to "open" my place in my unit because spare time prohibit the playing of CW

[CDLord HHGD]

Hellcat420, on 29 October 2015 - 06:11 AM, said:

This idea is bad and will only hurt cw and the game in general. It will affect more units that do not participate in cw than units that actually play it, and it will make some people quit playing cw altogether. If you want to make the player base smaller this is a great idea. Instead of trying to punish units because people like to be in them you should improve your own units so people actually want to join them.

This is all predicated (if you read what I said) on unit size limitations coming down no matter what. My ideas express a lore-friendly way that PGi can do it. Reading comprehension must not have been high on the list of things in your sibko.

[Hellcat420]

Karl Streiger, on 29 October 2015 - 06:20 AM, said:

just brainstorming in my unit:

a "price" would help to prevent the creation of "admirals"
a nice benefit would be a unit "decal" on your Mech

how the unit handles the "price" to pay the "maintenance" is their own business (for example each player have to pay his part into the unit coffer)


so what is the point of having a unit and not playing CW

as said i would not have any problem to "open" my place in my unit because spare time prohibit the playing of CW

By that logic, what's the point of having groups and units at all, why not just make everyone pug drop for everything? Cw does not require units, so what's the point of having units for cw?

Edited by Hellcat420, 29 October 2015 - 06:41 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Hellcat420, on 29 October 2015 - 06:38 AM, said:

By that logic, what's the point of having groups and units at all, why not just make everyone pug drop for everything? Cw does not require units, so what's the point of having units for cw?

who knows in the end there will only be a solo training level queue and the CW queue and CW is group only

[CDLord HHGD]

Hellcat420, on 29 October 2015 - 06:38 AM, said:

By that logic, what's the point of having groups and units at all, why not just make everyone pug drop for everything? Cw does not require units, so what's the point of having units for cw?

LOL, ok.... Maybe you should just leave then because you can't see past anything but your misconception of this being an attack against you and/or your unit.

[Shae Starfyre]

What if, once you place a decal or claim a Mech to a faction, that somehow that was permanent and that Mech belonged to that Faction/Group forever?

Why are we hung up on the pilot?

I know if may not seem like this is part of this discussion, but reading this small thread brought it out.

Edited by Aphoticus, 29 October 2015 - 06:56 AM.

[Hellcat420]

cdlord, on 29 October 2015 - 06:48 AM, said:

LOL, ok.... Maybe you should just leave then because you can't see past anything but your misconception of this being an attack against you and/or your unit.

I don't see it as an attack on myself or my unit I see it as a bad idea. Next you will be crying to limit faction size because its not fair that some factions have large pop and others don't.

[CDLord HHGD]

Hellcat420, on 29 October 2015 - 06:54 AM, said:

I don't see it as an attack on myself or my unit I see it as a bad idea. Next you will be crying to limit faction size because its not fair that some factions have large pop and others don't.

Again, there's with the no reading comprehension. You Clanners....

Go listen to the Town Hall, these are all things that are on the table. Including your comment about faction size too.... These things could very well be coming down the pipe. This isn't an argument for or against these things. It's a discussion on how they could be done.

[-Vompo-]

I'd like to see a unit upkeep implemented. The cost for each member would increase with the number of members. This money would come out of unit coffers so that it would be possible to keep a oversize unit going but only if you really work for it by sending cbills to the coffers. If a unit get's negative coffer balance it is shut out of CW until the debt is paid.
I don't know what the average unit size is so I won't go into numbers. That would be PGI's job.

edit. I don't want a forced unit cap in the game.

Edited by VompoVompatti, 29 October 2015 - 07:00 AM.

[CDLord HHGD]

Aphoticus, on 29 October 2015 - 06:54 AM, said:

What if, once you place a decal or claim a Mech to a faction, that somehow that was permanent and that Mech belonged to that Faction/Group forever?

Why are we hung up on the pilot?

I know if may not seem like this is part of this discussion, but reading this small thread brought it out.

I'm all for synergetic ideas.

What do you mean though about selecting a mech and that mech is perma as opposed to pilot focus. Can you expand on that idea? I am intrigued.....

[Felbombling]

While I can appreciate players wanting to be in a large unit, I fail to understand the lure of being MechWarrior #489 and basically anonymous to 450+ fellow members I may never interact with. Where is the incentive in that?

[Shae Starfyre]

cdlord, on 29 October 2015 - 06:59 AM, said:

I'm all for synergetic ideas.

What do you mean though about selecting a mech and that mech is perma as opposed to pilot focus. Can you expand on that idea? I am intrigued.....

I just created a separate post as it didn't really address this post (Groups, Pilots, and Mechs).

[CDLord HHGD]

Aphoticus, on 29 October 2015 - 07:06 AM, said:

I just created a separate post as it didn't really address this post (Groups, Pilots, and Mechs).

Thank you! I saw it and commented.