For shits and giggles, who rememebrs the Community Warfare plan? No, not the first one that got totally thrown out the window. Or the second one. The third one in the Launch party. Anyone?
Dropships and logistics. Totally gonna be worthless in a 3/3/3/3 system.
To me, here's what dropships meant: A weight limit with a method for expanding that weight limit.
Keep in mind this isn't regular public matches but the merc versus merc or faction versus faction nonsense.
Lets say Team A Zhizhu Mercs hired by Liao and Team B, a faction-unit of Steiner are sent to take PlanetName.
No one owns PlanetName.
Each team has sent one dropship. Let's say a Dropship can carry 660 tons.
Team A Zhizhu Mercs brings 2 Raven 3-Ls backed up by a Raven 2X and Raven 4X (140 tons) for its Alpha lance. Bravo has 2 Centurions and 2 Trebuchets. (200 tons). Charlie lance has 2 Blackjacks and 2 Catapults. (220). That comes out to 560 tons, and the Raven 2X player puts an Atlas on reserve (meaning when he dies, he is deployed as the Atlas). (12 players with 1 reserve mech).
Team B, being typical Steiners, chooses to run 4 Atlases (400), 2 Banshees (190), and 1 Locust, 2 Commandos (70) and poof, they bring 9 players with no reserves.
Now that's some variety, strategy, etc.
Lets assume for prosperity that the Liao's surprise Atlas strategy works and Team B perishes.
Team A now garrisons with what is left and reinforcements are sent for to properly garrison and secure the planet. Lets say they managed to keep the Atlas, a Catapult, a Blackjack, and a Raven alive. That's 245 tons defending the planet. The reinforcements bring forth another 660 tons (for simplicity lets say it's the exact same assortment as Team A used before). Now there's 660+245 tons defending the planet from a future attack, x amount of supplies, and a supply line that comes once every whenever.
Team A now consists of a planetary garrison of:
Atlas, Catapult, Blackjack, Raven. Being repaired. 245 tons.
4 Ravens. 2 Centurions. 2 Trebuchets. 2 Blackjacks. 2 Catapults. Atlas. Fresh reinforcements. 660 tons.
Well Steiner might be licking its wounds, but lets say another faction, Team C Kurita, has its eyes on the Zhizhu-Mercs occupied planet.
They send a dropship of 660 tons and are repelled. Zhizhu lost maybe 135 tons. Of them, the Catapult was salvageable and repaired but drained supplies in doing so. The other two, a pair of Ravens, were not salvageable and lost. Zhizhu now has 835 (or 660 + 175) tons left on the planet. Zhizhu's dropships are tapped out for now, so nothing more can come to reinforce this position. Supplies are drained.
Team A after that fight has lost 2 Ravens. The Catapult was defeated but salvaged and is repaired.
The total mechs now for Team A's garrison are:
3 Ravens (35 *3) , 2 Centurions, 2 Trebuchets (200), 3 Catapults (65 * 3), 3 Blackjacks (45 * 3), 2 Atlases (200) = 835 tons.
A supply shipment is received. Repairs and ammo is available.
All mechs are fully repaired and reloaded before the next assault comes. Some supplies remain.
Team A has established turret defenses.
Steiner has another force (Team D Steiner) in the area that is backed up with two dropships (Teams D and E Steiner). Though it's actually 24 players, both are part of the same group and used their shared wealth to have a dropship each for their unit and intentionally chose to attack at the same time.
The game only permits one attacking team of 24 players at a time; the second dropship of 12 players is forced to wait but will be able to engage before Team A can recover.
Again, before this fight the Zhizhu Mercs (Team A) have established base defenses to protect their Garrison.
Steiner's Team D is a balanced assortment of 12 players with 14 mechs, so 12 initially and 2 reserve that they field immediately when the player(s) can take control of them. Team E is really Team B and quite angry at their defeat and are eager to jump in but have to wait.
Team A (Zhizhu Mercs) has 12 players, 15 mechs in full health + turret defenses.
The first battle with Team D is 14 fresh mechs, and the second battle with Team E is not yet known.
Liao has diverted 3 friendly dropships to PlanetName, 2 of them only partially full and 1 loaded to the brim. These are queued to arrive but will not make it for before PlanetName might fall.
Team A (Zhizhu) manages to defeat team D but has lost 3 Ravens (105) all 3 Blackjacks (135), 1 Atlas (100), and all Trebuchets and Centurions (200), thus reducing Zhizhu's garrison by 540 tons and reducing them by 3 turrets.
Team A Zhizhu now has:
835 - 105 (Ravens), 135 (Blackjacks), 100 (Atlas), 200 (Trebs and Centurions) = 540 tons lost = 295 tons remaining.
Zhizhu now has 3 Catapults and 1 Atlas = 295 tons and some turret defenses. That's 4 mechs left. The Garrison's gates are intact, however the South Gate is damaged. Turrets have power and are under Zhizhu control.
Steiner's Team E lands immediately after Team D, giving Team A (Zhizhu) no time to repair. All mechs are fielded exactly as is.
Zhizhu's earlier 835 ton force is now 295. That's an Atlas missing a side torso (100), 3 Catapults (65 *3). Of the Catapults 1 ran out of ammo but has 2 PPCs and 2 lasers, 1 is low on ammo but has backup weapons, and 1 is completely ammunition dependent and about halfway drained. The Catapults are moderately damaged. One has a busted leg. Another is missing an arm but is out of ammo anyway.
Since another fight is coming before repairs can be done, the Atlas pilot is considering paying for a rushed repair and rearm job at the risk of broken equipment and extra expense.
Team E (aka Team B ) which lost a lot of mechs in the earlier fight went pretty dang broke and are now sporting an army of 24 Commandos (600), and 2 Spiders. Why? Because vengeance. That's 12 players, 10 of them with 2 commandos each, and 2 players with 2 commandos and a spider each.
Team A, 4 damaged mechs + Walled Garrison with gates intact and turrets down by 3 (leaving x amount remaining). This leaves 3 combat capable players as 2 of the Catapults belong to the same player.
Team E just landed 26 mechs, and has a German-style blitzkrieg in mind against the South Gate. Since Team A hasn't got the man power needed to properly defend secondary objectives, the power station may also be ripe for attacking too.
Can Zhizhu's 4 remaining garrisoned mechs and turrets deal with Team E? Find out next time when...
......what? PGI cancelled it with 3/3/3/3? Damn it! But dropships! Logistics! C'mon! The hell is wrong with you!?
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Personally I picture lower weights per dropship for obvious reasons. But if you stack 2 dropships and head over to attack here, you'd have more weight at the insane cost it took to get another dropship (at 220 million cbills at last suggestion from Brian, it's definitely not going to be overdone). Takes time to make strikes, repairs and rearm.
Two teams go to a neutral planet, you only have what your dropship(s) could provide.
You invade a garrisoned planet and you are up against what the garrisoning team has chosen to leave on that planet. Now most likely a garrison might consist of a few mechs and defenses (if established at all), and an invading force of one dropship with maybe 440 tons available to it or some other reasonably balance-able number.
I'm figuring many garrisons might just be jump points. But some might contain mining operations. Some might be supply depots. But hey, this is what I pictured when I heard the phrases such as Brian's "economy-based mech pricing", Paul's "Repair and Rearm isn't off the table. It's on the backburner," and Brian's "planets have value."
If 3/3/3/3 is just for random public matches, mkay, sure, whatever. But for Community Warfare, don't take away my dropships and logistics.
Edited by Koniving, 06 April 2014 - 07:38 PM.
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Khobai, on 06 April 2014 - 06:04 PM, said:
Much disappoint, PGI, much disappoint.
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