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Long Range Proposal for CW development: Logistics and Strategy
Preface
I apologize in advance for this long wall of text. This thread is meant to update the old CW thread I made that is currently archived from 2012 (see link in signature). I am posting this to restart a dialogue in the community on what we really want CW to be as a polished product and to encourage PGI to consider investing considerable development time into what I hope will be CW 3.0.
What I am hoping for is a CW system that brings more of the BT lore into the map system with logistics and grand-strategy for waging campaigns. I have drawn inspiration from a variety of sources, most particularly other games that have a “Grand Strategy” element to their map system such as Heroes & Generals. With this in mind, I begin once more to delve into my deepest wishes and dreams that have been left frustrated since the 90s.
General design principles
Throughout this proposal I will attempt to adhere as strictly as possible to what I perceive to be PGI’s general design scheme:
a. No Pay 2 Win
b. Effective monetization of CW via convenience and vanity items
c. Indirect monetization via encouraging the use of large stables of mechs in CW
d. Control abuses of multi-accounts by sensible design choices
e. Encourage participation in the system from as wide an audience-range as possible (from casual to hardcore BT player, from f2p to whale).
f. I am taking some liberties with the BT canon to accommodate the “4 mech drop-deck” system PGI is using.
Logistics
I am proposing the following scheme to organize logistics in CW.
1. Drop Deck: The most basic element in CW. A drop-deck has no cost and is awarded automatically upon entering the CW module. You can form as many Drop-Decks as you have mechs to fill the tonnage requirements. You move your drop-deck point-to-point paying a nominal transportation fee in order to use it within a Lance.
More mechs you have, more drop-decks you can form, and allows you to fight in different fronts with less waiting time. Poke-mech is finally justified.
2. Lance: Drop Decks are assigned to a Lance. Lances have a discrete location in the CW universe, and are moved from point to point to engage in combat operations of all kinds. No CW mission can take place unless a Lance is present at that location. Lances are unlocked based first on achieving a minimum military rank, and are purchasable by c-bills. Number of Lances you can own is determined by your military rank and will model the BT canon.
3. Lances will earn xp that can be used to upgrade the capabilities of the Lance (Drop Deck slots as well as tonnage, more on this later).
4. Company: Four Lances comprise make a Company. Any number of players can join together (from 1-4) to form a Company. A Company can be an ad-hoc formation of players who operate their lances together for the duration of one mission, or it can be a permanent structure when players join the same Unit and share their Lances with the Unit.
The TO&E from the BT canon can continue to grow based on Companies forming Brigades, and so on.
Lances
A Lance begins with 1 slot that can accommodate 1 Drop-deck. That means that when first acquired, a Lance permits the owner access to the first element of the Grand Strategy, deciding where to place his Lance for attacks, defenses, and other missions such as recon and intel-gathering. The owner of the Lance can control access to who uses their lance by various methods:
a. Reserved for Owner exclusively
b. Static Modifiable Access Control List: Owner sets permissions for specific players or categories of players such as Friends List, Unit Members, Unit Officers, and so on.
c. Temporary Access: Grant one-time access to a specific player or group for the duration of N missions at a specific location.
d. Public Access: Anyone from the random queue can use the Lance through the Match-making system for a specific number of missions or an unlimited number of missions.
Lances incur two costs for their owner:
1. Jump Ship charges: When moving your Lance from point to point you are paying the House you are aligned with for access to the transportation service to move your Lance.
2. Drop-Ship charges: When deploying in combat operations to a planet, and within planet hexes, you incur charges for using Drop Ships that are leased from the House for the particular mission, or reduced maintenance charges if your Unit owns its own Drop-Ship.
Each player who uses a Lance is responsible for mech costs such as repairs, parts, and ammo and transportation to permit the drop-deck to be assigned to the Lance.
When a player’s Lance is used in any kind of military operation, the Lance earns both c-bills and exp based on the achievements of the pilots in that mission. Mission-failure will mean the owner of the Lance will not fully recover his Drop-Ship costs. Victory will mean a useful profit that can be reinvested into the Lance.
Lance Progression
A Lance begins with one-slot and is meant to be used primarily by the owner for participating directly in the CW grand strategy map. However, it can be upgraded in two ways:
1. Drop-Deck Tonnage
2. Number of Players the Lance can accommodate, up to 4.
Upgrades can only be unlocked by the achievements of the players using the Lance in military operations. The Owner of the Lance is the only one who can purchase upgrades.
Drop Deck Tonnage Progression
A Lance begins with a low tonnage limit in its first slot, to accommodate up to four light mechs. The Owner of the lance can purchase upgrades in 5-ton increments based on the experience the Lance has earned and his ability to pay the c-bill cost.
As more tonnage is added to a slot, that Lance gains significant power and operational flexibility up to, theoretically, 400tons (the Steiner scout lance J ).
Lance Slot Progression
The Owner of the Lance can choose to upgrade his first slot via tonnage as described previously, or invest in adding more player-capacity to his lance by unlocking additional slots. The choice of whether to add more slots of keep upgrading depends on the types of missions the Owner wants to play, and whether he plans to be solo-player in the CW system.
Both forms of progression are equally viable in importance depending on the player’s preference. Unlocking additional slots will generally be more expensive than upgrading tonnage until the tonnage value reaches a certain point to be determined.
Mission Operations and Match-making
Missions in CW need to be designed for ranges of tonnage, focusing on objectives within the overall battle that is being played by the complete Company operating in a particular battle (for 12 v 12), or specific objectives for lesser engagements (4v4, 8v8) potentially.
A Lance of 1 Slot participating in a battle that has just been purchased will have a drop-deck of light mechs and should have specific sub-objectives within the overall battle. The pilot of the light mechs might, for instance, have the task of scouting certain locations on the map and exp is awarded for achieving that sub-objective. Bonuses can be awarded for scouting actions such as locking targets for missiles and the like.
When a player selects his drop-deck, he can join the random queue or join a specific Lance that he owns or has permission to use. The random queue will match his Drop-deck tonnage to lances that are open to use on the planet and will assign it making the process completely transparent to the user unless he chooses to get involved at a deeper level (making social contacts with commanders, joining a Unit, owning your own Lance).
By the same token, Lance commanders can choose to be casual (allowing for open-access) or more involved by joining the more social aspects of CW such as Unit formation.
The Match-maker selects Lances to be used to fill the particular mission requirements: Number of Players and Tonnages. For the random queue, a Lance that has not had a recent combat drop has priority to be selected by the random matchmaker over one that has had a recent combat drop. Lances are chosen to fill the mission role and type: scouting, recon-in-force, raiding, and assault.
For the random players, idle lances are organized in a queue based on how long they have been idle on that planet, with the oldest being first-in-line for a random match.
Supplies, supply-lines, ammo and parts
The complete CW-experience should be reserved for fully organized Units that will have additional options in CW such as: Deep-Strike raids behind enemy lines, Recon-behind-enemy lines, and others. The casual lance commanders and randoms, will, for the most part, not have to worry about these concerns because the system will limit them to fighting within their own lines.
As noted previously, in general terms each pilot is responsible for three distinct costs in CW:
1. Repair of Mechs (Labor)
2. Armor and Parts
3. Ammo
4. Transportation to permit assignment into a Lance.
This will change once we get into Units. In broad terms, Units will be responsible for managing their internal logistics based on the Faction-contract that is signed by the Unit Commander. Upon signing a contract, the Unit uses that particular Faction’s infrastructure to resupply mechs. The costs and terms become vastly more favorable based on the Loyalty achieved by the Unit with that particular faction.
When operating within supply-lines either fighting off a deep-raid by the enemy or at the front-lines, no particular concern needs to be given to managing ammo and parts. However, Units will be able to strike behind enemy lines provided they can afford the necessary infrastructure: having the requisite stockpile of parts to take with you, and owning enough DropShips to move the materiel needed to accomplish the mission.
Deep-strike raids will be the highest paid and highest risk mission type in CW -- the end-game experience of the CW end-game. This is where Units will have their glory, fighting the hardest battles with limited supplies.
Taking a page right out of MPBT and the BT lore each Faction will have key worlds that will serve as “Supply Generators”. For example, on the Kuritan side each District Capital (Galedon, Dieron, Pesht, and Benjamin) will serve as primary supply depots that are in turn fed by different manufacturing worlds. The key objective in CW will be to weaken the enemy supply lines by attacking the manufacturing worlds and supply depots on the map.
Raiding opposing factions will cause shortages, making it more difficult for the enemy to raid your faction and making it easier for your random players to fight in the front-lines.
You will be taking a big risk as a Unit CO sending your troops into a deep strike raid: your Drop-ship and materiel could be lost to the enemy. By the same token, a deep-raid will yield the highest possible profit. When conducting such a Raid, instead of the costs being born by the individual pilots, the Unit assumes all expenses out of its internal treasury.
A successful Raid will steal (and automatically convert to c-bills) assets of the opposing faction. Those stolen assets can potentially cause delays for that faction to resupply their troops if enough deep-raids are successful. Raids can also be directed at specific Unit HQs to attack their particular stockpile and cripple those specific Units.
Unit Life in Detail
After a Unit is formed, its participation in CW is governed according to the assets available to it and the players participating in the Unit. At one extreme, we can permit a single-player Unit to exist with just one lance with one slot. However, being your own Unit by yourself will not gain you any advantage over being a simple Lance commander.
The goal of forming a Unit is to grow to have at least 12 players, own your own drop-ships, and have sufficient resources to stage full 12v12 attacks and Raids. Units can grow larger as per the BT canon. Their power in CW is represented by the quantity of lances and the upgrades of lances available to the Unit.
At the start, Units will begin as single-player entities, in the same manner that Lances begin with just one slot for Drop-Decks. As players are recruited, the Unit CO organizes his Unit’s TO&E. A very high-rank CO can focus on creating all the logistics necessary and simply recruit players to fill his Lances. Or various players can align their assets together and choose one player to be their CO.
A player in a Unit can choose to place specific logistical assets at the disposal of the Unit for use by the Unit according to its internal policies. These become shared assets. These are not “donated”, but are essentially leased to the Unit for as long as the owner chooses to allow those assets to be shared. Examples of logistical assets are: lances and dropships. While leased to the Unit, the Unit assumes full cost for their use in CW. The owner of the lance places control of the assets in the hands of the Unit, and authority to move, upgrade and manage the Lance is determined by the Unit CO and their internal policies. At any time the original owner of the Lance or Dropship can revoke that lease with 24 hours advance notice and recover those assets for his personal use. However, upon revoking that lease, the owner has to reimburse the Unit in full for all upgrades paid for by the Unit (to prevent abuse). If a member is expelled from the Unit, the Unit waives its costs and returns the assets back to the player. Upon deciding to leave a Unit, the player may choose any of the following:
a) Donate the assets to the Unit permanently
B) Recover them by reimbursing the Unit coffers for the upgrades purchased by the Unit.
When a mission is played out, the pilots and the Unit both earn c-bills. The split of income is determined by the contract the player signed with the Unit, this determines the percentage split of the payout. A new Unit may choose to have a very high percentage assigned to go to the Unit coffers to pay for things like upgrades and more dropships. An older, more established Unit may choose to have a very nominal percentage directed to the unit’s coffers.
At any time the Unit CO can disburse Unit treasury funds to their members in the form of dividends paid out based on the position each player occupies in the Unit.
Unit Logistics
The special privilege Units will have is the ability to effectively coordinate complete 12 v 12 engagements, as well as Deep-strike Raids behind enemy lines. To accomplish a Raid is a significant achievement, and denotes a very powerful organization:
1) Unit owns at least one DropShip
2) Unit can afford the premium charges for JumpShip use for deep-strikes
3) Unit has 12 dedicated players
4) Unit has sufficient stockpile of materiel to conduct the Raid behind enemy lines.
Operating behind enemy lines is fraught with obvious peril – the mission has to be carefully planned out, matching ammo and parts to the mechs to be used, deciding how much to risk on the Raid is what will make the Unit CO’s job challenging. The key for success will be matching players and mechs to Lances, and Lances to the Mission. The planning will involve estimating how much materiel to bring with you to fight the series of battles necessary to win the Raid and will be an art-form.
To that end, the first logistical requirement at the Unit level will be acquiring a Unit HQ. The HQ serves as the Unit’s primary supply depot when conducting a Raid. In preparation for a Raid, the Unit CO or his officers begins by purchasing supplies from the House they are aligned with and stockpiles them for later use. These supplies are stored in the Unit HQ, and that HQ is located on a planet that belongs to the Faction your Unit is currently aligned with.
The HQ is purchased by the Unit from its internal coffers, and is deployed by the CO on the map in a manner similar to that of a Lance. Care must be taken in placement of the HQ, as if the planet is Raided by the enemy, your stockpile is subject to be stolen by opposing Raiders. Defending the HQ is one of the main responsibilities of the players in that Unit.
The farther away from the front-lines, the safer your HQ is. However, that distance means planning your own Raids is much harder as assets will take longer time to travel to their target destination. Deciding on how to defend your HQ while conducting raids on enemy assets is a complicated task, one that enriches the CW experience immeasurably.
Planetary Capture and Raiding Model
I propose that CW adopt a hex based map for planet operations. Hex maps, after all, the way the TT was played. The planet hex map will have several Objectives that must be conquered for the planet to change hands.
If the mission is a full assault, the attackers deploy in one of several Landing Zones located on the Planet. Each Landing Zone will be a fixed number of hexes away from a key Objective. The goal for the attackers is to maintain a link from their Landing Zone all the way to their key Objective. The defenders goal is to cut the line from their LZ to the Objective, and assault the LZ itself to force the attackers to retreat.
Each Hex will represent a potential battle. Each battle won will determine ownership of that hex to the attacker if he succeeds, or to the defender. Each hex must be attacked from an adjacent hex that you control.
The battle for the planet begins by your Lances arriving at the LZ. A battle begins immediately in close quarters where you are doing a combat-drop to secure the LZ and begin your push to the Objective. If your side wins that first battle, you have secured your LZ and can begin your advance.
If you fail that first battle, you are forced to retreat back into Orbit where you are free to try again after a suitable cool-down period if your supply-line is still open. If you are cut-off from your supply line in an Assault, you are forced to retreat back to the JumpShip and back to your lines after being routed in the LZ. If you control your LZ you can continue operations for as long as you have enough supplies (if operating as a Unit and have brought your own supplies with you).
The main objective on the planet is the Capital of the planet. If the attacker side conquers the Capital while keeping a contiguous line open back to his LZ, the attacking faction wins ownership of the planet immediately. If that line from the LZ to the Capital is cut prior to capturing the Capital, the planet remains contested.
Once the Capital hex is assaulted, if the attacker wins that assault while the defender has (prior to the Capital fight being resolved) cut the attacker’s line, the planet enters into sudden-death wherein the moment the line is reopened by the attacker the planet is conquered.
Lances are deployed and moved from Hex to Hex for combat operations to take place. Scouting missions by light lances will reveal enemy lance and mech formations to help commanders plan their advance. Lance commander’s move their assets to conquer adjacent hexes and the battles begin once sufficient assets are in place to start queues for the missions.
Each side has a choice of mission types to create:
(a) Light scout mission: determine lances and mechs located in that specific adjacent hex
( B) Recon-in-force: detailed information about that particular hex and general lance disposition of adjacent hexes
(c) Raid on hex: an attack by lighter forces to weaken enemy assets in that particular hex.
(d) Hex assault: full attack by upgraded lances
The typical lance profile for each example above could easily be: mostly lights, lights with some meds, mostly mediums, and heavy-assault. Tonnage ranges would not exclude using lighter mechs if the pilots prefer, would only allow for access to higher tonnage if desired based on scouting reports.
A Hex is conquered when all enemy assets in that hex are removed from that Hex.
When the mission begins, appropriate Lances that are located in the hex are selected into battle. Upon the battle being resolved, the winner remains in the hex to attempt further operations, and the loser is forced to retreat to a friendly adjacent hex. If the lance cannot retreat and is surrounded, the lance is un-deployed and removed from the planet completely.
When all enemy forces have been forced off the hex, the hex is conquered.
Defender deploys new lances from the Capital. If defender loses control of the Capital, that Faction cannot deploy new lances.
Attacker deploys lances from the LZ. If the attacker loses control of the LZ, that side cannot deploy new lances until control of the LZ is regained.
