4 replies to this topic

[RunWithRandoms]

I just thought I'd throw out an old concept for you guys to consider. Concerning company balance.

One of the things I learnt while playing Btech at the competitive level is that people are hard coded to think in terms of 3 lances = a company. Hence tactics revolve around 1 of 2 situations.

1. Entire Company together.
2. 3 lances of 4 mechs supporting or isolating themselves.

What I developed as a core tenant to strategy was an idea of "pods", but really call them what you will.

What it is is a 3 mech group, in 4 locations, rather than 4 mechs in 3 locations.

How does this help/hinder?

Well, it deepens your strategic solutions. You're no longer bound to a core push or a triangle coverage. You are not locked to a fire line, or a left right center push. In essence, what 4 mechs can do, 3 mechs can do long enough too, for your more flexible line to counter.

I can already feel the venom building in some players who think that the aggressive 12 man murder ball is the only option in THIS game. But lets be honest. It works on the principle that your opponent is disorganised. It's a farming strategy, not a battle strategy.

Anyway, simply food for thought. Someone mentioned strategy in another post, and it got me thinking "MAYBE there are players here who see how deep this game CAN go." I'd very much enjoy a strategic challenge, or players who want to engage strategy to play with. I've found it rather sparse since arriving here.

Oh and lets get our language in synch, it's my understanding that tactics are what you do in the moment, and strategy is what you do in the over all. So shield arming before counter firing can be considered a strong tactic, but it's not a strategy. Similarly, a static fire line is not a tactic, but is a strategy. If we can use those definitions for the purpose of this thread, it will go way easier with less communication error.

Edited by Envisage, 01 December 2015 - 05:34 PM.

[Bilbo]

In a cohesive company there are several deployments that can and have worked. Outside of that, you end up with what we have now. Doesn't matter where people spawn, they try to move to a point that minimizes their exposure. There simply isn't enough time before a match starts to vocalize what a plan might be other than, "go here and we'll figure out what to do from there", which is why you can almost always predict where people will go initially at the start of a match in a solo queue.

[RunWithRandoms]

Bang on the money Bilbo. Enemy prediction is far too easy.

I'm talking about a 12 man drop though, who are willing to play mechs designed for mutual support rather than 1 man army style mechs. This goes rather deep as far as ammo crit saturation and all that.

I'm hoping to discover who here strategizes and who here twitch shoots.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

You're using ComGuard protocols.

They use units of 6 instead of 4 for their companies (Level 1s and Level 2s, IIRC). A Level 1 could easily be sub-divided into demi-lances or fire teams or whatever you want to call them.

[Bilbo]

Envisage, on 01 December 2015 - 05:47 PM, said:

Bang on the money Bilbo. Enemy prediction is far too easy.

I'm talking about a 12 man drop though, who are willing to play mechs designed for mutual support rather than 1 man army style mechs. This goes rather deep as far as ammo crit saturation and all that.

I'm hoping to discover who here strategizes and who here twitch shoots.

Haven't played with groups for quite some time so I can't help you there. I think you will find that it is simply preferable to have force multiplication at any cost.