3
A comprehensive framework for Community Warfare
Apologies in advance – this is going to be a very long post. I am posting this in a separate thread to follow up on suggestions I made in here, with reference to the OP located here. In my original post I felt I was not clear enough on the system I was describing, if you had never played the game it was based on, my post probably did not make complete sense.
Legalese: This is being posted in the Piranha Games Inc forum, and the author is gladly granting PGI the right to use any and all of the material of this post towards any purpose PGI sees fit without any compensation or acknowledgment to the author; including the right to reprint and modify at will. In other words, do whatever you want with this Devs.
TL;DR: This is an attempt to propose in detail a possible implementation of Community Warfare. It is a principally a plea to the developers to implement it in a way completely different from and with NO similarity to Wargaming’s Clan War system in World of Tanks. It incorporates key design elements from Kesmai’s EGA version of Multiplayer Battletech with some other suggestions.
Preliminaries
For the sake of this discussion, here are some key terms used throughout regarding the military organization and what not for those not familiar with battletech canon:
Lance – Smallest unit of organization in the military TO&E, fielding four mechs (kinda like a platoon) Typically led by a Chu-I or Lieutenant.
Unit – Composed of three lances, company level deployment. Typically led by a Tai-I or Captain.
Prefecture/PDZ/(insert your house here) – Comprised of a variable number of units within an area of the I.S. Map, forming a regional defense force. Typically led by a well connected Chu-sa (Lt.Col) up to a Sho-sho (Brigadier General or so).
Military District – Comprised of Prefectures in a given bloc, forming a larger defensive bloc. This is led by a high ranking general. Highest command position short of House Leader or House XO.
The above constitutes the basic framework for the house military, and is the main focus of this post. Each Military District comprises a huge chunk of the map, and is similar in concept to the “Army Command” system that divides the USA in geographical areas; placing the responsibility for defense of that area by that Command. This also serves as the focal point for projecting power externally – start from a point in the USA and move outwards, usually that Command has responsibility for operations in that target area.
Core Worlds – Key manufacturing planets in the canon, centers of industry capable of generating military supplies to maintain combat operations for mechs in the field.
I. Factions, Faction Players and their experience
To be true to my understanding of the canon, a new player logs in and starts as a Recruit, the lowest rank possible. Until the player completes Basic Training, he or she will be severely limited in their choices. Upon selecting a House, that player is placed in a designated training unit until completing basic requirements. The player should select a “class” of mechs to train in to meet the basic requirements, and upon completing them gets their first promotion to Private.
At this point the new player has a world of options open to him: joining a particular House unit of their choice open to anyone. It will be the responsibility of the Chain of Command to promote a good initial experience for the player, with personnel actively recruiting new players into starter units. Officers/senior NCOs will be rewarded for their efforts by receiving a “Loyalty Point” bonus based on the activity of the people under them in the chain of command (military version of a pyramid scheme!).
One of the main benefits to being in a House military unit should be access to House unit mechs with cost of repairs and replacement of unit mechs being paid for by the House. The player would not own these mechs, but would simply be using them. However, that would mean having to use whatever units are available at the time for that unit. The player would not earn nearly as many cbills per match as a merc would, but would gain significantly more Loyalty Points (LPs) per match. LPs are what really matter to a military player. Consequently there would be a remarkable difference in being a faction military player – using your personal mech would be the exception rather than the rule until you earn the privilege of having your custom House military mech. This would be one of the perks of higher ranks – choosing the mech that will be “free” to use.
But what about Founders?
While hard to explain under the canon, we’ll simply assume that founders mechs are mechs inherited, kept within the family for generations by wealthy families; sending their son and daughter with mech to serve for the greater glory of their House. J The extra 25% bonus will make them profitable to operate assuming decent battlefield performance. Without that bonus, it should take strong piloting skills to operate a personal mech when serving in a House faction.
The typical character progression for a faction player would be centered first on developing Mech piloting skills, earning higher rank, to then qualify for Command Positions. For every level (lance, unit, prefecture, military district, hl) there will be at least two line command positions: XO and CO. For those not interested in line command positions, there should be Staff positions available, such as Recruiter/Trainer, Intel, Operations, Quartermaster and (insert your military position here). Each unit would need a recruiter at the very least. Senior commanders (Prefectures and above) will be assisted by Staff in planning and carrying out operations; managing key House resources and making sure that the troops in the front line get the supplies they need. Each organizational level will be responsible for managing a “budget” of resources used for any purpose: purchasing and replacing mechs, supplies for operations, and issuing special merc contracts.
Consistent with what PGI has announced to date, Loyalty points would earn rank, rank earns privileges (such as the House paying for using a custom mech), and rank allows for holding Staff or Command positions. Holding these positions grants bonuses based on the performance of the people under them in the chain of command. LPs are really much more important to faction players than c-bills.
II. Faction Wars
I believe quite strongly that we need players to organize war and diplomacy within the House. We need Prefecture CO’s, Military District COs, and a House Leader. Without a certain level of organization there would be no point to playing in a faction as opposed to playing in a mercenary unit.
The key concept for faction vs. faction warfare should be conquest of key manufacturing centers that would allow for earning more resources for the House, as well as acquiring special house variant mechs. This would be the driving force behind the wars – acquiring resources and technology. Keeping this in line with PGI’s idea of untouchable core worlds, the map needs a class of spread out objective planets that would form the strategic overall map: getting to the goodies inside the enemy faction’s zone.
Each special planet would provide a bonus of resources that goes into the overall military budget, as well as a chance to capture X number of special variant mechs unique to that House when conquered by another House.
To get to these planets, each faction would have to fight through a number of border worlds – each border world captured would yield a smaller bonus to the military budget. However, to attack any world you have to be within “supply range”.
A. Supplies
Each House generates a military budget based on the worlds it controls; this budget pays for all the good military stuff. However, supplies do not teleport magically; they have to flow through the territory along an uninterrupted chain. The thinner the chain, the harder it is to get supplies, the more robust the chain (more supply connections), the easier it is to wage war.
A daring thrust straight at a key target might be faster, but would place you in a strategic quandary: harder to get supplies for repairs and reloads, and in danger of being “cut off” by an intelligent adversary. This would be one of the key responsibilities of the Quartermaster Staff position: allocating enough supplies to conquer the target to avoid delays in waiting for supplies.
Supplies will originate from untouchable “Core” worlds, passing through contiguous planets until reaching the battlefront. The more links the operational area has to friendly planets in the supply chain, the faster supplies will arrive for combat operations.
Consequently, lances, mechs, and supplies will have to varying degrees a “location”. Initially, faction unit lances will be located in the planetary HQ (as per canon for regular and elite House units). The lances are the movable part of the Unit, and can travel to anywhere for defense, or can be used to start an assault assuming there is a supply line to the target. There would be a delay between the time the move command is issued to the actual arrival of the mechs and equipment, but this would be reasonable given the fact that no one wants to simply wait around. I propose that the maximum amount of wait time (for example, transferring from one front to the farthest point in another front) should be 30 minutes. The average time moving from adjacent world to adjacent world would be about 5 minutes. Personal mechs would also have a travel time based on their current location.
Supply travel time would be faster or slower based on: distance to nearest Core world and number of supply point connections to the target. This delay is justified as the main responsibility of the command staff would be to make sure that enough supplies “drop” with the attacking force to keep operations running while resupply comes through.
Supplies would be the main operational constraint to keeping up a deep thrust into enemy territory. Cutting off a unit from resupply would be a key defensive objective. Expanding supply connections would be a key offensive objective.
B. Rewards from Combat
As illustrated before, Houses would earn resources based on the planets they control. This becomes the key reward for commanders, as this would feed their military budget – allowing, for instance, for them to acquire special custom House-mechs and plan for combat operations. Individual players running combat missions would be able to earn salvage bonuses that would help them pay for running their personal mechs, or acquiring a personal mech. Success earned in battles could also earn bonuses to LPs for exceptional performance, and so on.
C. House Budget
The idea here is to give depth and meaning to the drama played out on the big map. The decisions made by commanders in how to allocate a finite pool of resources will help determine success or failure of the war. More importantly, the actions of individual players will be the key – after all, no matter how brilliantly lances and resources are deployed, its mechs on the ground that conquer planets.
The key to my idea for the overall House Budget is that each level of organization will have an initial allocation that is modifiable by the commanders; and will receive a bonus allocation based on objectives achieved at all levels. For example, the House Leader of Kurita determines that the Steiner front is a greater danger than the Davion side; so he makes an overall allocation of House resources to those Military Districts on that front that is larger than the other side. These resources are then allocated down the line to individual units and lances through the chain of command.
Regardless of how this is done in this top-down approach, lances and units will earn their own bonuses based on performance – allowing them operational flexibility independent of budget restraints imposed from above. This means that units that work within and follow the Chain of Command will be able to “double-dip” for increased resources; drawing from the player controlled pool and the pool the unit earns directly from success on the field. However, units and lances will be able to operate independently if they need to. No one will be forced into doing anything.
Unit commanders and lance leaders will be able to acquire mechs that they want from the house assigned budget as well as the bonuses they have earned. These mechs in turn can then be assigned to individual members for use. They will be able to assault planets using assigned supplies, and get resupplied when needed based on their accumulated Supply Credits. In the canon, House units were classified in the source materials as having a specific type of unit, and even specific mechs that the unit was able to use. However, I am proposing that each unit start with the canonically assigned units as a default, but allow the players to earn the right to change their assigned mechs with earned Supply Credits in the interests of expedient game play.
Each unit will have a canon-established lance slot type according to the source materials; changing the particular mech within a class will be much cheaper than changing the actual mech class. Going from a light unit lance slot to an assault lance slot would be insanely expensive, changing it from a light to a medium much less so. The slot-class can only be upgraded by the Unit CO; the actual mechs assigned to the slot is controlled by the Lance Leader.
Each member of the unit will be assigned the right to use particular mechs by the Lance Leader. A proven and trusted warrior may be allowed to use any Lance mech; a new recruit might be limited to the worst one at the discretion of the unit staff.
The battlefield performance of every individual can be reviewed by the command staff. Each battle completed will contribute to the individual player’s performance statistics, as well as up the chain of command (lance performance, unit performance, prefecture performance and so on). Units with poor performance (losses outweighing earned contributions) will receive a penalty, units with good performance will earn a bonus.
Command staff will have a strong incentive to help new players learn how to win battles, and more importantly, how to do so efficiently.
This will be one of the key driving forces of the social interaction within the military chain of command – simulating one of the key roleplaying elements for us who are interested in being faction players.
Supply Credits will be a universal measure of success – redeemable for basically all relevant aspects of unit activities: attacks, defenses, mechs, and supplies. Players earn LPs, units earn SCs.
III. The Map – Faction and Mercs Together
PGI has announced in the Dev Blog that there will be separate “zones” within the global IS Map – one class of planets for faction players, one class of planets for mercs, and lastly the Core Worlds that are untouchable by players.
I am hoping that PGI will reconsider this.
Faction and Merc players should operate in one common zone; faction players should be able to help defend Merc HQs and attack merc targets, and mercs should be able to assist in faction operations in both attack and defense.
There should be generic AI generated contracts available to mercs for any planetary attack or defense that is happening. That is, when the faction attacks or is attacked – mercs always have the option to get in on the action at their discretion. On top of this, senior faction commanders should be able to use a portion of their Budget to sponsor more lucrative player issued contracts to encourage mercs to work on specific targets. More on this in the following section.
What I am proposing is that just like House faction units have an “HQ” planet, each Merc Corp will have the option to establish an HQ planet in that House if they sign a Long-Term contract; more on this in the following section.
When a Merc Corp establishes an HQ in a House controlled planet, they will earn special bonuses from the planet; as well as any other planet they capture or assist in capturing. There will be a strong incentive for them to defend their HQ, and this will benefit the House enormously. Likewise, faction players will have a strong incentive to protect mercenary assets.
However, mercs will also be affected by the supply line system. They will have access to the House supply system at rates/costs determined by the Contract they sign – but the speed of delivery will depend on the distance from their HQ. The closer to the front line, the more the risk – but the easier it is to fight. The farther away their HQ is, the safer it is – but more planning would be required to make sure they do not run out of supplies.
However, mercs can bypass the supply line system completely, relying on supplies shipped from their HQ – to a limited extent, they can perform “deep assaults” unlike faction players; all they have to do is ship the supplies with them to start the attack. The catch is, no resupply unless they form a supply link back to friendly space.
Under this map system, merc and faction players work together seamlessly. Mercs will have the freedom to take any system generated contract at will, and if they commit to a Long Term contract, the right to establish their HQ in that Houses’ space.
IV. Mercs
Enough about faction players. So instead of joining a House, you elect to join a Merc Corp. The benefits of being a merc are numerous: bypass most if not of all of the rank system, use any mech you want at any time, attack or defend anything you want at any time. Freedom!
The key to what I envision for mercs under an integrated map system is the contract system. A newly formed merc corporation will start with neutral standing with all Houses. Players within the merc corp will have the option of accepting “Standard” mission-by-mission contracts depending on the alignment the Merc Commander has selected for his Corp – without any commitment to a longer term relationship.
For example, Mercs’R’Us has decided to align itself with House Kurita. As a newly formed outfit, they have no standing yet with any House. So the Merc leader clicks the checkbox marked “DCMS”, and that allows for the members to accept any standard mission for House Kurita. In order to be able to run the mission, a lance from the Corp must be deployed on the target planet. Once the lance arrives, the members will have their mechs available to run missions on the target. Each successful mission will contribute to planetary capture or defense; and will award the unit and member cbills and Standing with the House.
After grinding out sufficient standing, the merc outfit will have the option to establish an HQ. This will be done by the Merc Leader by signing a “Long Term Contract”. The terms will be negotiable with the AI directly, not with faction players. In essence, the longer term the Merc outfit agrees to, the more favorable the payouts; as well as the supplies becoming cheaper. Establishing an HQ will be one way to maximizing power and profitability of the Merc Corp.
However, this will not be required. If the Merc outfit wants to retain complete independence, they can operate with lances anywhere on the map without penalty. The advantage will be that independent merc outfits will be able to accept any faction-player sponsored special contracts from any House– whereas an HQ outfit will have to rely on the rates they negotiated for regular missions under their contract, as well as the special contracts offered within that faction only.
The higher their standing, the higher the payouts – the improved rates amend the contract automatically.
Breaking a Long Term Contract with a House will cause a significant standing penalty with that House.
As with faction units, the Merc Corp will have Merc Mechs as well as each player having the option to acquire personal mechs. The Merc Leader will assign rights and responsibilities to each member for such things as access to mechs, rights to requisition supplies, rights to move lances and equipment, etc.
A. Merc Rewards – HQ, Planet Captures, Defenses
Mercs will earn a revenue stream of cbills and standing by contributing Capture Points on the map. Every mission run, just like their faction counterparts, contributes points. As long as that planet remains under the control of that faction, the merc outfit will receive a bonus proportional to their contribution. This will form a constant revenue stream that will be a bonus for that Merc outfit.
For example, Mercs’R’Us decides to attack Xhosa IV on the Davion side after aligning themselves with House Kurita. After the battles are done, Kurita captures Xhosa IV. In the final tally, the Merc outfit contributed 70% of the capture points, whereas the faction military only contributed 30%. That means that the Merc outfit will receive a bonus of 70% of the Resource Value of the planet for as long as Kurita retains control of the planet. If House Kurita loses that planet, the mercs will lose the bonus from that planet.
Following this example, let’s say that Mercs’R’Us decides to sign a Long Term Contract with HK, and wants to have Xhosa IV as its HQ. By establishing an HQ on that planet, they will get a bonus of double its Resource Value. Mercs will of course be limited to one HQ at a time.
Now let’s take another example. Let’s say Liao manages to attack Dieron, and Mercs’R’Us decides to help defend it. Initially, HK controlled Dieron 100%, the assault by Liao was a very big attack giving them an initial stake of 15%. For the sake of this example, the merc outfit beats back the attack singlehandedly -- their revenue stream reward is proportional to the amount of points they contributed towards the defense. Let’s say it was only a diversion, and Liao never ran mission their after assaulting to gain their initial 15%. By beating back that 15%, the merc outfit will earn a 15% bonus of its Resource Value.
Resource Value
Basically this will be a number generated according to source materials describing the importance of the planet, in three broad categories: Vital Manufacturing Center (non-Core World), Developed World, and Regular World. In broad strokes, the vast majority of planets will be Regular Worlds; developed worlds will be worth 3x regular words, and vital worlds 5x.
Merc HQs
As discussed previously, establishing an HQ within House controlled space aligns the Merc Corp with that House for as long as they honor their Long Term Contract. But what happens if the planet their HQ is on is overrun?
Have no fear. By running a lot of missions, Mercs’R’Us has accumulated a huge amount of Standing with House Kurita. They can invest those points to relocate their HQ to a new planet after being driven out of Xhosa IV – a planet of their choosing. If they did not have enough points, all they have to do is grind out enough missions to earn the points to re-establish their HQ.
The HQ is the mechanism by which Mercs decide to run a longer term campaign either against a particular House, or in favor of a particular House. It will allow the “deep strike” capability that will be unique to very powerful and wealthy merc corps. And it will be how they carve out their power in the I.S. But I wish to stress that no merc corp will be required to align itself with only one House.
V. Conclusion
I have attempted to outline a system that I hope is interesting to both faction and merc players alike. My main concern is that I want both faction and mercs to be playing in the same battlezone, fighting over the same real-estate.
I want players to run their faction, and I really want there to be a chain of command. I want there to be diplomacy, backstabbing, spying, all the good stuff. I want to see faction generals panicking the face of a deep thrust by a powerful merc group; rallying their forces to beat them back in a desperate struggle. I want to see smaller organized House faction players kick the teeth out of larger, poorly organized Houses.
I want more drama, and I am pretty sure this system would deliver it. Thanks for reading!
Edited by Kyrie, 18 August 2012 - 09:06 PM.
