| marshal.ney | Thursday, August 18, 2016 - 08:23 pm 
First a couple of questions. Why are Enterprises allowed to stock unlimited weapon systems? With no degradation of quality, even without trained operators? As a corollary, why allow that without any costs of upkeep? Another corollary, why are they allowed to keep such in the aether, that cannot be reached by military means?
Suggestions: Tie in a required cost at the end of the business cycle for each military component. If you don't pay a required percentage to upgrade the military component under question, it degrade in quality. Example: B-26s were once fantastic bombers. Nowadays, they are outmoded. Some enterprises could still have those in their stockpiles. They should not be considered the equivalent of newer B-1bs, etc.
Suggestions: Make fighting levels the dominant force in the war game, not quality. This would reward players for keeping an active military - not having units in cold storage.(although the quality level would help.) Veteran military forces have long been perceived in the real world to have an edge over green recruits. In the Infantry, to the other extreme - trained fighter and bomber crews.
Failure to pay the required upgrading costs - either reduces the quality level of the weapon system in stock, or keeps the same quality level, but reduces the number of weapon systems. (dependent on the type of military system..and the length of the business cycle. Both are possible, and could be used by the GM to maintain play balance.) So either cannibalizing existing systems to keep them current, or a degradation of quality, depending on the severity of the technological change.
Suggestion: Corporate holding companies.. If you have a corporation in a country you pay costs. Infrastructure use, etc. Warehouses should be the same. If you want to park 500k precision bombers in my country... you should be paying costs. Land use fees. Fire and rescue. Utility costs. Roads, so workers can get to them for servicing. Air Traffic Controllers, so you can move them out of the country - or off world. |
| SeizeForce | Monday, August 22, 2016 - 07:43 pm
I think fighting level should be the dominant force among special forces and other infantry units, but quality should be the dominant force in Air units or units with majoritiy artillery and tanks.
There's a huge difference in Leopard 2 or Abrams 1 or Challenger 2 vs. some older tanks.
Similarly, there's also a huge difference in F-22 Raptor vs. all the other jets in the world out there. F-22 Raptor could shoot down any other jet without being detected. That's what makes it the only fifth generation jet currently.
But yes, I agree with you marshal. They should degrade in quality. Especially if CEOs have the same weapons and vehicles in stock. We have to assume that the world is always developing better and better technology and that is why there's an upkeep cost on quality.
If anything, CEOs should have shittier qualities since they should be viewed as warlords obtaining shitty AK-47s and machine guns on boats and trucks.
I think that currently the max quality and fighting level is too low, should be 700 or 800. And the quality should be exponentially better than the standard default quality. Here's why
"The Iran–Iraq War ended in 1988 with Iraq fielding the world's fourth largest military, with 49 army divisions, 6 Republican Guard divisions, over 900 combat aircraft in the Iraqi Air Force, and a small navy."
Yet their training and quality of their equipments and vehicles were horrible. That's what led the US to take Iraq and take Baghdad inside of 3 weeks with less than hundreds of casualties despite being outnumbered 3 million Iraqis to 1 million US soldiers.
A sim country with 30-50 mil population and multiple few units at 800 fighting level and 800 quality should absolutely be able to best 150 mil population country with a lot of units and poor quality/fighting levels.
Israel with its 8 million population can easily win a war against Nigeria, with a 173 million population.
Israel even won in the Arab-Israeli wars against 5+ countries besting them because of superior technology and training. |
| marshal.ney | Monday, August 22, 2016 - 08:01 pm
I agree in the main.... However, I'd quibble about the CEO's being only able to obtain crappy products. In most of the world, they are the sole manufacturers of the products that the military uses. Outside of some setups like China, where the military or government is actually doing so.
The problem comes in at the other end, with only countries training the folks who use the weapon system once it is out of development. Professional mercenaries could close that gap, but most countries do not look kindly to them operating inside their borders.
Point well taken on the quality and fighting levels. Increasing quality to 800 could be problematic on the supply side. How about a better composite of the unit's quality AND fighting level to determine combat results? |
| marshal.ney | Monday, August 22, 2016 - 08:15 pm
That last sentence was a request to elaborate on the fighting level and quality level and how they reflect on combat (not an attempt to claim your idea as my own.) I'm having a hard time finding anything on fighting level - the tool tip in military units gives an explanation of War Level, not the unit's fighting level. |
| SeizeForce | Monday, August 22, 2016 - 09:24 pm
Quality and fighting level should both be something that needs to be maintained monthly. They both increase each other's effectiveness. Having a shitty fighting level will only make it so that quality is nearly useless. Saudi Arabia has US technology, US F-16s M1 Abrams but is completely useless in the fight against the Houthis.
I'm not sure how the fighting level and quality level in the game right now affects combat, other than that Mobile Units currently can have better fighting and quality levels than normal units at 600 I believe. Fighting and quality level should be higher, with Special Forces having the highest max quality and fighting level attainable at 1000, and could make it so that it's similar to Navy Seal Team 6.
A Special Forces unit with the quality and fighting level of 1,000 should be able to devastate a city. |
| Zentrino | Tuesday, August 23, 2016 - 04:37 pm
Higher fighting levels would make the units more expensive to create. While they could conceptually do more damage, a single unit at 330Q can already take out a city with one attack. With so few people involved in pvp wars, I am not sure what good higher Q would have except for bragging rights. It would also further enlarge the divide between vets and new player.
Making weapons in an enterprise lose quality ignores the time and cost involved in upgrading those units to 450Q (or 600Q for mobiles). Not only is there is the cost of the weapons and all of the upgrades, but you have to create the units and pay for the cost of those while upgrading. You also have to keep separate the new weapons an ammo you purchase from the upgraded ammo and weapons or the quality gets mixed. So it requires 2 ceos plus at least one country for upgrading all with space centers and shuttles. A player who invests that time, money, and organization shouldn't be penalized on top of that, imo. |
| marshal.ney | Tuesday, August 23, 2016 - 06:20 pm
Making weapons in an enterprise lose quality ignores the time and cost involved in upgrading those units to 450Q (or 600Q for mobiles).
And takes into account the fact the once they have been upgraded, no costs are paid for long periods of time until they are used.
Not only is there is the cost of the weapons and all of the upgrades, but you have to create the units and pay for the cost of those while upgrading. As do all units not in cold storage who continue to pay those costs on a month to month basis, while an enterprise does not.
Mixing qualities etc. I believe there are other ways to do it, that require no CEO. Whether they are more cost effective, or not.
plus at least one country for upgrading all with space centers and shuttles. Applies only to fighting level, not quality.
However, we would not want to penalize Enterprises while allowing a loop hole for countries. The same reduction in quality should affect weapon systems in country cold storage - the deactivated or moth-balled storage area.
A player who invests that time, money, and organization shouldn't be penalized on top of that, imo. One could easily say the same about other facets of the game. Upgrading a corporation, for example. Why do the quality and effectivity upgrades degrade over time? You've already made the investment.
The increase of quality and/or fighting levels is a separate issue. |
| SeizeForce | Tuesday, August 23, 2016 - 07:36 pm
"Higher fighting levels would make the units more expensive to create." No, duh? There obviously has to be a trade-off.
"While they could conceptually do more damage, a single unit at 330Q can already take out a city with one attack. "
Can they attack another army unit at 200Q without sustaining any losses? Technology is very expensive, and that should reflect in quality and fighting force. The US military's budget is expensive for a reason. Technology is a crutch for military today.
"With so few people involved in pvp wars, I am not sure what good higher Q would have except for bragging rights"
A higher Q unit would have better force projection so that means less units needed, less soldiers or officers needed and they could be used to free up more people if you wanted higher workforce. A 800Q unit could equal to 3-330Q units, and be expensive as 3-330Q units. But, the workers you freed up by upgrading to higher quality would mean you could easily cover the costs for it.
A 30,000,000 million army at 330Q could be equal to a 10,000,000 at 800Q. But, you freed up 20,000,000 million people for more corps if you easily wanted to.
"It would also further enlarge the divide between vets and new player."
Not necessarily so. New players with smaller units could find it easier to have a more effective and more powerful units at higher quality and higher fighting level against bigger pop countries that uses brute force and large numbers.
And there's also a hint as if older players or vets shouldn't have an advantage in your statements. There's a reason the US military has the reputation it has, with the vast experience of being involved in nearly every war.
I would go even so far as to say, higher welfare a country has should affect unit's fighting levels. No way should a unit full of impoverished soldiers be able to dominate units full of healthy and well fed units. |
| Eugene Mac | Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 02:57 am
This all sounds interesting but at some point numbers do matter. The German tanks in WWII were much better than the American tanks one-for-one but the Americans won because there were five times the number of them and they had good generals. Where does that leave you? A army group of any quality will lose people during an engagement so eventually they will run out of people and lose the fight. When this happens is a good question.
The point about one unit taking out a city, they would need a very good supply system. |
| SeizeForce | Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 06:08 am
I thought it was painfully obvious that was what I am getting at Eugene.
With higher quality level and fighting level, there would be more variety and people could experiment with quantity vs. quality. A 20 mil pop country would now be able to have a chance against a 100 mil pop country.
With higher quality level and fighting level, we can now have more variety of army and units. We could have countries that focus on smaller number of units with high quality like German tanks in WW2 or Russia where they just threw bodies at the enemy and were lower quality. |
| Zentrino | Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 10:24 am
"A higher Q unit would have better force projection so that means less units needed, less soldiers or officers needed and they could be used to free up more people if you wanted higher workforce. A 800Q unit could equal to 3-330Q units, and be expensive as 3-330Q units. But, the workers you freed up by upgrading to higher quality would mean you could easily cover the costs for it."
I like this reasoning and idea.
On the divide between vets and new players: "Not necessarily so. New players with smaller units could find it easier to have a more effective and more powerful units at higher quality and higher fighting level against bigger pop countries that uses brute force and large numbers.
And there's also a hint as if older players or vets shouldn't have an advantage in your statements. There's a reason the US military has the reputation it has, with the vast experience of being involved in nearly every war."
Vets have a huge advantage already. This system makes it worse because they can upgrade all of their units to 800Q and a new player would take lots of time and money to do so. |
