2E Ability Brainstorm: Marines, Assault, Atmospheric, ???

[virtutis.umbra]

... create a separate ability to encompass the benefits conferred to ground units. The ability would let ground units fight as flights in space combat, being based from Carrier or Assault. As for the name of the ability, we could be somewhat honest on what this represents and just call it Mecha, though Transorbital would be a broader term with fewer setting-specific connotations attached to it.

How about EVA or Zero-G?

I sorta feel that flights make the most sense for having a Transitional ability. Ground units that fight in space might be called Marines, and halve their stats in space combat, the reverse for ships... they are fighting out of their element, and should suffer some sort of penalty. Unless we're looking at truly 'amphibious' units equally capable in space or atmo, like dropships, in which case it doesn't matter whether they are space or atmospheric, and can be coloured any way you like. Though they provide you with a planetary assault force that doesn't need to be transported in assault vessels, so the ability should be priced accordingly.

I agree that the capability for a unit to act at full strength as both a (space and air-capable) Flight and a Ground Unit does provide some extremely advantageous versatility. I agree that balance dictates that be a rather costly capability - perhaps 1.5x or 2x the cost of Atmospheric? That'd basically guarantee that it's only low-C$ units that can get this treatment, as (even more so than Atmospheric) it becomes absurdly expensive to apply such an ability to a C$ 12 unit.

I don't think Marines is the same ability. That one already has specific mechanics within the game system that I think stand on their own and make sense, and they excel specifically at a) invasions and b) boarding actions (offensively or defensively). They certainly don't do much independent moving around / fighting in space, and there's no reason to lump that additional ability in with their existing bonuses. I'd like to see more ground unit options, rather than strengthening the existing abilities.

Then there is the Transformative capability for Flight units from 1E, except that the Transformative units made decent Flights but pretty poor ground units. That's sort of the opposite of what we're going for here.

Finally there's Atmospheric, that has a high cost but lets starships or flights assist in ground combat operations as close air support, basically becoming (limited) ground combat assets with some severe restrictions (mainly that they cannot count as garrisons or defend a system's planetary assets from invasion on their own).

Something more like Mecha or jetpack infantry or similar units, a powerful ground unit that's still vacuum-maneuvers-capable is the missing side of the polygon. I think that letting them operate as half-strength Flights would be valid.

[MarkG88]

A real world example comes to mind in regards to this topic: multi-role aircraft certainly cost more than dedicated aircraft during the Cold War this tended to be seen as a vice and not a virtue until it came time to waging air war then the true value of a multi-role aircraft would pay dividends on the battlefield and in the air above it.

Consequently a dual role ground unit that can serve as a space flight unite would be very handy indeed but should be costing at least twice as much as a "normal" ground unit. The savings would be in the maintenance cost which should still be higher than a normal ground unit but less than a ground unit + space flight flight unit to make it worth fielding these units without breaking/min-maxing the economic cost of fielding forces.

[MarkG88]

And in regards to what you call this hybrid ground/space unit I'm not sure what to suggest. Still keeping with my Cold War theme (since I've done hours of research on this over the past few years) USA armor and mechanized infantry divisions fielded approximately 100 helicopters but where never considered anything but "heavy" ground units. Granted they had no real fixed wing assests, but their fellow ground pounders in the Marine Corps did.

USMC MAU (now MEU) had both helos attached as well as a handful of Harriers....a very versatile unit but still just considered a reinforced light inf battalion in regards to an Order of Battle chart.

My take on these hybrid ground (planetary combat) and space units is that they would be stronger at one aspect than the other. If it's a gound ground unit its space flight numbers would be token or one level lower. A good/heavy ground unit that space flight aspect would be equal to a fair/medium space flight unit in other words (plug in the numbers as you like here I went with adjectives because I'm eating lunch and honestly not up on the current game stats for ground and space flight unites in the 2.0 system )

[darbycmcd]

So the question is about ground units interacting with space forces? Well, I think in a future-war setting, the vertical defense envelope would have to be expanded to include near orbit, so the AA type unit would be one that could fire at ships threatening the planet. I don't think having infantry shooting around space makes sense, but an attribute like "Near space defense" for ground units would be useful. It also helps with one of the things you see in space/ground interaction in these games, basically that if one side controls space, the ground battles become pointless, (you can just hang out in orbit and bombard enemy forces at will) which means that ground units become pointless. giving them a way to shoot back means invasions are going to be more of a swoop in, drop troops and move out operation.

[countercheck]

Definitely. I mean, ground units actually have significant advantages when fighting spaceborn forces directly. Missile silos can be dug deep into the earth, there's lots of ground clutter, and the mother of all heat sinks. Conversely, space forces are nicely silhouetted against a dark background and have nothing to hide behind. Ground forces aren't just infantry divisions... they are mega-fortresses in hollowed out mountains, they're submarines that launch missiles from under 2km of effectively impenetrable water, they are mobile launch platforms that duck in and out of tunnel systems... I've always thought Bombardment would happen at ranges of a light second or two... long range and inaccurate, but beyond the range of effective response from ground units. As soon as you go into orbit, then ground units start shooting back, and C$ for C$, ground units will usually butcher space forces.

[virtutis.umbra]

That's different yet again from the idea we're trying to abstract out from the 'mecha' concept here. I think a ground-to-space 'counter-bombardment' ability would make another great addition to the design options.

I think with that capability we're talking about the inverse of Marine, in that it grants bonuses attacking from surface to orbit without actually moving across the boundary. The ground-to-space capable 'mecha' unit attribute we've been discussing is rather the inverse of Atmospheric, in that it encompasses capability to independently maneuver in both space and surface warfare. If we can represent those two ideas mechanically as separate things, that'd be way cool. I like ["EVA" or "Space-Mobile" or "Zero-G"] for one and ["Surface-To-Orbit" or "Counter-Bombardment"] for the other.

Side note: probably we're venturing into Engineering Manual territory here with most of the ideas beyond Marine, Assault, and Atmospheric. I assume EM is where Transformative is going to go, for instance, and these other 'cross-class' abilities seem on par with that.

EDIT: Maybe it's fair to say that the difference between "Ground unit that can act like a Flight" and "Flight that can act like a Ground unit" is academic, and we could just stick with Transformative Flight units as the way to fill that role. I still think the idea of specialized ground units that can point their guns at orbiting ships is a useful one though, and one that lacked a corresponding ability in 1E.

[countercheck]

The easiest way to do the basic stuff is have:
A) Flights can be ground based or space based. Transitional flights operate in both environments without penalty.
B) Spaceships with Atmospheric can be built and repaired on planets, and can serve as Flights in ground engagements, halving all combat values other than DV and CC.
C) Ground units that are Orbital can be built and repaired by ships and stations, and, if based in a Carrier or on a planet can serve as flights in space engagements, halving all combat values other than DV and CC. Orbital ground units count as invading from cargo unless they are based in an Assault capable ship, or have Assault themselves.

[darbycmcd]

I guess I am just not seeing the void here. we have 'atmospheric' which means 'can operate in space and in ground combat' so, i guess i just don't see what is missing. i mean the term is backwards for ground units, but the effect is the same, yes? really, just use 'transitional' for any unit that can function in both environments, with half value for its 'non-native' one. what is missing?

and as a former army guy, i hate mecha. it is really really silly. but that is totally personal opinion! the thing is, if you want to imagine individual soldiers out in space fighting ships, imagine what it would look like. you would have to have a big engine, large lifesupport suite, and really heavy weapons. viola, you have a fighter. any 'mecha' big enough to engage ships would have to be functionally the same as a flight anyway.

virtutus: strategic bombing could be done from that distance, but not operational. the problem in space games is if you allow ships to bomb ground elements, without the ground elements being a threat to the ships, whoever holds 'the high ground' will always win and have no incentive to deploy ground troops except to garrison the planet. it sort of takes away from the excitement of the invasion. so sure maybe you could say attacks against civilian targets could be done from out of weapons range, but it would make sense and is more realistic) that manuever elements could not be attacked without entering a threat zone. so AS for ground units could come into play. just an idea.

[darbycmcd]

I didn't want my previous post to come across as dispariging of mecha wanting folks, sorry. i really just meant that i think that the mechanics are there already. if you call a flight 'mecha' then everything is there right? i dont' think we should add traits that are basically the same thing as another but with another name.

[virtutis.umbra]

I didn't want my previous post to come across as dispariging of mecha wanting folks, sorry.

No worries about disparagement, but let's keep in mind that a lot of individuals' pet sci-fi tropes aren't realistic, see 'Space Fighters are Worthless' and 'Stealth Doesn't Work In Space', unless we posit some sci-fi departure from today's understood physics. (No, no please let's not start that debate afresh here, that's not my point )

i really just meant that i think that the mechanics are there already. if you call a flight 'mecha' then everything is there right? i dont' think we should add traits that are basically the same thing as another but with another name.

... placeholder for reply in a moment, getting off the wi-fi shuttle

[countercheck]

I guess I am just not seeing the void here. we have 'atmospheric' which means 'can operate in space and in ground combat' so, i guess i just don't see what is missing. i mean the term is backwards for ground units, but the effect is the same, yes? really, just use 'transitional' for any unit that can function in both environments, with half value for its 'non-native' one. what is missing?

and as a former army guy, i hate mecha. it is really really silly. but that is totally personal opinion! the thing is, if you want to imagine individual soldiers out in space fighting ships, imagine what it would look like. you would have to have a big engine, large lifesupport suite, and really heavy weapons. viola, you have a fighter. any 'mecha' big enough to engage ships would have to be functionally the same as a flight anyway.

virtutus: strategic bombing could be done from that distance, but not operational. the problem in space games is if you allow ships to bomb ground elements, without the ground elements being a threat to the ships, whoever holds 'the high ground' will always win and have no incentive to deploy ground troops except to garrison the planet. it sort of takes away from the excitement of the invasion. so sure maybe you could say attacks against civilian targets could be done from out of weapons range, but it would make sense and is more realistic) that manuever elements could not be attacked without entering a threat zone. so AS for ground units could come into play. just an idea.

Agreed that mecha are silly, but as it's been already stated, so is stealth, and so are fighters. I prefer to reskin my fighters as a distributed network of remote weapons platforms, and kinetic kill drones. Someone may want mecha. It's all good.

I guess the void I see is a way of integrating atmospheric units with the rest of the combat system. Can space based atmospheric units take part in non-invasion scenarios? Do they count as Assault units when they do participate in them? Is there any penalty other than the mass penalty? Is there reason why FTL capable atmospheric ships couldn't constitute a garrison?

Also, I suppose we could reskin starbases as ground based installations. There's no real functional difference, I suppose, other than that a ground base wouldn't take up shipyard capacity.

[darbycmcd]

ah, ok, i see what you are driving at a bit more. but there is no 'atmospheric' unit. there are space-based units that have an atmo ability. they already can fight in space. atmo is extra. a space based atmo unit is just a flight (or ship i suppose) that has atmo.

the way i see it, which may not be the design intent, is that there are 2 types of units, ground and space. flights are space units that are small and agile enough to potentially (with atmo) directly function in ground combat. otherwise, ships (even atmo ones) interact with ground units through bombardment. so we want ground units that interact with ships. we already have flights, which covers mecha, fighters, etc. so we need an ability for actual ground units. that is why i proposed anti-space, for use against ships during an invasion scenario.

if space stations are space units, i would like to see a ground unit equivilent, like planetary defense center.