GH2: Army Lists

[Joseph Hewitt]

This is an idea which has come up before, and now I've thought up what may be a pretty good mechanism for dealing with it. One of the problems with the random forces generator is that it creates very sloppy looking units. For the military factions at least, it would be better if there were more cohesion- a certain number of basic troops, one or two support units, and a commander. I've come up with a simple idea which should achieve this.

Let's say that a proper military unit is composed of 2 to 6 identical troopers, 0 to 2 support units, and 0 to 1 commanders. Let's further say that there are a certain number of unit types- say General, Assault, Defense, and Recon. Certain mecha will be assigned roles referenced against factions. For instance, Mecha X might be a trooper unit in one faction but a support unit in another. A mecha might also be given several different roles: the Zero Savin will probably be used as both a trooper mecha and a command mecha by the Silver Knights, showing up in its command role earlier in the campaign.

Here's how the generation will work: At the start, attempt to create a unit. The unit type will be listed in the team definition in the encounter; if undefined, General will be assumed. Each trooper will be alloted 20 points of Strength (measure of relative cost; most encounters have 100 points), each support unit 25 or 30, and each command unit 25 or so. Check to see which mecha of each type can be afforded and buy one. Each of these unit mecha will be generated at the standard skill level, except for the Commander who gets an automatic skill boost. After generating the unit (or units- very large encounters may be able to afford several), any leftover points go into random mecha as per the original generation rules.

Some factions are irregular- they don't use units like this, or don't stick strictly to the outline. The Pro Duelist Association, for instance, will never feature units of identical mecha.

Not all the mecha assigned to a faction need be given a role. In fact, this may work better if they aren't. Such designs would then represent mecha which are technically available to the faction in question but don't see much use anymore. They would still appear being used by major NPCs or as "extras", but would be less common than before.

One good side effect of this should be that fewer low-level mecha are generated in high-level encounters. I've noticed that even near the endgame, most combats feature a whole lot of Ice Winds and Buru Burus.

Thoughts?

[EuchreJack]

AWESOME.

However, Command randomly get between 25 and 40.  Command 40 basically represents the Commander and his bodyguards.  Command 25 represents a slightly upgunned command mecha, kinda like a sargent among the platoon.

Speaking of Sargents, perhaps the Commander in some units should be a variant mecha of the main units.  Like, the main mecha are old Ice Winds and the Commander is a new Ice Wind.

Actually, given the nature of the missions, patrol and raiding are probably the most common mission.  Patrol is like a more mobile version of defense, and raiding is like combining assault and recon.

[Joseph Hewitt]

However, Command randomly get between 25 and 40.  Command 40 basically represents the Commander and his bodyguards.  Command 25 represents a slightly upgunned command mecha, kinda like a sargent among the platoon.

That's the role for major NPCs, who already get up to 50 points.

Speaking of Sargents, perhaps the Commander in some units should be a variant mecha of the main units.  Like, the main mecha are old Ice Winds and the Commander is a new Ice Wind.

Hopefully, this will just happen naturally from the role assignments, though there will likely be edge cases where the trooper or the commander upgrades before the other.

[Ephafn]

The idea makes sense. It would make encounters against a given faction more variety, since one fight could be against a bunch of Buru Burus, but the next could be against a bunch of Haihos (don't get close to them).

Two commentaries though. First, will there be a way to control how big the enemy lances are? I could see the Pro Duelist Association bringing only 2 or 3 very strong mecha, where the Blades of Chrina would have brought 15 of them (with only a few not being cannon fodder).

Second, will each faction have more than one possible unit make-up? For example, the Aegis Space Force could have both a normal fighting unit, and a bombers+escorts units with very different mechas.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Two commentaries though. First, will there be a way to control how big the enemy lances are? I could see the Pro Duelist Association bringing only 2 or 3 very strong mecha, where the Blades of Chrina would have brought 15 of them (with only a few not being cannon fodder).

Good idea, but at the moment I don't know an elegant way to do this. I'll think about it.

Second, will each faction have more than one possible unit make-up? For example, the Aegis Space Force could have both a normal fighting unit, and a bombers+escorts units with very different mechas.

Yes, I said this in the OP. There would be several types of units, and these types can vary based on the renown level of the battle.

[Frumple]

There would be several types of units, and these types can vary based on the renown level of the battle.

Could they vary based on previous combat performance as well? Ferex, you're running missions against Aegis -- perhaps specifically within a certain area -- and you're regularly tearing up unit Y; Aegis gets the message and starts phasing out that unit, or at least stops sending them against you specifically, something along those lines. A simple weighting system of some sort sounds like it'd be able to pull it off, maybe just straight percentile adjustment.

Reasoning: It gets kinda' stale -- parts wise, at least -- to keep killing the same mechs; after you've got fifteen or twenty icewind beam shields, more icewinds are more or less just sell fodder. An enemy that 'gets the hint', i.e. notices that they've lost a small mountain of metal's worth of a specific model, might liven things up a bit (more).

Also: Special units for specific missions (assassin squad)? Working off of Ephafn's idea, will certain factions have units unique to themselves, or a limited number of other groups? That might be the easiest way to model a small elite force or large mook mob.

[JohnnyDmonic]

I think the standard renown increases will probably keep things varied enough, it probably doesn't need to be all too much more complicated.  It's not like they're going to stick to buru buru, once you've killed 10-15 missions worth of those they'll probably stop appearing just as part of the renown/difficulty progression.

[Ephafn]

Two commentaries though. First, will there be a way to control how big the enemy lances are? I could see the Pro Duelist Association bringing only 2 or 3 very strong mecha, where the Blades of Chrina would have brought 15 of them (with only a few not being cannon fodder).

Good idea, but at the moment I don't know an elegant way to do this. I'll think about it.

I have been thinking of a way through which you could control both units with non-uniform make up (like PDASS ones) and also deal with variable lances sizes. I think an example is the best way to express it, so here what would be the unit definition for a pirate faction with a bunch of normal mechas + a bunch of irregulars + 0 or 1 commander mecha: (this is pseudo-code, but I try to keep close to how the GH2 format is)

Code: [Select]

MechaUnit
Name <Pirate lance>
MinRenown -100
MaxRenown 100
Factions <CRIHN REDMA BOHEM>

sub
UnitPart
Roles <COMMANDER>
PVRatio 20
MaxNumber 1
NumberRatio 15
SkillBonus 1

UnitPart
Roles <TROOPER>
PVRatio 10
MinNumber 3
NumberRatio 40

UnitPart
Roles <GENERAL TROOPER CIVILIAN BOMBER SUPPORT ...>
IRREGULAR
PVRatio 5
NumberRatio 60
SkillBonus -1
end

When requesting this unit, the code would first calculate the total wished PV rating for the whole unit. Then, it will go through each 3 of the unit types. If the unit doesn't have the IRREGULAR flag, it will choose a mecha for it, but it won't place it on the game board. If there is a positive MinNumber, then it will add that many of the chosen mecha on the board.
Once that is done and as long as the target total PV isn't reached, the code would randomly pick one of the types, with probabilities proportional to the NumberRatio and avoiding any type which has already reached its MaxNumber. If the type is not IRREGULAR, then it will add on the board the already selected mecha for that type. Otherwise, it will select a random mecha each time.

When selecting the mecha, it will obviously follow the Roles flag, but it will also try to get mecha whose PV rating is as close as possible to PVRatio * total PV / 100. Therefore, the higher the PVRatio are, the less mechas will be deployed (but they will be individually stronger).

[Joseph Hewitt]

I've got the basic unit building code running. It hasn't been tested much yet and I've only assigned roles for the low level Crihna meks, but it appears to be working. I think I'm going to have to add some command and support variants of all the main line mecha out there.

[JohnnyDmonic]

I wouldn't say all.  I'd say like...50% or so should be single role, with 40% being dual-role and only 10% or so covering all 3 roles.  Like say, the Galah, as befits the design philosophy should have variants for all 3 roles, and the Buru Buru obviously (although maybe not all factions having access to Buru variants of all 3 roles),  a lot of the current 'support' style mecha (Pheonix...trailblazer? etc) might have command variants but no mainline variant.  Likewise several of the mainline units might have support variants that sacrifice armor or mobility for long-range weapons, but I doubt they'd go so far as to try to turn one into a command unit (with the exception of some factions whose leaders are particularly hands on, in which case it'd be more likely to be the higher-end mainline units that they reconfigure for command units)

[Joseph Hewitt]

I've assigned the mecha to different roles, and expanded MekCheck to print out the army lists. For right now I've just assigned roles according to the purpose given in the mecha's description. As expected, there are a whole lot of holes in the army lists. Here are the GENERAL-type army lists for some of the factions most likely to be fought against.

The Blades of Crihna:

Code: [Select]

  GENERAL
    TROOPER
      246293   Crihna Gorilla
      255675   SAN-X9cb Crossbones Buru Buru
      434052   SAN-D1 Daum
    SUPPORT
      224770   Crihna Skull
      710895   Crihna Harkney
      872063   PL-912 Phoenix
     2961869   Crihna Kraken
    COMMAND
      245366   SAN-X9g Heavyfoot Buru Buru
     1042111   AD26c Vadel
     1667435   ZLK-3 Corraich
     2072072   MWC-30 Dao Deoji

The Red Mask Raiders:

Code: [Select]

    TROOPER
      273657   CBG-87b Ice Wind
      290700   RMA-01 Gaunt
      689252   MCI-74 Neko
    SUPPORT
      224770   Crihna Skull
      255675   SAN-X9cb Crossbones Buru Buru
      263627   WR-106 Wraith
      872063   PL-912 Phoenix
     3475049   RMR-?? Bargol
    COMMAND
     1042111   AD26c Vadel
     1667435   ZLK-3 Corraich

The Aegis Space Force:

Code: [Select]

    TROOPER
      203310   CHA-02 Chameleon
      220275   CHA-02q Star Chameleon
      481797   AEF Luna II
    SUPPORT
      198169   BLB-01c BlueBird
      219689   CHA-02b Sniper Chameleon (updated from GH1)
     2161991   AET-52 Gigas
     2264520   CHR-3L Chimentero
    COMMAND
      265982   CHA-03c Command Chameleon (updated from GH1)

There may be some mecha which I've forgotten to tag- I just noticed that there's no role assigned to the Trailblazer in the Silver Knights, for instance. In general I think each faction should have at least one trooper around 250,000 points, 500,000 points, and 1,000,000 points. Support and Command should have mecha at those levels and probably also mecha at the 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 marks as well. Many of the holes could be filled in simply by adding variants of existing models.

There are also some places where the mecha pile up- the Red Masks have a glut of support units around the 250,000 point mark, for instance. Sometimes this isn't a bad thing. The Aegis Space Force gets both the BlueBird and the Sniper Chameleon, but since the Bluebird can only be deployed in space and the Chameleon on land it's no problem.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Two nice things about the new unit generator: First, fighting an entire unit of one type of mecha makes the differences between models more apparent. Second, some mecha aren't very good on their own but are surprisingly effective when deployed as a unit. I never had much respect for the Daum when it was appearing singly, but a unit of them backed up by Harkneys is dead 'ard.

[Daemonward]

It would be neat if mecha awarded by faction promotions were based on this. New recruits are issued trooper mecha, sergeants get support mecha, and officers get command mecha.

[SharkD]

A suggestion:

Code: [Select]

  GENERAL
    TROOPER
      246293   Crihna Gorilla                      0.200
      255675   SAN-X9cb Crossbones Buru Buru       0.200
      434052   SAN-D1 Daum                         0.200
    SUPPORT
      224770   Crihna Skull                        0.075
      710895   Crihna Harkney                      0.075
      872063   PL-912 Phoenix                      0.075
     2961869   Crihna Kraken                       0.075
    COMMAND
      245366   SAN-X9g Heavyfoot Buru Buru         0.025
     1042111   AD26c Vadel                         0.025
     1667435   ZLK-3 Corraich                      0.025
     2072072   MWC-30 Dao Deoji                    0.025

The numbers on the right represent the likelihood a unit will spawn. Note that if you add them all together the numbers equal 1 (unity).

Run the random number generator to produce a value between 0 and 1. If the value is between 0.000 and 0.200 you get a Crihna Gorilla. If the value is between 0.200 and 0.400 you get a SAN-X9cb Crossbones Buru Buru. If the value is between 0.750 and 0.825 you get a PL-912 Phoenix. If the value is between 0.950 and 0.975 you get a ZLK-3 Corraich.

If you want to spawn 10 units on the map, repeat the above 9 more times.

Alternately, based on the same principle, but using two rolls of the random number generator - one for the CATEGORY and one for the mecha:

Code: [Select]

  GENERAL
    TROOPER    0.600
      246293   Crihna Gorilla                      0.333
      255675   SAN-X9cb Crossbones Buru Buru       0.333
      434052   SAN-D1 Daum                         0.333
    SUPPORT    0.300
      224770   Crihna Skull                        0.250
      710895   Crihna Harkney                      0.250
      872063   PL-912 Phoenix                      0.250
     2961869   Crihna Kraken                       0.250
    COMMAND    0.100
      245366   SAN-X9g Heavyfoot Buru Buru         0.250
     1042111   AD26c Vadel                         0.250
     1667435   ZLK-3 Corraich                      0.250
     2072072   MWC-30 Dao Deoji                    0.250

This is probably easier in terms of maintenance of the lists.

You could add a FIXED flag to guarantee that a certain number of a unit gets spawned, but then you need additional logic within the code to sort out the "mess":

Code: [Select]

  GENERAL
    TROOPER    0.600    FIXED
      246293   Crihna Gorilla                      0.333
      255675   SAN-X9cb Crossbones Buru Buru       0.333
      434052   SAN-D1 Daum                         0.333
    SUPPORT    0.300
      224770   Crihna Skull                        0.250
      710895   Crihna Harkney                      0.250    FIXED
      872063   PL-912 Phoenix                      0.250
     2961869   Crihna Kraken                       0.250
    COMMAND    0.100
      245366   SAN-X9g Heavyfoot Buru Buru         0.250    FIXED
     1042111   AD26c Vadel                         0.250
     1667435   ZLK-3 Corraich                      0.250
     2072072   MWC-30 Dao Deoji                    0.250