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Re-coding the BOMB order


Magus666
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So, in addition to the BIG news of the new Galaxy, Pete also mentioned in the last turn that the BOMB order was being disabled in order to be re-coded. That's great since, as is, it's pretty worthless. The question is, what is it going to be re-coded AS, and what SHOULD it be? Any opinions?

 

From my point of view, the biggest flaw in the BOMB order right now is that it is simply too weak (needing thousands of weapons to make any real impact) and it DOES NOT take out enemy ground divisions - which would seem to be the most likely reason to BOMB in the first place. Certainly dropping bombs from orbit might not be the BEST way to take out your enemy's divisions, since it will (and should) cause massive collateral damage in the form of reduced Population and destroyed infrastructure, which are the valuable resources you're probably trying to capture. Still, taking out those Fortresses, clearing the landscape of Army Bases, Depots, etc,, and softening up the Heavy Armor and Heavy Artillery divisions wouldn't be a bad thing.

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Prolly will allow for specific target types.

BOMB;FLEET #;POP GROUP #;TARGET TYPE(Industrial, military, all);

or

BOMB;FLEET #;POP GROUP #;WEAPON TYPE; QTY OF WEAPON USED;TARGET TYPE(Industrial, military, all);

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Maybe. Although I think that might be a bit TOO specific. After all, WMD's are pretty indiscriminate. It should be pretty hard to say I want to destroy only military targets and not hit the civilian population and infrastructure (or, if you wanted to for some reason, destroy population and spare military targets). The trick, I think, is that while you only research one kind of WMD at a time (Cobalt Fusion Bombs, Howler Bombs, or whatever), each one actually gives you two distinct weapons. One is tactical. These are the weapons that add to your ground divisions that use such weapons. They can certainly be used on specific targets (IE, against enemy divisions). The other is strategic. These are the BIG ones that you actually have to build and get dropped from orbit with the BOMB order. Those guys should be causing massive, indiscriminate destruction, taking out Population, Installations, and Divisions. You MIGHT be able to sort of direct them at a specific Population Group or Army, but there should still be fairly significant collateral damage. Otherwise, there would be no real need for Ground Troops, once you had control of the airspace you would just park your ships there and BOMB until the enemy had no Divisions left and then walk in and take over. In theory, you SHOULD be able to do that, but in doing so, you would also wipe out large chunks of the Population and Installations. Doing so should also significantly raise negative planetary factors like radiation and pollution.

 

The practical application of the BOMB order would be to do a limited amount of bombing with WMDs to take out the worst ground targets - Fortresses, Military Installations, Heavy Armor Divisions, etc. This should still cause significant collateral damage to Population and Installations, but much less than a full scale "bomb them back to the stone age" assault. THEN you would still need to land your Ground Divisions to fight against the remainder of the defenders Divisions to take the planet. This would make the BOMB order useful, but still not overpowered,not destroying the utility of Ground Divisions, since you would also be destroying part of the resources you wanted to capture. Thus, BOMB would be an option, but not always the best one. Furthermore, just like ships in orbit won't BOMB "friendly" targets, it would be logical to code it so that you can't land Ground Divisions on the same turn that you are BOMBing the planet, thus delaying the ground assault, and possibly giving the target (or allies) an additional turn to organize defenses, move in additional fleets to retake the airspace, etc.

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Should never target troops, ever.

Should give a report of observed damage or at least an estimate if possible.

Should be able to select all MDD's if you want along with Ground Attack fighters.

 

If individual MDD's are going to get much more powerful then they need to be bigger and cost more.

 

Planet defenses have to work well against casual bombing else what is the point of them. However, when I drop 1M high level MDD's it should take out the defenses in most cases.

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Should never target troops, ever.

 

This makes no sense to me. Why would a strategic bombing not be allowed to target troops?

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Why would a strategic bombing not be allowed to target troops?

 

 

I think the initial gut reaction of many players would be - god no, you can't use bombing on troops - for simple balance reasons. After all, an average single ground division cost around 250,000 tons to build, while a single MDD is- 50 tons? If a few MDDs could take out an entire division (or perhaps more, depending on the tech level of the MDD), this would serious break play balance. Why would you ever want to land troops to fight against enemy Armies when you could bomb them from orbit for FAR less cost and at less risk of failure?

 

Well, the answer, of course, is collateral damage. If every division you destroy with MDDs also means you are destroying hundreds or more POP, and attendant infrastructure (installations), then I think most players would usually want to be very careful about mass bombings (unless they were intentionally planning on a leaving the target as scorched earth, in which case the defenders Armies hardly matter anyway).

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So what about fairness, I got my fleet to your homeworld. If I want to target ground troops, there should be some colateral damage. If I spend enough MDD, then I think I should be able to lay waste to your armies from orbit.

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Umm I don't think troops would subject themselves to being nuked from orbit and would hide out in hardened unground bomb shelters

 

 

Of course they would protect themselves. Which is why there would be heavy collateral damage in knocking them out. You would need to use those big strategic MDD's to bust those bunkers, and they would take a heavy toll on the lesser protected civilian population and infrastructure.

 

The idea is to make the BOMB order useful as a viable choice, not to eliminate the utility of ground action. For that to happen, it needs to be recoded in such a way that it can be used to potentially destroy targets that players usually WANT to destroy (IE, Ground Divisions - how often do you really want to wipe out valuable population?) while balancing its effectiveness with a downside (destroying large amounts of valuable population). That way, players MIGHT choose to do some limited strategic orbital bombing to "soften up" the enemy ground forces, but will have to weigh that against the loss of population when (if) they eventually take the planet.

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I'm sure that is what Saddam thought till the coalition droped bunker busting bombs onto his command control bunkers, hardened aricrat hangers.

I'm not advocating for targeting troops exclusively, but there should be a way to target them even if it means to kill population as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You can certainly use strategic bombing on troops, that is the role of the Imperial Army Strategic Bomber. MDD's are not so discriminating.

 

There is also nothing preventing you from laying waste to the planet once you have control of the skies. You just won't be able to defeat the ground troops without your own ground troops. The planet may not be worth capturing at that point, but you can do it.

 

The ground system has its own application of MDD tech so you get the benefit of the MDD's that you have researched during the GATK process.

 

And as long as we are discussing it, why can't I just target the planet with my ship board weapons? I am sure a 3M ton weapon would be able to do damage on par with a 10 ton MDD.

 

What you are really describing is the ground attack fighter which is supposed to specifically be used during BOMB attacks. However, my own experience shows that the have little impact as currently constituted, at least in the numbers that I have used.

 

Having MDD's take out troops would be really nice when facing large armies, but I would also never want my own armies to be so easily defeated, so on the whole I hope that it stays pretty much as is.

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  • 2 weeks later...
And as long as we are discussing it, why can't I just target the planet with my ship board weapons? I am sure a 3M ton weapon would be able to do damage on par with a 10 ton MDD.

 

 

Actually, a really good question! Clearly, you CAN target surface targets with ship mounted weapons, since you can (and basically have to) take out surface fortresses (those constructed from components at shipyards, not the Fortress division) that way. Why not other surface targets, like ground units, installations and armies? Presumably, the answer is the same - game balance. If you could do that, why would anyone bother building armies either for defense (when they can be destroyed easily from orbit) or for attack (when they are expensive, costly to transport, and it's much more efficient to simply destroy your opponents forces from orbit).

 

But again, the discussion here is what can be done to recode the BOMB order to make it functional and worth using. If the ultimate decision is to eliminate it entirely, and remove MDD's from the game (except as Ground Unit tech, and prereqs for other items), so be it. No great loss. However, if we want to keep it, I don't see any way to make it worthwhile WITHOUT allowing it to be used against military targets (armies/divisions).

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I think the point is well taken, but there is a completely legitimate reason to use the BOMB order and that is to destroy infrastructure. Period. Since the effects of MDD's are already included in the GATK processor nothing new needs to be added there.

 

The point is, if you want to capture the pop groups and planet you have to have troops to do it. If you just want to deny assets you can BOMB.

 

Looking at it that way it works as advertised. Don't over think the issue.

 

MDD's are an important part of the game and until you have chased a target to several new planets as they keep bugging out you will not appreciate them. They are also key to planet cracking, which in and of itself is a pretty useful activity for a variety of reasons.

 

So far I don't hear any reason to get rid of the BOMB order. What I hear is a poor ground combat lifeform wanting a quick way to eliminate the uber powerful ground pounders.

 

And just so everybody is thinking the same thing here, there is little chance for a brain in a jar design to ever compete with a well designed ground pounder short of overwhelming numbers, something like 10:1 or maybe more. Tech will only get you so far and one has to assume that a ground pounder will have some tech, at least enough to cover all/most of the TAC areas.

 

So, at the end of the day the BOMB order doesn't need to be fixed. Instead, either design or spend species points to have better ground troops, get more tech, hire an ally or get another position to do the grunt work.

 

This is really something to consider on the eave of a new galaxy where lots of new positions will start out fresh and on a level playing field.

 

:cheers:

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