What if we had all the playable units spawn on mission start as AI and, instead of respawning, took over the AI soldiers?
Performance wise, they could have disabled simulation and wouldn’t have a big impact. Could be even hidden inside a building that defines occlusion, so they wouldn’t even render in-game until used and thus have basically zero impact.
Battle-field wise, if a player disconnects, the AI takes over (group leader can direct it) and the person can connect back and take over the same AI soldier again.
Reinforcements wouldn’t have to be a time limit, it would be up to the commanding element (or HQ if needed) to manage the resources available. If all the soldiers/vehicles are "spent", that’s it. So it would make natural sense to reinforce in the form of some usable elements serving a specific purpose.
There wouldn’t be infinite weapons/ammo from respawns, all resources would be limited given that the soldiers with loadouts are limited. There could be additional weapon-less or light-loadout roles in case we run out of regular elements, depending on faction and mission setting.
If a soldier dies, the slot is automatically removed from the lobby by the engine.
…?
I know the concept has some problems and given our history will probably never materialize on full-scale ops, but I would still like to discuss it as a "thought exercise" and hear your ideas.
That would be very cool. My old concept along these lines was that on death, those reinserting would need to reform a whole new unit. You wouldn’t go back in to the same one, and reinsertion would be based on two factors; If there’s enough for a new unit they go in as a new unit…or after some time passes they go in to reinforce the existing units. The ratio wouldn’t be 1:1, but something like if you had 2/3rds or 3/4ths of a squad, they’d go in as a squad, anything less would be regular style reinforcements to existing squads. This was to hopefully counter long wait times after a massive casualty event.
I could see it working along with what you are proposing as well…it would also ‘fill out’ the battlefield a bit.
I like it.
That would be very cool. My old concept along these lines was that on death, those reinserting would need to reform a whole new unit. You wouldn’t go back in to the same one, and reinsertion would be based on two factors; If there’s enough for a new unit they go in as a new unit…or after some time passes they go in to reinforce the existing units. The ratio wouldn’t be 1:1, but something like if you had 2/3rds or 3/4ths of a squad, they’d go in as a squad, anything less would be regular style reinforcements to existing squads. This was to hopefully counter long wait times after a massive casualty event.
I could see it working along with what you are proposing as well…it would also ‘fill out’ the battlefield a bit.
I like it.
I remember attempts at one-lifers…I’d say test them again, but I don’t get the feel that they’d be too welcome. I’m not a fan myself, because I normally dedicate my plans to one thing…and then if you’re dead and gone…there go your plans. Same reason I’m not a huge fan of the hour waits, but that’s better than someone tossing a bad nade and ‘boom’ there goes your whole evening haha.
I’ve always been a fan of every feature that brings the game closer to a real life environment, so I would love shorter missions with one life.
To the topic - I think it’s an interesting idea, but I’m afraid it would be a bit of a mess - especially if you made new elements with reinforcements.
Also for me friendly AI is already bad enough outside of our element. It just feels so weird to have a guy fighting with you that can’t respond to your communication. A friendly that does not have common sense.
You could also just add a limited number of respawns. It adds the point about ammunition.
I like the idea. The only problem are reinforcements. Still we are a merry old group so playing with different people would not be a problem. They could be sent to battle on GMs determined time or we can simply say every X minutes.
I like one life missions too, as long as they are the only thing happening that day. So if you die, you can freely disconnect and do something else.
I’m really enthusiastic about this idea. It would add a certain amount of realism in many different aspects. For example if you lose your AT guy, you can’t just wait for him to reinsert with a new launcher. If you don’t retrieve the equipment, your element won’t have it for the rest of the game. This method would also make it possible for us to actually lose missions and would therefore give the missions more recyclability. And as a bonus we wouldn’t necessarily need any kind of reinsertion times as HQ or Platoon could just send in new elements when they choose to.
All for it. Love the idea. A a handful of questions for clarification though:
If PLT or Squad lead dies, do they resume their duties once they have returned to the AO as a ‘new soldier’? Or does it stay with whoever took over for him/her? Would we include multiples of each leadership role?
How would role selection work for reinforcements? Can players call ‘dibs’ on the role they were playing before they died?
Perhaps we could slot up, similarly to the start of the mission, in descending order of the player’s in-mission rank (That’s your character’s rank, not your rank in the community.) I.e. PLT gets first pick, then SLs, then FTLs, AARs and then everyone else. I think this is a pretty fair system. You can only either keep your role, or move down the chain of command, unless someone above you moves down first, and then their role will be filled by the next highest ranked person who wants it, similarly to how it would work if you died in battle and one of your subordinates has to take over your job. Only problem I can foresee with it is if, for example, I was playing as PLT, and after I died, I decided I wanted to be Dagger Driver instead, but Anders was already Dagger Driver, and didn’t want to give it up. But because I pick before him, I can just take it if I want to. I’m sure we’re all mature enough that this wouldn’t be a problem, but it can’t hurt to have a rule in place anyway. Thoughts?
About leaders dying: There’s just going to be a ton of field promotions. As there would in the real world. This should also make the leaders worth protecting and maybe discourages them from doing anything reckless. This could also mean that our battleplans could change drastically in the middle of an op if platoon lead decides to take a bullet.
People shouldn’t be tied to their earlier roles. That would only cause problems. In my opinion it would be best if either HQ or Platoon gave an order about which element they want as reinforcements next and then people will either start filling that out as they respawn or slot up in the manner Jash described. I myself don’t see a reason why the rank of your previous dead character should matter in the selection order, but would rather keep it based on who was first (they had to wait the longest anyway). This way we could get more variation in our roles and maybe even test roles we wouldn’t otherwise.
Also about your dagger driver example: There shouldn’t be any problem of you choosing dagger driver if Platoon wants to get another dagger to reinforce while the other one is still on the field.
