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Heavy Infantry Squads


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I sent this to Clay and I wanted to get other comments as well. Unfortunately I am a computer retard so I can't mod this myself...

After playing DT for awhile, I have been thinking about "heavy infantry squads" as opposed to the current light infantry squads. Heavy infantry would probably be more akin to the Mobile Infantry of Starship Troopers (the book), but more conventional to keep the game balanced (no nukes!).

Anyways, here is my idea for the heavy squads, aka marine shocktroops:

General:

-3 man squads, each marine in heavy powered armor that drop together in a single pod.

-Each suit uses anti-matter and appears on radar, except when stationary and hidden (see below).

-Jumps are more lateral and they cannot jump straight up or very high. Jumps are more like long bounds. (They cannot jump over the walls of a fort for example).

-Each marine's powered armor is equipped with a "Y-rack" with an ATG launcher and a 10mm minigun or a 10mm minigun and an ATGM magazine. Each marine also carries a heavy weapon (see below).

-Heavy squads cannot enter buildings, but can traverse all terrain and take advantage of microterrain. They can go prone, and after remaining still for a minute or so, the suits "go cold" and thereby loose the antimatter signature, until they move or fire, which expends energy.

-Suits can suffer mobility kills that immobilize that particular marine until extracted or he is KIA. Carried weapons and Y-racks may also be rendered unusable by enemy fire (to include 10mm AP).

Armor:

-Nearly invulnerable to 10mm and 14.5mm AP and HE from the front. More vulnerable on the sides and even more to rear (back is where antimatter, weapons, etc is stored...which can lead to catastrophic destruction of the suit if hit hard enough)

-Good protection against 20mm AP from the front. Poor protection from sides and none to rear.

-Average protection against 76mm AP from the front. None to sides or rear.

-90mm and 120mm AP penetrate heavy powered armor. HEAT rounds of all calibers have appropriately lesser penetration values.

-HE shockwaves have no effect, shrapnel has no effect except to rear of heavy armor suits.

-Direct hits by HE rounds to front have little effect (except for alot of sparks!), however, the rounds are more effective against the sides and rear. A direct hit from a 120mm HE round should knock that marine down and stun him in a similar manner in which light infantry squads are stunned. Decent chance of a mobility kill on that marines' powered suit.

-EMP effects suits and immobilizes them the same as vehicles.

-Mines can immobilize marines in heavy armor (although they can jump over them).

-Heavy powered armor suits painted in same schemes as vehicles.

Weapons:

-Squad Leader has automated 10mm minigun (engagement critera set by player) and ATG launcher on Y-rack and carries a target designator. The target designator fires a special round out to 1500 meters. The round paints the target with an antimatter marker, making the target permanently visable on tacmap. Additionally the squad leader can designate targets for very accurate indirect fire, out to 4000 meters. Each heavy infantry squad can be designated to be supported by one, or more, indirect fire units that will automatically engage painted targets with mortar rounds.) 10mm miniguns fire bursts of 10-15 rounds and have a magazine capacity of 500. ATG launcher fires the same caliber ATGs that light infantry employ but with a max effective range of 800 meters. The Y-rack ATG launcher carries 8 ATGs.

-Assault Gunner has a 10mm minigun and a missile magazine (4 ATGMs) on Y-rack. Carries a missile launcher with 2 ATGMs. (3k range, same warhead and function as current ATGMs, after two shots, gunner must reload from Y-rack missile magazine.)

-Sniper has a 10mm minigun and ATG launcher on Y-rack. Carries an 30mm special application rifle with a mix of AP and HE rounds, which is effective out to 2500 meters. (Think super .50 cal sniper rifle). Rifle is very accurate and fires semi auto only. Sniper has 50 AP rounds and 20 HEDP rounds, carried in magazines of 10.

-As heavy marine squads take casualties, the surviving marines may abandon their primary weapon for a better one from a casualty. Player's choice.

The tech level of heavy infantry suits should make them more rare than light infantry squads. Only Mu Arae marines probably had better powered armor.

Here is a concept picture from a Starship Troopers minature game:

Heavy Infantry Squad

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I like that, too.

A bit too well armored - a 20mm should be able to take one out from close, 76mm from medium and 120mm from any distance (I mean direct hits). Something a bit below a paladin. A suite is just not big enough to carry that much metal.

Firepower seems ok to me.

I guess half of what you wish could be done right now. Some special things like the target designator, 'cooling down', etc... are not yet in the game. Would be worthwhile however smile.gif

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I agree with the 20mm AP up close...and that was what I meant by "good protection"....that protection starting incrementally at about 500 meters and beyond. Same with 76mm, just different ranges and values. Heavy infantry armor being below that of a paladin is very reasonable.

Care to take a crack at designing them?

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Here's a suit design I have kicking around. I have a fair number of iterations on paper but I'd need to scan them. This one was obviously done in mspaint.

http://www.gweep.net/~jdevlin/bsuit.html

I always imagined that it would be armed with a 20mm vulcan, a low caliber PDW and a blade in the default config.

-Joe

[ October 30, 2006, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: jdevlin ]

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Looks good. I would just add the Y-rack weapons suite onto it. The heavy powered armor should also allow the marine to carry heavier weapons and a 7.62mm and 12.7mm rifle that a light infantryman could carry (they have "light" powered armor after all) would be pointless in my opinion. Additionally, a light infantry marine could not even pick up a weapon made for heavy power armor. Two of them could use it as a support weapon though.

A squad would need to be effective against armor as well as other infantry. Heavy infantry would provide support to light infantry as well, hence the support weapons...target designator, sniper/AT rifle, and ATGMs. The Y-rack weapons (the 10mm minigun is automated in accordance with the player's engagement settings) provide point defense against enemy infantry and ATGs against enemy armor.

I like the minature's helmets better as an optical faceplate would be preferable than a purely electronic one in my opinion. EMP would make them blind and a camera only view of the world would be difficult for any infantryman. On the inside of the helmet,some kind of HUD would be displayed and other enhancements such as thermal, IR, etc...would be available, but those are not simulated in DT. But on one of your designs you showed antennas. Those definetly need to be added, especially to the squad leader, as he has to transmit alot of data in order to spot for fires.

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I'm trying to get the Heavies to work but its more difficult than expected.

Having less than 5 team members crashes DT. Also leaving the Size parameter from an internal component crashes DT too although the docs say different.

If I have something working I'll post it.

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Well, hopefully Clay will be able to get some time to work on the concept and maybe be able to set you up for success Poesel. Thanks alot for trying.

I am sure there is a way to do it, but maybe not from modding a light infantry squad. Probably would require designing a whole new unit.

Aittam, in your opinion, what weapons makes the 3-man heavy infantry squad too powerful? I was attempting to create a shock squad for leading infantry assaults and supporting light infantry, hence the different types of support weapons. And all of these kinds of weapons exist today for the most part (digital laser target designator, special application sniper rifle (when firing AP ammo it is quite effective versus armor, even tanks by taking out TC's, optics, fuel cans, etc..), and the ATGM launcher is less powerful than today's javelin and has less range than the ATGMs of the Shrike and Paladin. The extended range of the ATGs is just because the launcher is mounted on the shoulder of the armor and is larger. The light infantry launcher is an underbarrel grenade launcher on a hand held rifle. But the damage inflicted would be the same. Still need to find that side or rear shot against most armored vehicles to get a kill.

The automated 10mm minigun would make mincemeat of light infantry squads, but light infantry is not meant to go head to head versus anything in the game. And if the light infantry HMG gunner got close enough undetected...in three bursts the heavy infantry squad is down.

Just some thoughts. A heavy infantry squad not used properly would be dead meat almost as fast as a light infantry squad. Especially in the crosshairs of a Thor or Apollo.

I do think it would add a great new dynamic to the game and open up more infantry tactics.

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well i was thinking to give him (for coding reasons he's alone) a sligthly more firepower, may be a 20mM, same ammo as the HMG and due to the fact that the armour is much better it wouldn't be fair to have a couple of spare life hidden in the bushes while you charge with one (my favourite way to use infantry in close combat), heavy infantry's slow so other than ambushes or suppport fire has no roles, we could think to make just the specialist, make it a little tough with his impressive exoskeleton and go with one only

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Some things do work right now, some don't.

Originally posted by Imperial Grunt:

General:

-3 man squads, each marine in heavy powered armor that drop together in a single pod.

Less than 5 men crashes DT.

-Each suit uses anti-matter and appears on radar, except when stationary and hidden (see below).

That would be vehicle properties for an infantry. Currently not moddable.

-Jumps are more lateral and they cannot jump straight up or very high. Jumps are more like long bounds. (They cannot jump over the walls of a fort for example).

The power of the jets is moddable.

-Each marine's powered armor is equipped with a "Y-rack" with an ATG launcher and a 10mm minigun or a 10mm minigun and an ATGM magazine. Each marine also carries a heavy weapon (see below).

It is possible to equip inf with heavy weapons but you annot switch to it.

-Heavy squads cannot enter buildings, but can traverse all terrain and take advantage of microterrain. They can go prone, and after remaining still for a minute or so, the suits "go cold" and thereby loose the antimatter signature, until they move or fire, which expends energy.

You cannot mod the ability to go into buildings.

The 'suit going cold' feature is not in the game.

-Suits can suffer mobility kills that immobilize that particular marine until extracted or he is KIA. Carried weapons and Y-racks may also be rendered unusable by enemy fire (to include 10mm AP).

I ried to give inf an 'engine' component but that didn't work. This and the other things are basically vehicle parameters that need to have an effect on inf.

So everything is in the game but the mix does not (yet) work.

Armor:

-Nearly invulnerable to 10mm and 14.5mm AP and HE from the front. More vulnerable on the sides and even more to rear (back is where antimatter, weapons, etc is stored...which can lead to catastrophic destruction of the suit if hit hard enough)

-Good protection against 20mm AP from the front. Poor protection from sides and none to rear.

-Average protection against 76mm AP from the front. None to sides or rear.

-90mm and 120mm AP penetrate heavy powered armor. HEAT rounds of all calibers have appropriately lesser penetration values.

Easily moddable.

-HE shockwaves have no effect, shrapnel has no effect except to rear of heavy armor suits.

The shockwave thing is not moddable. Shrapnel is a side effect of better armour.

-Direct hits by HE rounds to front have little effect (except for alot of sparks!), however, the rounds are more effective against the sides and rear. A direct hit from a 120mm HE round should knock that marine down and stun him in a similar manner in which light infantry squads are stunned. Decent chance of a mobility kill on that marines' powered suit.

Also included in better armour. DT however does not adjust armor values due to ammo type.

-EMP effects suits and immobilizes them the same as vehicles.

-Mines can immobilize marines in heavy armor (although they can jump over them).

Again two vehicle properties that need to be applied to inf. Not moddable.

-Heavy powered armor suits painted in same schemes as vehicles.

IF you know how to make the new infantry models the paint should be a rather easy part.

Weapons:

-Squad Leader has automated 10mm minigun (engagement critera set by player) and ATG launcher on Y-rack and carries a target

The only automated gun in DT is the PD of the hermes which does not work on ground targets. IMHO an automated 10mm that works against inf would be much too good. Some limited range PD for heavy inf seems reasonable however.

designator. The target designator fires a special round out to 1500 meters. The round paints the target with an antimatter marker, making the target permanently visable on tacmap. Additionally the squad leader can designate targets for very accurate indirect fire, out to 4000 meters. Each heavy infantry squad can be designated to be supported by one, or more, indirect fire units that will automatically engage painted targets with mortar rounds.) 10mm miniguns fire bursts of

Target designators are not in the game - I really like your idea though.

10-15 rounds and have a magazine capacity of 500. ATG launcher fires the same caliber ATGs that light infantry employ but with a max effective range of 800 meters. The Y-rack ATG launcher carries 8 ATGs.

Moddable but there are no magazines.

-Assault Gunner has a 10mm minigun and a missile magazine (4 ATGMs) on Y-rack. Carries a missile launcher with 2 ATGMs. (3k range, same warhead and function as current ATGMs, after two shots, gunner must reload from Y-rack missile magazine.)

The ATGM has no range (unlimited).

-Sniper has a 10mm minigun and ATG launcher on Y-rack. Carries an 30mm special application rifle with a mix of AP and HE rounds, which is effective out to 2500 meters. (Think super .50 cal sniper rifle). Rifle is very accurate and fires semi auto only. Sniper has 50 AP rounds and 20 HEDP rounds, carried in magazines of 10.

Moddable.

-As heavy marine squads take casualties, the surviving marines may abandon their primary weapon for a better one from a casualty. Player's choice.

Not in the game and probably quite complicated to program.
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Originally posted by aittam:

that simil robot won't go prone anyways and more than walk it should kind of slide on the antimatter prop no?

Why not? It might not lay flat, but it could probably lay prone propped up on elbows.

Going prone might not be a quick action though.

The heavy powered armor should be able to walk and even run and not be a lumbering behemoth. But the jets would be more limited. They cannot slide or hover using the jets due to power reasons, however their jump is more like skimming along the surface of the terrain.

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Originally posted by poesel71:

Yes, but then you had no walking animation, couldn't go prone,... Thats what I meant that nearly everything is already in the game but you can't mix it.

Maybe Clay can provide some guidance here on how to make 3 man squads. I would guess there is a way to make a 3 man squad with some vehicle characteristics, but it would take some work. Thanks again for the effort.

Is the basic concept of three weapons possible, (two on y-rack and one carried heavy weapon) minus the auto-targeting feature for the mini-gun? The current light infantry marines can toggle between 10mm AP and ATGs. Heavy infantry marines would have just one more option.

The squad leader could alternatively be armed with a 20mm HMG (with more ammo) vice the target designator to make it more simple.

Can the ATGM be limited to 2.5-3k max effective range for the AT gunner? Maybe Clay could help with that.

Sniper/AT rifle seems doable, just make total round counts and absract the 10 round magazines, same with ATGs, make the ammo count to 8. The range should be lowered to about 600m, putting the heavy infantry squad more in the danger threshold of 20mm AP for game balance.

Regarding buildings, that is not a big deal, especially since a marine who could not fit through a door would probably just make his own and get inside.

Mines would be jumped over anyways, so that can be dropped.

I am trying to make a 3d model using blender, but if there is someone out there who can make 3d-models based on the starship trooper miniatures and/or jdevlin's drawings for fun, that would be cool.

Probably the easiest way is to mod a heavy infantry squad would be to use the current light infantry HMG gunner and beef-up the armor, maybe change the faceplate of the helmet, add a y-rack and the mounted weapons, and an antenna. Modding the 20mm HMG itself into a ATGM launcher and a sniper rifle could then be done, completing the weapons load-out.

Hopefully Clay can find a way to reduce the squad count and ATGM range.

What do you all think?

Vehicle camo patterns could then be applied.

[ November 01, 2006, 09:26 PM: Message edited by: Imperial Grunt ]

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well you could always drop $200 and get this:

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/224040

hehe

I looked around for some powered armor models but didn't come across any with a quick google search, expect for this pay one.

I imagine you might be able to search for some free 3ds models and find something, but walking animations and such might be a challenge for a novice character animator.

You could possibly even mess around with Poser and see if they have any models you can export.

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I am not sure if the models would be the hard part, for the people who made the orginal models. It seems that Clay has to work on the infantry squad code in order to allow three man squads and to give the squads some vehicle characteristics. Poesel lined it all out.

I am pretty enamored with the Starship Trooper design powered armor with each marine carrying a primary weapon and also having a "Y-rack" on the shoulders/back of the armor for additional weapons.

sstgrizzly.jpg

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These little guys look fun. Perhaps a bit over-armed for the game, considering big tanks don't have 3 weapons to them, but I like the concept and definitely would like seeing it moddable, if not rolled into a future official release. I figured you all were talking about mods, not something done by the developers, hence the reference to difficulty.

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