Tactics in current DT version

[cool breeze]

Hey Dark_au,

Sorry I told you off so hard. I lost my temper. I hope you come back to this game and forum.

I hope and dont think me telling you off was the reason you left so I am trying to figure out why you did so that perhaps we can adress yor grievances.. I will post more once I have reread the basics of tactical warfare thread.

Sorry y'all for making a thread for an email kind of message.

[ August 18, 2006, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: cool breeze ]

[cool breeze]

OK. I re read most of text and all of yours and the ones you responded to.

It seemed like you walked out because in the BTW (basics of tactical warfare) thread you felt you were alone and everyone on the thread felt very different than you about what this game is/should be about. However, I dont think that is really what that thread shows. I think the confusion came in because you were insufficiently specific and we didnt clear it up.

You started by telling us how to do tactical warfare. You didn't say if you were saying what works in real life or if you are saying "this is how you will be the most effective in Dropteam" or "this is what should be most effective in dropteam once the gameplay is as it should be". I wasnt sure when I read it but assumed you probably meant this is what is most effective in dropteam. I assumed this because it was the start of a discussion of tactics in dropteam forum, but the word warfare implied otherwise, so I should have asked. I now think you meant "these are the rules which will make players in dropteam most effective when the gameplay is as it should be". I think this because it seems this was a make or break argument for you. I believe that most of the posters on that thread assumed incorrectly as I did and I think this missundersatnding had very much to do with mutual frustration. am I correct? Since no proposals were made within that thread about how the game should be changed I thought we were only discussing how the game is, not how the game should be, or about how modern warfare is. My impression is most other posters were of the same mindset. The people who upset you by posting counter arguments to what you said, cutting off the oversatements of your possitions, were clearly talking about how dropteam is now. They were not using generalities because there is no need for them in a discussion about the current gameplay, we can go and check the facts.

I dont think these problems will arise when all know more speciffically what we are discussing. I think if you come back with a list of proposals for changes to make the game how it should be we can have a very useful discussion/debate. we could also have a discussion on which general direction to take the game in (maybe, Im not clever enough to thikn of how to get that discusion moving). Or we can do a specific aspect that is "broken" but then it needs to be a no holds bar debate about both if it is broken and the pros cons of the solutions. (I cant think of anything "broken" except too few players and boring ions)

One confussing thing about that the BTW thread is I am not alwayts sure what is being written of because of the simple reference to AAD. we have 8 effective very different versions of AAD. AA turets or AAT PD towers or PDT, Galaxys or Gys lol, Hermes, 120mm, ATGM, AAGM towers or AAGM, or two ions, all under 7 letters, lets be specific please. Arguments/debate/discussions dont work when we dont know what eachother are saying.

I really think keeping arguments specific so all counterarguments can be adressed and we have real right wrong kind of answers when discussion is done will make all discussions more useful understandable and lower stress. I dont mean it must all be fact based not theoretical hypothetical, about wishes and desires and opinions, but lets keep those things seperate and be explicit about which kind of argument/debate/discussion we are having. right?

[Dark_au]

I'm not that fickle that I was insulted.

The whole point of that thread was to start a discussion on the basics of tactical warfare. I didn't stipulate any genre because I was under the impression that the basics would remain true. If there is no direct analogy between real world and DT tactics at the base level then it is not possible to have a tactical doctorine to fall back on for scenario design. Without that all you can do is repeat the same basic strategic concepts. For there to be longevity of scenario design there needs to be a broad and complex base of strategic possibilities. If there isn't then To ME it becomes like a game of checkers which is too far down the strategic ladder for complexity.

For example if you look at warfare for the last 3000 years one concept which comes through again and again is Defence in Depth. WW2 soviet tactics demonstrate this perfectly. You have layers of static and mobile defences intermingled with the whole point bieng to Find the attacker, Fix him and slow him down. So that while the attacker is engaged with static defences you counter attack with mobile defences. If the attacker is engaged with the mobile defences then you either counter attack with mobile forces or enfilade him with static defences. Part of this is the 4f's of mobile warfare. Find, Fix, Flank and Finish.

In DT the Herpes destroys 2 fundaments of Defence in Depth, The bots and turrets inability to target infantry also makes them susceptible. If something as basic as defence in depth doesn't work then the only way we can have scenarios with strategic complexity to them is if someone writes the DT doctrine. This is of course impossible, because as I tried to say before, Doctrine is an evolutionary thing. You can't just make it up, it is the product of military hindsight.

[ August 18, 2006, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: Dark_au ]

[ClaytoniousRex]

How does the Hermes destroy any of those fundamentals? By having a limited capacity to intercept incoming rounds or by providing sensor jamming?

If it's the former, then are you saying that as soon as something like Trophy or other active defense systems gain widespread use that the entire basis of military doctrine will have to be thrown out on the spot?

If it's the latter, then throughout most of history the Enemy has not had a red target pipper on his head and a dot on a digital map, so I don't think that changes much w.r.t. historical comparison.

Or does the Hermes do something else besides these 2 that you're referring to? And even more importantly, whatever the problem you're pointing out is, how would you like to see it fixed?

[Dark_au]

I was refering to the latter because turrets and Bot units won't engage it. This means it can by-pass the defences and hit them from the rear before you can bring up units to defend them. Therefore it is of no value to place the static defences, without the nessecary force size to gaurd every static defence with a human defender.

[cool breeze]

Thanks Dark_au for replying. I am happy to hear you weren't insulted. I wonder which two fundamentals of defense in depth you think are destroyed by the Hermes?

Id be my bottom dollar that defense in depth will work in most senerios in drop team. It will probably be just two levels, reccon screen and combat force. Someone should start a DT tactics thread where we make plans to try and write what we have found. Probably also a thread per senerio, maybe even two, one attack, one defense. I dont have time to write a good beginning for any of those because I am moving very soon to Arcadia CA. Plus I am still in college so relatively inexperienced. Better coverage for AA (or easier placement) would make defense in depth easier because it would make controlling territory much easier.

After the next 3 post max I want this dialog to move to a new thread please.

[Dark_au]

Sorry missed the last question... A fix. well the easy one would be to allow say the cutter or the Mercury to be able to manually control turrets. This way the hermes would not be a guaranteed negation, Its invisibility would only protect it from the automated side and not the static defences per se.

[yurch]

If I may take a crack at it:

The 'automated guns' such as ground turrets, air defenses, fill in the gaps that a team cannot concievably fill with a mere 8-10 controllable entities. The bots serve this purpose too, to an extent, since they can relied opon for little more than shooting (and not tracking targets, pursuing or intelligently falling back).

The Hermes bipasses all of these things with its jammer. The bots have been very bad lately about noticing anything without a pipper, often allowing infantry or hermes, or other cicumstantially jammed units to move clear up to them for easy dispatch. Players scan around and respond to sounds... the bots don't. A bot also never conciously attempts to distance itself from a close threat like infantry or 20mm.

Without bots and without automated units, you're stuck with the 3-4 players on the team as the only thing that can properly stop a well-deployed Hermes, a craft which already has a defense against some specialty weapons like ATGM and Mortars, and can often protect from AA enough to allow more incoming drops.

Given, I don't know what new kinds of defenses you guys have in store for the next patch. I'm really not liking the on/off nature of jamming on thier behavior, though. Intuitively, one would think that:

1: a jammer that loud and powerful has got to be leaving some sort of telltale sign for units in the region it is active. Not necessarily WHERE, but some sort of indication.

2: There must be some form of detection powerful enough to pick up the jamming anyway. It may be a painfully obvious form of detection that draws fire, but it's better than nothing.

3: Defenses that can be completely bipassed so easily are pretty useless. If the jammer had an effect of weakening them in terms of accuracy or response time it'd be a bit more believable. (maybe simulating a manual-control by uncontrolled friendly forces)

Edit: posted too slow, looks like I got instareplied a couple times...

[cool breeze]

It seems to me a reccon screen in front of the turrets would stop this. Make the turrets on the main combat line instead of front line. Not that I have ever seen this done, but it will when big teams start talking. If the turrets become easier to drop later they can easilly (instead of currently possible but difficult) be part of a mobile combat force behind the screen.

[ClaytoniousRex]

Yes, that is a serious problem. Before 1.1.2, bots and turrets never did. As of 1.1.2, they finally started shooting at jammed targets but not often enough. Now in 1.1.3, they do a pretty good job against them (only failing to notice them at about the same rate a player would, hopefully).

[cool breeze]

I changed my mind about moving thread, ill change the name.

[Dark_au]

Cool, Recon screen and combat force will only be a defence. Sorry I probably missed out a major point in my description. The layers of defence both static and mobile give you a tightening screen. As the enemy pushes further in the defender withdraws his forces and thus concentrates the defence. This requires the attacker to get creative about feinting at a point and drawing the defenders to an apparent threat while moving the real threat into an assualt position un-observed. This then leads to interesting battles of recon and counter recon, Posturing and feinting over the objective.

BTW there is an offencive version of DID. Read about soviet motorised concepts in the cold war. They knew that a concentration of force nessecary to accomplish a break through would be an easy target for a tactical nuke. They therefore developed a concept of force concentration in the time domain. That is the forces were far enough spread to not be a choice target while at the same time allowing them to concentrate required force if anything should stop the flow of waves. Imagine ripples in a pond. Where it passes a rock the ripples bunch and reflect into each other.

[Dark_au]

1: a jammer that loud and powerful has got to be leaving some sort of telltale sign for units in the region it is active. Not necessarily WHERE, but some sort of indication.

Yurch, that is exacly what i was saying about the hermes originally. If it is broadcasting a AAD-PD signal then it can't be jammed and if its active jamming then that should be able to be passively detected.

[cool breeze]

But where else to put those features? I wont use either stand alone and to make a force use two 20mm vehicles to get both effectsis.. too much. at least thats what I thikn till I see it. Im not saying there isnt a great way to keep them seperate, but I like having powerful support units, so I dont see a reason to change it. but no harm in talking possibilities. on the level of reasonableness of having them together... seems to me two very advanced digital vidio camaras are all that would be neccesary for a chaingun PD to work and it would be very low electronic signature... but it might be reasonable to make it work at only one direction at a time if most people think Hermes too powerful.

Im not saying at all that I am against some kind of rough sensor jammer signal or any other of Yurch's ideas. I want to try things those ways. and a vehicle being able to manual control turrets woud be cool if not too much work. Great to hear about anti jammed unit improvements Clay! and the others!

[cool breeze]

Cool description of russian attack in depth. Itll be really cool in the future when massive virtual battles are organized.