Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: Petek on August 06, 2013, 02:33:25 PM

Title: Grouping Units
Post by: Petek on August 06, 2013, 02:33:25 PM

In another thread, Sigma stated:

Quote

Second to better AI, SMAC2 needs to have better troop management. Anyone who's ever waged a late game war should know that the micromanagement of your army is incredibly tedious. You should be able to group units together so that they can be moved simultaneously.

SMACX actually has two such commands off the Action menu: Group go to and Assemble group. Does anyone know how these commands work? I seem to recall many years ago trying to figure them out and concluding that they didn't work very well.

Title: Re: Grouping Units
Post by: Sigma on August 06, 2013, 03:02:54 PM

Quote from: Petek on August 06, 2013, 02:33:25 PM

In another thread, Sigma stated:

Quote

Second to better AI, SMAC2 needs to have better troop management. Anyone who's ever waged a late game war should know that the micromanagement of your army is incredibly tedious. You should be able to group units together so that they can be moved simultaneously.

SMACX actually has two such commands off the Action menu: Group go to and Assemble group. Does anyone know how these commands work? I seem to recall many years ago trying to figure them out and concluding that they didn't work very well.

That's my experience as well. I've never been able to figure out how these work.

In my dream SMAC2, a each chassis type has a Mass rating of 1 to 3, and each Hex can hold a certain number of mass units, let's say 6. Infantry has 1, Rovers have 2, Hovertanks have 3. So you can stack up to six infantry units in a hex, or three rovers, or two hovertanks, or a tank, rover and an infantry, or two rovers and two infantry, etc. You can then command the stack to move as one at the speed of the slowest unit. That way you can move large groups of units at once without running into pre-Civ V's infinite stack issue.

Title: Re: Grouping Units
Post by: Geo on August 06, 2013, 03:16:28 PM

Quote from: Sigma on August 06, 2013, 03:02:54 PM

In my dream SMAC2, a each chassis type has a Mass rating of 1 to 3, and each Hex can hold a certain number of mass units, let's say 6. Infantry has 1, Rovers have 2, Hovertanks have 3. So you can stack up to six infantry units in a hex, or three rovers, or two hovertanks, or a tank, rover and an infantry, or two rovers and two infantry, etc. You can then command the stack to move as one at the speed of the slowest unit. That way you can move large groups of units at once without running into pre-Civ V's infinite stack issue.

How would you calculate land transports in this? One could have say 2 hover land transports (six mass in your example), each holding up to 2 units, and if those are hover tanks...

Title: Re: Grouping Units
Post by: Sigma on August 06, 2013, 03:35:48 PM

Quote from: Geo on August 06, 2013, 03:16:28 PM

How would you calculate land transports in this? One could have say 2 hover land transports (six mass in your example), each holding up to 2 units, and if those are hover tanks...

Transport capacity is a factor of chassis type, in turn making it a factor of mass. A hovertank transport can hold more units than a rover transport, but you can stack more rovers in a single hex than hovertanks. There are advantages to both; with Hovertank transports you can move more units to a single location, but with rover transports you can move fewer units to a larger number of locations, since you can move three rovers in a stack to a single point, then split them off. It would need to be balanced through playtesting, but I think it would work fairly simply.

Title: Re: Grouping Units
Post by: glorsh66 on January 07, 2022, 09:08:29 PM

Does it work? Or is it broken>?