Ah, excellent. I had looked but couldn't find any such discussion.
Could set a minimum (attack-defense) value of 1, no matter what the actual ratio.
Or divide by armor rather than subtract, though that would significantly reduce the marginal effectiveness of better and better armor types.
But simply alternating reversing the combat works too, with the advantage of not having to dream up and balance a new function.
I do like Qes's idea about armor representing hitpoints (10*armor?) and reactor handling cost, because insta-doubling how much damage all your units can take once you get Fusion is so ridiculously OP.
With psi combat units have a constant weapon/defense rating, rather than anything based the equipment they're carrying, no? Should just stay the same, and then apply whatever new function you come up with.
Fusion reactors are no worse than going from say Laser to Impact. Techs should be quite strong, otherwise there's no incentive to builder/tech.
Thematically I guess combat could be redesigned but does it add much fun to the game?
That's where I have a harder time with it...having to calculate out each battle for X rounds just doesn't seem fun.
If so, armor would be useless against hand weapons, which is sort of ridiculous.
More importantly, it would mean that each unit would effectively have a single "power" value equal to armorXweapon, i.e. a 2/4/1 behaves identically to an 8/1/1 (except in the relationship to psi-weapon or psi-armor units).
Actually, I did figure out what function would work: ln(e^x+e^(e^x)). That'd still be fairly complicated to compute, though.
However, I don't think we quite worked out what effect, if any, reactor would have on combat. Do you have any suggestions?
Thematically I guess combat could be redesigned but does it add much fun to the game?
Ah yes. Still, it certainly shows off the benefits of heavy armor. Doesn't last forever, though. After 6 or so, weapons strengths start to truly outstrip armor ratings.
Actually, I did figure out what function would work: ln(e^x+e^(e^x)). That'd still be fairly complicated to compute, though.
Bump up unit movement speed by 1 per reactor level? Or (reactor lvl-1)^2? Cost reduction? Apply an attack bonus? Extra range? Mix and match these effects depending on the chassis? Infantry on foot wouldn't benefit in speed from having a better power source, but vehicles certainly would. I really need to thumb through that other thread and see what's already been discussed and brainstormed.
And if you make cost = weapon*armor, well then that makes pretty much every weapon and armor tech useless. And that also tends to make weapon&armored troops *very* expensive by endgame. Creating a weird situation where native crushes high tech troops, but low tech beats native.
I'm not sure I'd really give up to the death combat though - that's a separate issue from armor not being 'thematic'.
I really like the idea of reactors giving more movement speed to chassis other than air units though. In fact that makes more sense than +HP or cost modification. Logically more powerful engines can propel a vehicle quicker. I'd like to see faster rovers/hovers, and sea units as the game goes on, to keep them relevant against air.
And it does seem a bit silly to keep advanced air units at a static 6/8 move with the 0 reactor increase option.
I'd also stick with %-based modifiers over flat numbers even if trying to represent armor as damage reduction. One thing is you'll see portions of the curve as more damaging. Unit damage will go up, as the game goes on if you just use flat numbers.
Elite being 7x stronger than Very Green would overpower Morale for PSI, etc.
One other thing is that 'defensive' modifiers might not really make sense to be increasing armor in such a system. For example AAA/ECM wouldn't make a unit more hardy against air attack or fast units. It'd be a weapon modifier, thematically. Though you could make arguments for it being an armor modifier too...I think there'd be some debate. So you'd probably need variables where such modifiers can be given +% to weapon or armor power. Sensor arrays are probably another good example.
Yea I was thinking +1 move for Rover/Hover per reactor. Perhaps +2 move per reactor for sea. Nothing too drastic, but something significant to offset the loss of HP gain.
I think the copters problem stems from that:
Sea units only ever get one attack, and get slower when damaged down to minimum move: 2
Land units can multi attack but also get slower when damaged down to minimum move: 1
Copters can multi attack but never get slower when damaged (as they likely would crash)
One other thing, though not combat mechanics related that I'd like to see is native life getting the +1 movement bonus at Demon Boil. Though I'm not sure how feasible that is since it's a preset and not a chassis..
I found though that PSI weapon would vastly outclass native once available, as you can put on 2 abilities and a faster chassis. And arguably stronger defense as well with standard armor.
But I do agree that +move for native might not make as much sense, but you could say the same of standard troops too. An Elite Needlejet isn't going to have more fuel or go any faster, for example. Actually I think generally higher morale bonuses per level (and a bit higher again for native) might work out better than +move at Elite for anything. Starting morale at 0% (Very Green) and something like 15%/level on standard and 20%/level on native might be better - a thought anyways. Unintuitively +IND has more impact for war than +MORALE.
Singularity cruisers at 14 is pretty fast, yea. By then Needlejets/Gravship/Copter can move 16 though. Over sea there's no roads or monopoles, and fungus slows things a lot usually, and the routes usually aren't as direct as by air. I think it'd be pretty fair. But I think it's more keeping it relative to air (a bit slower, but fast enough to have some chance). I was also thinking the sea speeds would have to go up if land raising was more difficult.
And for tanks yea 7 move is also pretty fast, but I think by that point in technology a tank really would be about that much faster than infantry, if not more. Probably even with today's technology a tank division can move 7x or more faster than soldiers on foot (on flatter terrain)
For infantry, not too sure on reactors. Perhaps something else like increased heal rate (+10% HP/turn/(reactor-1)) or nothing at all. I agree that logically infantry wouldn't really use a reactor, it's not a vehicle. That's if you take the viewpoint of reactors being there to power the chassis and not the weapon/armor systems.
Late game there's Nano Factory for full heal every turn, and I wouldn't say that one's an imbalancing SP.
I don't think heal is a huge bonus but it's probably also not thematic for infantry. At least not with the default power-based type reactors. If they had bioreactor types (that would help to survive the anoxic environment and medical regen) it'd maybe make a little more sense. So I'd lean more to reactors doing nothing for infantry. Infantry scale well enough also due to cost factor being less on cheaper units (since its a % mod). As noted monopole, drop, amphibious all negate a decent portion of their mobility problems too.
7 or so move for tanks might not be so overpowering. Similar to choppers they would lose a lot of their move speed after their first battle. They still get countered pretty hard by cheap ECM infantry.
While checking this I also noted nanocells don't work as they should for movement (its 2 flat for air, 0 sea, 1 land, says it should be 2*reactor for air). Which would be pretty powerful, if it was.
PSI weapon can be modded more expensive. Default costing models had Locusts at about double the cost of PSI Copters, Gravship, Needlejet (100 vs 60). In my costing I put Locusts down to 40 minerals, Gravship to 50 (any weapon including PSI). It was more that Locusts always get stuck at move: 6 while other Air units just get faster and faster. Same goes for all native life really.
Native life could also get a movement bonus at certain techs, would that be more thematic than at a lifecycle rank? Or possible?
Singularity has the quantum converter SP which is really powerful.
I'm sure it would be more work but you could have separate variables for +move from fusion, quantum, singularity (if say you wanted singularity to be more move than previous reactors).
Air still has a lot of advantages over fast land (applies ZOC and ignores ZOC, protecting all units under unless the attacking unit has SAM).
Air also has further move
and can combat sea unlike rover/hover.
For same continent war, rover/hovertanks should probably dominate over air as the primary unit.