Mega marine post, sorry about the block of text. But it seemed like a key mechanic and pretty interesting.
Since this game seems to be quite heavily based around boarding enemy ships and protecting against boarding on your own ship, this area would need to be reasonably deep (but not necessarily overly complicated). Boarding another ship would be a very complex and dangerous task, with the defenders having a huge advantage (it should be much harder to take over an enemy ship than secure your own). Some basic CQB tactics could go a long way in making boarding interesting.
From what I've seen so far it appeared to me that it was pretty much attrition, the boarders charge in and everyone blasts the crap out of each other without appearing to have much depth of tactics in the combat. Of course it's work in progress and I obviously don't know what's planned or being worked on.
Attrition should still be a valid option, but the attackers should need a 2:1 or even 3:1 advantage in numbers to win by attrition, as it will be cost the attackers more casualties.
-Defensive advantage: If marines don't move for a short time, they should get a defensive bonus (basically kneeling down with their guns trained on the door/corridor) and shoot first vs the enemy charging into the room. If there's enough guys charging them they'll be overwhelmed, but the first few guys through the "fatal funnel" will likely be easily killed. In this way well planned choke points when the enemy must enter a room or corridor a few at a time to face many defenders would be quite effective. A couple defenders could stop a larger force. This initial shoot first advantage could be leveraged in a defense in depth, where you ambush the boarders, then fall back to lay another ambush (but you give away ground to the boarders, which may be dangerous depending on the design and where they breached the ship).
-Morale/suppression: Being shot at and nearby/overall casualties should lower morale. The marines shouldn't be suicidal and fall back if things are going badly enough. It would also create more back and forth and make it less likely to wipe out everyone in one firefight.
-Fog of war: Do you automatically know where all the enemy boarders are? I think it seemed that way in the trailers. I'd think you'd only know if a door was breached, not how many or where they are. To track them in the ship you could install motion sensors with a limited range. Tight surveillance of your ship would cost a decent amount. Marine patrols would be cheaper, but spread out your force.
-Grenades: A simple hand grenade ability would be nice, to allow attackers to throw it around corners and into rooms to dislodge defenders (and making hard to break though choke points tougher to design and require more space, as you want to keep the boarders out of grenade tossing range). Stun or smoke grenades could add even more tactical depth, but might not be as necessary.
-Simple Marine inventory: I think a basic class-like inventory could be a way to get a small number of different marine types. Key thing here is to avoid too much micro-management and have only 3 or 4 Marine classes. You wouldn't manage the items in their inventory, different armory types would just provide different load outs. A small icon on the arrow over their head could denote class.
Investing in advanced Marine types would require armories with that class gear and these would be more expensive and possibly require maintenance/technicians as armorers. A specially equipped force of Marines would be a major investment.
Some ideas:
-Basic/rifleman: Pretty much the marines like they are now, guy with a rifle, maybe small charges to damage rooms on the enemy ship and grenades. The basic armory would provide this loadout and the armory room for just rifles would be low maintenance and space efficient, being able to arm many marines. Cheap and most common class.
-Demolitions/breacher: Slow firing grenade launcher (maybe something like the current 25mm ones, not a whole lot of splash damage, but direct hits would be powerful) and one, maybe two, large explosive charges. Cuts through doors faster and has a charge powerful enough to blow holes in the walls between closely packed rooms, allowing them get around choke points. A highly defensible ship design might want to factor this in by thickening/armoring walls around choke points.
-Heavy: Powered exoskeleton armor and a large caliber rifle. Shows up as a large dot and slow moving. Tough in a fight, but require lots of infrastructure. Needs a large, expensive armory that would equip maybe 2 guys and require maintenance and technicians. They would then take up a lot of space on the boarding ship. Useful for small marine crews where you need quality, not quantity (like a long range ship to keep down life support needs) or for leading the charge when boarding a ship. On the other hand it's expensive and puts all your investment in a handful of marines, making it hard to cover large ships with heavies and any losses are disastrous. Useful as part of a mixed force. -Shield: Marine with little or no offensive power, but a hand held shield (like a riot shield) using the same rechargeable technology as the ship shields. Expensive, but handy for advancing under fire as he could stop a fair amount of fire before the shield fails, allowing him to protect the marines behind him and for example advance down a hallway or help hold a choke point on the defense.
-Scanner: basic marine, but he can see a short distance through walls around him. Would be quite handy when boarding other ships, to know whats through that door before you enter.
|