Since people are putting down organizational structure, I thought I would mention this. It's
extremely important.
In order for the instancing mechanic to be balanced, there has to be something as described in the thread title:
Players will have the ability to form groups up to a certain size, which will not be broken when entering an instance. This will probably be an even fraction of the maximum total size of engagement that the game will support.
For the purposes of this explanation, I am going to use "Active Character" as the relevant unit. An active character is basically a pc or npc who is actively participating in a battle. Note that more than this many characters may actually be involved, but they're not individually adding to everyone else's network bandwidth. Certain capital ship roles, for example, may not get transmitted and thus they would not necessarily count towards the cap.
If an instance can support a maximum of 120 active characters (for example), then that would leave 60 to a side, and probably 30 to a LIU. This would be pushing the upper end of the 'ships per combat' scale. I do not expect the largest indivisible unit to be smaller than twenty active characters, however.
In short:
1) I think this is the likely way CIG will go for balance reasons. It would not be fair to break up groups trying to assault a destroyer (said to be the largest purchasable and largest non-persistent craft).
2) It will be based on a subset of the PCs and NPCs who are participating in a battle.
3) This number will be somewhere between 20 and 30 characters
4) The destroyer and its compliment will fit within this limit - perhaps max it out.
5) For simplicity reasons, up to two maximum-sized LIU's will be able to participate per side.
6) If CIG
doesn't have something quite like this in mind, they're probably risking fire and brimstone. People want to be able to play with their friends.
7) Persistent vessels (cruisers on up) will have different mechanics, balanced against this.
The way encounters would work is, two opposing fleets cross each others' path, and because conditions are right (we presume the server won't throw an entire fleet at a lone aurora in most cases). LIUs get paired up, until no pairs remain. Presumably, one side is larger - units will get further divided accordingly.
My
suspicion is that NPC units will have smaller groupings, so 900 vanduul versus 600 pc humans would tend to result in 45 x 30 matches. Since my planning is basically an open intent to abuse this (have heavy hitting retaliator/idris/frigate/destroyer fleets shortly behind to act as reinforcements), CIG might try to mix this up a bit, but I can't think of a way they could without letting us get even more abusive.
While the exact numbers and limits are rather squishy, so to speak, I think it's fair that we can term this unit a
squadron for our purposes. It's roughly the size of a real-life squadron, and as the members of any given such unit are going to have to work together throughout an entire operation, they're going to have to be able to trust most of their fellows.
So, squadron is a good term for it. Some points
1) There's room for organization below the Squadron level - see
flight - if those squadrons so choose.
2) All squadrons members should speak a common language. A few should speak English in order to facilitate communication - even if they are a part of a larger organization, chances are we're going to want to be flexible enough to reinforce them with any available squadron if needed.
Most members of a squadron should belong to the same organization, however, being willing to hire a few lone wolves/mercs will help pad our organized numbers a bit further.
3) The 'PC drop in' mechanic should be openly abused to keep squadrons at cap. That is, you will want to consider crewing even if you have your own ships. You get your friend's NPC blown up, you go get one of your own ships to bring to the squadron after the battle is over. Larger, more coordinated guilds may setup an active reinforcement system within groups for this. Smaller organizations may wait, or alternately hire nearby lone wolves.
4) Loot the squadron can commandeer is the property of the squadron. Anyone not part of the squadron's organization should be paid for their role in acquiring large-ticket loot (stuff that can't be divided equally - frigates, destroyers, etc). We'll have to nail this down once we get a sense of the economy. This is what I'm talking about when I say 'hire' above - lone wolves participating in someone elses squadron should get a fair share.
- There is the possibility that large lone wolf groups e.g. like the Pack might come across a Destroyer. If they do form a squadron, they ought to decide what happens ahead of time should the opportunity present to acquire a large craft like that.
- Persistent items - cruisers, battleships, carriers, bases, and so on - will need to have consideration outside of the squadron mechanic, and will probably have a lot of other special cases governing them. That's a different subject, however.
5) Squadrons should
all be capable of doing rescue, boarding, and salvage operations on their own. The plethora of "I'm going to be a part of operation loot your corpses" posts nails this point home.
Leave the vultures nothing.6) As the above suggests... a not insignificant goal of mine is to ensure that all participants are actually making money throughout this operation. This might not be possible for some squadrons doing scouting missions, and if we go with the Relief Fleet proposal, working from Orion is going to be tough. Scouting missions are okay, however, and we may be able to economically prop the Relief Fleet if need be.
7) While assault squadrons will by necessity need to be maxed, we may not want to do this with scouting squadrons, or with stockpiling forces in Orion. In the former case, our goal is to learn as much as possible, not destroy as much as possible. In the latter case... it's stockpiling.
8) Operation Command should not concern itself with smaller units. Squadrons may be assigned different types, but that will be the end of it for the most part.
That's the gist of it, really. I mention this because I see people worrying about unit sizes that we should not be considering from a strategic perspective.
Topic: Strategic Concept: Squadrons (Largest Indivisible Unit) (Read 64153 times)
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