Slitherine

I'm currently trying to rebalance the game and found it difficult to achive the balance I'm aiming for because of a lack of unit & weapon traits to modify certain game mechanic interactions. For a better overview I divided them between unit traits (like current "Aussault" or "Notransport" traits) and weapon traits (traits like "bulky" and "indirect"). I hope the devs will implement some of them because it will greatly enrich the possibilities modders have and adds ways to differentiate various units and weapons from each other, without breaking the game systems already established.
Without further ado:

unit traits:
"sequentialmovement" - or could be just called scout trait . The unit can spend all its movement points over the course of several movement orders in one turn and also can fire in between. MUST HAVE to better implement scout and skirmish units!!

"disorderly" - The unit with this traits suffers from frequent disorder among it's ranks and is generally poorly lead. The unit loses morale at the double rate. Great trait for a lot of ork units, hive militia etc.

"IgnoreZOC" - Unit ignores Zone of Control of enemy untis and can move freely even partially surrounded. Would be a great trait for air units.

"FastDisembarkment" - the unit can disembark at any time regardless of how many movement points have been spend. So basically the infantry unit can move with the full movement allowance of the transport but then attack with their own weapons.

"regeneration X" - be it because of superior physical capabilities or by technology. The unit repairs/regenerates X wounds per round. Does not revive already dead squad members. This provides a possible implementation of regenerative void shields for titans and for modders a nice tool for further races that have "regeneration powers" of some sort (tyranids *cough* etc...). If a trait with variable is too annoying to implement then pls provide a good range. Something like reg 1, 2 and 4, would be nice.

"flanker" - the unit is adapt in outflanking the enemy. When the unit attacks the target can't retaliate. Nice trait to use for fast units like flyers and rough riders, to limit their causalities. Might also be used to units like ratlings and Space Marine scouts as they prefer to attack from hidden.

"fear" - all adjacent enemies of the unit with this trait lose morale per turn. Great trait to represent monstrous beasts of other 40k races (chaos, anyone? ) and commanders / famous unique characters.

"neveralone" - the unit doesn't like to stay alone on the field and prefers to gang up on enemies. When not adjacent to a friendly unit it will constantly lose morale per turn. Great for "swarm units" like ork gretchins or others *cough*...


weapon traits:
"effectiveagainst{unitclassindex}" - the weapon gains +100% strength against targets of a certain unit class. Great for implementing real sniper weapons which a great against infantry but not so much against everything else, also for anti-tank weapons that don't hit so hard against infantry. a great implementation would be with {unitclassindex} is some form of array. So for instance "effectiveagainst{0,1}" would mean the trait works against units of the unitclassindex 0 and 1 (currently infantry and heavy infantry). If this implementation is too annoying, then pls provide following: a trait to be effective against the unit classes IDs 0 and 1 (infantry), effective against the IDs 2 to 12 without 10 (mechanical units without stationary), also for titans (ID = 11) and flyers (ID = 9).

"ineffectiveagainst{unitclassindex}" - opposite of "effectiveagainst{unitclassindex}". -50% strength against targets the weapon is weak against. Implementation similar to "effectiveagainst{unitclassindex}".

"getshot" - the weapon is unstable and can malfunction. On every shot calculated there is a chance of ~10% to cause one wound on the weapon user. Trait for the beloved plasma guns I wouldn't mind to have a range of different failure chances to choose from (10%, 20%, 40% maybe?).

"squadweapon" - the weapon is a squad support weapon. Number of shots don't scale with squad size. As long as 1 member of the squad exists it is assumed the squad weapon is still functional. Very important for the implementation of infantry with heavy weapons choices or squad leader weapons...

"moveorshot" - weapons with this trait cannot be fired after the unit has moved. Great trait for heavy artillery units to represent the setup phase of said unit.

"blastweapon" - When used against units with unitclassindex 0 and 1 (infantry), the number of shots is doubled. Good trait for all explosive weaponry which are particularly effective against masses of infantry. implementation could also be similar like i requested for "effectiveagainst{unitclassindex}" for more flexibility for modders.

"heavyhits" - each weapon hit causes x2 number of wounds. Trait to properly implement low rate of fire weapons that have devastating effects on the enemy if they hit.

"dweapon" also known as Titan-Killers . Weapons so destructive they kill a member of a squad (with exception of titans) outright per hit regardless of number of hitpoints. Against titans it does 4x times the damage it would do.

... puh. quite a list. But if everything is implemented i think i could basically mod everything the imperial guard, space marines and orks have to offer in their weaponry. And in that regard also from all the other races of the 40k universe.

Very nice post, and excellent suggestions
I think that I see where you are coming from and what you are aiming at here ... :p

+1 !

Excellent list but probably asking for a bit much.
Out of all the suggestions I consider "sequentialmovement" and the effective/ineffective traits the most important, possibly "squadweapon" and "flanker" as well.
So if we could get those implemented I'd be set, at least for the base game.

As for "IgnoreZOC", I'd prefer if they changed the way flying units move completely.
Ignoring the zone of control is nice but won't help with all the bottlenecks that flyers shouldn't be affected by.

Well the list is something worth working towards to
But yeah, if i would have to pick i would prefer, like you, "sequentialmovement" and the effective/ineffective traits before anything else. Follow-ups would be "squadweapon", "getshot" and "moveorshot" - in that order.

DownTheDrain wrote:As for "IgnoreZOC", I'd prefer if they changed the way flying units move completely.
Ignoring the zone of control is nice but won't help with all the bottlenecks that flyers shouldn't be affected by.

Basically adding an air layer on the battlefield like in panzer corps. Would be quite a departure to how the game works now - can't see the devs to do that, especially as they removed it from the "game engine" in the first place

Some excellent ideas - keep them coming.

Sequentialmovement: is possibly the not-working Recon trait at moment. This is definitely useful for squishy recon units.

Disorderly: weak units already suffer enough due low defense, so I think it’s not necessary that much.

IngoreZoC: not only useful for air/hover units, but also for jump (teleport) units. Could be further enhanced for jumpers to move through enemy units.

Regeneration: this would be definitely needed for Tyranids one day.

Flanker: not sure, but I think they left out this flanking mechanic from Panzer Corps. Denying the retaliation like the Bulky trait would be neat.

Fear: I use Terror on certain melee weapons to simulate this effect, like Dante’s death mask effect on Axe Mortalis.

Fear/Neveralone: it’s a pity the leadership attribute was left out to reflect better differences in unit quality. At least the Fearless, Leadership and Heroic trait somewhat compensates at important units.

EffectiveAgainst: yeah, the Steel Legions Preferred Enemy (Orks) trait is missing. Also useful for Demon and other monster hunting units.

GetShot: would be useful for some Ork weapons, also a similar Gets Hot trait for plasma weapons to malfunction them sometimes during a attack.

SquadWeapon: oh boy, I’m fiddling my ass off to somehow improvise a good weapon loadout per unit by giving different accuracy values, like e.g. laspistol 10% and 90% lasgun for a 10-man IG inf squad incl. a sarge. Too bad this was implemented so simple.

MoveOrShot: This could be combined with Bulky maybe?

BlastWeapon: bingo, I also scratch my head how to improvise this well. My most desired wish for traits. At moment it’s a simple +1 RoF for whatever blast type. Increasing the RoF bonus further and some rapid-firing weapons become too redundant.
There could be a random chance to hit more units with a single attack needed, like 1-2 for blast, 1-3 for large blast, 1-4 for massive blasts, 1-5 for apocalyptic, and maybe 1-6 for apocalyptic mega blasts. The chance to hit could proportionally decrease to like 50%, 25%, 12.5%, etc. per additional target.

Heavy Hits/DWeapon: yes, something that simulates D-strength weapons somehow. At moment, they have like 183 Strength in my game, but still needs to be reconsidered.

There are also often re-roll mechanics, like for twin-linked and master-crafted weapons, in the tabletop I miss for the game. Yes, I know the game wasn't meant to simulate the tabletop rules, but it would have been great if you can somehow modify it as close as possible.

Horst wrote:IngoreZoC: [...] Could be further enhanced for jumpers to move through enemy units.

I agree. Moving through enemy units and ignoring ZOC would be even better to depict jump-infantry and fliers.

Horst wrote:MoveOrShot: This could be combined with Bulky maybe?

If you mean to incorporate the effect into the "bulky" trait then I disagree. Though a lot of the ordnance weaponry should get a combination of "bulky" and "MoveOrShot", their instances were i really like only one of both effects. I want all the tank cannons to be bulky but not suffer from the "MoveOrShot"-effect. Also I'd like to see a lot of infantry heavy weaponry be put under the "MoveOrShot"-effect but not under the effect of "bulky".

Great list. Now I wish we had some of those for Panzer Corps.

I'd be surprised if a significant amount makes it into the game, but very pleasantly surprised.

I could come up with a ton of additional ones, but most of them would probably be highly unrealisic. So here's just one I'd be very happy to see anyway:

"areaofeffect{percentage}". Causes percentage% damage to all surrounding tiles.
_____
rezaf

rezaf wrote:"areaofeffect{percentage}". Causes percentage% damage to all surrounding tiles.

Yup. Definitely this

Nice suggestions :

Xadie wrote: "squadweapon" - the weapon is a squad support weapon. Number of shots don't scale with squad size. As long as 1 member of the squad exists it is assumed the squad weapon is still functional. Very important for the implementation of infantry with heavy weapons choices or squad leader weapons...

I think something like having one weapon per 5 remaining strength would work there (or something similar).

Or have an unit trait be infantry, where one strength = 1 squad, and weapon are defined per squad. infantry cannot lose more than 1 health/shot (squads would have 5 health, and have bolters 3, heavy bolter 2 as weapons for instance).
Heavy infantry having 2 health/guy would have 10 health per strength, and lose 2 ST/shot max.

Xadie wrote: "blastweapon" - When used against units with unitclassindex 0 and 1 (infantry), the number of shots is doubled. Good trait for all explosive weaponry which are particularly effective against masses of infantry. implementation could also be similar like i requested for "effectiveagainst{unitclassindex}" for more flexibility for modders.

I had suggested something like +1 shot per 10 unit Strength during beta, so that blast helps counter very large units.

Galdred wrote:I had suggested something like +1 shot per 10 unit Strength during beta, so that blast helps counter very large units.

sounds cool and is way more elegant rulewise than my approach for blast weapons. Would be cool to get it in different "sizes". So one version of "normal" blast +1 shot per 10 unit strength and the "large blast" version with +1 shot per 5 unit strength. Definitely something I could work with.

We already have a couple of those traits.

Recon
Unit can stagger movement like recon cars in Panzer Corps

Fearless
Unit only takes 1/2 morale loss from combat

Here some that you can test to see if they still function:

Area
Weapon affects more than one hex cannot be fired in retaliation combat

Camo
Unit can evade attacks

Razz1 wrote:We already have a couple of those traits.

Never played Panzer Corps but are you telling me that adding "Recon" to a unit in the unittypes.whdat will actually enable it to stagger movement?
If so, that would be amazing.
If not, I don't see how this helps.
Apparently you also had a separate layer for air units in PzC which didn't make it into Armageddon so...yeah...

Edit:
Just tried it, doesn't seem to work.
The recon trait is still in the strings.whdat but so are campaign descriptions that tell me to protect "the soft underbelly of Europe" so I guess that doesn't mean anything.

Recon doesn't work, at least not in the way that you could phase move. Same with Area which I don't see any effect.
Camo works perfectly. I already gave it to Ratlings, Scouts, and Kommandoz. As long as you keep one hex distance to the enemy, you can snipe without getting spotted in the enemy's turn afterwards. A bit unfair against the AI, but gives those otherwise weak units a needed boost of effectivity.

What I miss from PzC is the possibility to create as many transport types as you like. In WA, it looks like there is only the Heavypull trait which differs from the default transport.
For example, if you deny the Chimera but not the Gorgon for a large Conscript unit, I see now way how to do this.

Horst wrote:What I miss from PzC is the possibility to create as many transport types as you like. In WA, it looks like there is only the Heavypull trait which differs from the default transport.
For example, if you deny the Chimera but not the Gorgon for a large Conscript unit, I see now way how to do this.

Add the Heavypull trait to both the Gorgon and the Conscripts.
I just tried it and it worked...after I initially messed up the columns and failed.

DownTheDrain wrote:

Horst wrote:What I miss from PzC is the possibility to create as many transport types as you like. In WA, it looks like there is only the Heavypull trait which differs from the default transport.
For example, if you deny the Chimera but not the Gorgon for a large Conscript unit, I see now way how to do this.

I would have assumed that you add the Heavypull trait to both the Gorgon and the Conscripts, but I just tried that and it didn't do a thing.
So...yeah...not sure...

The "heavy pull" trait works. I tested it just now with Conscripts and Gorgon. If you have the latest game version then I would assume that you didn't used the right number of tabs in the text file. You have to be absolute precise about that.

EDIT: to go back to the original issue: currently a transport (unitclass id 13 - hardcoded!) is available for all units belonging to unitclass id 0 and 1 (Infantry and Heavy Infantry, also hardcoded), as long as they don't have the notransport trait. So among those unit types of unit class 0 and 1 all unit with the heavy pull trait are matched with transports which also have the heavy pull trait EXCLUSIVELY. That means a heavy pull designated transport will not be available to any unit of unit class 0 and 1, as long as it doesn't have the heavy pull trait also.
I hope that clears things up.

EDIT2: aperantly the hardcoded ID for transports is 13 in the files. All transports have unitclass 13 in unittypes.whdat, but unitclass.whdat shows transport as id 12. On top of it there is no unitclass with index 13 defined. So basically all the unitclass defines have to be incremented by one and then used in unittypes.whdat. So infantry has index 0 in unitclass.whdat but 1 in unittypes.whdat and so on. Ó_ò

Xadie wrote: The "heavy pull" trait works. I tested it just now with Conscripts and Gorgon. If you have the latest game version then I would assume that you didn't used the right number of tabs in the text file. You have to be absolute precise about that.

Apparently I edited my post right as you were quoting me.
Got it to work, took me 2 tries though.

Also edit:

Xadie wrote: That means a heavy pull designated transport will not be available to any unit of unit class 0 and 1, as long as it doesn't have the heavy pull trait also.
I hope that clears things up.

I am aware of that, but I don't think that's a particularly elegant solution.
Terminators may not fit into Rhinos but I don't see why regular marines shouldn't be able to use Land Raiders.
I guess creating a non-heavypull copy of the Land Raider would solve that but I haven't experimented with adding new units yet.

2nd edit:

Xadie wrote: EDIT2: aperantly the hardcoded ID for transports is 13 in the files. All transports have unitclass 13 in unittypes.whdat, but unitclass.whdat shows transport as id 12. On top of it there is no unitclass with index 13 defined. Ó_ò

I know, you need to add 1 to every single value in unitclass.whdat to get the correct numbers for unittypes.whdat.

On a somewhat related note, I really wish you'd stop editing your post and create a new one.
For the sake of me not having to refresh the thread all the time to figure out if you have posted.

DownTheDrain wrote:I guess creating a non-heavypull copy of the Land Raider would solve that but I haven't experimented with adding new units yet.

That should work. You can actually add new units from the game editor comfortably. Only to set which graphics have to be used and to give the unit traits you have to use an text editor.

Xadie wrote: That should work. You can actually add new units from the game editor comfortably. Only to set which graphics have to be used and to give the unit traits you have to use an text editor.

I guess I'll give that a try.
The only time I opened the game editor so far was to confirm that it doesn't allow to set unit traits, which is why Horst had the problem that started our much-edited conversation.

While I'm at it I might as well create copies of the Razorback and some aircraft, most of which I converted to transports since they have little value as a standalone unit.