Devblog 6: Ground Assault news

Devblog 6: Ground Assault

Hello all and happy holidays from the team :)

For my sixth edition, I'd like to showcase a preview on some of the ground systems that we've put in place for Empire, and what to expect with ground unit handling and balance.

Introduction: How Do You Make Ground Fun?

This is always a fun question that comes up. From my time in the community I have noticed a tendency for ground to either be tolerated by the playerbase, or the main reason for the autoresolve button's existence. Very rarely does it receive the same level of praise as space combat, with most players opting to command a fleet of Star Destroyers rather than squads of infantry. Space has always been EAW's strong suit, going right back to the development of the game. Hopefully I can very much flip that notion and not only make ground battles important, but also fun both to play and to watch play out.

All about Ground Maps

Maps are important. Without maps, you wouldn't have a game. They form the playing field, the backdrop, the decision making process that forms a battle, and ultimately consistent gameplay loop. A lot of focus has been put into ground mapping recently by myself and Acbrix (our fellow map designer) to create a variety of battlefields.

Changing Up the Formula

The approach to ground combat in Empire is large scale open warfare. The company sizes have been upscaled significantly from vanilla, with everything adjusted to compensate. Most light units deploy 8 vehicles, mediums deploy 6, heavies are 4, 3, 2. Two AT-ATs per company, for example, ups the scale of combat with unit sizing. Infantry come in groups of 4 - 7 squads with support systems, consisting of medic, engineering, gunnery, and leadership teams. It is this approach that, while large, but not too large, I hope will get a feeling across of a planetary invasion. Individual units are still quite important, with each having strengths, weaknesses and abilities, but cooperation of different units in groups really is the bread and butter of our ground system.

Combat Ranges

With the scale of maps available to us, we found that the original firing ranges we had in place for units were quite low. Infantry were getting into clustered firefights at near point blank, with vehicles not fairing much better, often closing to 100 - 200 units of eachother. As part of the broad pre-release combat reworks, range was assessed for weapons on a case by case basis and upped significantly. Infantry begin firing at eachother up to 600 units away, with weapons like heavy repeaters and sniper rifles opening up even further at 650 - 750 . Vehicles were provided with a similar treatment, with light anti-infantry vehicles having roughly infantry range, whilst medium and heavier units going to 800 - 1000 units. Lastly, special cases, like tall vehicles (AT-AT, A6 Juggernauts), have an extended range of 1200. Artillery has been significantly buffed, opening fire at 3500 but being very slow firing and inaccurate against small targets.

^ Long range siege fire from batteries is a great tactic, but only if the targets stay still for the rounds to travel and hit.

Infantry Tiers

Infantry are important to any ground campaign. They're useful for capturing objectives and first and foremost, engaging other infantry. For Empire, I wanted infantry to become more than just capture slaves. They are now an integral part of your force with support companies of their own coming as standard. Some bring engineers, like Army Troopers and Vanguard Platoons, some bring medics, like the Alliance rifle troops and Storm Surgeons of the Stormtrooper corps, and of course you have your special forces such as Specforce and the Storm Commandos, as well as recon like Pathfinders and Scouts. And trust me, you will need recon.

^ It is heavily encouraged to support armour with infantry. Failure to do so may find your forces taking much greater losses

These have been denoted with chevrons above their squads, allowing at a glance to see which unit is which on the battlefield. Due to the sizes of squads, this is really a necessary system for gameplay, providing both differentiation, but also simply knowing what is where at all times.

A singular Chevron denotes a Basic unit. These consist of things like Army Troops, B1 Battledroids, and PDF forces.

A double Chevron denotes a Trained unit. These consist of things like Stormtroopers, Alliance Army troopers, and B2 Battledroids.

A triple Chevron denotes an Elite unit. These consist of things like Storm Commandos, Specforce, and Shock Troopers.

^ B1s might not be the greatest in terms of combat capability, but their sheer size and ability to swarm positions more than makes up for individual losses

Whilst divided into tiers, each part still forms it's own role in a ground composition. For example, Imperial Army Platoons come with both Medics and Engineer companies, whilst Stormtrooper Platoons only come with Medics. If you want on-the-go vehicle field repairs, you need to use both. Whilst we're on the topic of Stormtrooper and Army Trooper interaction, I want to briefly lay out the comparisons for both. In this project, Army Troopers are the mainline infantry present on nearly every world and campaign. They are not fodder infantry, being completely useful (and if not superior by a 10% margin), to Alliance infantry. They are the forces present to hold the line, and in most cases are more than enough as a standard infantry force to accomplish most tasks.

In comparison to this, the Stormtroopers are much more expensive to recruit (and manpower intensive), but are heavily geared towards fast assault tactics. Not only are they substantially faster than their Army counterparts, but their abilities and weaponry reflect this as well. Repeater weapons, E-WEBs, and Plex launchers are great for all-round counters and fire support, but the smaller numbers per squad versus the sheer size of the Army Platoons limits how much can be available at any time, and leads to more losses if not used correctly.

Through the Fog

Reconnaissance is something in Empire at War that plays little, if any, importance to land combat. Most of the time, forces will advance in 'blobs', firing at anything that comes into view. There is little payoff for deploying smaller units ahead of the main force and seeing what, and more importantly where, the enemy is positioned at that time. This is something which I want to apply with the FOW 'tiers' I have given to ground units.

Base = 450 - 550
Elite Infantry 150
Recon 200
Open Top 100
Tall Vehicles 200
Aircraft 250
Walkers 50
Old, outdated - 100
Low visibility - 50

For example, an open top recon vehicle such as the AT-RT, would provide 500 base, with 100 for open top, 200 for recon, and finally 50 for being a walker. This would amount to an 850 reveal range. Whilst useful in it's own right as an anti-infantry vehicle, this gives it a double strength as being a very viable recon vehicle at the same time, encouraging the player to send them out to scout beyond what other units can see. However, different types of vehicles, even in the same faction, can perform the same role yet in different ways. Both the AT-ST and A9 Floating Fortress double as anti-infantry and recon vehicles. The AT-ST is much, much more effective in this role than the A9 thanks to it's grenade launchers, but the A9 can hover, has shielding, and more importantly comes with a sensor array enabling a limited reveal of the surrounding area. Both have their strengths, both have their weaknesses, but it's what they do when combined which allows the player (and AI) to use them effectively.

^ When all else fails, a strike from the sky to deliver unparalleled firepower may just be what is needed

End Notes

With the proper start of ground, the second half of the gameplay loop is coming into completion. Being able to provide a hopefully unique take on the game by upping the scale of combat with the large availability of assets at our disposal is something which looks to be very, very promising later down the line as it is more ironed out into a releasable state and beyond..

Things like the Hutts, Hapans, CSA, Warlords, and potential future projects in other timeperiods expanding on this core system loop will hopefully provide a fresh take on the modding scene of the game, whilst also looking absolutely fantastic with model quality and VFX.

I apologise for the lengthy delay on this devblog, life around this time has been very busy with the holiday season in full swing. Rest assured, there is a lot more in development under the hood at the moment that will be revealed in the future, but that is for other articles to cover..

As always, if you would like to join the community and learn more about the project, or even just to hangout, I have a Discord server: Discord.com

Happy holidays, and until next time,

- Rachel ♡