For those that have played occasionally or consistently in the Ground Simulator Battles, you have the feeling at least a few times: "Why must my multi-ton monster be stuck corner-peeking in a !#@&(=% city like in COD?!
The answer is simple: You shouldn’t. You should be able to roll across terrain and be trading fire with the enemy at distances that would leave infantry as tiny specks on the horizon, and there is a way to do so;
Enduring Confrontation Combined Arms.
Functionally this would act exactly as Air Sim EC already does, but with the added options of any vehicle being available as a spawn on the massive maps used in Air EC. Planes, Tanks, Helicopters, and naval vessels on maps with ocean access in the truest sense of large-scale combined action.
Spawns are simple to figure out:
- Plane spawns are already tied to airfields and their sustainability,
- Ground vehicles and helicopters can have the choice of spawning at airfields with the bot defenses and moving towards any of the objective points, or spawn at the minimally protected bomb target points for a quicker travel.
- Naval vessels can have spawn regions either the edge of the map if the oceanic surface provides that option, while smaller bluewater vessels like destroyers and coastals can utilize ports and bay areas as staging zones, fed by the AI ground convoys.
- Airfields would be protected by AI flak and gun crews with 3km engagement envelope from each position.
- The highest tiers also by SAMs that exceed helicopter ATGM engagement envelope by at least 1km, EG: 8.0-9.7BR get SAMs with ~6km envelope, 10.0+BR use radar SAM sites with 12km.
Example: Port Moresby Combined EC spawnmap, not showing SAM coverage
This is my work-in-progress test mission on Spain showing potential spawns and action focus areas:
Now what about objectives for the ground vehicles to do beyond engaging other ground vehicles?
Beyond the obvious notion of hunting enemy players, there can be several tasks.
- Permanent capture points based on the largest named cities already present on most maps, or strategically suitable locations such as the valley plateau in grid D6 and the elevated plains in grid D3 in the Morris map example.
- time-limited missions like rescue of shot down AI aircraft crew that land inside friendly-held grids,
- Find and Destroy a large concealed bunker system in enemy territory.
Naval vessels would be largely taking part of the global tasks, such as screening ports and destroying AI naval convoys, along with providing long-range fire support to ground vehicles and AA cover to air.
This requires at least a basic screening of Air maps to fix terrain holes and surface contact issues, but the initial building blocks are already there and presents a whole new kind of gameplay for everyone.
- Yes
- Yes, with alternate suggestion/s in reply:
- No
