[Suggestion] Number of Turns in mission leads to number of passing days

[GallantDuke]

Just saw Edmon's 3 hr flashpoint battle and I was starting to wonder if the number of turns could be converted into number of days that passes in the sim portion. I side with the 'make me feel like a commander' experience when playing Battletech so a mission lasting real-time hours should feel like a drawn-out battle lasting for days in-game.

So what I'm suggesting is, for example, a defend base contract last 10 turns so maybe 10 turns = 1 day. can be a benchmark So if you complete a mission before 10 turns, the day does not go over. I know there's more nuance to this idea but I was wondering what other's might think of this.

 

[mjbroekman]

@GallantDuke that is an AWESOME idea. I love it.

 

[Zakhodit]

Three hours in this turn based game is roughly a few minutes in "real time"

Not a fan of this at all.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Just saw Edmon's 3 hr flashpoint battle and I was starting to wonder if the number of turns could be converted into number of days that passes in the sim portion. I side with the 'make me feel like a commander' experience when playing Battletech so a mission lasting real-time hours should feel like a drawn-out battle lasting for days in-game.

So what I'm suggesting is, for example, a defend base contract last 10 turns so maybe 10 turns = 1 day. can be a benchmark So if you complete a mission before 10 turns, the day does not go over. I know there's more nuance to this idea but I was wondering what other's might think of this.

I am not a fan of running and completing 5 separate and distinct Contracts in less than a single day.

To me it beggars the imagination and demands too great a suspension of disbelief.

Sure Combat is fast and deadly and over in a matter of minutes. But to start at the Conteacting Table, agree to terms, gather intel, make a battleplan, drop with the Leopard into the area of operation, find your target / OpFor (unless he is agreeably waiting for you on the field of battle), execute combat operations, recover your Mechs and Personal, transit back to the ARGO, reattach ALL Armor, replenish ALL Ammo Bins, sit down at another contracting table, agree to terms... rinse/repeat, rinse/repeat, rinse/repeat a total of four, five or more times... all in less than a day?

Not buying it.

Having Contracts take time, a day at the minimum, makes a world of sense to me Good @GallantDuke. :bow: I like it. : )

 

[Donvale]

I am not a fan of running and completing 5 separate and distinct Contracts in less than a single day.

To me it beggars the imagination and demands too great a suspension of disbelief.

Sure Combat is fast and deadly and over in a matter of minutes. But to start at the Conteacting Table, agree to terms, gather intel, make a battleplan, drop with the Leopard into the area of operation, find your target / OpFor (unless he is agreeably waiting for you on the field of battle), execute combat operations, recover your Mechs and Personal, transit back to the ARGO, reattach ALL Armor, replenish ALL Ammo Bins, sit down at another contracting table, agree to terms... rinse/repeat, rinse/repeat, rinse/repeat a total of four, five or more times... all in less than a day?

Not buying it.

Having Contracts take time, a day at the minimum, makes a world of sense to me Good @GallantDuke. :bow: I like it. : )

While I'm not convinced about having days tied to turns, I am totally with you on having a minium 1 day per contract.
The suspended time while I run a totally ludicrous amount of missions is by some margin my least favourite part of career mode! Just feels completely and utterly unrealistic!

 

[JibSail]

So what I'm suggesting is, for example, a defend base contract last 10 turns so maybe 10 turns = 1 day. can be a benchmark So if you complete a mission before 10 turns, the day does not go over. I know there's more nuance to this idea but I was wondering what other's might think of this.

As a mechanic this sounds interesting, but from an immersion point of view this won't work.

The premise of the game is that a single turn is a few seconds.

Having a single contract take a day makes more sense, since you still need to prep and manage logistics, as @Prussian Havoc mentioned already.

 

[GallantDuke]

As a mechanic this sounds interesting, but from an immersion point of view this won't work.

The premise of the game is that a single turn is a few seconds.

Having a single contract take a day makes more sense, since you still need to prep and manage logistics, as @Prussian Havoc mentioned already.

May I ask where this premise of a single turn lasting a few seconds is from?

Base on what has been shared so far, I am leaning towards having a minimum of 1 day to pass for all the pre-mission and post-mission work. However, going back to the 3 hr fight, I am not convinced that such a long struggle should not have an effect.

What I had in mind was similar to the DOWII system where players would be given extra mission deployments depending on the performance of the first mission you did for the day. Doing well will net you 1 extra deployment while doing extremely well will get you 2. You get to have another chance of earning the 2nd extra deployment during your 1st extra deployment by doing extremely well.

Another reason for suggesting this is that this gives more incentive to head for the exfil zone instead of stomping all the mechs in a mission, whether it gives an unspent day to do another mission or spending too long in a mission trying to take out all the OPFOR makes you risk wasting an extra day.

 

[JibSail]

The premise comes from the evasion mechanic.

'Mechs don't really stop moving, unless you don't move during your activation.

I do agree with you with regards to the practicality of the change. It just doesn't fit well in terms of flavor.

 

[GallantDuke]

The premise comes from the evasion mechanic.

'Mechs don't really stop moving, unless you don't move during your activation.

I do agree with you with regards to the practicality of the change. It just doesn't fit well in terms of flavor.

Ah. I see. Thank you for the information. Fair enough about how it does not seem to fit the flavor.

 

[Timaeus]

While this game is not the table top version, and therefore the information isn't something required to be known, there are number of things that are informed by it. One of which is that turn length is really short in "real world" time amounts. Think 10 seconds or there abouts. 6 turns a minute, 60 turns is 1 hour.

 

[Zakhodit]

If a day ticks off because you:

-Prepped a lance for drop (1h Minimum)
-Briefed combatants on the mission (15m - 1h)
-Loaded a dropship (15m Minimum)
-Dropped from orbit (2h - 4h. one does not simply fall from space)
-Infill lance at LZ
-Fought a battle (The closest thing to real time we have is MWO. It takes less than 30 minutes for 24 mechs to smash each other to bits)
-Exfil Lance from LZ
-Return to orbit and dock with Argo (2h- 4h. one does not simply have Delta V)
-Drop from orbit with salvage team (One Leopard so can't start until she's back. See the times for dropping and recovering the lance)
-Infill salvage team a LZ
-Recover Salvage (1h at least. Granted at this point Salvage Recovery is an art that is done quickly but still, you have to put the fire OUT before you just load it onto the ship)
-Exfil salvage team from LZ
-Return to orbit with Salvage team
-Condcut minor maintenance on Mechs fresh back from battle (finished by the time salvage returns)
-Finished medical checks on all Mechwarriors back from battle (finished by the time salvage returns)

That makes complete sense.

A very good merc unit could likely finish two missions in one day, provided that they took minimal damage. Maybe three. This is the whole premise of a flash point.

So if the OP is looking to advance time due to realistic issues, I can agree with that. Just need to align the right realistic issues with time.

The battle is the quickest thing you do all day.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

If a day ticks off because you:

-Prepped a lance for drop (1h Minimum)
-Briefed combatants on the mission (15m - 1h)
-Loaded a dropship (15m Minimum)
-Dropped from orbit (2h - 4h. one does not simply fall from space)
-Infill lance at LZ
-Fought a battle (The closest thing to real time we have is MWO. It takes less than 30 minutes for 24 mechs to smash each other to bits)
-Exfil Lance from LZ
-Return to orbit and dock with Argo (2h- 4h. one does not simply have Delta V)
-Drop from orbit with salvage team (One Leopard so can't start until she's back. See the times for dropping and recovering the lance)
-Infill salvage team a LZ
-Recover Salvage (1h at least. Granted at this point Salvage Recovery is an art that is done quickly but still, you have to put the fire OUT before you just load it onto the ship)
-Exfil salvage team from LZ
-Return to orbit with Salvage team
-Condcut minor maintenance on Mechs fresh back from battle (finished by the time salvage returns)
-Finished medical checks on all Mechwarriors back from battle (finished by the time salvage returns)

That makes complete sense.

A very good merc unit could likely finish two missions in one day, provided that they took minimal damage. Maybe three. This is the whole premise of a flash point.

So if the OP is looking to advance time due to realistic issues, I can agree with that. Just need to align the right realistic issues with time.

The battle is the quickest thing you do all day.

The battle is the quickest thing you do all day... as long as the Enemy is as anxious for the battle as you are.

The amount of hurry-up and wait prior to and post-Combat can not be over-stated in my experience.

You’ve got a great point about Consecutive FLASHPOINT Missions. :bow: It always amused me when my Medium-Heavy Lance would bleed 20’ish tons of Armor during the first Mission, only to return to the ARGO, pick and choose from among my 8-14 Mechs there or repair all 20’ish tons of Armor Damage, only to jump back onboard the Leopard and return to the planet.

For consecutive Missions I’d like to have to load six Mechs and six MechWarriors aboard the Leopard (6, not 4 Mech Bays is the configuaration established for our Leopard in the Solo-Campaign.) And then win or lose, for consecutive Missions we must make it work with those six Mechs and MechWarriors.

Who knows? Maybe something like that will be a Difficulty Setting at some point down BATTLETECH’s development road. : )

 

[mjbroekman]

Who knows? Maybe something like that will be a Difficulty Setting at some point down BATTLETECH’s development road

Incoming "Reuse Mechs Consecutively" toggle.

But to start at the Conteacting Table, agree to terms, gather intel, make a battleplan

Isn't this what Darius should be doing while you are dropping, fighting, salvaging, and returning? So then all you need to do, as Commander, is sign on the negotiated line and drop again? The "battleplan" is what the player does during the mission, so I'm less concerned about that. But I'm pretty okay with the abstraction of all the negotiations. Also, since these are MRB contracts, I suspect there is a significantly smaller amount of 'negotiation' that goes on vs "these are the standard rates, which payrate are you going to accept?"

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Incoming "Reuse Mechs Consecutively" toggle.

Isn't this what Darius should be doing while you are dropping, fighting, salvaging, and returning? So then all you need to do, as Commander, is sign on the negotiated line and drop again? The "battleplan" is what the player does during the mission, so I'm less concerned about that. But I'm pretty okay with the abstraction of all the negotiations. Also, since these are MRB contracts, I suspect there is a significantly smaller amount of 'negotiation' that goes on vs "these are the standard rates, which payrate are you going to accept?"

I've been quite involved with Military Contract Intelligence & Security during my time in the Army, I would say that the Commander must be the one at the Contracting Table. Talk about winning all the Battles but still losing the War ~ failed or poor contract selection, the wrong Bonus Causes, poor Salvage to Cbill Ratio, any of that could break a Merc Company almost as quick as a loss on the field of battle ... beside Darius needs all his spare time to brush up on his Intelligence Officer Correspondence Courses. : )

 

[mjbroekman]

I've been quite involved with Military Contract Intelligence & Security during my time in the Army, I would say that the Commander must be the one at the Contracting Table. Talk about winning all the Battles but still losing the War ~ failed or poor contract selection, the wrong Bonus Causes, poor Salvage to Cbill Ratio, any of that could break a Merc Company almost as quick as a loss on the field of battle ... beside Darius needs all his spare time to brush up on his Intelligence Officer Correspondence Courses. : )

Based on the campaign, I see Darius as the CO-in-fact and the player as the CO-in-name. He would've been the CO (and probably was the CO for part of the three years between rescuing you and the Majesty Metals contract) had the player not shown up.

As I said, I see these contracts as something vetted by the MRB with certain payrates and the 'intel packets' are part of the contract. I doubt there is really any communication between the employer and our company that would be close to a 'negotiation'. The employer sends in a contract to the MRB with the relevant info and pay scale they want to use, we pick the ratio within that pay scale that we want and sign off with the MRB, we perform the mission and take our pay. I don't really see these contracts as the time of thing where you're sitting across a holo-table discussing the finer points of the mission. The procgen missions are more like the Classified Ads section of the newspaper (or the Craigslist jobs section or any number of "gig" sites like TaskRabbit, Fiver, etc).

Unlike the Flashpoints which are totally a 'sitting across the holo-table' kind of thing.

 

[jklinders]

I would prefer a middle line between translating turns directly into time as since everything shows that a battle could not really be longer than about 30 minutes or so. I don't know the time units in TT but a turn should encapsulate between 10-30 seconds at most. That allows for things like target acquisition, reaction time and heat venting. Frankly, the initiative system is beyond clumsy as it does not really account for how lighter mechs should be able to "stay ahead" in greater measure as time passes. But that aside, my compromise solution is as follows.

If we take the average time indicated for drop and retrieval you could easily allow for 2, perhaps 3 drops per day. However, you should not sensibly be permitted to use the same pilots over and over without penalty. One gets tired from more than just exertion. Say 2 drops in a row the equivalent to a low spirits penalty. 3 giving a minus 1 to all stats. Working your salvage team and drop crews to the bone should also impose a moral penalty if done too often (make it a hidden dice check so it can't be "gamed"). Over work and excessive combat fatigue is not factored at all in the name of streamlining...but this could actually make spending more at budget time actually MEAN something. Lavish and extravagant budgets could reduce the penalties due to hiring more staff that can be on rotation.

I doubt the dev team would implement all of this, but this could an idea for modders to tinker with.

 

[Zakhodit]

The battle is the quickest thing you do all day... as long as the Enemy is as anxious for the battle as you are.

The amount of hurry-up and wait prior to and post-Combat can not be over-stated in my experience.

I agree completely. To simply my point. The battle as we play it is not the time sink that every leading up to it and everything after it is.

I think this depends on what level of realism we are looking for. I believe as a whole we agree that conducting 6 drops in one day is not realistic. Limiting to one drop a day is the most simple method to create realism without bogging down into details. Details that one player my find delightful and another player may find tediously dull. In my military experience, conducting more than one operation such as dropping a lance of Battlemechs into a hot combat zone and retrieving them is something you wouldn't do twice in the same day unless there were circumstances bordering on an emergency. And as I said before, this is precisely what flash points are intended to be. Other factors that we don't have to worry about is that the leopard always arrives on time. Yeah, realistically the city bus isn't always on time. And they're uh, rarely, shot at. What do players do when you get to the extraction zone and then are told the leopard ETA is 4 turns?

The Leopard is always on time. Always in the right place. Never suffers mishap as it re-enters atmosphere. The bay doors always work... There could be a lot of things that cause chaos that we don't have to worry about right now. And for a "Fun" game, we don't want to worry about.

I'd also like another difficulty setting. 6 Mechs. 6 Pilots. The ammo we bring with us and the armor on the mechs. What is used/lost is gone until we actually get back to the argo. Or you could sacrifice one mech for extra ammo and armor that can be slapped on in a few hours. Like 2 tons of armor to patch up the lance.

If we take the average time indicated for drop and retrieval you could easily allow for 2, perhaps 3 drops per day. However, you should not sensibly be permitted to use the same pilots over and over without penalty. One gets tired from more than just exertion. Say 2 drops in a row the equivalent to a low spirits penalty. 3 giving a minus 1 to all stats. Working your salvage team and drop crews to the bone should also impose a moral penalty if done too often (make it a hidden dice check so it can't be "gamed"). Over work and excessive combat fatigue is not factored at all in the name of streamlining...but this could actually make spending more at budget time actually MEAN something. Lavish and extravagant budgets could reduce the penalties due to hiring more staff that can be on rotation.

I like what your saying here as far as "pushing" your crew for more results, perhaps at a cost of morale. Maybe also at a cost of quality. If Lang has been pushing his crew for an extended period maybe the armor isn't installed correctly, maybe and arm doesn't work. Maybe there is two tons of AC/5 Ammo for the AC/10...

Again, how far we want to dial up the realism is the question. And do we really want the Devs to put their time and effort into this or be satisfied with 1 day = 1 mission. Because they are dealing with real amounts of time, energy and effort. WE could have that kind of detail. We could also have some new mechs to play with. Having both and soon are not likely. So what would we like now vice what would be nice down the road in expansion 5? Oh wait, that might be the Clan Invasion...

Yeah I'm fine with 1 day = 1 mission. In fact if it means more mechs and some other kick starter promisies first *Cough*Solaris 7*Cough* I'm fine with 6 drops in a day.

 

[jklinders]

I agree completely. To simply my point. The battle as we play it is not the time sink that every leading up to it and everything after it is.

I think this depends on what level of realism we are looking for. I believe as a whole we agree that conducting 6 drops in one day is not realistic. Limiting to one drop a day is the most simple method to create realism without bogging down into details. Details that one player my find delightful and another player may find tediously dull. In my military experience, conducting more than one operation such as dropping a lance of Battlemechs into a hot combat zone and retrieving them is something you wouldn't do twice in the same day unless there were circumstances bordering on an emergency. And as I said before, this is precisely what flash points are intended to be. Other factors that we don't have to worry about is that the leopard always arrives on time. Yeah, realistically the city bus isn't always on time. And they're uh, rarely, shot at. What do players do when you get to the extraction zone and then are told the leopard ETA is 4 turns?

The Leopard is always on time. Always in the right place. Never suffers mishap as it re-enters atmosphere. The bay doors always work... There could be a lot of things that cause chaos that we don't have to worry about right now. And for a "Fun" game, we don't want to worry about.

I'd also like another difficulty setting. 6 Mechs. 6 Pilots. The ammo we bring with us and the armor on the mechs. What is used/lost is gone until we actually get back to the argo. Or you could sacrifice one mech for extra ammo and armor that can be slapped on in a few hours. Like 2 tons of armor to patch up the lance.



I like what your saying here as far as "pushing" your crew for more results, perhaps at a cost of morale. Maybe also at a cost of quality. If Lang has been pushing his crew for an extended period maybe the armor isn't installed correctly, maybe and arm doesn't work. Maybe there is two tons of AC/5 Ammo for the AC/10...

Again, how far we want to dial up the realism is the question. And do we really want the Devs to put their time and effort into this or be satisfied with 1 day = 1 mission. Because they are dealing with real amounts of time, energy and effort. WE could have that kind of detail. We could also have some new mechs to play with. Having both and soon are not likely. So what would we like now vice what would be nice down the road in expansion 5? Oh wait, that might be the Clan Invasion...

Yeah I'm fine with 1 day = 1 mission. In fact if it means more mechs and some other kick starter promisies first *Cough*Solaris 7*Cough* I'm fine with 6 drops in a day.

Pretty much this.

I'm not really so much trying for "realism" so much as incorporating my idea to balance the two extremes with one other thing that had been bothering me. I can't really get behind the monthly budget model as currently implemented. There is no benefit to spending extra per month outside a tiny morale boost. You don't more tech points, you don't get more med points and your pilot's stats don't get any boost. I'd kind of like a way to actually have that spending budget have real meaning. Which is why I kind of came out with what I did. We can easily incorporate our own restriction of one drop per day. Some bells and whistles and risk/reward scenarios could really make those extra mechwarrior bunks and budget expenditures shine.

 

[Zakhodit]

Pretty much this.

I'm not really so much trying for "realism" so much as incorporating my idea to balance the two extremes with one other thing that had been bothering me. I can't really get behind the monthly budget model as currently implemented. There is no benefit to spending extra per month outside a tiny morale boost. You don't more tech points, you don't get more med points and your pilot's stats don't get any boost. I'd kind of like a way to actually have that spending budget have real meaning. Which is why I kind of came out with what I did. We can easily incorporate our own restriction of one drop per day. Some bells and whistles and risk/reward scenarios could really make those extra mechwarrior bunks and budget expenditures shine.

I'd take this thought and create a new suggestion with it. It's separate enough from the OP that it would need it's own thread, and the idea has enough merit to be looked at seriously.

 

[Justin Kase]

Adding fatigue would help a lot - then you need to rest or further exhaust your pilots.