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Post by catfishkailen on Jul 21, 2020 1:16:13 GMT -4
Sorry about the spam of questions, I'm asking as they come up.
I intend to employ VTOL equipment as a CAS element, if they do not move during their "weekly turn" are they able to reinforce allies in combat within their area of operation?
Do units in adjacent squares have the ability to reinforce as well?
Sorry again, excited to be here, just want to make sure I'm not wasting money.
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Post by Admin on Jul 21, 2020 7:52:36 GMT -4
I will try to address the question on reinforcements in a moment, but first a general answer on how combat occurs as this was also asked via email and I feel will help explain my answer.
By the way, considering all movement happens at the same time, I'm just wondering how easy it may be to avoid conflict by for example, side stepping your army one square before pushing forward? The enemy would have to guess which direction you may go and move to accommodate that, which I'd think could be quite difficult... Could this be a problem in your eyes, with armies just accidentally or purposefully avoiding each other?
Armies avoiding each other can happen, but I also base things off of player movements as they come in. To an extent the order the files come in for a given turn determines initiative on who moves first in some situations.
First off covering intel and retreating, the only way you will know where an enemy player's unit(s) are is if you have recently fought that unit and actually saw that unit on the battlefield. Until it moves at least one map tile away and into the fog of war again you will maintain knowledge of its presence. (However I am typing up and working on a slight rule change to do with scouting and how long this affect lasts for. I am toying with knowledge of a units presence for a range of three map tiles or 2-3 consecutive turns. I am working out a few scenarios to see how this would effect things before pitching anything to the player base for a poll.) For now lets just use this example with current rules lets say a lone Banshee found an enemy task force of a Manitcore Heavy Tank, an LRM Carrier and an SRM Carrier which prompted a battle. If the Banshee finds and kills the SRM Carrier, sees the Manitcore but it retreats off the map, and never sees the LRM Carrier at all while it too retreats, but does get hit by missiles from afar, the Banshee would claim the map tile, the SRM Carrier would be gone anyway, the map tile the Manitcore retreated too would show an enemy Manitcore present and the LRM Carrier would not be shown. That should explain how retreating works, you move to the nearest friendly tile or empty tile and the enemy knows what survived and is there IF and ONLY IF it was seen during a battle.
In terms of how combat occurs, lets start with a linear example of two forces one advancing while the other retreating along the same axis: If you submit your files first and you have an attack force starting at AB123 and move to AB122 to attack Empire X's units there and Empire X also had an order to move his/her units from AB122 to AB121 and beyond, then Empire X's units will be engaged in AB122 before they can move. But if you submitted your files after Empire X did then they would move first and get away to AB121 unless you had given further orders to head in that direction to your force and could catch up.
However I do interception a little differently. Another example with two forces moving perpendicular to one another. You have a force moving AB122, AB123, AB124, AB125 and Empire X has a force moving AA124, AB124, AC124, AD124. Well regardless of who moves first you will both engage at AB124 and stop there, however if any units retreat from the battle they will retreat one map tile away from AB124.
As you might imagine by now most combat occurs from this above "interception" where both players have forces on the move. Thus it becomes harder to have other forces moving alongside one another to reinforce with.
That said, any units in adjacent map tiles may reinforce (this usually gets stated on a pending combat scenario description in your MegaMek HQ file) unless they themselves were involved in another battle that turn. So if Empire X had another group traveling along side the first moving AA124, AB125, AC125, etc they would also "stop" in map tile AB125 for the turn and be allotted as reinforcements in the battle in AB124 against you with notes on when they would join in.
This also works for units that haven't moved, but are next door to a battle.
So in summary anyone passing through or stopped in the four map tiles surrounding AB124 could be drawn in.
The only exception for additional reinforcements other than adjacent map tiles is artillery units that are "in range" and would be deployed "offboard" equal to the number of map tiles away they are located from a given battle.
For VTOL's and aerospace they would need to be traveling in the map tile or adjacent to where combat occurs.
Players tend to build a front line and have units moving up and down the length of it, with more patrols just behind that acting as reinforcements. In this way not every map tile needs to have defenders stationed on it. For example a Heavy Mech Lance might control a front of 4 map tiles and be expected to intercept anything attempting to cross this portion of a border.
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Post by falconsroost on Jul 27, 2020 12:11:34 GMT -4
So if I have enough money to purchase a small DropShip in the future and it is traveling high above the strategic map, but is next to a battle location can it "assault drop" in reinforcements?
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Post by Admin on Jul 27, 2020 12:53:38 GMT -4
Yes, if it is in the same map tile as the battle or if it is in an adjacent map tile. (But it has to be flying, landed units cannot assault drop.)
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