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Ok. will think about it as it does make sense but I'm not sure about all consequences. Code changes would take me some time and I'm only willing to do when more players *really* think they do need this. My squad will have enough money for your style of play if I throw in a few 'complete squad' battles inbetween. So I never had great monetary problems and feel insecure about reducing upkeep.

Money is fine as it is. If I'm desperate for cash, I trade a pilot. Potentially, you could make an extra 1.5M this way. I've had to trade pilots sometimes and personally I think it adds to the game trading pilots back and forth. Besides if you don't take a titan into a battle you don't have to repair it but all other costs end up the same. Storage space and maintanence are still fees regardless of whether the Titan goes on active duty or not.

Realism apart (if you have a solid job, you earn your salary whether you're in the office working or taking a couple of days off),

For what I understand, the problem is using teams < your squad in battle. I say a squad is an entity that shouldn't be split (notice the word shouldn't). I understand the fact that if you want to hire another jock when your squad already has some experience, you want to raise that new jock to the squad's rank asap. But isn't it more interesting to have the rookie fight alongside the vets? Learn with them? Mop up after they soften up the enemy? Having rookies in your team will probably lower the team's average rank, so the AI's team will also probably have a lower average rank. If ranks are the same, then salvage is the same. But if you're playing a heavier team (whole team), the payment will be higher. If the AI is a little weaker, then repairs may be lower.

About titan upkeep. Like I said, an upkeep is for a whole month. A battle lasts for a few hours max, if you want to count deployment and extraction (realism). So, *all* titans are in the hangars for a *full* month. The same rats that work on the wiring of the non-participant titans will not be too shy on the wiring of battle-scarred titans I figure.

I wish people used their heads once in a while...


PS: about the 'more titans than jocks' issue, you don't *have* to have more titans than jocks. You just *can*. Not worth it? Maybe, maybe not. But when your squad has enough money and you want to swap titans a lot (the SRM vs LRM issue for example), you may like this. I know my special squad likes this.
Besides, technically (and codewise) if you couldn't have more titans than jocks, you couldn't salvage any titan from the battlefield most of the times.

Actually, with regards to realism and pay, it's not all that unrealistic to assume that you get a higher "combat" pay when you actually participate in combat. As I understand, this is actually usually the case with the military (at least the U.S. military). You get sent into harm's way, you get a pay raise for the duration.

With regards to titan upkeep, take a look at some equivalent machines in our timeperiod. Ongoing maintenance on those type of machines is usually carried out every certain amount of time in active operation. For things like fighter planes, this significant maintenance is usually required after every flight. The planes don't need anywhere near the same kind of maintenance while sitting in the hanger. It's too bad my friend (who does maintenance work on army helicopters) is current out of touch or I could get some hard numbers.

Heck, take a look at cars. You're supposed to get maintenance done every x miles or y number of months. In otherwords, if you never use the vehicle, then yes, technically you should take it in for service every now and then, but likely not much will be done. That's because all their major service check things are done based off the car mileage. That means the more you use the car, the more frequently you'll have to have maintenance done.

Of course, realism aside... not all decisions in a game are made for ultimate realism. Some are made to improve the game play. It sounds like Sleeping_Dragon (and rosary?) are both arguing that implementing things in this fashion make the game play more interesting. I happen to agree, and have even provided some plausible means of explaining it at least semi-realistically.

So, in short, I do believe that some of us have happened to use our heads. It's just that we're possibly looking at things from a slightly different perspective from you. Fortunately, if something like this is implemented, you can continue to play with your entire team of jocks, each with a single titan purchased, and you won't see any difference at all.

I'm not sure whether or not the battle income would need to change. I guess it depends on the exact equations. I'm presuming that if you make a certain amount of money by using all of your jocks/titans (and then subtracting repair costs), then you'll probably make a little less money with a smaller team (and then subtracting repair costs). Afterall, with a smaller battle, you'll get less salvage. Is the reward less too? Anyway, It would essentially be just like using all the jocks/titans on a smaller team, just that you'd have to pay a little extra maintenance for jocks/titans that don't fight. So, if smaller teams are balanced, why wouldn't larger teams that field only a partial team be balanced? In fact, they wouldn't earn as much as the smaller team, only it would be plausible to use such a setup, unlike under the current system.

I guess you just didn't read... oh well.

Let me ask you this. Those guys that are at base, do they get combat pay?
The vehicles that are at base, are they *always* in their hangars?

And upkeep and combat pay are 2 very different things, or you just didn't realise that? Your combat Payment depends on your *team*, not your *squad*.

According to Larkin, partial teams are balanced. In fact, that's the whole point.

Just so we're all in the same wavelength,

Money transaction designations and their description in WS:

Upkeep - fixed amount every month, jocks' salaries and titans' regular maintenance costs

Payment - "combat pay", depends on rank balance between player's team and AI's team

Salvage - depends on weight balance between player's team and AI's team

Repairs - titan repair costs, which obviously includes post-battle "maintenance" (if they've just been repaired, they don't require additional maintenance, do they)



In my previous post, when I said "at base", I meant that if you send say a full battalion to some country to fight a war and in a given month only one company actually sees combat, doesn't the rest of the battalion get "combat pay"? Just because they were at base? Maybe you can ask your friend.

Question : Is it possible to play battles with only a few jocks, leaving the rest at base, without going bancrupt. My answer is yes if you play some full squad battles too AND do care for minimum expenses and maximum income.

So if your point is playability it should be possible as is.

If it comes to realism I would say that all jocks in a squad will be paid, not only those in battle. I would also say that assigned titans (titand which are allocated to a jock) will take full maintenance cost as they do not stand in the corner and rust but are used for training too during the month.

A quick glance at my code did reveal that I can easily reduce the maintenance cost for unassigned titans. I will do this.

LarkinVB wrote:A quick glance at my code did reveal that I can easily reduce the maintenance cost for unassigned titans. I will do this.

A very good solution! This will solve (or at least reduce) the problem of "mothballed" titans.
Now, can we unassign titans that are not going to participate in battle to reduce maintenance costs?

Oops, I just checked, and yes you can, if you use some subterfuge...

Thorgrim wrote:A very good solution! This will solve (or at least reduce) the problem of "mothballed" titans.
Now, can we unassign titans that are not going to participate in battle to reduce maintenance costs?

Nope. Only if you allow me to add that jocks without a titan and not going to battle will loose some skill points due to missing basic training.

Or maybe increase their upkeep by the same amount that the titan's maintenance is lowered? I don't know, maybe they eat more when they're doing nothing.

BTW partial squad people, did you consider the fact that if your leader doesn't fight, your jocks don't get his bravery bonus and therefore better chances to pass skill checks? And the fact that if your mechanic doesn't fight, (correct me if I'm wrong Larkin) you won't get titans as salvage - since the mechanic isn't in the fight? And that if your mechanic and manager aren't in the fight ,your salvage is lower?
So you want to pay less. Is it worth it, since you'll also get less money? Food for thought.

Larkin, sounds like a good tweak to me.

Thorgrim, I apologize for getting things worked up a little in this thread. I didn't really mean to be argumentative. I know we're looking at things from very different perspectives, and I suspect we're also using a term or two differently from each other. At any rate, sounds like we're both satisfied with Larkin's proposed change, so... good enough.

No problem on my end. Usually good things come out of discussions.

Now, as to the proposed change, I propose every jock must have a titan assigned to him/her/it when the squad is saved. Else, you can cheat. Seems easier and less penalizing than lowering skill points

Could someone post some numbers for some partial team battles. How much are ya'll losing.
I just tried 3 games. 4 veteran jocks in mediums, so I took out 2 jocks (my leader and a nobody) and fought 1 veteran assault all 3 times. Unfortunately(?) for my argument the numbers weren't bad at all

#'s approx.

Battle #1 Battle#2 Battle#3
Salvage: 0 139,000 0
Bounty 0 20,000 0
Payment 125,000 125,000 125,000
Upkeep -136,266 -136,936 -137,472
Balance -11,200 147,000 -12,500
Repairs -21,600 -19,000 -3,500

Net -32,800 128,000 -16,000


That said, The only battles I lost money on was the ones with no salvage (my best damage control with the fighting jocks was only 22%.
But also note the abnormally small repair costs. These didn't go like normal fights, I was using the new Instigator for one of my jocks and well... it performed above and beyond ANYTHING I've seen. But to be fair I posted the numbers anyway. God forbid we push for somethng to be 'fixed' if it isn't 'broken'.

As I stated these numbers look abnormal to me, when I was at Regular level and I did this I THINK I was looseing between 50,000-70,000. So I would like to see some other numbers from other people! I'm going to try agian in the next couple of days without an Instigator.

btw... I left the upkeep # at full percision, so Larkin can tell me whey it went up after every fight.. nothing changed.. is 'total # xps used in the calculation for jock upkeep? I should look this up somewhere, but it's late.






How do I type in a table without the forum scrunching it together?

Sleeping_Dragon wrote:btw... I left the upkeep # at full percision, so Larkin can tell me whey it went up after every fight.. nothing changed.. is 'total # xps used in the calculation for jock upkeep? I should look this up somewhere, but it's late.

Number of battles/kills is modifying jocks salary.

Thorgrim wrote:No problem on my end. Usually good things come out of discussions.

Now, as to the proposed change, I propose every jock must have a titan assigned to him/her/it when the squad is saved. Else, you can cheat. Seems easier and less penalizing than lowering skill points

Here is my solution : Jocks with assigned titans staying at home will gain free 5 devp in each category for doing basic hq training.

Don't think 5 DPs is worth the money savings, especially with good jocks. MO of course.

God jocks don't have to save money

Don't won't do anything with 5 DPs either. Might as well save the money.

All I wanted to say is that my jocks would prefer the devp instead the money. Usually they go to battle though.