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dcs-liberation / dcs_liberation

DCS World dynamic campaign.
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Supply system #383

Open DanAlbert opened 3 years ago

DanAlbert commented 3 years ago

Following https://github.com/Khopa/dcs_liberation/issues/382, we could expand to a more complete logistics system.

This is a meta bug since this would require many pieces:

jeetsukumaran commented 3 years ago

This was posted for discussion on Discord. Placing it here for reference.

(1) For each side there is a specific "sortie generation capacity"

(2) The sortie generation capacity is the maximum number of aircraft they can launch in a single round. (As per convention, a "sortie" is a single aircraft taking off and executing a mission; so a package of 2 x SEAD, 2 x Escort, and 2 x strikes = 6 sorties.) The upper limit of this is going to be the actual number of aircraft the side has. But operationally the actual sortie generation capacity is typically going to be less than the actual number of aircraft.

(3) For players who do not care about the details or for whom this is too complex, that's all they need to work with. If they do well in missions (protect their maintenance, fuel/oil, logistics hubs, etc.), they sortie generation capacity is preseved. If they do not, it degrades.

(4) For players who do want more detail:

(5) These maintenance/fuel/supply facilities will all be icons on the map, of course, subject to damage, destruction, or capture. (6) Can they be repaired? Sure, at some background rate which would be determined by the maintenance/fuel/supply points! So there is a positive feedback loop in damaging maintenance/supply facilities. The more they get damaged, the less sorties you can generate AND the slower you are to repair yourselves to generate sorties.

(7) When squadrons are implemented, we can consider squadron (or rather, airbase) specific maintenance and fuel/supply. But these can just be global values for now, summed up over all intact facilities under each side's control and applied to all aircraft in the inventory,

(8) Does a maintenance level that allows for 80% operational availability determine the availablity of each type (i.e., 80% MiG-21's AND 80% available Su-25's etc) or 80% across all types? I think the former, especially as that is what will happen implicitly once squadrons are implemented.

(9) Initial aircraft availability can be determined by total faction strength, setup based on what a faction brings to the table at the beginning of the conflict (representing whatever strength the faction has built up over the years and decided to commit to the conflict). (10) Replacement of losses can be tied to maintenance levels, and/or be an independent mechanism. Replacements can come at a fixed background rate (e.g., 2 MiG-21's every round). In addition, special "boosts" can come in (e.g, new squadron of MiG-21's in round 6). Either way, this abstracts the producxtion capacity and economy of the faction. For the OPFOR AI, we can "cheat" a little and have a a bit of a responsive replacement rate, increasing or decreasing as required behind the scenes. This allows us to make sure that the AI, at least, do not run out of aircraft and let the game fizzle out yet have enough control of the number of aircraft so performance does not tank. Their sortie generation capacity will still restrict the number of aircraft that can be flown, so players will not find it objectionable --- they can still influence things by crushing the maintanence/supply facilities.

bgreman commented 3 years ago

My ideas for more in-depth logistics (though not as in-depth as above, I think):

My idea for this is to eventually make use of the logistics network to be able to move "ammo points" around. You get points from ammo depots and they get generated at the connected CP, then you can use the transfer system to move them between CPs using air land or sea lift the same way you can with ground units. Thus if you want to build up a CP with no connected ammo depots you can do so at the cost of time (and potentially unit tasking). This might also be a reason to need to purchase trucks (or maybe they get generated with your transfer request and you need to supply GU escorts or a CAP to prevent enemy BAI). Maybe also possible for ammo points to be directly purchased at off-map CPs, perhaps for a big markup.

Ammo points at a CP then replace the current depot-based limit for ground unit deployment.

Longer term, I can envision a similar mechanic for fuel and tying both into the air system by making a sortie require fuel and ammo (maybe just fuel for certain sortie types like AWACS and transport, but you get the idea) At the extreme end you could also have a "materiel" resource produced by factories that are used for procuring ground and air units at a CP.

The onus would be on Campaign designers to create sensible placements for these resource generating structures and the associated logistics network, but I could also imagine fun stuff like all that production being attached to a CP representing transfers from off-map for one faction or the other, so everything has to be trucked/shipped/airlifted to the active fronts

DanAlbert commented 3 years ago

One of the other ideas previously discussed was to keep the depots, but have them only represent a maximum amount of local supply that needs to be filled by convoys. Wdyt?

bgreman commented 3 years ago

My plan was that depots would be kept, as ammo producers. Each operational depot produces N "units" of ammo each turn, which appears at the CP connected to the depot. From there ammo can move throughout the logistics system.

Having the depots still representing a cap on deployment (albeit an indirect one, as now instead of ground units being limited directly based on number of depots, instead they'd be limited by the cap on ammo the depots would represent) still has all the issues raised by that system: destroying them if they're enemy owned actively hampers you if you take the CP, as it reduces your ability to deploy from that CP to the next frontline. I know it's not exactly realistic to think that you could take over the enemy's ammunition producing facilities, but overall I think striving for pure simulationism in Liberation is something to be taken with a grain of salt. We could go down a wormhole of tracking individual expendables at airbases (since they appear to have at least a rudimentary form of inventory tacking in the sim), but I think the reward/effort ratio goes down quickly the more complex any provisional supply system gets.

If instead depots just introduce supply to the logistics network, their particular location doesn't matter quite so much. With no limit on how much ammo can be accrued at a CP, a player (or the AI) could build up a stockpile at a CP until they are able to deploy in overwhelming numbers against the AI if they so choose. And players could feel more confident destroying enemy depots because it wouldn't be limiting their ability to deploy after capturing the connected CP. They'd just have to push more ammo through the logistics network from their existing depots. The enemy, meanwhile, would be severely hampered as their total ammo production is now decreased, limiting the overall ability to deploy anywhere in the theater. Similarly, players might need to increase security around their depots to prevent them being bombed by the enemy.

bgreman commented 3 years ago

Ultimately my personal long term vision for the logistics system is as follows. All placeholder numerical values are subject to tuning for best gameplay.

It's also possible that the distinction between fuel and ammo is too crunchy and we could just deal with a single resource, called something generic like "materiel" or "supplies."

Work items for this plan would be:

DanAlbert commented 3 years ago

still has all the issues raised by that system: destroying them if they're enemy owned actively hampers you if you take the CP

That's a feature, not a bug. It's a tradeoff for players to make. You can make your life easier in the short term, but if you do you'll either have a hard time at the next base.

It's also an opportunity for campaign designer's to design imbalanced fronts, where large bases have much larger supply limits and FOBs have smaller limits.

Removing depots as local supply also removes the ability to control the spawned unit cap. That's also a feature.

I like the rest of the plan (at least as far as the ground aspects go, I haven't thought on the air side yet), but I think a merger of what we have now and what you designed is better than either independently:

That way we get all the benefits of both:

There don't appear to be any downsides.