redeployable garrisons

[DanAlbert]

Base garrisons are currently permanent static objectives in bases. Instead, reserve units deployed to bases that are not deployed to the front line should be deployed as garrisons to a motor pool area. These units would have no objectives in the mission, but would be able to deploy to the front line the next turn to make up for losses. This would solve the current problem where a complete wipe of the front line usually means zero units on the front the next turn because the replacements were purchased but won't be available until next turn.

• [ ] Stop populating strike objectives with default units when generating the mission
• [ ] Deploy unused ground units to those locations instead
• [ ] Allow reserves to be kept from the front line, which instead fill the garrison locations
• [ ] Teach the AI to keep units in reserve

[SnappyComebacks]

Are the vehicle group spawns that we have now (see attached image) meant to be the garrisons in this FR? Should they be?

[DanAlbert]

Yep, that's what I had in mind.

[SnappyComebacks]

Ok here are some design questions I have regarding this:

1. Should these garrisons have a maximum size (maximum number of units, implying more than one garrison is needed)?
2. If there is more than one garrison, how should they be organized (by type, by cost, ratio of different unit types)?
3. If there is more than one garrison, how should they be filled, as units are gained and lost (do further out garrisons fill closer ones)?
4. If there is more than one garrison, how should we manage dead units (do they get: removed, left in place, sent to an empty garrison)?

[DanAlbert]

IIRC part of my inspiration here was the Wags video for the F-16 JSOW where he targeted a group of parked vehicles. I was thinking that reserves would all deploy to a single area as inactive targets, though since we don't actually have any limit on reserve quantity, we would either need to allow for multiple locations, or cap the reserves.

Thinking about it a bit more, we wouldn't want to remove the existing garrison TGOs (the ones in your screenshot) without completing the more lofty goal of allowing active units to be tasked to arbitrary locations, since we don't want to completely remove non-FLOT guard units.

So I think if you're asking because you are looking to tackle the problem, my vote would be to deploy the reserves in the parked formations, but also leave the existing guards untouched for now. I'm open to alternatives of course, that's just how I'd envisioned it.

Answering the questions specifically (again, just my thoughts on them):

1. I think even if there are multiple locations, we'll still need some upper limit, since there will be finite number of locations. I think it's fine for that limit to be quite high though. 100 parked vehicles doesn't seem unreasonable. Would need to play around in the ME to see what sizes are likely to work in most locations.
2. I'm leaning toward type. There's an FR Open for a company structure for ground units that'd be an obvious grouping later on.
3. Arbitrary ordering seems fine to me. It sounds like multiple groups add quite a few complications though, so now I'm starting to think a single group per CP is a sensible place to start.
4. Removed seems like the way to start. It's probably a plenty good enough answer and we'll never need to revisit it, but if we do it'll be easy enough to change later.

[Starfire13]

Do parked inactive ground units affect frame rate the way parked inactive aircraft do? I recall particularly VR users saying that their PCs were struggling due to the added CPU load from parked aircraft, even though we never figured out why a parked inactive aircraft would need extra cpu cycles.

[DanAlbert]

They can enable culling.

[SnappyComebacks]

Is there any reason to keep the current style of "here's a bunch of tanks sitting around"? Right now I don't think so, but wanted to check.

[DanAlbert]

They're defensive positions. Maybe that's now how every campaign designers uses them, but I always place them on the approach to the base to add a little extra defense beyond what the FLOT is capable of.

[SnappyComebacks]

Ok so a new target type is needed then, for a static set of parked vehicles, and the original defensive position type should stay? I'm ok with that.

[DanAlbert]

At least until front-line units can be tasked to arbitrary locations, yeah. That's a much larger project that I'm not sure is even solvable for the AI with our limited terrain info :)

[Starfire13]

They can enable culling.

Wouldn't these garrisoned vehicles be at control points near the frontlines and typically within the radius that doesn't get culled? Do you mean for garrisoned vehicles to specifically get culled if culling is turned on?

[DanAlbert]

It's a solvable problem.