formations and orders- Fall in soldier!

C

chipk

It Wandered In From the Wastes
I was thinking about the possibility of adding formations to your party. I haven't been able to do much with formations except for a column formation. I was thinking about adding new formations and commands. The formation your party takes will give you special team enhancements as well. The enemy can take formation as well, making it tough for you.

Line formation- similar to a revolutionary war formation with muskets. This formation is best for single shot weapons in your group, ie. hunting rifles, pipe rifles, etc. Your team will gain greater accuracy and +5 damage. However you will move slowly to stay in formation, and you must give command to release the volley. Implementation, a Small band of wastelanders with hunting rifles come upon a yao guai. Line formation will increase the damage of their weapons by hitting the Yao Guai simultaneously (hence the +5 damage for each memeber)

Delta formation- Good for uprooting hidden enemies while covering eachother. Team recieves +2 preception.

Column formation- Good for moving groups through tight spaces (This seems to already be the norm in large groups, at least during the rescue mission from the jefferson memorial). +1 agility +5 sneak.

Gaggle formation- Everyone gathers around you

Orders

Take cover- allies find cover and gain +5 Damage Resistance.

Retreat- allies flee and seek shelter +2 agility

Spread Out- allies will keep their distance

Stay together- normal distance

Tight formation- Tight distance

Cover me- Allies will provide supressing fire

Stay here- Allies stay put


Orders should also have menu connected to a hot key, or an individual hotkey so it can easily be accessed during battle.
 
In FO3, usually when you're in groups larger than 2 - give or take a mutt - your companions are either combat retarded or non-vital and typically better off dead. Usually both. Seriously, I've not come across a situation where they may as well have not been present, even playing a nerd. (Spray-and-pray, grenades, and mines work wonders for your less imposing characters)

Speaking from the standpoint of pure tactics, unless you outnumber the enemy then formation marching is a very, very bad idea. It makes what might otherwise be a highly mobile group of targets into one big, slow target. Plus there's the combat AI which, frankly, doesn't know not to share a firing line with other shooters.

Given FO3's combat system and likely enemy disposition (spread to hell and gone and rushing you the second they become aware of your existence) your group would want to keep a general distance of at least the diameter of a frag grenade's blast apart from each other, and break both left and right upon enemy contact in attempt to flank, meeting in the middle hopefully over the broken corpse of your target. The idea is to separate to avoid damage, but all focus on the same target.

I'm not saying this mod doesn't have merit, but what FO3 really needs is an AI revamp so your teammates aren't completely stupid more than the ability to follow a set pattern. Also, if you're going to add bonuses, add penalties as well.

All: Penalty to stealth, as hiding a bunch is much harder than hiding one. Minor bonus to damage resistance on the basis that the enemy has trouble focusing on only one of your group. Slowed move speed to whoever of the group is slowest. Very minor bonus to accuracy as a group lowers the individual's pressure under combat and allows for slightly more considered action. Bonus to perception, since there's more eyes and the group can communicate.

Line Formation: Increase damage due to a coordinated attack, increase accuracy due to aiming time, but lower damage resistance because you're all standing stock still while taking aim.

Delta Formation: Bonus to perception, but drastically lower movement speed to compensate for searching. Also, this deserves the stealth bonus a lot more than Column, as the extra awareness of an enemy's disposition makes it much easier to sneak around unseen. Pretty big bonus to DR for all, since they react to danger more quickly.

Column Formation: Agility bonus is unrealistic, since even the best coordination as a group can't match the maneuverability of someone acting alone. Stealth is also a bit odd, as marching in a column hides your exact numbers, but the column is easier to track. I'd have done a penalty to damage - realistically only the head of a column can shoot back - and a big bonus to damage resistance as the rest of the column supports the front. Penalty to DR for everyone behind the leader, since they're ill-prepared to be attacked.

Gaggle Formation: Massive DR bonus to whoever's in the center, medium one for everyone else. Accuracy reduction due to uncoordinated formation. Even bigger accuracy reduction to the center, since he'll be nervous about hitting allies.

Your orders are great. I'd love to be able to tell my companions to stay put, or especially the option to tell them to attack my current target and no one else.
 
The best you can do is manipulate each follower's combat tendencies. These are represented by a variety of integer settings from 1 to 100 that the AI processor uses to determine their course of action.
 
I worked with a group that made SMOD: Tactical for Half-life 2. The original makers of SMOD was able to expand team orders for AI teammates. It was awesome. In vanilla HL2, all they do is follow or stay, but after SMOD. The AI can spread out, take cover, and perform a few more maneuvers. I was hoping Gambryo would be as verstile.

The AI in HL2 is also much smarter than Fallout 3. Path following sucks royally for Fallout 3. In source, The AI would break its path to find its way around an object unless it was too complex or the character was programmed to follow the path exactly. Fallout 3, people bump into eachother and keep pushing.

Oh, and thanks for the input on the formations. One effect I would like to capture with a line formation is the picket line of mobsters gunning down rows of enemy mobsters with tommys, like you would see in the movies. Most notably the original Scarface and Last Man Standing. Though the target of the picket line was almost always a lone mob boss or a group of surrendered thugs.
 
chipk said:
I worked with a group that made SMOD: Tactical for Half-life 2. The original makers of SMOD was able to expand team orders for AI teammates. It was awesome. In vanilla HL2, all they do is follow or stay, but after SMOD. The AI can spread out, take cover, and perform a few more maneuvers. I was hoping Gambryo would be as verstile.

The AI in HL2 is also much smarter than Fallout 3. Path following sucks royally for Fallout 3. In source, The AI would break its path to find its way around an object unless it was too complex or the character was programmed to follow the path exactly. Fallout 3, people bump into eachother and keep pushing.

Oh, and thanks for the input on the formations. One effect I would like to capture with a line formation is the picket line of mobsters gunning down rows of enemy mobsters with tommys, like you would see in the movies. Most notably the original Scarface and Last Man Standing. Though the target of the picket line was almost always a lone mob boss or a group of surrendered thugs.
Click to expand...

I've seen bad guys literally run through locked doors.
 
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