In-depth military editor

So this is an editor that has not been discussed for some time, but is also one of the things that I think makes the Strategy Mode so unique. Here I will try to give a final draft of the current concept on the Squadron Editor, to provide us an opportunity to revise or improve where necessary, and to wrap up this part of the concept.

Squad Editor

The Squad Editor is an editor accessed from the player's Military panel. (The different panels are Government, Economy, Military, Religion, Society, Technology, and Diplomacy). Just as the Creature Creator in Spore was divided into three sub-editors (the Creator, the Texturing, and the Test Area) the Squad Editor is also divided into three sub-editors.

Units

Weapons

The first sub-editor, or tab, in the Squad Editor, is the Units tab. Here, the player will be able to equip and save his units for use in the game. Upon accessing the Units tab the player will see a mannequin in the shape of his organism on the Test Area. This mannequin is what the player will use to equip weapons and armour on to to create his units. A list of Tech Objects of the player will be available on the side. It will list only Tech Objects with a Handle Function Part in them, i.e. Tech Objects tagged as "Tools". Amongst these the player will be able to find any weapons he wishes to equip his units with. Once a TO is selected, the player can drag it and attach it onto any of the highlighted grasper points on the mannequin.

The TO's in the list will have their important stats listed beside them. These will be Damage Type:

Slash

Pierce

Blunt

Ballistic

Energy

There will also be Damage, Accuracy, Range, and lastly, Weight. The Weight of a TO contributes to how much a unit is carrying. The more weight a unit carries, the slower they move and attack. Each species has a specific Weight Capacity, measured in kilograms. Weight Capacity is something determined off the design of your organism, and represents their overall strength. All units of a species have the same Capacity. The closer you reach the capacity, the more you are slowed down. A unit cannot carry any more weight than their capacity.

TO's that are specifically equipped by units by means of graspers (which are usually the Tools) must be less than or equal to 25% of the unit's Weight Capacity. This means things like spears, swords, and shields. For example, a unit with a Weight Capacity of 25kg can wear a 15kg backpack, provided it does not make the total weight exceed the capacity. However, any Tool it equips can only weight up to 25% of 25kg, so 6.25kg. The weight a unit carries affects their movement and attack speed with the funtion:

1 - (W/C)/2 = m

Where W is weight carried, C is Weight Capacity, and m is the resulting modifier to the move and attack speed.

For example:

1 - (17/25)/2 = m

0.66 = m

In this case, movement and attack speed would only be at 66%.

While equipping the unit with weapons, the player will get a warning if the weight exceeds the capacity, and will also have a visual representation of the total weight compared to the weight capacity of the unit.

Armour

Once all the weapons have been equipped on a unit, the player can proceed to attach armour to the unit. The body of an organism will be identified and categorized into separate parts. Each limb will be one part, the head, if possible, will be identified as a part, and the remainder, aka the body, will be identified as a part. The player will attach armour individually to each body part. They can colour it and alter its shape and appearance, but not change its stats (unless they change the type). The total weight of the armour will be the surface area of the parts covered multiplied by the density of the material used. The tag of the compound used to make the armour determines what protection it gives against the different damage types.

"Polymer" gives added protection against Slash and Ballistic, but less against Blunt, Pierce, and Energy.

"Metal" gives added protection against Blunt, Pierce, and Energy,

(((Here I need some help. We need to come up with equations for how each compound tag group provides their respective armour properties. I also feel like I am short on compound tags for materials usually used for making armour. I just overall need a lot of help on determining how armour will be implemented in game.)))

The player will also be able to add on further FPs and TOs to their units, such as backpacks and explorer gear, which are not strictly combat oriented but can be helpful for units to have.

There will also be a list of organisms domesticated by your species. These can be dragged and attached to your organism, turning him into a mounted unit.

Vehicles

At the bottom of the screen on this tab, the player can also choose to replace the mannequin with a vehicle selected from the TO list. Here the player drags mannequins into the vehicle to fill any crew positions it requires. The player can also drag a domesticated animal onto the testing area and tether it to the vehicle, useful for making units like chariots. Once complete, they save it as a unit with any tags they wish.

In game, vehicle TOs cannot just be built in a building to be available for use in battle, or any other purpose. Vehicles must first be built in a factory or some other building, then shipped over to a barracks, and then recruited as a unit. Only then can they be used as a unit.

When complete, save the name of your unit, and it will be saved into your unit "bank" or "vault". Next time you build a building with the "Barracks" FP in it, you can recruit units you have designed at that building. You also can add any tags you want for the unit. This is for later in the Formation tab.

Formations

In the Formation tab, the player customizes their own formations for their units. The player will have a top-down view of the test area. They will be able to select unit tags, as they created in the previous tab, and then assign them a shape and colour. These coloured shaped will then be organized into a formation and saved by the player. A picture will be taken by the game of the top-down view of the formation, and will be converted into the icon for that formation for the in-game button it has on the GUI. Once in the game, the player can select a group of units and put them in any of the formations that they designed.

For example, say I created a Spearman in the Unit Tab and I tagged him as "Infantry" before saving. I also created some Swordsmen with the same tag, and some Archers with the tag "Skirmishers". Now, in the Formation Tab, I select the tag of "Infantry", and I choose for it a green circle. I place green circles into a square, and I save it as "Square". Now, whenever I am in game and I select some units, I can order them into a "Square" formation. The units will move into a shape as designed in the editor. As they move and attack, they will more or less stay in that shape. However, this would only work for units tagged as "Infantry". Any other units, such as my archers, would just not respond to the order.

Say I later made a formation in the Formation Tab, where I selected the "Unit" tag and gave it an orange square. Now, I have tagged all of my units with "Unit" when I saved them. I use the squares to make a wedge, and I save it as "Wedge". In game, I can select my units and order them into "Wedge" formation, and whatever units I have will respond, because every unit I saved was tagged with "Unit". This way, I can create universal formations that all units can respond to, or specific formations for specialized situations.

The player will start with some default universal formations, such as Box, Loose, Wedge, and Column.

Vehicles saved as units are treated the same as other units, and are dealt with by what tags you gave them. Vehicles that have been saved in the Tech Editor but not registered as a unit cannot be used in the Formation Tab, since they have not been tagged in the Unit Tab.

Squads

The simplest of the three tabs, but also the one the editor is named after, this tab is where the player creates and edits their squads. When reaching the later stages of the game, battles will involve more units, and the player might not want to deal with loads of individual units at a time. Instead, units can be built and commanded in groups when they are saved as squads. A barracks can recruit an individual unit, but it can also recruit a whole squad at once.

The player simply selects the units in the squad, and the number of each unit. Then, the squad is saved and given a name, such as "Infantry Brigade", "Tank Brigade" or whatever name the player wants. Squads can also be assigned tags, and this allows squads to be handled in the formation tab the same as units. A formation can consist of squads shaped into a wedge just as it can consist of individual soldiers. Once recruited, squads can only be selected as a whole.

There you go, the lengthy current concept on squads. If you managed to read through it, please post what you think, and see if you have any ideas for improvement, since I feel there are some areas that are poorly explained or lacking refinement.