Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

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Hoplite1963
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Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Hoplite1963 »

Hi Guys
I am working on a mod of Squad Battles First World War to cover the same time period but using different ground, time and unit scales. I would be looking to produce scenarios for it with a ground scale of 100 meters per hex, 30 minute per turn and with troops being fielded and platoon, half company and company size units.

By doubling the ground scale and trebling the time scale at the same time I was be aiming to be able to work on the basis that weapon ranges would be reduced to 40% while movement allowances would by increased by 20% stacking limits in men could be increased by 600% which I reckon should allow a large company of 250 men to take advantage of road movement.

My stumbling block however is the question of weapons lethality and how to reflect that firing would be taking place for two and a half times as long as on the original time scale. Should I increase “High” and “Low Loss Values”, reduce protection values (in my dedicated PDT file) or increase the Lethality values ? (in my data file) Or is a combination of all 3 needed here.

What to people think ?

Kind regards
Ian
Carlos
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Re: Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Carlos »

Interesting project.
If it comes to the choice of changing Low-High Loss values over Lethality, I would definitely try the former first and test the results before investing more time on the weapons.

But even before that, there's the density effect to keep in mind. Just by having that many men in a hex you should see many more casualties than normal, as all damage to a squad is scaled around a 10-men baseline, and this is a hardcoded value. I'm speculating here, but increasing the number of men per squad to 250+ might even require combat values to be lowered across the board instead of increased.
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Hoplite1963
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Re: Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Hoplite1963 »

Hi Xerxes77
Thanks for your input this is really helpful. Thinking of issues from the density perspective as the space in each hex will be 600% larger as well (thus suggesting something else should be done to offset the density modifier as well I can certainly see the case for doing something about the Low-High Loss values, and / or perhaps the protection values as well. Also, this would have the advantage of just having to modify the PDT fine and not the data file so I might get away just having to reduce the weapons ranges in that.

Kind regards
Ian
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Strela
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Re: Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Strela »

Ian,

I think you’re using the wrong engine.

Panzer Battles is designed for the scales you are talking about and would probably be a better fit.

We have found despite the title, it is quite a good infantry simulator.

David
Hoplite1963
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Re: Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Hoplite1963 »

Hi David
Thanks for your post. I appreciate your point about the Panzer Battles series having a much more suitable ground scale (250 or 125 meters per hex) for the sort of mod I want . However there a number of other factors that “Squad Battles First World War” has in its favour for use as a base game for my mod.

1. The game is already optimised for the Great War having many of the special factors and weapons (such as gas and barrages) built in.
2. Unlike Panzer Battles a map editor is already available.
3. There are a shedload of weapon values already calculated both to use in a slightly modified form and from which the values of other weapons not
in the game can also be extrapolated.

My main difficulty I think will be having to work with the way that the Squad Battles series currently treats cavalry and their horses, i.e. as a type of multiple vehicle. I would prefer their being treated like an individual piece of equipment much as bicycles are handled and with an alternate graphics file to handle mounted units in the way that is done for units wearing gas masks but I can live with my current alternative until and if the game is developed in that direction.

Kind regards
Ian
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Verdun1916
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Location: Hässleholm, Sweden

Re: Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Verdun1916 »

What an interesting project! I will be looking forwards to what might come of this!

Cheers!
Carlos
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Re: Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Carlos »

Hoplite1963 wrote: Sat Nov 12, 2022 7:10 am My main difficulty I think will be having to work with the way that the Squad Battles series currently treats cavalry and their horses, i.e. as a type of multiple vehicle. I would prefer their being treated like an individual piece of equipment much as bicycles are handled and with an alternate graphics file to handle mounted units in the way that is done for units wearing gas masks but I can live with my current alternative until and if the game is developed in that direction.
Yes, vehicles is a clear area where Panzer Battles is definitely the best choice. The handling of groups of vehicles in SqB is an ongoing discussion and there may or may not be tweaked in upcoming updates, but at the end of the day the engine is built around 1:1 representation of large vehicles.

I'm intrigued by your mention of bicycles being handled as equipment? I've only seen motorbikes and they're generally handled just like horses. I tend to agree that these personal transports would work best as mounted/unmounted states instead of via physical counters on the map.
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Hoplite1963
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Re: Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Hoplite1963 »

Here are a couple of early alpha screenshots the first in 2DLarge scale shows Imperial Russian Line Rifle infantry Line field artillery and mounted Line Dragoons. You will see that the selected artillery unit appears in the info box as , in a scenario this would represent a battery of 8 guns.
The second screenshot zoomed out shows the same units but over a larger area and also some German Line infantry units.

By having much smaller counters that only use the space available for what they are depicting in the “Info” and “Map” 2D files and only using the actual counter files in the game for counter outlines, I have got total control of the colour and design of what appears on the counters. To offset the smaller counters, I would (as I have done with the 2 screenshots here) recommend using the option in windows, under “Size & Layout” to increase the size of objects and text to 150% or 175% when playing the game.

Kind Regards
Ian
SB OTT 3DLarge1 175PLO.jpg
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SB OTT 4DLarge1 175PLO.jpg
Hoplite1963
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Re: Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Hoplite1963 »

Here is a link to part of the word document I am using to plot the creation of images for the "Info" and "Map" "units" files. This portion shows the early war Belgum metropolitan army.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xh1fvxo0 ... luc1wmm4se
Hoplite1963
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Re: Adjusting Lethality for a different ground and time scale

Post by Hoplite1963 »

I have done some further work on this project and decided to change the appearance of the on map counters and info box pictures. For the info box picture files I will be adding a head and torso graphic of the troops being represented on top of the NATO symbol graphic as shown below.
I am also reducing the amount of additional graphic images I put onto the 2D map counters to make the NATO unit symbol boxes stand out more.
For my main ground / time scale I have decided to go with 100 meters per hex and 30 minutes per turn as opposed to the 40 meters per hex and 10 minutes per turn employed in the 1914 PDT file for SB FWW that I am using as my starting point.

From a gaming perspective this means that whereas weapon ranges will be 40% (rounding fractions down) of those in the original game that movement rates will be 20% more (rounding up to the next number divisible by 6 so for example a infantry unit armed with the standard SMILE 303 rifle would be able to fire at targets it could see up to 4 hexes away (rather than 10) but would get 30 movement points which would translate into being able to move an extra hex per turn up from 4 to 5) in clear terrain, up from 4 to 6 along trails, from 6 to 7 on secondary roads and from 8 to 10 on primary roads.

As the volume of each hex will have increased by 625% (rounded down to 600% the stacking limit per hex will be up to 540 per hex or 270 to take advantage of road movement. With many armies kicking off the start of the Great War with infantry Companies around 250 strong this translates into being able to pack 2 full strength companies into a hex for attack or defence, or line up the 4 companies of a battalion 1 per road hex 1 behind the other to move up to 10 hexes along primary roads. Using a time scale of 30 minutes per turn means that the equinox there would be 24 daylight game turns, and proportionally more or less at other times of the year.

I have decided to leave weapons lethality where it is for the present as the large numbers of troops in a hex relative to the hard coadded overstocking trigger level of 10 should more than offset the fact that each turn is 3 times as long. Others have suggested that I might end up having to trim lethality values back a bit but we shall see.

Shown below are 2 screenshots using German Line infantry to showcase the info box pictures and the 100 and 50 2D unit counters. In the later case these can be compared with the approach I took first time around with the Russian Line Rifle infantry shown on the right.

Kind regards
Ian
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SS01 50.jpg
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SS01 100.jpg
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