Today I present to you the concept for a new squad that will be AI controlled but commanded by the player.
"Armor Infantry Support Squad" (Insert Better Name here, no idea how it should really be called)
The Squad will be 6 or 7 troops strong and it will accompany your Tanker Squad into battle. It will be AI controlled but the player will be able to command them. (Meaning you can give the entire squad orders, but you will not be able to select and play as the individual soldiers)
They are AI so they will perform as well as any AI teammate you have when you find yourself in a match that lacks a few real players, only you will be able to tell these AI what to do.
How The Squad Will Join You
This squad should be able to mount your tank and dismount on command. If the tank being used is too small to realistically have the full squad ride on top of it then some or all of the squad can simply follow you on foot. They will spawn with your Tanker Squad.
3 Main Functions of the "Armor Infantry Support Squad"
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To provide basic protection against enemy infantry by using small arms. (Bolt Actions, SMG’s, Semi-Autos, LMG’s, Etc.)
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The ability to be commanded to build a rally point for your team. (The distance the “Armor Infantry Support Squad” can travel away from your Tanker Squad before running back to you will be at least the same as AI in other squads, though this could be adjusted)
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The ability to be commanded to go and help capture/defend the objective. (As long as your Tanker Squad is within a certain distance of the objective, if you are too far away they will run back to you before they can reach the objective)
A potential 4th function would be having the ability to be commanded to repair/extinguish your tank. (A limited number of times)
Functions like the ability to have a rally point built or the ability to capture/defend objectives will give Tanker Squads more ways to contribute to the team as well as more options for gaining XP. You can now directly contribute to capturing/defending the objective without needing to temporarily abandon your perfectly fine undamaged tank.
In the event that your entire Tanker Squad dies but members of the “Armor Infantry Support Squad” are still alive you will lose control of the squad and it will move towards, fight, and die on the objective.
If you abandon your Tank this squad could either continue to be allowed to accompany you while you are on foot, or the squad could simply leave you and move towards the objective. (I will leave this up to people who can better determine if its OP to be able to hop out of a Tank with a large crew and then take extra additional AI with them on foot even if the AI can not be selected & controlled by the Player, only being able to be told to move to a certain spot or build a rally).
I have no opinion as to whether or not the entire squad should have rally building abilities, or just a select number of the troops in it. (Losing the ability to build a rally if those specific AI troops are dead)
They should only be able to build rally points, no other engineer structures. (Unless structures specifically for protecting tanks are added to the game, though the AI as it is currently may struggle building them properly)
Uniforms + Weapon Loadout
Personally, to make things as simple as possible, I think the “Armour Infantry Support Squad” should have a predetermined weapon loadout that changes based on the Battle Rating of the match. The squads uniforms should change automatically to fit whichever map you find yourself roaming. (Alternatively, players could have control over these aspects though I don’t consider it necesarry since the squad is AI)
To make things even more simple this squad could have a single weapon loadout that is universal across all BR’s. I don’t think an AI soldier needs an MG 15 just because they are in BR 5, I don’t think an AI soldier having an MG 34 will break BR 1. Others may disagree with this however. (The squad can be programmed to not drop weapons upon death if needed)
A German Universal Weapon Loadout for Any BR could look something like (Assuming the squad capacity is 7 troops strong) :
Troop 1 - MP 40
Troop 2 - MG 34
Troop 3 - G41
Troop 4 - Kar 98K
Troop 5 - Kar 98K
Troop 6 - Kar 98K
Troop 7 - Kar 98K
Or Even Simpler and Low BR Friendly :
Troop 1 - MP 40
Troop 2 - Kar 98K
Troop 3 - Kar 98K
Troop 4 - Kar 98K
Troop 5 - Kar 98K
Troop 6 - Kar 98K
Troop 7 - Kar 98K
A Few Potential Side Benefits of the Squad
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The addition of the “Armor Infantry Support Squad” could potentially reduce some of the grey zone camping. You will not be able to command the squad to capture/defend the objective if you are too far away from it. If you are camping the back of the map then you will not be close enough to the objective to have the squad go and build a rallypoint that your team will actually find useful. The player may also have more confidence to push closer to the point if they know they have an AI squad that can maybe accurately kill a sneaky det packer every now and then.
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PVE is a very big part of the gameplay in Enlisted and the addition of this AI squad adds more bots for players to kill.
This is just a basic idea so anything is up for change.
Comment whatever you think below. This is probably the only post I will ever make about this idea, so feel free to take it, tweak it, and make your own topics/posts about it if you so desire.
Or roast it if you think its a bad idea.
(Apologies for any typos or mistakes)
