An idea for a new class of units - medical unit types

[John Given]

I'm loving all the dialogue - keep the comments coming guys.

Ok, some great comments were posted.

Posted by K K Rossokolski - Today 06:25 AM
"1. that medics should only be able morale-boost / heal infantry type units only? Just throwing that out there."

I for one am not aware of any civilised military force that instructs the medical branch to heal only one branch of the service.

Hmm. Now that you mention it, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. When I wrote that, I was thinking in terms of what was possible within the game engine (which could be corrected by 'attaching' a medical unit to the highest echelon HQ), and also the idea of foot medic recovering the disrupted status of say, a king tiger platoon, which struck me as not very realistic.

But a good point nonetheless - medics don't discriminate with regard to who they heal (hippocratic oath and all).

Posted by Herr Straßen Läufer - Today 07:29 AM Your ambulance/medic was just another idea in the bucket of other ideas (from other players) that have been put into the game.
I've seen it in the past. "Hey, I got a coooool idear here to help make the game more realistic/better/easier/harder/bigger/smaller/whatever that got dumped into the game without regard to scale or impact.

Ed, this very thread IS the proverbial "regard to scale and impact." You're welcome. However, I don't want you to think I'm not taking into account your rejection to this idea. It's weighing on me. KKR's comments as well.

Posted by Herr Straßen Läufer - Today 07:29 AM it does not dispense the notion that they are not going to be good for the game.

And how do you know this exactly, Ed?

Posted by Herr Straßen Läufer - Today 07:29 I just do not want or need medics to be added to the game.

That pretty much sums it up for you then - that's cool - you certainly have the right to your own opinion. However, this discussion is not about what *you* want Ed, it's about whether having medical units in the game is a positive or a negative for our hobby, and why.

Posted by Herr Straßen Läufer - Today 07:29 One poster already changed the parameters of you medic's effect upon the game. He wants strength points added to units that have them. I guess if they throw on a bandage and give a shot of morphine they can get guys back to fighting ... in six minutes?

Not to worry - this is outside the ability / parameters of the game engine. Basically, it's impossible to implement / program into the game.

Posted by PawelM - Today 08:47 AM Then the queation is how a bout capturing cowardly and poor leaders w ith negative morale impact? I am sure nobody would stack them with their units if they had negative command coefficient :)

Pawel, I think you may be confused about my earlier mention of negative point value of the medical units. The purpose of it was only to discourage enemy players from firing on them, but low enough (negative) point value so that IF the medic was destroyed anyway (such as during an assault that contained regular infantry units) the attacker would not be unfairly penalized. I'm envisioning a point value of a basic medic as about -2 per sp (and no more than 2 strength points max.).

Actually, I'm not even sure if a negative morale modifier is even possible within the confines of the game engine.

Posted by PawelM - Today 08:47 AM As for healing- weird idea given the game scale. What happens the with the poits? If I kill 1sp of an units and get points for it, then what happens to my points after they have been healed? Do I keep the points or the healing process reverts it? If I keep the points and the kill the same unit again after healing I can get doubole triple point for repeatedly killing the units?

if the people can be healed, then how about disbled tanks? Surely the tracks can be fixed healed and the tank can come back to action. You can apply this to any vehicle..

Once again, all of this is completely outside the capability of the game engine to emulate. It's never going to happen...because it can't be programmed into the game to begin with.

And I took careful note of the rest of your post on your position regarding this (and thanks for the comments). Too long to quote it all though. So far, you, Ed, and KKR are the main detractors.

Posted by Kool Kat - Today 09:50 AM As I mentioned in an earlier post, the morale function is already performed by the CS commander units. Why introduce a "lesser officer" unit that only boosts morale?

I keep getting you mixed up with battle kat.

Good post, but the quote above pretty much sums up your whole post - what's the point of this, when we already have officers? In other words, it seems like a redundant unit. And to a point, I agree - there is a 'redundancy factor' here in my proposal.

Take the German side in East Front (JTCS). I ask you - how many different types of (soft) transport units do you think they have? What about different types of trucks only? I never counted - but it's a lot. Pure trucks alone, you're looking at maybe half a dozen different models. And you know what? They all....do the exact same thing. Same victory point value, different graphic. A few might have slightly better (or worse) movement rates, but not by much.

Why is that important? Well for one, variety for the sake of variety is really cool. I like that there is a realism factor based only on the fact that different models were present in real life, even if for game victory purposes, it doesn't add up to a hill of beans. Someone, somewhere, said "hey, i could add a lot of different types of trucks, just because the different graphics would be neat - maybe a little historical accuracy on the different unit names would add a little realism." And all was good. Not one time, has anyone ever complained in this forum that the variety of axis trucks in the game was a problem. (Try to imagine a thread titled: "Why does the axis get / need 6 different types of trucks!") And why would they?

My point is, there's a LOT of 'redundancy' of units already built into the game. Not only does it not damage our game, not cause confusion or other problems, not cause people to complain in the forums, it adds variety and makes the game more FUN to play, AND, it hasn't stopped us from adding a ton of new features to our game, which is awesome.

Sorry if this was long winded but I've been awake for 36 hours straight, ugh.