The State of Infantry

[antillies]

I've been pleasantly surprised with this mod and it seems like a lot of hard work into it.  It's certainly a quality project and space combat is now so much improved it's made my head spin.  My biggest complaint thus far, besides the non-appearance of the planetary base maps, is what I can only describe as the seeming lack of infantry durability.  

In vanilla, infantry more or less formed the backbone of rebellion forces, particularly in the early tech levels, and generally (and this includes Stormtroopers too) was good at "holding the line."  From what I've experienced so far in TR, infantry has had its holding ability pretty much destroyed and will crumble not only against armor but also infantry and even indigenous forces.  I feel like this was done in an attempt to make infantry mechanics more "realistic," where a shootout between two sides would likely result in both sides losing combat strength extremely quickly.  (I think particularly of how quickly soldiers perished versus AT-ATs in Ep. V.)  While I can respect this attempt at realism, I have to say, in terms of game mechanics, it really makes infantry pointless.  NR anti-vehicle troops can basically fire one salvo before being destroyed and this essentially voids their operational role.  This is not to say that infantry should perform well versus armor (particularly as you climb the class tree from light to medium to heavy; and where artillery, as in vanilla, is the most effective) but because EaW in and of itself is not wholly realistic, there needs to be compensation for that by allowing infantry to survive longer, thus accounting for variables such as how infantry units are not truly representative of their actual sizes and whether the infantry is in cover or entrenched, among others.

I would, at least, argue for this as I really think it takes a lot of the tactical versatility away in ground battles by robbing infantry of its durability.  I'd be interested to your guys' thoughts on this though.

[Lord Xizer]

Hm, I feel the Infantry still serve vital purposes and are more than capable of holding and fortifying the line(I.E. Bunkers, Turrets and capture points.)

[Corey]

Nobody has yet to convince either Enceladus or myself that any tactic is actually more effective than infantry spam.

[Eclipse]

Infantry alone and with no cover is useless but in a defensive and support role they can make you win a battle. Depending how you use'em it's the result you get

[antillies]

Since my qualitative argument appears to be unpersuasive, I decided to go grab some numbers and see how infantry in TR and vanilla EaW compare.

My method, should you wish to replicate it, was to use FRAPS to record engagements of single unit on single unit combat and then bring that footage into a non-linear editor to glean precise timing.  All times are reported in seconds and * indicates which side opened fire first.  When using FRAPS on my comp there was a slight increase of lag but lag was constant during all recordings so I eliminated it as a contributing factor for time difference.

+Thrawn's Revenge+
NR Infantry* vs. Stormtrooper Infantry: 4.733
NR Infantry vs. Stormtrooper Infantry*: 4.267
AT-ST* vs. NR Infantry: 2.90

+Vanilla EaW+
Rebel Infantry vs. Stormtrooper Infantry*: 11.40+ (Rebel infantry disengaged after losing 1 man and ST unit suffered 3 losses)
Rebel Infantry vs. Stormtrooper  Infantry*: 46.233 (ST unit suffered total of 5 losses)
AT-ST vs. Rebel Infantry*: 16.433 (Rebel infantry was joined by 2 anti-vehicle units and a civilian unit [fire was constant on the initial infantry unit however]; Rebel infantry suffered 0 losses and the AT-ST was destroyed)
5 AT-STs* vs. Rebel Infantry: 29.833+ (Rebel infantry suffered 0 loses and battle was on-going after recording limit reached)

Even a brief look at the above numbers seems to show clearly that infantry offensive capability versus other infantry in TR is vastly improved while their defensive rating has been diminished substantially (in some instances almost 10x).  Fire rate of all units has been increased, which in combination with lowered infantry defensive ability results in what I perceived as a loss of their holding ability.  This also contributes to the far greater superiority of light/medium armor units versus infantry (citing the last case in TR and EaW; 2.90 vs. 29.833+).

Nobody has yet to convince either Enceladus or myself that any tactic is actually more effective than infantry spam.

I do not understand this then because infantry simply cannot stand up to a few armored units, let alone a concentrated force of armor.  Artillery remains effective as always and I cannot see how infantry would be effective when a player has even a single artillery unit defending a location.