What can I say, I'm a sucker for rail guns. I am shocked how well scaled it is for the storm surge. I also raised the "head" to be able to see over a roof I'm gonna print for the crew compartment.
This one is a doozy, its has been stewing in my head for a little while I needed to vent it.
Gameplay Summary:
The player is a general in the newly formed Coalition military in direct command of a division of troops, given autonomy over their operation and given the authority to manage local research and industry in order to create a highly advanced force capable of striking the alien invaders where it hurts. At the strategic layer the player manages their division make up via military procurement, research priorities and local production lines with an in depth unit designer, as well as their force disposition across the globe which has been divided into roughly 350km (125000^2km) squares (cut France into quarters). Each of these squares represents a “Territory” each with their own biome and infrastructure level: Military, Science, Manufacturing, Civilian. The player must use their division to engage in tactical battles on 20km^2 maps where Coalition forces are already engaged with the Aliens. Successfully extracting alien materials from these battles allows the player to research more advanced technologies to build and outfit their division with. The players primary strategic aim is to clear the aliens off of Earth which start the game controlling 25% of the planet, this percentage is the primary win/loss condition with total human capitulation if the aliens take too much ground.
Mechanics:
Tactical battles:
Real time control of 50ish units engaging in semi-realistic combined arms combat with features like line of sight, radar toggling, occupiable buildings, different types of missiles seekers, vehicle critical damage, ect. maps contain a mixture of natural and urban terrain depending on the infrastructure scores of the Territory the battle takes place in. Dynamic map objectives force the player to make decisions like protecting a factory or charging at an opportune target to salvage. Scavenging alien equipment is a manual activity requiring the player to use specialised equipment like armoured recovery vehicles to take and extract, making crash sights and wreckage valuable objectives. Player units take tactically permanent damage potentially requiring towing in order to recover. The player is not expected to "clear" maps but rather do objectives and then retreat.
Strategic Layer:
The player must help the Coalition manage a front line. This is a line where the abstracted battles between the Coalition and alien forces are constantly happening. The player can influence these abstracted battles primarily by engaging in tactical battles at requested locations or behind alien lines destroying their infrastructure, secondarily they can provide passive buffs by basing their planes nearby a front line and by placing their forces directly on the front line.
The player must manage a logistical capacity (both ground and air) which acts as the primary limit on force sizes (a full division on 20km^2 would be unfeasible), and governs how fast the player can react at the strategic level.
The player operates from a movable HQ(they move to a new base), the HQ inherits most of its research and manufacturing capacity from the Territory it is in. The player can influence the global research priorities by spending their capacity on preferred technologies, which would be a choice of several simultaneous global researches. Each Territory rolls dice equal to its Science capacity with difficulty determined by relative technology tier. The player can commit resources to guarantee a successful research roll but only with the capacity they control. Once a technology is finished the Coalition votes on a new one, the player can influence this vote by spending up to the cost of the technology at which point it becomes guaranteed. Manufacturing is done by spending manufacturing capacity on work orders, the more capacity spent on a work order the faster it gets produced, work orders are things like converting the main gun on tanks to new alien tech, building laser rifles, building additional infrastructure in a region. Territories will natively commit their industry to “the war effort” which replenishes the strength of the front line.
Procurement is done passively, as a part of the actual military the player gets resupplied with fresh vehicles and troops periodically. These however are the default equipment and don't scale (at least as quickly) as the player does. This means that if the player loses specialty equipment it is gone forever and must be rebuilt and refitted. The default equipment the player receives is based on the decisions they make at the start of the game about their character, nation of service and type of division. This roster of replacement units can be modified at any time via a budget system, started with armoured but want more infantry? Swap out some tanks for transports and more squads.
Units are very customisable, with the unit builder the player can outfit any size of squad with a wide array of weapons and equipment; and can customise all of their vehicles with fancy new weapons, equipment and add-on packages.
The Coalition is a shaky alliance of the nations/regions of Earth, each one is providing support for the Coalition but if they feel the Coalition isn’t protecting them in return then they will pull their support. This means that they have taken the defence of their country/region into their own hands. The consequences for losing a nation mean the front line gets weakened, the player can't use any of their Territories, their Territories no longer provide research/manufacturing globally, depending on how much of their nation is under control of the aliens they might simply surrender. The player can help member nations by doing requested missions from that nation which could be tactical or strategic. The Coalition will always roll these missions if the player ignores them but not with a high chance.
Story:
At some point in 2000s-2010s an alien colony ship crashes on earth. Whether it came to Earth on purpose is unknown but likely, the aliens within wake up to find humans crawling all over this world and decide to shoot first. Perhaps they blame the humans for the crash? Nobody knows as they have never communicated. The initial human response was swiftly brushed aside by the aliens, but battle after battle it was becoming evident that the aliens are using improvised weapons. The machines are bulky and poorly armoured, the weapons powerful but unoptimised and the newly formed Coalition was able to put a halt to the alien advance. Satellite images showed the aliens building things in their territory and a raid was put together. The player character commands the raid (tactical tutorial) which while successfully acquiring several key pieces of alien tech needed to kickstart research, but also bore the brunt of the new alien wave of combat machines. The player character gets promoted to General and is given control of a newly formed division, and authority over local civilian infrastructure in order to find a way to beat back the aliens and save humanity.
This is an even more wordy brain soup document with more depth https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rVnswmIpt6prAdVUYN1uTRnmDjbVWQhj4x_VoSXnhm0/edit?usp=sharing