I am cross-posting from the
6-48c thread, just to replicate the salient discussion points for voters' consideration here:
Here are what I believe to be the contentious issues potential sponsors/voters should be focused on with this proposal [
6-48c]:
- Underlying assumption with this proposal is that the current long-standing promo structure for the recon line is pretty good, that a complete re-design is NOT needed.
- Most common complaint about recon, that they move as fast or faster in bad terrain than mounted in good terrain, is 100% fixed.
- Some say ignore terrain cost MUST remain on recon, as its their key, defining characteristic. Others say its not ignore cost necessarily, but just their general mobility in rough terrain, their easy access to ignore ZoC, and their collection of XP from exploration that defines them as a unique unit line. This proposal strongly favors the latter position.
- freeing up 'ignore terrain cost' makes room for a return of zeppelins, and/or expansion of helicopter lines whether via modmod or future proposal
- 'ignore terrain cost' affects movement in water too, should VP or modmodders ever attempt to add water features -- its a very flat and broad effect
- while really a non-core feature, imported from other proposal, the ice crossing promo is nonetheless included in OP, and this requires a CustomModOption to be enabled that has long been disabled.
Recon gameplay has long been a modmod focus of mine; I've posted some rather unconventional implementations on the forums here at times, or some very lua-reliant adjustments to the game -- however my take here does not fit this experimental character: Several months ago, I became tired of hearing the same complaint that recon in forest is as fast/faster than mounted in open, and altered my approach to recon modding to focus on this singular issue, with as few other database-only changes as possible. If you were to search back several years, you'd find me arguing against this concern, that its fine within VP's abstraction to have these different speeds of movement, that there is even thematic argument supporting such (its easier to forage in a forest and keep moving vs crossing open plain on foot, etc.). In this sense, I like pretty much all the proposals here.
TLDR:
If you want a relatively small change to recon promo structure, while fixing the most common complaint about recon, vote for
6-48c. Give it a test-drive before voting if you want; there's a game-ready version of this proposal (VP 4.2.x+), attached as modmod.
On the other hand, if you think recon actually needs bigger changes in addition to the common movement complaint fix, or even that this movement disparity is not an issue, the other choices this round suit such viewpoints much better; all appear to have some interesting gameplay value to them.