Missile role

[LienRag]

Since 0ad is a historically-themed (if not historically realist) game, the way missile work as of now (being the main weapon) is really bad and harming the gameplay a lot.

What are the solutions ?

What is the role that we want for missiles and how to do it right ?

[Outis]

1 hour ago, LienRag said:

What is the role that we want for missiles and how to do it right ?

The historical reason for missiles not dominating is friendly-fire. One should not be able or willing to fire missile in a melee due to fear of hitting own units. Missiles should be for skirmishing and harassing.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Changing unit speeds and giving units more specialized roles. This is made quite difficult by citizen soldiers, and by unit availability by civ, but i believe it is possible. 

[LienRag]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Changing unit speeds and giving units more specialized roles. This is made quite difficult by citizen soldiers, and by unit availability by civ, but i believe it is possible. 

????

I don't understand what you mean ?

[LienRag]

2 hours ago, Outis said:

The historical reason for missiles not dominating is friendly-fire. One should not be able or willing to fire missile in a melee due to fear of hitting own units. Missiles should be for skirmishing and harassing.

I heartily agree with the last part, but note that using bows to shoot over one's own soldiers is AFAIK a historically attested practice.

So not something we should forbid.

And I mean, shooting over one's own melee soldiers was probably done to shoot on the soldiers engaging in melee with such melee soldiers...

[Outis]

3 hours ago, LienRag said:

shooting over one's own melee soldiers

I have no problem reg shooting over units. When i say melee, i dont mean in game jargon like any hand to hand combat. I mean when the hand to hand combat matures, there is no more clear battle lines, and units from the different sides are disorganized.

 

3 hours ago, LienRag said:

So not something we should forbid

We should definitely not forbid, but make it costly and a tactical decision: is it critical enough for me to destroy the target quickly so that i accept losses due to friendly fire.

Edited October 29, 2025 by Outis

[Perzival12]

The best solution, in my opinion, is to enable friendly fire for ALL missiles, just like real life. Then, if you want to have a squad of archers, you actually have to think: Is it worth the risk of my soldiers getting hit by arrows? Is it better to put my archers to the side, and have them shoot at reinforcements? Or should I train a whole bunch of guys that are resistant to pierce, and have my archers fire into the melee? These would make the game much more exciting, and also more realistic.

[LienRag]

Indeed, but we also would need better control of our troops.

Putting your archers to the side to shoot at reinforcements and then having them friendly firing at your troops because the AI decided it wanted to shoot at the melee would be very frustrating.

[LienRag]

On 29/10/2025 at 8:48 PM, Outis said:

I have no problem reg shooting over units. When i say melee, i dont mean in game jargon like any hand to hand combat. I mean when the hand to hand combat matures, there is no more clear battle lines, and units from the different sides are disorganized.

From what Brett Devereaux writes, this doesn't happen historically (except in very rare occasions); that's a modern misconception.

Anyway archers should in some situations be able to shoot over their melee comrades, probably not (or with the risk of friendly fire) on the first rank of enemy soldiers engaged in melee, but on the rear ranks. And of course also on the first rank while they charge and are not already engaged in melee.

 

Also if we want to have ancient battles and not napoleonian ones with swords and arrows, we probably should take kiting into account : yes, missiles can shoot quite far, but without any discernible impact on armored troops.

Only at close range (where an enemy charge can wreak havoc to them too) can they be actually effective. The more armored the enemy is, the closest the range of effectiveness.

That would make for very interesting tactical decisions, and make melee troops the kings of battles, as it was historically (while still allowing missile-heavy tactics like the Persians used, but only if done well, and prone to awful failures if done badly, as the Persians learned at Marathon and Plateia, or against the 10 000).

[Outis]

21 minutes ago, LienRag said:

this doesn't happen historically

This did not happen much with armies moving in formation like the phalanx, but in the game it does happen .

 

29 minutes ago, LienRag said:

Only at close range (where an enemy charge can wreak havoc to them too) can they be actually effective. The more armored the enemy is, the closest the range of effectiveness.

Completely agree.

 

30 minutes ago, LienRag said:

make melee troops the kings of battles, as it was historically (while still allowing missile-heavy tactics

I think this should be the goal

[zozio32]

If we want to work on that, on "fire decision" mecanism could be based on the density of friendly troop in a zone.   Archer/slinger would only fire at enemies if the density of friendly troop in a "kill zone" of the weapon if below a given threshold.    One could imagine 3 different leves of threshold for that that could be controlled by the player ("safe", "moderate", agressive") the same way that the "attack stance" is controled.

SO in term of computing, you don't make a computation per range unit, but per zone more or less.

Technical development could allow for improving accuracy (that's already implemented) and other parameters with this new mechanism in mind

[Thalatta]

As some have correctly stated, flight archery (shooting upwards) was not that common, the arrow loses too much energy from air friction. For the same reason, archers wouldn’t shoot at maximum range, but at around one third of it, which means shooting straight at the enemy from a close distance (also to greately increase accuracy). Thus, the reason for missiles historically not dominating is not friendly ”fire”, although that puts constraints and I agree it should be included. The main reason is that one runs out of missiles incredibly fast. An archer can shoot around 10 arrows per minute, and can carry up to around 70 arrows (a horse archer around half that). They are done fast but in over 7 minutes because the pace cannot be kept. They need to be resupplied, like the 10000 Parthian horse archers were at Carrhae by camels, which allowed them to shoot around 2 million arrows on the Romans. Imagine the volume all that would have taken.  It’s all about logistics. This is one of the main advantages firearms had when they appeared: lead balls are small and easy to transport (let alone easier to produce). Shooting was slower but more efficient, and required less training. Friendly fire was not a big concern.
 

Someone proposed somewhere for ranged units having limited ammo and going back to replenish. He was closer in pinpointing the issue with ranged units, although that is not how things were done in antiquity. A baggage train would follow the army, which could be resupplied from local resources (trading, plundering, living off the land) or, in case of long term campaigns, supply lines from one’s territory. Supply depots would store supplies. Earth 2150 implemented resupplying amazingly, a building would produce automated flying units to distribute munitions to whoever needed them. No micro. One just has to keep supply lines open. For 0 A.D., a clumsy Baggage Train unit could accompany the army to resupply what’s needed (arrows for now). I think Rise of Nations had one for attrition reduction bonus when outside one’s territory. I have ideas on how to make this even more realistic, using what the game already has, but don’t want to turn this into a “supplies” discussion, unless asked.

[Outis]

10 hours ago, Thalatta said:

As some have correctly stated, flight archery (shooting upwards) was not that common, the arrow loses too much energy from air friction. For the same reason, archers wouldn’t shoot at maximum range, but at around one third of it, which means shooting straight at the enemy from a close distance (also to greately increase accuracy). Thus, the reason for missiles historically not dominating is not friendly ”fire”, although that puts constraints and I agree it should be included. The main reason is that one runs out of missiles incredibly fast. An archer can shoot around 10 arrows per minute, and can carry up to around 70 arrows (a horse archer around half that). They are done fast but in over 7 minutes because the pace cannot be kept. They need to be resupplied, like the 10000 Parthian horse archers were at Carrhae by camels, which allowed them to shoot around 2 million arrows on the Romans. Imagine the volume all that would have taken.  It’s all about logistics. This is one of the main advantages firearms had when they appeared: lead balls are small and easy to transport (let alone easier to produce). Shooting was slower but more efficient, and required less training. Friendly fire was not a big concern.
 

Someone proposed somewhere for ranged units having limited ammo and going back to replenish. He was closer in pinpointing the issue with ranged units, although that is not how things were done in antiquity. A baggage train would follow the army, which could be resupplied from local resources (trading, plundering, living off the land) or, in case of long term campaigns, supply lines from one’s territory. Supply depots would store supplies. Earth 2150 implemented resupplying amazingly, a building would produce automated flying units to distribute munitions to whoever needed them. No micro. One just has to keep supply lines open. For 0 A.D., a clumsy Baggage Train unit could accompany the army to resupply what’s needed (arrows for now). I think Rise of Nations had one for attrition reduction bonus when outside one’s territory. I have ideas on how to make this even more realistic, using what the game already has, but don’t want to turn this into a “supplies” discussion, unless asked.

Grapejuice mod has the ammo concept

https://mod.io/g/0ad/m/grapejuice#description

 

[Arup]

whenever I see a discussion on how to better balance artillery,I always think of @Grapjas mod. the ammo concept just makes best sense!

[Thalatta]

6 hours ago, Outis said:

Grapejuice mod has the ammo concept

https://mod.io/g/0ad/m/grapejuice#description

 

I see, although it's similar to what someone else was saying regarding going back to base, which is not accurate.

More realistic would be for the Baggage Train to have a big supplies bar that would go down when recharging another unit's ammo bar. Raising the supplies bar could be done making the Baggage Train like a port: a dropsite for wood (to make arrows, but food and other resources could/should be considered, along with plunder mechanics) and a destination for Traders, with their other end being set at an own’s or allied Market or Supply Depot structure, which could have logistical techs and produce the Baggage Train unit (and also Traders). When a Trader supplies a Baggage Train, it should not raise the supply bar more the more distance is traveled (many possibilities could be considered), so a supply bag icon instead of a resource with a number could be used in this situation.

Up to here not much in the game has to be changed, and almost no micro would be needed. It makes it hard for the enemy just to go around defensive buildings, just like it was in reality, since they and their garrison would be the bane of supply lines. If the campaign is overseas and one doesn’t have territory there, the Traders would need to be transported manually by ship, and “back to work” has to be used after disembarking (just tested this with markets on separate islands), adding micro, but seems a fair balancing mechanic considering the more complex logistics of the situation. There could be alternative ways to replenish ammo rooted in reality: if shot upon, foot archers could slowly resupply considering taking arrows from the ground (unless shot with short arrows some civilisations would historically use, who in turn might have been able to reuse bolts). Horse archers wouldn’t be able to do this.

Attrition outside one’s territory could be a thing to involve all units in all this, although not with the HP bar but with some attrition bar that would only start having some effect when empty, so no problem with short raids, but that can’t turn into an extermination campaign, fixing one of the most annoying forms of early game snowballing. In the late game, snowballing is not much of a problem, the game has to end at some point. Regarding plundering (questionably called looting in 0 A.D.), without a Baggage Train armies should just resupply (not that they could carry much extra), and with it, many possibilities could be considered.

Edited 1 hour ago by Thalatta