Replacing PDCs

[alex_brunius]

No, they aren't.  There isn't a precise boundary for "tactical" nuclear weapons (which have gone out of favor recently), but a W76 definitely isn't one.  Try something more like 10-20 kt.  SLBMs are strategic weapons, plain and simple.  And you're not just going to use fireballs to kill things, as that's inefficient. 

Yes I know, but since there isn't a well defined boundary I used the good old tried "better prove a solid point picking examples favoring the opposing side rather then your own".

Using fireballs to kill things being extremly inefficient is exactly the point I was trying to prove 

[Bremen]

Maybe the discussion about nukes should also go elsewhere? It's not really pertinent to the ground forces revamp.

[swarm_sadist]

It quickly becomes a problem of math and economics...

Earth has a total surface land area of ~150 million km^2.

Submarine launched nukes are often considered the upper border of what would be a "tactical" nuke, so let's take one of the most common (W-76) in the US/UK arsenal. It has a fireball radius of 500 meters when detonating on the ground meaning the fireball covers an area of 0.79 km^2.
( Source: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ )

You would need to drop around 200 million such nukes to cover the entire land surface of the Earth and ensure you wipe out all hiding & dug in spread out infantry.

Even if you use an airburst and the larger air blast radius ( resulting in universal injuries and widespread fatalities for exposed & unprotected, but most dug in infantry probably survives ) we get 33.5km^2 area covered and around 5 million warheads needed to cover the surface of the earth.


See the problem?

Just because the explosion doesn't kill or destroy the physical unit, it can still disrupt the unit to the point that it can no longer fight or move effectively.

Nukes are very good at suppressing battalions of infantry at a time.

[alex_brunius]

Just because the explosion doesn't kill or destroy the physical unit, it can still disrupt the unit to the point that it can no longer fight or move effectively.

Nukes are very good at suppressing battalions of infantry at a time.

Sure, but that's not what was claimed or being discussed though. The post I was replying to was if nukes could easily annihilate ground forces ( and the feasibility of doing so ):

"... whatever formation existed there does so no longer."


I also think the main role of orbital weapons or nukes should be in support of ground offensives, not as weapons that can effortlessly annihilate all ground forces.

[chrislocke2000]

Maybe the mechanics of orbital bombardment v ground support should just be split with orbital bombardment targeting infrastructure and population whilst troop support is done through non wmd options. After all the real benefit of orbital based weapons on mass distraction is that you can ignore ground forces and just force a government to surrender and in turn stand down their armies without even firing a shot of the diplomacy mechanics allow for it.

[83athom]

Maybe the discussion about nukes should also go elsewhere? It's not really pertinent to the ground forces revamp.

On the contrary. The effectiveness of ground forces would actually have a great deal of connections to how good space-borne 'nuclear' weaponry can deal with them.

[snapto]

Apologies if this has already been covered.   I usually build PDC's at new colonies as a quick and easy way to keep unrest under control.   If I remember correctly, ground troops do  not have a Population Protection Value so they can only reduce, not prevent unrest.  If PDC's go away, will ground forces get some sort of PPV?

[alex_brunius]

Apologies if this has already been covered.   I usually build PDC's at new colonies as a quick and easy way to keep unrest under control.   If I remember correctly, ground troops do  not have a Population Protection Value so they can only reduce, not prevent unrest.  If PDC's go away, will ground forces get some sort of PPV?

Since PPV seems to represent the ability to defend against enemy spaceships it would make sense to give ground forces that can fire at orbiting spaceships the same PPV that identical firepower from other sources ( like PDC or a space station ) would have.

[Bremen]

Ground forces also suppress unrest, so even if they don't provide PPV they'd still keep the colony morale from going down. But in the interest of fewer messages in the log it would probably make sense if they also provided PPV, yeah.

[Father Tim]

Gound forces are better at maintaining morale than PDCs, so I wouldn't want to see them get PPV as well.  And I don't get message spam while they do it, either.  I'm not sure if that's because I somehow turned those messages off, or if those messages are not generated when unrest ends up at zero after reduction by ground forces effects.

[Hazard]

We are scrapping PDCs and units with GtO capability are the only option for ground side, non-naval PPV. They are also terrible for garrison duties, because they're either Static units or Super Heavies. Static units will make pretty terrible unrest suppression units because, well, they're basically static in a military base, and Super Heavy Vehicles will have entirely too few units per unit to be cost effective.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Finally started to code this up after a week or two without being able to spend time on Aurora.

For C# Aurora, a ground 'unit' will be an individual soldier or vehicle, while a group of units will be a 'formation', although you will be able to name formations as companies, battalions, etc..

There will be no restrictions on formation sizes, so you can create anything you want, but there will limitations on the command ability of headquarters based on total formation size.

In terms of 'replacements', I will allow units to move between formations, so you could combine two formations with casualties or use one formation as a source of replacement units for other formations.

While you will build formations according to a template, once they are built each one will be treated as unique formation. So you could have two 'infantry battalions' with different TOE as a result of casualties, replacements or reinforcements.

There are no restriction on units within a formation so you could have a template for an 'Combined battalion' that includes some infantry units, several mortars, a couple of machine gun units, several anti-air units and a few light tanks. Once built, you could add a couple of heavy tanks from a a different formation.

Each individual unit within a formation will fortify separately, so there is no problem fortifying a formation that includes infantry, static and vehicles.

In terms of combat mechanics, units will fire at units, using the chance to hit, armour penetration and damage mechanics previously described. The combat round will run once per hour if no one is attacking, once every ten minutes if one side is attacking and every five minutes if both sides are attacking. I haven't decided yet how to handle aircraft, but I will probably have them attack less frequently but with higher impact.

To simplify things, I will use a low level wealth charge to maintain units outside of combat. Supply Points (same as used by ships) will be used up during combat rounds, so the more intense the combat (as per previous paragraph), the faster the rate that supplies will be consumed. This means you do have to consider the logistics when launching and maintaining an assault, but there is no overhead in micromanagement terms when units are idle.

I haven't decided yet how to handle the actual consumption of supplies but it will likely be either direct from a planetary stockpile, or by using up units with a 'logistics' component.

Supplies will be used during an occupation where the planet is not yet pacified and I could also add some form of training where supplies are used.

In terms of occupation strength / garrison, I will probably base it on the number of individual units in a formation, rather than their capability. So a pure light infantry formation will be much more effective as a garrison force than a considerably more expensive formation of heavy tanks.

[alex_brunius]

For C# Aurora, a ground 'unit' will be an individual soldier or vehicle, while a group of units will be a 'formation', although you will be able to name formations as companies, battalions, etc..

...

Each individual unit within a formation will fortify separately, so there is no problem fortifying a formation that includes infantry, static and vehicles.

In terms of combat mechanics, units will fire at units, using the chance to hit...

Is it really wise to use individual soldiers from a performance & database size perspective?

If numbers are similar to current we could be looking at upwards to 50000 soldiers if not more per side that all need to have individual fortification, individual hit chance / fire rolls / targeting and so on.

I don't think you would lose out much by reducing the scale to squads of 10 soldiers or companies of 100 soldiers which are modeled as the smallest infantry "unit", at least for purposes of calculation ( even if you can track individual casualties in more detail if you want ).


Something else which isn't totally clear is how vehicle crew will be handled ( if at all ).

[Hazard]

Finally started to code this up after a week or two without being able to spend time on Aurora.

For C# Aurora, a ground 'unit' will be an individual soldier or vehicle, while a group of units will be a 'formation', although you will be able to name formations as companies, battalions, etc..

I'll echo alex_brunius in my concerns on performance.

There will be no restrictions on formation sizes, so you can create anything you want, but there will limitations on the command ability of headquarters based on total formation size.

Limited on number of units or total Size of the units in the formation? I'm deliberately capitalizing Size there for the system specific meaning of a unit having a Size related to its unit type and weapons load out.

In terms of 'replacements', I will allow units to move between formations, so you could combine two formations with casualties or use one formation as a source of replacement units for other formations.

Please consider letting GFTFs provide replacements as well through training, not unlike repairs for ships. Also, how specific is the replacement requirement? Same unit, same unit type, or an abstract 'replacement' statistic?

There are no restriction on units within a formation so you could have a template for an 'Combined battalion' that includes some infantry units, several mortars, a couple of machine gun units, several anti-air units and a few light tanks. Once built, you could add a couple of heavy tanks from a a different formation.

This level of flexibility... Please give us the ability to force formations on a planet into specific templates in the midst of play, much like with missile loadouts.

Each individual unit within a formation will fortify separately, so there is no problem fortifying a formation that includes infantry, static and vehicles.

Not that you'd want to put static units with any others except as guards, in which case infantry will do fine, generally speaking. I'll repeat my worries about performance issues though.

In terms of combat mechanics, units will fire at units, using the chance to hit, armour penetration and damage mechanics previously described. The combat round will run once per hour if no one is attacking, once every ten minutes if one side is attacking and every five minutes if both sides are attacking. I haven't decided yet how to handle aircraft, but I will probably have them attack less frequently but with higher impact.

You could put them permanently on the once per hour combat pace, but with lower supply consumption, chance to hit and chance of being hit when not attacking.

To simplify things, I will use a low level wealth charge to maintain units outside of combat. Supply Points (same as used by ships) will be used up during combat rounds, so the more intense the combat (as per previous paragraph), the faster the rate that supplies will be consumed. This means you do have to consider the logistics when launching and maintaining an assault, but there is no overhead in micromanagement terms when units are idle.

I haven't decided yet how to handle the actual consumption of supplies but it will likely be either direct from a planetary stockpile, or by using up units with a 'logistics' component.

If you use units with a logistics component, let them reclaim readiness/strength by consuming supplies from a planetary stockpile. Likewise consider readiness as a potential combat modifier, exemplifying the general supply level of a formation, and that different unit types might have different thresholds when it comes to low readiness tolerance.

Supplies will be used during an occupation where the planet is not yet pacified and I could also add some form of training where supplies are used.

Oh please yes, this allows an experience mechanic for ground forces.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Is it really wise to use individual soldiers from a performance & database size perspective?

If numbers are similar to current we could be looking at upwards to 50000 soldiers if not more per side that all need to have individual fortification, individual hit chance / fire rolls / targeting and so on.

I don't think you would lose out much by reducing the scale to squads of 10 soldiers or companies of 100 soldiers which are modeled as the smallest infantry "unit", at least for purposes of calculation ( even if you can track individual casualties in more detail if you want ).


Something else which isn't totally clear is how vehicle crew will be handled ( if at all ).

In terms of records, 1000 soldiers of the same type (unit class) will be handled as a single record for storage, but will fire 1000x. I probably should have been clearer that fortifying will be same for all units of the same unit class in the same formation. Firing 1000 shots should be a tiny fraction of a second but I will soon know when I check performance. If it turns out to be a problem, I will adjust.

There will be no vehicle 'crew'. A vehicle will be a single integrated unit (as will any static weapons)..