Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => Development Discussions => Topic started by: DEEPenergy on September 18, 2018, 10:20:43 PM
-
After reading the rules and all the changes for ground units, I was wondering how you all are planning to organize your armies? It looks like defensive and offensive armies both have their merits.
-
I've done some theorycrafting, and I suspect the main difference with offense and defense will be hit modifier vs fortification level. You can get either one or the other, but not both, and fortification level is clearly much better on the defensive since you'll already have built it up (and possibly have it increased further by construction factories or units), whereas on the offensive hit modifier is better since you don't need to build it up and it works even while assigned to front line attack.
This gives pretty strong roles to two unit types; static has high fortification but no hit modifier at all, so is strong on the defense but horrible on the attack, while light vehicles have a very low hit modifier but not great fortification so are relatively well suited to the offensive. The rest of the units occupy something of a middle ground, with medium vehicles perhaps slightly weighted towards attack and infantry slightly weighted towards defense.
Compounding that, though, is that weapons are far more effective against their intended target. If I know your defenses are nothing but infantry, then I can give my attacking units nothing but anti-infantry weapons. Same for knowing attackers are all light vehicles, etc. Which means that if I attack a planet with a bunch of light infantry weapons and it's defended by heavy tanks I'll probably get slaughtered, even though heavy tanks may not normally be a "good" defense unit.
One thing I did realize from the latest blog is that mixing units with different hit modifiers and fortification levels can be tricky. There may be times when you want your battalion of infantry to charge the enemy, but if so you probably don't want those infantry to have integrated anti-tank static units. So it probably makes sense to have your infantry and your static, or your light vehicles and your heavy vehicles, in different formations.
-
Does anyone have the link with the screenshots of the component stats? I can't seem to find them again, would be useful for the theorycrafting.
-
There's a good collection of them on the first page of the Real World Ground Templates thread (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10116.0) (keep scrolling down).
-
Under the old system, I used Assault Infantry (10/5) and Garrision units (0/10) exclusively -- until Marine Companies came along, and then I put at least one of them on each of my ships, but not in my regular ground forces. (Plus Replacement and HQ units, of course.)
My plan is to be inspired by the British Army (circa 1850-1916), and have each 'Regiment' feature one 'Battalion' of crack, front-line troops, a second 'Battalion' of quite good, almost-front-line troops, a third 'Territorial' battalion, a fourth 'training' battalion, a fifth 'reserve' battalion, and a sixth. . . 'Volkssturm' for lack of a better term. . . battalion.
More important formations might end up with a seventh, eighth, ninth, and even tenth 'battalions'. The implied hierarchy of 'lower battalion number equals better troops' will be kept, so I imagine my Imperial Guard-equivalent will have two crack battalions, and two almost-as-good ones.
Each 'Regiment' will be mainly a single troop type, so infantry, cavalry and artillery Regiments. Like the Honourable Artillery Company, which will probably mount as many guns as a Soviet-era Artillery Division. I'm less concerned with matching modern military unit size conceptions than I am with flavour.
-
As far as I understand the new system seem to make mixed formations quite powerful.
I think that you will want to build your formations for what basic task you expect them to perform. You probably will want to have some formation that are good all-round at a decent cost. You will want to have good garrison formations for defending installations at a cheap cost. You then want high powered formations that are meant to be used as the spearhead of any dedicated offensive operations.
Your all-round forces are probably the most numerous in terms of major cost since they should be the mainstay of your army deployed for both defence and offence.
The offensive formations are your special ops. marines and probably heavy mechanised forces. These forces are very expensive and only deployed in really important scenarios with your main forces. Or they simply are used as the initial reactionary forces until more extensive forces can be mobilised to a hotspot.
I don't see how glascannon formations will be that useful in this new system, not in the way that support units and supply works with artillery and air support and stuff.
-
I do think that if transport space isn't a concern, massing cheap units are the way to go.
Let's look at the math. For most units (planet to space weapons and a few others are exceptions, I think), armor and cost scale linearly. Which is to say, a unit with twice as much armor costs twice as much to build and maintain. Meanwhile, armor scales by the power of 2 if not penetrated. We can therefor do the math like so:
We have infantry (armor 10) and power armor infantry (armor 20). For the same cost, we can have either 2 infantry or 1 power armor infantry; the power armor infantry takes 1/4 as much damage from any weapon that doesn't have armor penetration >10. Therefor in a fight against low armor pen units, 2 infantry take four times as much damage, but they have twice as much health and twice as much firepower, so they effectively take only twice as much damage (as a percentage of their health) and deal twice as much damage.
Thus we can conclude that the same cost of low armor units are as effective as high armor units even in situations ideal for the high armor units (enemy weapons don't penetrate their armor) and considerably better in situations that are not ideal (if enemy weapons penetrate the armor, both normal infantry and power armor infantry take the same damage, but the normal infantry have twice the health and twice the firepower for the same price).
However, and this is what fundamentally balances the system, cost isn't the only consideration. You also need to transport the ground units, and that's particularly an issue when on the assault - not only do you not have time to make multiple trips to pick up hundreds of thousands of unarmored infantry, but big and bulky troop transports are much more vulnerable than smaller, faster, and/or armored ones - the more of the space you use on transport bays, the more vulnerable the transport is. The powered armor infantry are indisputably much more powerful than the normal infantry per unit of transportation weight.
So you end up with at least two situations, possibly three: Attack, which favors high armor units, and defense, which favors low armor. Additionally defense can possibly be further divided into colonies which can train their own ground forces and thus transportation doesn't matter at all (so could probably be defended by like a million cheap infantry if you wanted), and smaller colonies where units have to be brought in and therefor transportation is still an issue, just less of one than on the attack.
It also shouldn't be confused as saying infantry are always better; there are certainly advantages to vehicles and statics as well. Instead it's armor that is of questionable cost effectiveness if transportation isn't an issue. You might want tanks in your defense formations, but if they don't serve a dual purpose as attack formations lightly armored tanks are more cost efficient.
-
You are, I think, forgetting a major factor: Bombardment support.
If you aren't stacking your military with Bombardment units that can provide supporting fire from the Support line you aren't doing it right. Even Light Bombardment assets grant 3 attacks that, if they hit unarmoured infantry, guarantee kills. And you need Counter Battery units to hit them unless you can break through the Attack and Defense lines, which are going to be notably bigger and thus fewer in number. It's because of this I'm presuming that armoured infantry units will replace unarmoured infantry units in all roles over time except unrest suppression.
-
Yes.. was just about to comment that exact thing... Comparing only two things on their own make no sense since that is not a realistic combat scenario. Quality will require less HQ overhead as well as transport capacity and will be more effective in conjunction with support element than less heavily armoured opponents.
In my opinion they will all serve a functional role in your military for different reasons. Having more troops on the front line will protect the rear support elements more efficiently while being weaker against retaliation strikes from enemy support weapons.
It will be your overall economy that dictate what type of troops you will deploy, that much is clear. But I'm inclined to agree that you will want to make them as good as possible over time but always make sure you have enough cheap elements to fill your front lines to keep the support element from being attacked.
-
You are, I think, forgetting a major factor: Bombardment support.
If you aren't stacking your military with Bombardment units that can provide supporting fire from the Support line you aren't doing it right. Even Light Bombardment assets grant 3 attacks that, if they hit unarmoured infantry, guarantee kills. And you need Counter Battery units to hit them unless you can break through the Attack and Defense lines, which are going to be notably bigger and thus fewer in number. It's because of this I'm presuming that armoured infantry units will replace unarmoured infantry units in all roles over time except unrest suppression.
It doesn't make a difference, though. It doesn't matter if an attack is coming from front line or support, it still inflicts the same damage unless I'm missing something.
A hit from a light bombardment weapon is a certain kill against equivalent tech normal infantry, and a 1 in 4 chance against a 20 armor power armor infantry. But you would have twice as many normal infantry for the same cost, so you're only taking twice as many casualties as a percentage of what you have - and you're also inflicting twice as many, since you have twice as many guns. In no way does this make power armor infantry any more effective against bombardment weapons than normal infantry.
And even if there were some mechanical reason you need counter-battery bombardment weapons, those can be unarmored too and perform just as well. Better, even, since they'll have twice as many.
-
No... that is not really how it works...
Let's say you have 100 light infantry with 10 light bombardment artillery in support versus 50 power armoured infantry with 10 light bombardment artillery in support. Roughly the same cost in upkeep and building costs. The same goes for vehicles with lighter anti-personnel weapons. Will there also not be some impact on Academy production of officers and such for filling of HQ and formations as well.
Here the power armoured infantry will quickly gain an advantage all else being equal.
You also need less HQ formations for high quality troops.
The way I see it... you will want to use quality formations and lots of support element with good firepower to back them up. As in real life you want the main firepower to come from supportive elements, the forward elements are there to take and hold ground.
**Edit**
Also not sure of loosing twice as many men from its formation the lower quality formation will loose more morale while the higher quality will loose less morale... which will effect the overall outcome of the battle as well.
-
Let's presume that's we're using Infantry troops only, equipped with either Personal Weapons (Size 5) or Light Bombardment (Size 20)
PWs and LB have the same damage and AP traits, while Light Bombardment has 3 shots to PWs 1.
Let's presume that there's 2 parties to this conflict whose only relevant combatants are a total of 600 Size infantry Formations.
Let's also presume that one side has equipped its troops with Power Armour and the other has not.
Finally, let's presume that we can abstract away Fortification and the vagaries of random chance outside of non-integer results when dividing.
Let us first presume that both sides have 120 PW equipped infantry.
Both sides fire. Every unarmoured infantry unit dies. 1/4th of every armoured infantry unit dies. Definite advantage to the armoured unit.
Although both sides need to replace losses, the armoured infantry side has to pay half the cost of the unarmoured side, and more importantly, still has units on the field with which to press the attack.
Let us now presume that both sides have 100 PW equipped infantry and 5 LB equipped infantry on the Support line.
Both sides fire, every unarmoured infantry unit dies, 28.75 armoured infantry units die, the attack is pressed likely killing another 3 or four armoured infantry units while wiping out the Light Bombardment infantry units. Unless a Breakthrough was calculated, in which case I'm not sure what happens but might be resolved in the same combat round.
Still a massive advantage to armoured infantry presuming similar numbers.
Let's check on the same cost idea.
This means that the unarmoured side has twice the numbers of the armoured side.
240 unarmoured infantry against 120 armoured infantry. Both sides fire, half the unarmoured side dies, and so does half the armoured side. This repeats until the armoured side hits 7.5 units and the result becomes a toss up to who gets the advantage.
Let's check with LB weapons.
200 unarmoured infantry and 10 LB weapons against 100 armoured infantry and 5 LB weapons.
Both sides fire, 230 shots go out against 100 armoured infantry and kill 57.5. 115 shots go out against the unarmoured infantry and kill 115.
85 unarmoured infantry are left with 10 LB weapons, against 42.5 with 5 LB weapons.
115 shots go out and kill 28.75 more armoured infantry. 57 or 58 shots go out and kill 57 or 58 unarmoured infantry.
27 or 28 unarmoured infantry are left, against 13, 14 or 15 armoured infantry.
57 or 58 shots go out and kill 14.25 or 14.5 armoured infantry, offering a good chance wiping them all. 28, 29 or 30 shots go out and wipe the unarmoured infantry. There's a small chance there's 1 surviving armoured infantry unit left.
The unarmoured Support line has now become the Front line. The armoured Support Line may have become the Front Line.
Presume it has.
30 shots go out and hit the armoured line, killing all LB units. 15 shots go out of the armoured line and hit the unarmoured line, killing all LB units.
Presume the armoured Support Line has not become the Front Line because there's a surviving armoured infantry man.
30 shots go out and hit the surviving armoured infantry man, tearing him to shreds. 15 shots go out and wipe the unarmoured LB units. Small but definite armoured advantage due to preservation of Light Bombardment assets.
Overall: Slight advantage to armoured units in same cost combat, strong advantage to armoured units in same numbers combat.
The way I see it... you will want to use quality formations and lots of support element with good firepower to back them up. As in real life you want the main firepower to come from supportive elements, the forward elements are there to take and hold ground.
In modern day combat forward elements are there to find the enemy and keep them found. Support units will then deliver most of the damage while the forward elements keep the information up to date. This has basically been true since the Napoleonic era, where artillery became the main damage dealer to enemy armies.
-
You could easily also say that both forces use the same number of rear support forces for the same cost. You will not armour your rear echelon troops in the same way you do front line units.
It is far more realistic to presume that both sides rear support assets cost roughly the same amount of build cost. This will give a significant advantage to high quality front line with high powered bombardment in support.
If you also add vehicles into the front line you add yet another dimension that can put advantage to the high quality troops as well, depending in how said vehicles are equipped.
-
No... that is not really how it works...
Let's say you have 100 light infantry with 10 light bombardment artillery in support versus 50 power armoured infantry with 10 light bombardment artillery in support. Roughly the same cost in upkeep and building costs. The same goes for vehicles with lighter anti-personnel weapons. Will there also not be some impact on Academy production of officers and such for filling of HQ and formations as well.
Here the power armoured infantry will quickly gain an advantage all else being equal.
You also need less HQ formations for high quality troops.
The way I see it... you will want to use quality formations and lots of support element with good firepower to back them up. As in real life you want the main firepower to come from supportive elements, the forward elements are there to take and hold ground.
**Edit**
Also not sure of loosing twice as many men from its formation the lower quality formation will loose more morale while the higher quality will loose less morale... which will effect the overall outcome of the battle as well.
This isn't a valid comparison. The point of having bombardment support would be to have them be less armored than the front line units, and that isn't possible with 1 armor infantry, so you would never use that combination.
So instead, let's do it as 50 power armor infantry (Size 250, cost 500) and 10 light bombardment infantry (Size 200 cost 200) vs 140 light armored infantry (size 700 cost 700).
It works out as basically a tie (the light infantry take 80 equivalent hits and inflict 140, but have twice the health, and will slaughter the artillery on a breakthrough or once the power armor is gone). A slight advantage to the power armor at most. And this is absolutely ideal circumstances where your heavily armored force is designed to massacre lightly armored infantry, while the light infantry have no weapons designed for use against power armor. If more realistically both the light and powered armor forces had a mix weapons, then the light infantry would massacre the power armor infantry. The same is also true if one side has a tech advantage; having more than 10 AP doesn't help against the light infantry, but it definitely does against the power armor.
Overall: Slight advantage to armoured units in same cost combat, strong advantage to armoured units in same numbers combat.
My whole point was that this only applies when transport size doesn't matter. And like Jorgen, you cherry picked an example where the power armor side was perfectly designed to kill unarmored infantry but the unarmored infantry had no anti-power armor weapons, and it still came down to a tie, not a slight advantage.
You could easily also say that both forces use the same number of rear support forces for the same cost. You will not armour your rear echelon troops in the same way you do front line units.
It is far more realistic to presume that both sides rear support assets cost roughly the same amount of build cost. This will give a significant advantage to high quality front line with high powered bombardment in support.
If you also add vehicles into the front line you add yet another dimension that can put advantage to the high quality troops as well, depending in how said vehicles are equipped.
Note that I never said there was no reason to use vehicles. I said that there was no reason other than transport size to use heavy armor.
-
True, but I wanted to keep things simple.
If we presume the Support line in my examples are not armoured though, the advantage swings well into Armoured side's favour. Those extra 15 kills in the first round matter a lot.
Of course, once you add Medium and Heavy Bombardment the situation changes again, because those can perform Counter Battery.
-
Also note that I consider this a good thing. Having high space, low cost units be at a moderate advantage gives a bonus to defenders to counteract having your forces split across multiple planets, and a reason to have a variety of units instead of just using the same formations for both attack and defense.
-
My whole point was that this only applies when transport size doesn't matter. And like Jorgen, you cherry picked an example where the power armor side was perfectly designed to kill unarmored infantry but the unarmored infantry had no anti-power armor weapons, and it still came down to a tie, not a slight advantage.
No not really.
You see, at that point you need to consider what the opposition is armed with. That could be a Crew Served Anti Personnel component (Size 12, AP10, Damage 10, Shots 6), a Heavy Crew Served Anti Personnel component (Size 20, AP 20, Damage 20, Shots 6) a Light Anti Vehicle component (Size, 16, AP20, Damage 60, Shots 1). But that doesn't mean the situation improves for the unarmoured infantry.
Crew Served AP? Mutually assured destruction, advantage presumably to the unarmoured infantry. But only if the full force of the armoured infantry takes the field instead of hanging back on the Support line while 1/6th of the armoured infantry goes in, gets annihilated and destroys the unarmoured infantry in return.
Heavy Crew Served Anti Personnel? Same problem, except that the armoured infantry has an 8 size point per unit advantage because they're not going to lug anything heavier in than needed, it's just sheer overkill.
Light Anti Vehicle component? 4 size point and 5 shot advantage to the armoured infantry. This one is perhaps even less favourable to the unarmoured infantry because at least the Crew Served Anti Personnel unit could expect to kill 1.5 armoured infantry per round instead of 1 per round due to the shot limitation.
In practically every case, armoured infantry is likely to have the advantage over unarmoured. And that advantage is the smallest with Personnel Weapon components.
-
No not really.
You see, at that point you need to consider what the opposition is armed with. That could be a Crew Served Anti Personnel component (Size 12, AP10, Damage 10, Shots 6), a Heavy Crew Served Anti Personnel component (Size 20, AP 20, Damage 20, Shots 6) a Light Anti Vehicle component (Size, 16, AP20, Damage 60, Shots 1). But that doesn't mean the situation improves for the unarmoured infantry.
Crew Served AP? Mutually assured destruction, advantage presumably to the unarmoured infantry. But only if the full force of the armoured infantry takes the field instead of hanging back on the Support line while 1/6th of the armoured infantry goes in, gets annihilated and destroys the unarmoured infantry in return.
Heavy Crew Served Anti Personnel? Same problem, except that the armoured infantry has an 8 size point per unit advantage because they're not going to lug anything heavier in than needed, it's just sheer overkill.
Light Anti Vehicle component? 4 size point and 5 shot advantage to the armoured infantry. This one is perhaps even less favourable to the unarmoured infantry because at least the Crew Served Anti Personnel unit could expect to kill 1.5 armoured infantry per round instead of 1 per round due to the shot limitation.
In practically every case, armoured infantry is likely to have the advantage over unarmoured. And that advantage is the smallest with Personnel Weapon components.
First off, you're still assuming the power armor infantry is only using personal weapons. My point was realistically *both* sides would be using a mix, since it isn't realistically possible to know what you're facing ahead of time.
Though if you want, we can model that. The ideal weapon against power armor is heavy crew served anti-personnel, so let's assume the unarmored infantry were all using that. The ideal weapon against unarmored infantry is crew served anti-personnel.
The unarmored HCAP unit is size 20, cost 20. The power armored CAP is size 12, cost 24. Even cost would therefor be 24 unarmored units to 20 power armored units:
The 24 unarmored units fire 144 shots, each capable of killing a power armor infantry unit in 1 hit. The Power armor infantry fire 120 shots, each capable of killing an unarmored unit in one hit. Clearly the unarmored units have the advantage here - they're both inflicting more damage and have more units to absorb shots. Even after modifiers for accuracy it would be an extremely short fight, but the unarmored infantry would be overwhelmingly likely to hold the battlefield.
You could argue that this is an unlikely situation, and be correct. My point is that the original situation is unlikely too - neither side is going to consist purely of personal weapons. But because personal weapons (and light bombardment) are good against unarmored infantry but not power armor infantry, using exclusively those to make your point was biasing the numbers in favor of power armor, and even then it more or less just worked out as a tie. If both units have some anti-vehicle weapons, well, those will kill both a single unarmored infantry and a single power armor infantry in one hit, so that swings the advantage to the more numerous unarmored infantry. Same for literally any weapon with a base AP value above 10.
Crew Served AP? Mutually assured destruction, advantage presumably to the unarmoured infantry. But only if the full force of the armoured infantry takes the field instead of hanging back on the Support line while 1/6th of the armoured infantry goes in, gets annihilated and destroys the unarmoured infantry in return.
I don't know where you're getting this. If both sides were using crew served anti-personnel and one side (either) only fielded half their force, they'd take much higher losses in the part they did field. It's not like either side would completely annihilate the other in one combat round.
-
First, you misread my comment.
I was presuming both sides were armed with the same weapons unless they're clearly overkill.
Second, I was ignoring fortification and other defense modifiers, and presuming any shot would hit. Which is a fair enough assumption when both sides have the same modifiers. It would tend statistically towards this result after all.
Third, combat rounds occur at the same time for all players. Otherwise the first to go has the advantage.
Fourth, your cost equal example is the only example that favours the unarmoured infantry. Equal Size with the same weapons? Armoured infantry. Equal numbers? Armoured infantry or draw.
-
First, you misread my comment.
I was presuming both sides were armed with the same weapons unless they're clearly overkill.
Second, I was ignoring fortification and other defense modifiers, and presuming any shot would hit. Which is a fair enough assumption when both sides have the same modifiers. It would tend statistically towards this result after all.
Third, combat rounds occur at the same time for all players. Otherwise the first to go has the advantage.
Fourth, your cost equal example is the only example that favours the unarmoured infantry. Equal Size with the same weapons? Armoured infantry. Equal numbers? Armoured infantry or draw.
The whole point of the debate is "if we go by cost instead of size". Yes, heavy armor gives a bonus for no increase in size, so of course any simulation of equal size the heavy armor is going to win or at worst tie. That goes unsaid.
Second, you're wrong that the same weapons favors armored infantry. Your example is "same weapons tie" but only if you define the "same weapons" as exclusively weapons that are good against unarmored infantry but not armored infantry.
Same cost, same weapons, and those weapons are personal or crew served anti-personnel (Anything with base AP of 10 or less, basically)? A tie.
Same cost, same weapons, and those weapons are heavy crew served anti-personnel? Unarmored infantry will destroy the armored infantry, because the armor doesn't matter against the weapon and there are twice as many.
Same cost, same weapons, and those weapons are anti-vehicle? Anti-vehicle isn't great against infantry, but both sides are using them and they're as good against the armored infantry as unarmored. Unarmored infantry will again mop the floor with the armored, because the armor doesn't matter and there are twice as many.
Same cost, same weapons, and both sides are using the same mix of weapons? Unarmored infantry will also win, because they literally tied when both sides used the ideal weapons against unarmored infantry and any mix has to be worse against them and will likely be better against the armored infantry.
-
From all this speculation ground combat is sounding reasonably well balanced. What I'm getting is that quantity will have a slight advantage over quality in many situations (but not all - and it might mop the floor with it in situations where it absolutely makes sense that it would), but that logistics for them will be significantly harder (this includes supplying ammunition for them). If this is how it turns out, that actually sounds ideal. I'm sure balance won't be 100% on the first try but then aurora has never been about perfect balance and it'll be refined as everyone actually gets to play it I'm sure.
-
Another note, currently I don't see any reason to use anything but either infantry or static platforms for bombardment weapons. Vehicles seem to only be required on the frontlines, and your support should never end up there, and in case of a breakthrough, they get all the nice fortification modifiers on a static platform for defense.
For LB infantry has the smallest overhead, MB on light vehicle and on static are the same size, and HB needs a heavy vehicle base, which needs 18t per slot compared to 12 for static.
-
Another note, currently I don't see any reason to use anything but either infantry or static platforms for bombardment weapons. Vehicles seem to only be required on the frontlines, and your support should never end up there, and in case of a breakthrough, they get all the nice fortification modifiers on a static platform for defense.
For LB infantry has the smallest overhead, MB on light vehicle and on static are the same size, and HB needs a heavy vehicle base, which needs 18t per slot compared to 12 for static.
Hum... looking at it, medium vehicles are size 18 but have two equipment slots, so if you're going for medium bombardment you cram a bit more firepower per size in with a medium vehicle with two bombardment weapons compared to two statics with one each. Though since I believe vehicles have a minimum armor of 2 and static has a minimum of 1 the medium vehicles would be more cost.
Vehicle with 2 armor and 2 medium bombardment: 98 size, 196 cost
2 Static with 1 armor and 1 medium bombardment each: 104 size, 104 cost
Hum... probably not worth it even on the attack, where size matters. You'd be a bit tougher as well but since when you're on the attack the enemies are probably defending and not going for a breakthrough it wouldn't matter as much.
Edit: Actually I guess you would have to worry about counter battery fire in which case the to hit modifier and higher armor might be worthwhile.
-
No... that is not really how it works...
Let's say you have 100 light infantry with 10 light bombardment artillery in support versus 50 power armoured infantry with 10 light bombardment artillery in support. Roughly the same cost in upkeep and building costs. The same goes for vehicles with lighter anti-personnel weapons. Will there also not be some impact on Academy production of officers and such for filling of HQ and formations as well.
Here the power armoured infantry will quickly gain an advantage all else being equal.
You also need less HQ formations for high quality troops.
The way I see it... you will want to use quality formations and lots of support element with good firepower to back them up. As in real life you want the main firepower to come from supportive elements, the forward elements are there to take and hold ground.
**Edit**
Also not sure of loosing twice as many men from its formation the lower quality formation will loose more morale while the higher quality will loose less morale... which will effect the overall outcome of the battle as well.
This isn't a valid comparison. The point of having bombardment support would be to have them be less armored than the front line units, and that isn't possible with 1 armor infantry, so you would never use that combination.
So instead, let's do it as 50 power armor infantry (Size 250, cost 500) and 10 light bombardment infantry (Size 200 cost 200) vs 140 light armored infantry (size 700 cost 700).
It works out as basically a tie (the light infantry take 80 equivalent hits and inflict 140, but have twice the health, and will slaughter the artillery on a breakthrough or once the power armor is gone). A slight advantage to the power armor at most. And this is absolutely ideal circumstances where your heavily armored force is designed to massacre lightly armored infantry, while the light infantry have no weapons designed for use against power armor. If more realistically both the light and powered armor forces had a mix weapons, then the light infantry would massacre the power armor infantry. The same is also true if one side has a tech advantage; having more than 10 AP doesn't help against the light infantry, but it definitely does against the power armor.
Overall: Slight advantage to armoured units in same cost combat, strong advantage to armoured units in same numbers combat.
My whole point was that this only applies when transport size doesn't matter. And like Jorgen, you cherry picked an example where the power armor side was perfectly designed to kill unarmored infantry but the unarmored infantry had no anti-power armor weapons, and it still came down to a tie, not a slight advantage.
You could easily also say that both forces use the same number of rear support forces for the same cost. You will not armour your rear echelon troops in the same way you do front line units.
It is far more realistic to presume that both sides rear support assets cost roughly the same amount of build cost. This will give a significant advantage to high quality front line with high powered bombardment in support.
If you also add vehicles into the front line you add yet another dimension that can put advantage to the high quality troops as well, depending in how said vehicles are equipped.
Note that I never said there was no reason to use vehicles. I said that there was no reason other than transport size to use heavy armor.
Well... if you use more realistic hit chances you will see that with morale effects the bombardment infantry will become more powerful as the front line lose manpower. The back line will not loose morale either so the light infantry on the front will certainly break before the high quality infantry will.
So in that instance the high quality infantry will be more efficient.
Of course it will depend on the overall amount of weapons and armour that both forces are using. But the way I see it is that power armoured infantry will in generally be more effective when you consider training, supply costs and all the other overhead logistical costs. Light armoured infantry will probably be more effective when equipped with a mix of weapons in a defensive formation, mainly as garrisons. But mixing some light armoured infantry in regular forces (especially support elements) can be effective.
If bombardment weapons was not more effective on a per shot to kill ratio than front line troops they would be utterly useless in comparison costwise.
Of course there need to be good reason to include bombardment weaponry even in light infantry formations. Otherwise the combat model is flawed in my opinion.
-
What it sounds like to me is that there will be no "one right answer" -- which makes me very happy. One of the things that annoyed me about Starfire was the "BC(R) problem" -- the combination of size, speed, and firepower meant that everyone built capital-missile armed battlecruisers that were pretty much the same design.
I look forward to building my historical-themed armies and watching them clash with some AI formations.
-
I agree. And just because I know that super heavy vehicles aren't the absolutely most efficient strategy doesn't mean I'm not going to build an army of ATATs. They just have to be viable enough.
The other detail I think still needs answering before you can decide on ground force composition is how ground forces even get onto the ground. It looks like we could potentially have large numbers of STO units, potentially with very heavy weapons. Do you wait until you've destroyed all the enemy STOs before attempting a landing*? If so presumably you can use large transports and any combination of mixed forces you want.
But if you're aiming for a contested landing then you may need to use an overwhelming number of smaller transports, and only infantry and light vehicles. And you probably need to accept heavy losses in the landing. So presumably whatever you land needs to be an all rounder. It would be very sad to only have support units survive the drop!
*Does anyone know if it will be possible to target STOs before they fire? Because if not you might be tempted to build some plasma cannonade STOs and keep them in reserve until the enemy heavy troop transports are 5s out.
-
Something that lightly armored mass infantry is really good at - policing planets after you've conquered them. IIRC unrest suppression is based on the amount rather than the quality of troops.
-
IIRC STO units benefit from Fortification bonuses, so there's no need to wait on the enemy to get close if they're fortified enough. Likewise, you can do a 'general bombardment' of the planet even without any specific targets and maybe hit some important defense units, but for actually effective orbit to surface fire you need FFDs or STO units actively firing at your fleet.
Although it'd be nice if we could have a way to find STO units from orbit before they fire.
-
Although it'd be nice if we could have a way to find STO units from orbit before they fire.
I actually think it would be kind of fun if you couldn't. Would add a reason to use ground troops instead of planetary bombardment against a planet, and the game could use more of those.
-
I looked a bit at the HCAP, and it seems to be one of the better weapons overall, probably a bit too good.
LAV is completely outclassed by HCAP. They have the same AP, the same total amount of damage. The only advantage of LAV is that it is 20% smaller, but that is directly offset that even a medium vehicle has only 40 HP, so you loose 33% of your damage output on overkill if you hit a medium tank. For anything lighter the overkill is even more significant, making HCAP the superior weapon even against light vehicles, which is exactly where LAV should shine.
Similarly, a 32 ton light vehicle with HCAP can destroy 2 light vehicles (60dmg vs 30HP each), while the 28 ton light LAV armed vehicle is completely outclassed, only able to destroy a single opponent per round, and doing obviously much worse against infantry.
There seems to be too little a gap in armor between anti-infantry and anti-armor.
-
I think it's more that the light anti-vehicle is just in an awkward position. 60 damage is inefficiently high for anything short of a heavy vehicle, but the armor penetration on it is too low to be efficient at such big targets. So I agree the HCAP is probably a better choice for most roles, since it's 6x as good against infantry, 2x as good against static and light vehicles, and just as good against heavy+ vehicles for only 4 more size.
OTOH, because the anti-vehicle option for infantry is in a not great spot, it means exclusively infantry armies will have a glaring weakness, which I think may be a good thing. If the LAV were, say, 30 AP 40 damage than infantry would be much better positioned to deal with medium and even heavy vehicles, whereas with the current weapons they're probably going to wait their own vehicle or static support for dealing with heavily armored units.
Also remember that we probably shouldn't always assume equal tech when comparing weapons. It doesn't help the LAV much but a lot of weapons will perform better when the enemy armor might be higher or lower than the yours.
-
I looked a bit at the HCAP, and it seems to be one of the better weapons overall, probably a bit too good.
LAV is completely outclassed by HCAP. They have the same AP, the same total amount of damage. The only advantage of LAV is that it is 20% smaller, but that is directly offset that even a medium vehicle has only 40 HP, so you loose 33% of your damage output on overkill if you hit a medium tank. For anything lighter the overkill is even more significant, making HCAP the superior weapon even against light vehicles, which is exactly where LAV should shine.
Similarly, a 32 ton light vehicle with HCAP can destroy 2 light vehicles (60dmg vs 30HP each), while the 28 ton light LAV armed vehicle is completely outclassed, only able to destroy a single opponent per round, and doing obviously much worse against infantry.
There seems to be too little a gap in armor between anti-infantry and anti-armor.
For infantry in general I don't see any reason why you would use Crew Served Weapons at all. Just bringing more infantry cost less and give more firepower and less size. Unless there is something about the game logic that I don't understand
One light CSW has a size of 12, the same as twelve soldiers armed with Personal Weapons. 12 soldiers shoot 12 times and the CSW only 6 times and have the same AP and damage profile, not to mention much harder to kill. They both hove no special abilities in combat from each other, one is just clearly better than the other option.
For the Heavy CSW against the LAV at least one is smaller in size and thus cheaper plus it can instant kill larger vehicles as well even if it will not penetrate its armour every time.
-
I looked a bit at the HCAP, and it seems to be one of the better weapons overall, probably a bit too good.
LAV is completely outclassed by HCAP. They have the same AP, the same total amount of damage. The only advantage of LAV is that it is 20% smaller, but that is directly offset that even a medium vehicle has only 40 HP, so you loose 33% of your damage output on overkill if you hit a medium tank. For anything lighter the overkill is even more significant, making HCAP the superior weapon even against light vehicles, which is exactly where LAV should shine.
Similarly, a 32 ton light vehicle with HCAP can destroy 2 light vehicles (60dmg vs 30HP each), while the 28 ton light LAV armed vehicle is completely outclassed, only able to destroy a single opponent per round, and doing obviously much worse against infantry.
There seems to be too little a gap in armor between anti-infantry and anti-armor.
For infantry in general I don't see any reason why you would use Crew Served Weapons at all. Just bringing more infantry cost less and give more firepower and less size. Unless there is something about the game logic that I don't understand
One light CSW has a size of 12, the same as twelve soldiers armed with Personal Weapons. 12 soldiers shoot 12 times and the CSW only 6 times and have the same AP and damage profile. They both hove no special abilities in combat from each other, one is just clearly better than the other option.
For the Heavy CSW against the LAV at least one is smaller in size and thus cheaper plus it can instant kill larger vehicles as well even if it will not penetrate its armour every time.
A soldier with a personal weapon has a size of 5, not 1. I'd say they're pretty well balanced; infantry with personal weapons can absorb more damage, infantry with a CAP has 40% the health but 250% the firepower.
CAP really shine on light vehicles, though, where for 24 size you get a unit that will match really well against unarmored infantry.
-
I looked a bit at the HCAP, and it seems to be one of the better weapons overall, probably a bit too good.
LAV is completely outclassed by HCAP. They have the same AP, the same total amount of damage. The only advantage of LAV is that it is 20% smaller, but that is directly offset that even a medium vehicle has only 40 HP, so you loose 33% of your damage output on overkill if you hit a medium tank. For anything lighter the overkill is even more significant, making HCAP the superior weapon even against light vehicles, which is exactly where LAV should shine.
Similarly, a 32 ton light vehicle with HCAP can destroy 2 light vehicles (60dmg vs 30HP each), while the 28 ton light LAV armed vehicle is completely outclassed, only able to destroy a single opponent per round, and doing obviously much worse against infantry.
There seems to be too little a gap in armor between anti-infantry and anti-armor.
For infantry in general I don't see any reason why you would use Crew Served Weapons at all. Just bringing more infantry cost less and give more firepower and less size. Unless there is something about the game logic that I don't understand
One light CSW has a size of 12, the same as twelve soldiers armed with Personal Weapons. 12 soldiers shoot 12 times and the CSW only 6 times and have the same AP and damage profile. They both hove no special abilities in combat from each other, one is just clearly better than the other option.
For the Heavy CSW against the LAV at least one is smaller in size and thus cheaper plus it can instant kill larger vehicles as well even if it will not penetrate its armour every time.
A soldier with a personal weapon has a size of 5, not 1. I'd say they're pretty well balanced; infantry with personal weapons can absorb more damage, infantry with a CAP has a third the health but 250% the firepower.
CAP really shine on light vehicles, though, where for 24 size you get a unit that will match really well against unarmored infantry.
Ahh... yes... I was looking at the Supply cost which is 1 for a Personal Weapon.. :)
-
I think it's more that the light anti-vehicle is just in an awkward position. 60 damage is inefficiently high for anything short of a heavy vehicle, but the armor penetration on it is too low to be efficient at such big targets. So I agree the HCAP is probably a better choice for most roles, since it's 6x as good against infantry, 2x as good against static and light vehicles, and just as good against heavy+ vehicles for only 4 more size.
OTOH, because the anti-vehicle option for infantry is in a not great spot, it means exclusively infantry armies will have a glaring weakness, which I think may be a good thing. If the LAV were, say, 30 AP 40 damage than infantry would be much better positioned to deal with medium and even heavy vehicles, whereas with the current weapons they're probably going to wait their own vehicle or static support for dealing with heavily armored units.
Also remember that we probably shouldn't always assume equal tech when comparing weapons. It doesn't help the LAV much but a lot of weapons will perform better when the enemy armor might be higher or lower than the yours.
Medium and heavy anti vehicle guns suffer from the same overkill issue. Two HCAPs on a medium tank are 70% the size of a Medium with 2 MAV, which suffer 33% overkill against mediums. Against lightly armored medium tanks this means the HCAP outperform the MAVs 2 to 1. Against Medium armor the HCAPs still deal 50% of the damage, and again they retain all their anti-infantry capability.
That just seems overall too good.
-
CAP really shine on light vehicles, though, where for 24 size you get a unit that will match really well against unarmored infantry.
I might still be a bit confused on how the combat models work, but as I understand there are no fundamental differences between a tank and a soldiers aside of the stats... there are no manoeuvrability stats or is there?!?
A light vehicle with light vehicle armour and a CAP will have 6 shots at AP 10, damage 10 for size 24, Armour 20 with 30HP at a cost of 48.
five Power Armoured infantry with Personal Weapons will have 5 shots at AP 10, damage 10 for size 25, Armour 20 with 50HP at a cost of 50.
I probably have not read all the ground combat stuff and are missing something.
It seems that vehicles should have allot more HP so they are more durable and some type of other advantage so there are more synergy effect between different types of troops. When you make a combat model and most of it is stats compare against each other you will quickly find the best possible option to use outside the rock/scissor/paper type mechanic which armour and AP generally stand for.
In real life there are reasons for why you have soldiers, APC, artillery and tanks in very similar mixes in all armies across the globe... because it is effective and battlefields are extremely varied no matter where you fight. The thing about reality is that having the right equipment and force at the right place and time is the most crucial part, this is why a smaller more flexible force with better command and communication structure can beat forces way bigger and stronger than themselves.
-
Medium and heavy anti vehicle guns suffer from the same overkill issue. Two HCAPs on a medium tank are 70% the size of a Medium with 2 MAV, which suffer 33% overkill against mediums. Against lightly armored medium tanks this means the HCAP outperform the MAVs 2 to 1. Against Medium armor the HCAPs still deal 50% of the damage, and again they retain all their anti-infantry capability.
That just seems overall too good.
I'd say MAV is more an anti- heavy vehicle weapon, with the 6 damage. But yes, HCAP is going to perform better against anything with armor 20, that's just how the AP system works. It's like saying the CAP is much better than HCAP since it inflicts nearly twice the damage per size against armor 10.
If you're up against 10 armor, you definitely want CAP. If you're up against 40 armor, you definitely want MAV, and for 60 armor HAV rules the day. HCAP fits fine in that sequence, being ideal for 20 armor targets.
If there's a weapon that I'd say feels like it needs a look, it would be the autocannons. A LAC appears straight up worse than an HCAP in all circumstances (less armor pierce, same total damage in fewer shots, larger size), while MAC and HAC don't compare straight up with their equivalents but still seem much worse; MAC is paying 50% more size and 75% the AP compared to a MAV for the same damage split up into 3 shots, HAC is probably the closest to having its own role (good against medium vehicles, especially if they have a tech advantage) but it's just so heavy.
I might still be a bit confused on how the combat models work, but as I understand there are no fundamental differences between a tank and a soldiers aside of the stats... there are no manoeuvrability stats or is there?!?
A light vehicle with light vehicle armour and a CAP will have 6 shots at AP 10, damage 10 for size 24, Armour 20 with 30HP at a cost of 48.
five Power Armoured infantry with Personal Weapons will have 5 shots at AP 10, damage 10 for size 25, Armour 20 with 50HP at a cost of 50.
Maneuverability is reflected by the hit modifier, which effectively works as "free" fortification when your fortification is low or can't be used, like being on the attack. Light vehicles have a hit modifier of .4 compared to .6 for infantry, so when not fortified that light vehicle will be missed more often than the infantry.
-
Maneuverability is reflected by the hit modifier, which effectively works as "free" fortification when your fortification is low or can't be used, like being on the attack. Light vehicles have a hit modifier of .4 compared to .6 for infantry, so when not fortified that light vehicle will be missed more often than the infantry.
Ok... that I did not know... but it still does not make the light vehicle especially better against infantry than the power armour infantry on the attack... at the most marginally better (I did not do the math on it). Given that infantry are much better when defending I don't see why I would use a light vehicle like that with the current rules and stats, a crew served CAP seem way better in general since it have half the size and you basically get two of them for the same prize.
2x (Power Armoured Infantry with CAP, Size 12, 6 shots, AP 10, Damage 10, Armour 20, 10 HP)
Or
1x (Light Vehicle with CAP, Size 24, 6 shots, AP 10, Damage 10, Armour 20, 30 HP)
In general it seems better to overwhelm enemy attacks with numbers with low armour and use stronger weapons to pierce enemy armour. It seems to be more cost effective in general even if it requires more Supplies. But cheap bodies so the strong weapons is not attacked too often is the way to go. Tanks and heavier vehicle is rather big so will be hit rather often even by cheap anti-tank weapons while the anti-tank platform is smaller in size, cheaper and hit less often even if more numerous at times.
One of the better use of cheap infantry is to soak enemy gunfire since you are more likely to hit the infantry rather than your crew served weapons or anti-tank weapons. Heavier vehicles mainly seem to be very big targets and the more tanks there are the more likely your anti-tank guns and artillery are to hit them.
Not sure what the heaviest anti-tank weapon infantry can use is, but it will be quite small and cheap in comparison to big tanks, small size also make them less of a target in the same numbers.
Again... I might be presumptuous in these thoughts.
-
I'm actually somewhat coming around to the idea of power armor instead of light vehicles as anti-infantry assault units based on your numbers, especially since infantry can go up to armor 30 (which, assuming roughly equal tech, makes them difficult targets for the "ideal" anti-infantry weapons of CAP and HCAP).
I disagree on the idea that infantry will be able to swarm down heavy vehicles with more numerous weapons, though. It looks like the best anti-vehicle weapons infantry can use are AP 20 (HCAP and LAV), and that just wont cut it against the most armored vehicles. Against a Heavy Vehicle with 60 armor, the LAV hit only has a 1 in 9 chance to kill, and all 6 hits from an HCAP are the same chance combined. If the opponent brings armor 90 Super-heavy vehicles, that turns into 1 in 40ish (and 1 in 144 for a 120 armor ultra-heavy vehicle).
So I think you're going to want larger anti-tank weapons for the big stuff. On the defense this can be static units with Heavy anti-vehicle, though on the attack you might want your own tanks.
-
I'm actually somewhat coming around to the idea of power armor instead of light vehicles as anti-infantry assault units based on your numbers, especially since infantry can go up to armor 30 (which, assuming roughly equal tech, makes them difficult targets for the "ideal" anti-infantry weapons of CAP and HCAP).
I disagree on the idea that infantry will be able to swarm down heavy vehicles with more numerous weapons, though. It looks like the best anti-vehicle weapons infantry can use are AP 20 (HCAP and LAV), and that just wont cut it against the most armored vehicles. Against a Heavy Vehicle with 60 armor, the LAV hit only has a 1 in 9 chance to kill, and all 6 hits from an HCAP are the same chance combined. If the opponent brings armor 90 Super-heavy vehicles, that turns into 1 in 40ish (and 1 in 144 for a 120 armor ultra-heavy vehicle).
So I think you're going to want larger anti-tank weapons for the big stuff. On the defense this can be static units with Heavy anti-vehicle, though on the attack you might want your own tanks.
Humm... perhaps but if I'm not wrong then infantry are still capable to bring down at least heavy vehicles with no direct problems.
A Leeman Russ tank as Steve used had a cost of 12.48 while a Storm Trooper was 0.2 in cost so you get 62 troopers for one tank.
The infantry is also more difficult to hit with a 0.6 penalty while the heavy tank is 0.8 but lets disregard that.
62 shots with AP 10 against Armour 60 means 1.74 (around 2.8% per shot) will penetrate and have roughly a (10/60*1.74) roughly 30% chance to kill the tank each round if my math is right. The chance of the tank to kill all the Stormtroopers before they kill the tank are pretty slim. If you add crew served weapons the math tilt even more heavily in favour of the infantry.
To be honest I would only use tanks to kill enemy tanks and keep them in reserve if there are little to no enemy big vehicles. Artillery and aircraft are probably enough to kill big vehicles so infantry can soak enemy damage... but again I might be wrong.
Unless there are some combat or recruit limitation of soldiers then tanks seem rather expensive for their use in general... or?!?
Can we use people as cannon fodder without any sort of moral penalties outside role-play?!?
-
Some other thoughts...
Lets look at Static Heavy Bombardment Artillery as Anti-Vehicle AND anti-personnel weapon.
Static, Light Armour, Heavy Bombardment; 3 shots, 20 AP, 60 Damage with 10 Armour and 30 Hit points for 1.44 cost.
You get to build 8-9 of those for a single heavy tank.
lets say roughly 26 shots at AP 20 for 11% penetration chance per shot at 2.86 penetration per turn. At 60 damage that is three tanks dead. Even if the front is low on tanks these artillery pieces are not that bad against other stuff.
Static, Light Armour, Medium Bombardment; 3 shots, 15 AP, 30 Damage with 10 Armour and 30 hit points for 1.04 cost.
You get roughly 12 of these.
So 36 shots for 2.25 penetrations and 1.12 killed tanks... less effective heavy tank killer but slightly better at killing infantry if they have low armour.
Vehicle, Light Vehicle armour, 2 Medium Anti-Vehicle cannons; Size 82, 2 Shots, AP 40, Damage 60 for Armour 20 and 40 hit points and 3.28 cost
So... you would only put these forward on the front line when there is a sizeable chunk of enemy tanks and not a huge amount so they are rarely targeted.
You get roughly 4 of these anti-tank assets.
8 shots at 44% penetration is 3.52 hits and kills
A medium/heavy vehicle with 2/3 HCAP would be good when for assault...
Vehicle, Light Vehicle Armour, 2x HCAP for 2.58 cost. 40 Hit Points and 20 Armour.
Heavy Vehicle, Light Vehicle Armour, 3x HCAP for 3.86 cost. 60 Hit Points and 20 Armour.
Both of these are cheap enough to go on the line and not too big to be immediate target if in decently small numbers.
The medium one will have roughly the same amount of shots as the same cost of power armoured marines but AP 20 instead of AP 10 thus more effective at high armoured targets. But then again why not use HCAP Marines instead at 0.8 cost, I get three to four of those for each vehicle. If they have Armour 30 they cost 1.2 but are allot more difficult to kill for regular infantry and I can use a higher mix of them in the army.
And as said going to 30 Armour with infantry is a big deal for their survival-ability against all infantry weapons... against vehicle weapons it does not really matter much because big vehicles are so damn expensive anyway and kill very little Armour 30 infantry, even with HCAP weapons. I still get roughly 42 Heavily Powered infnatry for 1 Leeman-Russ battletank... or better with 30 Marines and 3 HCAP marines for each tank. I would probably not be afraid to go even a ratio of 8 Marines and 2 HCAP Marines... sort of squads of 5 with one HCAP in each one... ;)
If the enemy have a strong tank presence then add a squadron of Anti-Tank vehicles for each company, otherwise just keep them in reserve.
-
My point all along has been that lightly armored units are more cost effective if you ignore size, while armored units are more efficient on a per size basis, so all around you'd probably expect the cost equivalent in cheap infantry to beat a tank.
That said, it depends on how they're fitted out. A Heavy Vehicle with, say, a HAV and a CAP comes in at 96 size, 576 cost, 60 armor, 60 health, and gets 7 shots each with 100% chance of an infantry kill on a hit. That would be the same cost as 115 unarmored infantry, whose personal weapons would have a 1 in 216 chance of taking out the tank. So, ignoring accuracy/fortification (which would tend to favor the infantry), that would come out as an average of ~.5 tank kills by the infantry and 7 infantry kills per round. You could make a dedicated anti-infantry vehicle, say a heavy vehicle with just 2 CAPs, but that probably wouldn't be a realistic comparison.
However, size is the limitation there. Those soldiers take 6x as much transport room, which means it's hard to invade a planet with them. Your thousands of infantry with rifles are likely to make an effective garrison against invasion, though.
-
My point all along has been that lightly armored units are more cost effective if you ignore size, while armored units are more efficient on a per size basis, so all around you'd probably expect the cost equivalent in cheap infantry to beat a tank.
That said, it depends on how they're fitted out. A Heavy Vehicle with, say, a HAV and a CAP comes in at 96 size, 576 cost, 60 armor, 60 health, and gets 7 shots each with 100% chance of an infantry kill on a hit. That would be the same cost as 115 unarmored infantry, whose personal weapons would have a 1 in 216 chance of taking out the tank. So, ignoring accuracy/fortification (which would tend to favor the infantry), that would come out as an average of ~.5 tank kills by the infantry and 7 infantry kills per round. You could make a dedicated anti-infantry vehicle, say a heavy vehicle with just 2 CAPs, but that probably wouldn't be a realistic comparison.
However, size is the limitation there. Those soldiers take 6x as much transport room, which means it's hard to invade a planet with them. Your thousands of infantry with rifles are likely to make an effective garrison against invasion, though.
I agree that size mostly matter during transport but it also is important for target selection in combat... so not entirely unimportant.
We also don't know how much size on transports will matter to the overall cost of producing troop transports. I could see an invasion army being rather defensive until it built a large force to attack with on the planet. Sure it will take longer to deploy the armies... perhaps several trips for you transport ships... but you don't need to attack until you prepared your army. So it can still use lots and lots of infantry.
Armour 30 infantry also seem pretty potent, even against regular infantry cost wise.
I'm also not sure how much of a problem Supply is going to be for regular light infantry versus heavier infantry since they will need allot more supply for the amount of kills they will do against high quality infantry.
-
If you land a sixth of your invasion force they certainly can attack you before you return with more. It means giving up the fortification bonus but that's a small price to pay for defeating you in detail.
Also each time you land you'll be taking fire from any surface to orbit weapons.
-
I agree that the HCAP is probably is a little powerful in relation to other similar cost weapons. I'll reduce the base AP from 2 to 1.6.
-
I agree that the HCAP is probably is a little powerful in relation to other similar cost weapons. I'll reduce the base AP from 2 to 1.6.
Does that correspond to a decrease of power armor armor ratings as well, or is only HCAP that is adjusted? Heavy power armor seems pretty unopposed without any weapon that can reliably pierce its armor and not inflict massive overkill.
Generally power armor having superior armor to light vehicles seems a bit off, especially with the no overhead on their unit size.
-
I agree that the HCAP is probably is a little powerful in relation to other similar cost weapons. I'll reduce the base AP from 2 to 1.6.
Does that correspond to a decrease of power armor armor ratings as well, or is only HCAP that is adjusted? Heavy power armor seems pretty unopposed without any weapon that can reliably pierce its armor and not inflict massive overkill.
Generally power armor having superior armor to light vehicles seems a bit off, especially with the no overhead on their unit size.
Yes, I'll reduce powered armour to 1.5 and heavy powered to 2, which is in line with light vehicle armour. As I play test I may well adjust a few other ratings.
When I created the infantry powered armour, there was no light vehicle, so it was below a vehicle. I would still like the idea of a 'space marine' style infantry, but it needs to be reasonable vs other unit types.
-
I would like to see three levels of infantry personal weapons as well if possible. I also think that 20% reduction in cost of light personal weapons is not in line with AP 5 since most things will have at least Armour 10 and that weapon only penetrate light armour with 1 in 4 shots. Perhaps raise the AP to 9 since that correspond well with a 20% decrease in penetration against armour 10 or reduce size to 3 and make AP 8.
-
I would like to see three levels of infantry personal weapons as well if possible. I also think that 20% reduction in cost of light personal weapons is not in line with AP 5 since most things will have at least Armour 10 and that weapon only penetrate light armour with 1 in 4 shots. Perhaps raise the AP to 9 since that correspond well with a 20% decrease in penetration against armour 10 or reduce size to 3 and make AP 8.
Light personal weapons seem mostly useful if going after conventional tech races, or if you want lots of cheap infantry to absorb damage (possibly while your artillery hammers the enemy), and they work fine in those scenarios. I think the changes you're suggesting would make them considerably overpowered, especially with a tech advantage.
Weapon balance isn't as simple as "a weapon that weighs twice as much should be twice as effective" since a smaller weapon means you have more units; 25% more in the case of PWL infantry. This means that light personal weapons aren't just "do 75% less damage against equivalent tech enemies", they're "do 68.75% less damage to equal tech enemies, 25% more to very low tech enemies, and have 25% more health". Which I think is decent as a niche weapon.
-
I would like to see three levels of infantry personal weapons as well if possible. I also think that 20% reduction in cost of light personal weapons is not in line with AP 5 since most things will have at least Armour 10 and that weapon only penetrate light armour with 1 in 4 shots. Perhaps raise the AP to 9 since that correspond well with a 20% decrease in penetration against armour 10 or reduce size to 3 and make AP 8.
Light personal weapons seem mostly useful if going after conventional tech races, or if you want lots of cheap infantry to absorb damage (possibly while your artillery hammers the enemy), and they work fine in those scenarios. I think the changes you're suggesting would make them considerably overpowered, especially with a tech advantage.
Weapon balance isn't as simple as "a weapon that weighs twice as much should be twice as effective" since a smaller weapon means you have more units; 25% more in the case of PWL infantry. This means that light personal weapons aren't just "do 75% less damage against equivalent tech enemies", they're "do 68.75% less damage to equal tech enemies, 25% more to very low tech enemies, and have 25% more health". Which I think is decent as a niche weapon.
I started some simulations, throwing together random army compositions, and PWL seems to do quite well as damage sponge. Against vehicles the difference between PW and PWL is tiny anyway, and CAP and HCAP deal most of the anti infantry damage.
The simulations are not exhaustive, but one clear tendency is that you absolutely want some infantry of some kind as damage sponge in your army. Unarmored if you can afford the space, armored if you are sensitive to transport requirements.
-
Earlier today, as part of the infantry changes, I made PWL 0.5 AP, 0.5 damage and Size 3. I wanted more differentiation between PWL and PW.
This differences makes PWL-equipped infantry a serious choice for occupation forces (due to occupation strength vs cost), and for use as Militia serving as a damage sponge. However, they are significantly less effective offensively vs front-line infantry formations.
-
This differences makes PWL-equipped infantry a serious choice for occupation forces (due to occupation strength vs cost), and for use as Militia serving as a damage sponge. However, they are significantly less effective offensively vs front-line infantry formations.
That actually does surprisingly well against infantry (assuming either the same armor, or that they're matched based on cost instead of size). I mean, they do 1/4 the damage against anything with better than (Tech level modified) 5 armor, but there's also nearly twice as many.
Let's say there's 200 militia vs 120 infantry. Abstract away fortification and accuracy to be 50% of shots hit.
200 militia fire 200 shots, 100 hit, and 25 kill. 120 infantry fire, 60 hit, 60 kill. That leaves 140 militia vs 95 infantry, which becomes 98 vs 78, then 59 vs 66, 26 vs 52, and ends with 49 infantry left. The infantry won, sure, but militia nearly held their own, and are much better for absorbing damage and gain more for a tech advantage.
Not a completely unbalanced change, but I could see militia becoming quite useful with the new numbers.
-
This differences makes PWL-equipped infantry a serious choice for occupation forces (due to occupation strength vs cost), and for use as Militia serving as a damage sponge. However, they are significantly less effective offensively vs front-line infantry formations.
That actually does surprisingly well against infantry (assuming either the same armor, or that they're matched based on cost instead of size). I mean, they do 1/4 the damage against anything with better than (Tech level modified) 5 armor, but there's also nearly twice as many.
Let's say there's 200 militia vs 120 infantry. Abstract away fortification and accuracy to be 50% of shots hit.
200 militia fire 200 shots, 100 hit, and 25 kill. 120 infantry fire, 60 hit, 60 kill. That leaves 140 militia vs 95 infantry, which becomes 98 vs 78, then 59 vs 66, 26 vs 52, and ends with 49 infantry left. The infantry won, sure, but militia nearly held their own, and are much better for absorbing damage and gain more for a tech advantage.
Not a completely unbalanced change, but I could see militia becoming quite useful with the new numbers.
But the Militia in this instance only do 0.5 damage so a penetrating hit only kills half the time... or is that not how it works?!?
So if you have 200 Militia against 10 Armour, 10 HP infantry you will only kill 12.5 Infantry since the gun only do 5 damage not 10.
The main role for Militia would not be combat oriented for the most part but to garrison some type of planets for a cheap cost. Serious garrisons meant for defence would be using at least normal infantry.
-
But the Militia in this instance only do 0.5 damage so a penetrating hit only kills half the time... or is that not how it works?!?
Yes, that it is how it works.
-
Opps, missed the damage changed as well. That does seem more balanced.
-
I was curious and decided to try my hand at figuring out the math of weapon balance. Some things are easy, like number of shots - a weapon with two shots is exactly as effective, in all circumstances, as two weapons with the same stats and 1 shot.
Other things are harder, like size. It might seem like a weapon that's twice as effective should be twice as large, but in practice it's more complicated. This can be seen by comparing a hypothetical Size 5 1 shot weapon to a Size 10 2 shot weapon of the same stats. Infantry would never want to use the Size 10 weapon, since they'd have half as many units with twice the shots, giving the same firepower but half the hp. However a light vehicle would probably want to use the Size 10 weapon, since it would result in 55% more firepower for 23% less hp. Complicating this is that sometimes you want tanky units, for example if they're providing cover for artillery, and other times you want glass cannon units, like the artillery itself.
However, you can set up a general rule based on whether a unit would win a fight with itself:
(New Firepower/Old Firepower) = (New Size/Old Size)^2
So if a weapon doubles the firepower (having 2 shots instead of 1, for instance) it becomes an upgrade in a straight fight if it increases the unit's total size by 41% or less. This also applies for vehicles with multiple weapon slots (I think you can choose not to fill a slot?) - plugging in the numbers shows that a vehicle with one medium anti-vehicle weapon will beat an equal size/cost of vehicles with two medium anti-vehicles.
Lastly, I decided to take a stab at damage. Damage is even weirder, since it depends on how many hp the unit you're shooting at has; if you do 6 damage to 1hp infantry, the weapon is effectively dealing 1 damage. However, going on the assumption that you can't predict what kind of units you'll be fighting, we can make a rough (emphasis on rough) estimate by averaging the results against every unit type in the game; this gives us how much damage we would expect it to do if fighting a truly random enemy, or one equally (by size) made up of every unit type. Additionally, since technology alters both hit points and damage, I tossed in a chance of a tech difference - 1/3rd chance the targets are lower tech, 1/3rd even tech, and 1/3rd higher tech. The results give how much damage, on average, we might expect an x damage weapon to inflict on a hit that gets past armor:
.5: .5
1: .99
2: 1.86
3: 2.62
4: 3.23
6: 4.05
9: 4.97
These numbers are probably off in a lot of ways, but it's also notable they don't consider armor piercing. A weapon with a higher armor piercing value is going to be more likely to inflict damage to a unit with high hit points, so there's some synergy between high damage and high AP, but that isn't reflected here. I'll reiterate that it's only meant as a very rough estimate.
-
A good use for these PWL would be for rear guard and support formation security forces. These forces would basically be there to soak any damage done to the back line for a very low price. Their weapons will hardly matter much since they are rarely going to attack anything anyhow as long as your defences hold strong. This would mean that each artillery or support regiment would also get a sizeable force of security personnel using lighter weapons.
A question... are there any rules about how many front line formations that can attack or are front lines basically infinitely large. I mean a very small force should perhaps be able to at least hold out for a while before being overwhelmed by a numerically superior opponent, it would also give tanks and power armoured infantry a strategical advantage over regular infantry that seem to be a bit too god cost wise otherwise. Perhaps some rule that you can't put more than say four times your enemy in the front line but at least double amount to the total size of the enemy army.
Example...
If I have a total size of 1500 and put 500 size on the front the opponent could put at least 3000 size on the front line, if I put 1000 on the front they could put 4000 size on the front line.
-
I was curious and decided to try my hand at figuring out the math of weapon balance. Some things are easy, like number of shots - a weapon with two shots is exactly as effective, in all circumstances, as two weapons with the same stats and 1 shot.
Other things are harder, like size. It might seem like a weapon that's twice as effective should be twice as large, but in practice it's more complicated. This can be seen by comparing a hypothetical Size 5 1 shot weapon to a Size 10 2 shot weapon of the same stats. Infantry would never want to use the Size 10 weapon, since they'd have half as many units with twice the shots, giving the same firepower but half the hp. However a light vehicle would probably want to use the Size 10 weapon, since it would result in 55% more firepower for 23% less hp. Complicating this is that sometimes you want tanky units, for example if they're providing cover for artillery, and other times you want glass cannon units, like the artillery itself.
However, you can set up a general rule based on whether a unit would win a fight with itself:
(New Firepower/Old Firepower) = (New Size/Old Size)^2
So if a weapon doubles the firepower (having 2 shots instead of 1, for instance) it becomes an upgrade in a straight fight if it increases the unit's total size by 41% or less. This also applies for vehicles with multiple weapon slots (I think you can choose not to fill a slot?) - plugging in the numbers shows that a vehicle with one medium anti-vehicle weapon will beat an equal size/cost of vehicles with two medium anti-vehicles.
Lastly, I decided to take a stab at damage. Damage is even weirder, since it depends on how many hp the unit you're shooting at has; if you do 6 damage to 1hp infantry, the weapon is effectively dealing 1 damage. However, going on the assumption that you can't predict what kind of units you'll be fighting, we can make a rough (emphasis on rough) estimate by averaging the results against every unit type in the game; this gives us how much damage we would expect it to do if fighting a truly random enemy, or one equally (by size) made up of every unit type. Additionally, since technology alters both hit points and damage, I tossed in a chance of a tech difference - 1/3rd chance the targets are lower tech, 1/3rd even tech, and 1/3rd higher tech. The results give how much damage, on average, we might expect an x damage weapon to inflict on a hit that gets past armor:
.5: .5
1: .99
2: 1.86
3: 2.62
4: 3.23
6: 4.05
9: 4.97
These numbers are probably off in a lot of ways, but it's also notable they don't consider armor piercing. A weapon with a higher armor piercing value is going to be more likely to inflict damage to a unit with high hit points, so there's some synergy between high damage and high AP, but that isn't reflected here. I'll reiterate that it's only meant as a very rough estimate.
You also have a few other important thing that size provide which is the rate at which the enemy will engage them or something else. Such as a Vehicles with one medium gun being better then vehicle with two guns, that only holds true when compared with each other. When you mix troops together you will then see that the smaller size of the the vehicles with two guns meas they will use their firepower more effectively when they have other units shielding them, having less size for more guns will give them far more time to use them effectively.
You basically always want glass-cannons being as small as possible so they are not hit as often while you want something heavily armoured and beefy OR cheap to soak enemy shots.
-
You also have a few other important thing that size provide which is the rate at which the enemy will engage them or something else. Such as a Vehicles with one medium gun being better then vehicle with two guns, that only holds true when compared with each other. When you mix troops together you will then see that the smaller size of the the vehicles with two guns meas they will use their firepower more effectively when they have other units shielding them, having less size for more guns will give them far more time to use them effectively.
You basically always want glass-cannons being as small as possible so they are not hit as often while you want something heavily armoured and beefy OR cheap to soak enemy shots.
This is only the case with bombardment weapons where the infantry are more likely to be targeted than the artillery; when both the tanks and infantry are front line units, having infantry to "soak" the hits doesn't change the equation any.
Let's consider a hypothetical tank with 2 weapons that's size 75, and a tank with 1 weapon that's size 50.
If we assume 750 size of tanks on both sides, those 2 weapon tanks fire 20 times (10*2), and the 1 weapon tanks fire 15 times. The 2 weapon tanks are inflicting 33% more damage, but have two thirds the health - they'll lose.
Then give both sides 750 size in tanks and 3000 size in infantry. The 2 weapon tanks fire 20 (10*2) shots, 4 hit enemy tanks, and 16 hit enemy infantry (are ignored for this scenario). The single weapon tanks fire 15 shots, 3 hit enemy tanks, and 12 hit enemy infantry. The 2 weapon tanks are still inflicting 33% more damage, but still have two thirds the health. The existence of the infantry might make the battle last longer, but it doesn't change the ratio of losses - the 2 weapon tanks still lose.
You could argue that the 2 weapon tanks are inflicting more losses to the infantry, but the inverse is also true - those 3000 size worth of infantry will sometimes hit and kill tanks instead of infantry, and each 2 weapon tank they kill is a much bigger loss than every 1 weapon tank they kill.
-
A good use for these PWL would be for rear guard and support formation security forces. These forces would basically be there to soak any damage done to the back line for a very low price. Their weapons will hardly matter much since they are rarely going to attack anything anyhow as long as your defences hold strong. This would mean that each artillery or support regiment would also get a sizeable force of security personnel using lighter weapons.
PWL troops will largely be limited to soaking incoming enemy fire for back line troops and garrison duties.
A question... are there any rules about how many front line formations that can attack or are front lines basically infinitely large. I mean a very small force should perhaps be able to at least hold out for a while before being overwhelmed by a numerically superior opponent, it would also give tanks and power armoured infantry a strategical advantage over regular infantry that seem to be a bit too god cost wise otherwise. Perhaps some rule that you can't put more than say four times your enemy in the front line but at least double amount to the total size of the enemy army.
IIRC the size of the frontline is defined by the size of the troops you place there. If your enemy frontline is sufficiently larger than your own he will gain a greater chance of Breakthrough attacks, modeling your positions getting overrun in tides of steel and men.
You could argue that the 2 weapon tanks are inflicting more losses to the infantry, but the inverse is also true - those 3000 size worth of infantry will sometimes hit and kill tanks instead of infantry, and each 2 weapon tank they kill is a much bigger loss than every 1 weapon tank they kill.
This is true until the 1 weapon tank is replaced by a tank with both an anti vehicle and a crew served anti personnel weapon. It will still be notably smaller than the 2 main weapon tank, if by a small margin, but it's murdering the enemy infantry in droves. The ability to take more actions, more shots, per turn is a major advantage in any turn based system, and Aurora C# ground combat rules are definitely very turn based combat like. The only exception would be if the actions taken are sufficiently without effectiveness, but with size 750 tanks and size 3000 infantry 80% of the shots would hit infantry, so with the standard 6 shot firing rate of crew served anti personnel weapons you can expect 4.8 shots per round per tank to successfully threaten to kill an enemy infantry unit.
-
You also have a few other important thing that size provide which is the rate at which the enemy will engage them or something else. Such as a Vehicles with one medium gun being better then vehicle with two guns, that only holds true when compared with each other. When you mix troops together you will then see that the smaller size of the the vehicles with two guns meas they will use their firepower more effectively when they have other units shielding them, having less size for more guns will give them far more time to use them effectively.
You basically always want glass-cannons being as small as possible so they are not hit as often while you want something heavily armoured and beefy OR cheap to soak enemy shots.
This is only the case with bombardment weapons where the infantry are more likely to be targeted than the artillery; when both the tanks and infantry are front line units, having infantry to "soak" the hits doesn't change the equation any.
Let's consider a hypothetical tank with 2 weapons that's size 75, and a tank with 1 weapon that's size 50.
If we assume 750 size of tanks on both sides, those 2 weapon tanks fire 20 times (10*2), and the 1 weapon tanks fire 15 times. The 2 weapon tanks are inflicting 33% more damage, but have two thirds the health - they'll lose.
Then give both sides 750 size in tanks and 3000 size in infantry. The 2 weapon tanks fire 20 (10*2) shots, 4 hit enemy tanks, and 16 hit enemy infantry (are ignored for this scenario). The single weapon tanks fire 15 shots, 3 hit enemy tanks, and 12 hit enemy infantry. The 2 weapon tanks are still inflicting 33% more damage, but still have two thirds the health. The existence of the infantry might make the battle last longer, but it doesn't change the ratio of losses - the 2 weapon tanks still lose.
You could argue that the 2 weapon tanks are inflicting more losses to the infantry, but the inverse is also true - those 3000 size worth of infantry will sometimes hit and kill tanks instead of infantry, and each 2 weapon tank they kill is a much bigger loss than every 1 weapon tank they kill.
That is not really how the economy work... I would look at the amount of GUNS you bring not tanks. The purpose of the dual Anti-Tank guns is to kill tanks and the number of guns is what matter to its general size.
The dual wielding tanks cost LESS per gun you bring and has a smaller footprint, thus you can bring a greater padding of other stuff to protect it. A hypothetical example would be that I bring 10 tanks with 20 guns and you bring 20 tanks with one gun... which mean we will kill an equal number of tanks. But 10 tanks with two guns are both smaller in size and cheaper in cost for what it is suppose to be doing thus you can bring more infantry to protect it which means they are even LESS likely to get hit and will destroy more tanks.
There is also the way you deploy the formations. I think that you would more likely deploy dual wielding anti-tank tanks in the defensive, that will make them survive even longer since they will be harder to hit. You would deploy your infantry killing tanks in the offence since you usually want them to manage good breakthroughs.
To be honest I don't think any tank is very effective in the soaking area in comparison to infantry cost wise. Size wise yes... but not per cost.
-
IIRC the size of the frontline is defined by the size of the troops you place there. If your enemy frontline is sufficiently larger than your own he will gain a greater chance of Breakthrough attacks, modeling your positions getting overrun in tides of steel and men.
Yes... but that was not what I meant. What I meant was that advantage in number should only take you so far in general. A smaller force you likely be defending a smaller area and you can't really attack with all your your forces at once. Having infinitely long front lines able to all attack at the same time make no real sense. I just meant there should be some rules to limit the amount of size that can attack a smaller size in the front line.
This would mean that you would always take at least some losses and even a smaller force could hold out for some time even if it is doomed to succumb.
-
This is true until the 1 weapon tank is replaced by a tank with both an anti vehicle and a crew served anti personnel weapon. It will still be notably smaller than the 2 main weapon tank, if by a small margin, but it's murdering the enemy infantry in droves. The ability to take more actions, more shots, per turn is a major advantage in any turn based system, and Aurora C# ground combat rules are definitely very turn based combat like. The only exception would be if the actions taken are sufficiently without effectiveness, but with size 750 tanks and size 3000 infantry 80% of the shots would hit infantry, so with the standard 6 shot firing rate of crew served anti personnel weapons you can expect 4.8 shots per round per tank to successfully threaten to kill an enemy infantry unit.
I never said that having both anti-infantry and anti-tank weapons were bad, just provided a formula that showed when two weapons were worse than one. And it still applies here; if the formula says a tank with a CAP and MAV is worse, then you can just have half the vehicles with MAV and half the vehicles with CAP.
-
Moving on, we can do some math with the formula.
Take the new HCAP. How good is it? It's easy to compare to CAP because it's only different in one aspect.
An infantry unit with CAP is size 12, AP 1, damage 1, shots 6. An infantry unit with HCAP is size 20, AP 1.6, damage 1, shots 6. This means that it inflicts 2.56 as much damage to anything with (adjusted) armor of 16 or higher. Plug that into the formula and we get:
(20/12)^2 = 2.78
2.78 is more than 2.56, so this means that CAP infantry will win in a straight fight against HCAP infantry, even if they both have armor 20. This isn't the same thing as saying HCAP is useless - it may perform better on vehicles than infantry, for instance - but it does mean that HCAP infantry could be categorized as a "glass cannon", which is to say the increased firepower is overshadowed by the increased fragility. And of course the comparison goes even better for CAP against anything with an armor of 10 or even 15. I wont go as far as to say never use HCAP infantry, but I will say that CAP infantry are going to generally be better, even if your opponent never uses a unit with armor <2.
The numbers are different on a light vehicle, since a CAP light vehicle is 24 and an HCAP is 32:
(32/24)^2 = 1.78
1.78 is much lower than 2.56, so HCAP light vehicles definitely outperform the CAP version against targets with armor of 16 or more. Since light vehicles always have a base armor multiplier of 2, this means that HCAP light vehicles will definitely be at an advantage in a fight with CAP light vehicles, though the latter would still outperform them when fighting very low armor opponents, like a mass of light infantry.
How about CAP vs personal weapons for infantry? CAP has the same stats as personal weapons but gets 6 shots, so it's straight up 6 times better. They both have the same AP, so armor doesn't matter. CAP infantry is size 12 and normal infantry is size 5.
(12/5)^2 = 5.76
5.76 is slightly less than 6, so we would expect a formation of nothing but CAP infantry to (barely) beat the same size of infantry with personal weapons. This is probably a good balance point, since personal weapon infantry works better at absorbing damage and garrisoning, and therefor CAP infantry performing better in a straight fight doesn't obsolete personal weapon infantry.
Other than that, after playing around with the numbers I do want to say that I think autocannons need a buff (unless I'm missing something crucial about them). The light autocannon is still straight up worse than even the nerfed HCAP, since it's heavier, has less AP, and 3 20 damage shots are statistically worse than 6 1 damage in every situation. I'd suggest either making it AP 20, putting it in the HCAP's old role but heavier and half as effective against infantry, or possibly upping the damage to 30 and making the autocannon line specialized against high health, low armor targets (the LAC would still be weaker than the HCAP against anything with armor 16 or higher with this change, but it would be closer).
-
One other thing that I realized is how expensive combat supply is and this totally change the way we need to look at high quality infantry as a viable component in our war plans.
Since supply is based on your weapon and don't consider armour, mostly reflecting ammunition it means that a Power Armoured infantry draw as much supply as a regular infantry when using the same weapon.
A single vehicle with 500GSP has a cost of roughly 2.5 and will be enough to sustain about 500 infantry (power armoured or regulars) for 30 hours or ten combat rounds.
500 light armoured infantry will cost you 5 so you pay their entire build cost in just 60 hours of combat while a Power Armoured Infantry get about 120 hours of combat to cover their production cost.
This means that Powered Armoured infantry are quite likely allot cheaper in combat cost-wise as well as size-wise. I assume that combat can easily drag on for several months if the fights are relatively even.
-
Looking at the Pacific theater of WW2, most island battles seem to last either less than a week, or the better part of a month, depending.There were exceptions, but they were uncommon.
Now, it's kind of unrealistic to compare these battles directly with the planet wide battles you are likely to see in Aurora, which would most likely take a good deal longer, especially as the size of the garrison that needs to be engaged increases. But several months is probably a fair estimation, or at least until the attacker manages to bring in a wave of fresh troops. Having the ability to reinforce will likely decide a lot of planetary battles.
That does mean you need a lot of supplies. And I do mean a lot. And everybody's logistics arm hates battles fought on planets with the Rifts, Forest, Mountain or Jungle dominant terrain. And gods help you if it's Mountain Jungle terrain against entrenched infantry and static units. You need massive numerical advantages on the offense just to break even in trading troops, and it'll eat through your supplies like you wouldn't believe because of the fortification stacking for the defense.
-
Looking at the Pacific theater of WW2, most island battles seem to last either less than a week, or the better part of a month, depending.There were exceptions, but they were uncommon.
Now, it's kind of unrealistic to compare these battles directly with the planet wide battles you are likely to see in Aurora, which would most likely take a good deal longer, especially as the size of the garrison that needs to be engaged increases. But several months is probably a fair estimation, or at least until the attacker manages to bring in a wave of fresh troops. Having the ability to reinforce will likely decide a lot of planetary battles.
That does mean you need a lot of supplies. And I do mean a lot. And everybody's logistics arm hates battles fought on planets with the Rifts, Forest, Mountain or Jungle dominant terrain. And gods help you if it's Mountain Jungle terrain against entrenched infantry and static units. You need massive numerical advantages on the offense just to break even in trading troops, and it'll eat through your supplies like you wouldn't believe because of the fortification stacking for the defense.
Combat the likes of tiny island are probably being something like attacking a military base or something like that. Invading a planet with millions if not billions of people should take way longer to conclude and eat tremendous amount of troops. Smaller bases are much more likely to be severely outnumbered where large populated worlds won't as easily.
You will of course try to find really easily defend-able military bases where your troops get allot of benefits from fortifying their units. So they might still be able to hold out long enough for some relief force our counter strike being mustered to thwart that invasion attempt.
Experience will tell... one thing is at least clear... attacking will cost you lot's and lots of expenditure of resources.
At least that is the way I see it for the most part.
-
Moving on, we can do some math with the formula.
Take the new HCAP. How good is it? It's easy to compare to CAP because it's only different in one aspect.
An infantry unit with CAP is size 12, AP 1, damage 1, shots 6. An infantry unit with HCAP is size 20, AP 1.6, damage 1, shots 6. This means that it inflicts 2.56 as much damage to anything with (adjusted) armor of 16 or higher. Plug that into the formula and we get:
(20/12)^2 = 2.78
2.78 is more than 2.56, so this means that CAP infantry will win in a straight fight against HCAP infantry, even if they both have armor 20. This isn't the same thing as saying HCAP is useless - it may perform better on vehicles than infantry, for instance - but it does mean that HCAP infantry could be categorized as a "glass cannon", which is to say the increased firepower is overshadowed by the increased fragility. And of course the comparison goes even better for CAP against anything with an armor of 10 or even 15. I wont go as far as to say never use HCAP infantry, but I will say that CAP infantry are going to generally be better, even if your opponent never uses a unit with armor <2.
The numbers are different on a light vehicle, since a CAP light vehicle is 24 and an HCAP is 32:
(32/24)^2 = 1.78
1.78 is much lower than 2.56, so HCAP light vehicles definitely outperform the CAP version against targets with armor of 16 or more. Since light vehicles always have a base armor multiplier of 2, this means that HCAP light vehicles will definitely be at an advantage in a fight with CAP light vehicles, though the latter would still outperform them when fighting very low armor opponents, like a mass of light infantry.
How about CAP vs personal weapons for infantry? CAP has the same stats as personal weapons but gets 6 shots, so it's straight up 6 times better. They both have the same AP, so armor doesn't matter. CAP infantry is size 12 and normal infantry is size 5.
(12/5)^2 = 5.76
5.76 is slightly less than 6, so we would expect a formation of nothing but CAP infantry to (barely) beat the same size of infantry with personal weapons. This is probably a good balance point, since personal weapon infantry works better at absorbing damage and garrisoning, and therefor CAP infantry performing better in a straight fight doesn't obsolete personal weapon infantry.
Other than that, after playing around with the numbers I do want to say that I think autocannons need a buff (unless I'm missing something crucial about them). The light autocannon is still straight up worse than even the nerfed HCAP, since it's heavier, has less AP, and 3 20 damage shots are statistically worse than 6 1 damage in every situation. I'd suggest either making it AP 20, putting it in the HCAP's old role but heavier and half as effective against infantry, or possibly upping the damage to 30 and making the autocannon line specialized against high health, low armor targets (the LAC would still be weaker than the HCAP against anything with armor 16 or higher with this change, but it would be closer).
I think HCAP seem to be in a good place right now.
The fact that it is suppose to be good against high armoured units is quite clear to me.
A few very important things that you miss is the amount of space the HCAP take up in the defensive line versus an equal amount of CAP for engaging high armour target. Since these units are glass cannons it is quite important they are not hit in the first place.
The second thing is how effective they are per supply point used which as I have noticed are going to be more important than the units initial construction cost.
An HCAP will spend 6*1*1.6=9,6 SPP and do 6 damage against 1.6 armoured infantry, that is 1.6 SPP per damage.
AN CAP will spend 6*1*1=6 SPP and do 2.34 damage against 1.6 armoured infantry, that is 2.56 SPP per damage.
An HCAP will spend 6*1*1.6=9,6 SPP and do 5.20 damage against 2.0 armoured infantry, that is 1.85 SPP per damage.
AN CAP will spend 6*1*1=6 SPP and do 1.5 damage against 1.6 armoured infantry, that is 4 SPP per damage.
That supply will mount up quite allot over time in cost as will the increased chance (on equal cost) of the CAP unit to get hit as well.
So... you need to factor in more than just build cost and the units fighting in isolation not in a combined arms force.
The same goes for calculating cost of vehicles and their use of them in an army as a whole. Artillery for example will burn huge amounts of supplies as will vehicles armed with anti-vehicle cannons. A single medium artillery cannon will burn 13.5 SPP... which are the same amount of supplies as almost 14 infantry with personal weapons.
The only thing I don't fully understand with the combat model so far is if there are some limitation of how many units can be at the front and how many front units that can fight each other every turn. Can an unlimited amount of front units fight a very small enemy front line and force. Given the cost in supply and build of artillery I might sort of question their worth if there are no restriction on front units engaging each other. It might just be me that don't fully understand the combat model. But in reality artillery is a strength multiplier and there is a limitation for how much force you can bring in the front lines and pit against the enemy front lines at any given time. More is not always better, especially when there are enemy area effect weapons in play. WW2 was the first real war where formations needed to become dispersed and fight over vast areas as a result. Artillery was extremely dangerous as was tank weapons.
I think that adding some sort of bonus to front line units from bombardment units could be important. Just adding firepower will likely see them either not used or used too much based on their strength versus cost. Say that having support artillery of air cover make your attacking/defending front units harder to hit, based on the abstraction of supporting front line operation. Or something like it.
There also is the issue of hit point versus damage being a linear relationship... this makes high damage weapons just bad from a supply perspective since many targets will be extremely expensive to kill over other where a low damage weapon will never be. Sure... there are not that many high AP low damage weapons around... but that is what I would look for from a cost AND size perspective.
Perhaps a SPP formula of something like AP*Shots*((Damage+10)/2). This would not make the damage trait so overwhelmingly expensive and unbalanced for what it actually does in combat.
-
The only thing I don't fully understand with the combat model so far is if there are some limitation of how many units can be at the front and how many front units that can fight each other every turn. Can an unlimited amount of front units fight a very small enemy front line and force. Given the cost in supply and build of artillery I might sort of question their worth if there are no restriction on front units engaging each other. It might just be me that don't fully understand the combat model. But in reality artillery is a strength multiplier and there is a limitation for how much force you can bring in the front lines and pit against the enemy front lines at any given time. More is not always better, especially when there are enemy area effect weapons in play. WW2 was the first real war where formations needed to become dispersed and fight over vast areas as a result. Artillery was extremely dangerous as was tank weapons.
I think that adding some sort of bonus to front line units from bombardment units could be important. Just adding firepower will likely see them either not used or used too much based on their strength versus cost. Say that having support artillery of air cover make your attacking/defending front units harder to hit, based on the abstraction of supporting front line operation. Or something like it.
There also is the issue of hit point versus damage being a linear relationship... this makes high damage weapons just bad from a supply perspective since many targets will be extremely expensive to kill over other where a low damage weapon will never be. Sure... there are not that many high AP low damage weapons around... but that is what I would look for from a cost AND size perspective.
I think the main intention of artillery is that they make quite good glass cannons. They do all have multiple shots, which otherwise only CAP and the autocannon line has, with reasonable AP to be suitable against all kinds of targets. Having these units in the backline where they cannot be engaged should be quite useful, and artillery does have the capability of engaging the enemy artillery to negate exactly that advantage.
As far as high AP low damage weapons go, they simply should not be a thing, and currently there don't seem to be any. The compromise autocannon currently does not look too good, so I would not be worried too much.
-
I don't mind if it looks like combat effectiveness is going to vary wildly by Supply usage. I think about WWI and the Shell Crisis and how over 90% of wounds/deaths were caused by artillery -- despite the fame of 'marching into machine guns' -- and I am okay with four hundred eighty power-armoured Elementals burning through supplies as fast as a million cloth-wearing riflebeings.
And I have complete confidence that if supply costs/usage truly become a problem, Steve will fix it in C# Aurora 1.01.
-
Why not fix it before release if possible... ;)
Anyhow... I agree with the notion of having artillery in the back but it is quite inefficient for what it does in comparison with say an HCAP in the frontlines. The fact that artillery is less attacked I think is not weighed up versus the firepower and lower supply usage of CAP/HCAP for example.
The problem with the current model is that either you bring only Artillery as support or CAP/HCAP. Game mechanic wise there are no difference but the damage they do and receive versus the total cost of building and supplying them. That is what I think can be a mechanical problem.
Supply is also something you will need to fit into your transports... so bringing CAP/HCAP will in general give you both more firepower and take less space through less supply usage.
I have no problem with supply being a huge consideration... but if Artillery/Tanks and that stuff are going to spend more realistic supply versus infantry these assets also need to be more important or right out mandatory for success.
I would like to see artillery be more of a force multiplier rather than doing massive damage on its own. Such as if you don't have artillery on your own to suppress enemy artillery then enemy forces will become way stronger and harder to kill. Air-force and bombardment should work in the same way. This is basically the function of support weapon in real life as well. Support weapon allow infantry and tanks to operate unhindered more or less which is what is important. The actual damage these weapons do to enemy infantry and tanks should be more of a secondary effect.
-
Why not fix it before release if possible... ;)
Because a fundamental Agile principle is to deliver a working vertical slice as quickly as possible and worry about fine-tuning the details in later iterations because you're almost certain to get them (the details) wrong if you try to plan them up-front :)
Note that the above should not be construed to be a criticism of the thought experiments being performed in this thread - it was simply that I saw a straight line that was too good to pass up :) I think the thought experiments/discussions are fine as long as they don't jam up the main threads (and kudos to the OP who pulled a topic that would get lots of discussion into a separate thread from the start), and if they turn up an egregious problem then it gives Steve an opportunity to fix it before release. But in terms of figuring out how the complex systems of rules will behave with one another, nothing beats actual experiments where a functioning game is in the hands of users who are trying to maximize their outcomes. So having Steve spend a lot of time trying to get the "20" (in the sense of 80/20) right upfront risks actually delaying getting to the end goal of having a good working game. From comments Steve has posted in the past I'm sure he understands this, so I'm confident that he'll fix whatever he thinks is sure to be a big enough problem to justify the schedule delay and defer the rest of it to Father Tim's 1.0.1
John
-
I am not that familiar with the new ground system yet. But was wondering if units like artillery in the background can be attacked by air wings? At least that is what they are supposed to do, when not directly supporting the front lines.
-
Why not fix it before release if possible... ;)
Because a fundamental Agile principle is to deliver a working vertical slice as quickly as possible and worry about fine-tuning the details in later iterations because you're almost certain to get them (the details) wrong if you try to plan them up-front :)
Note that the above should not be construed to be a criticism of the thought experiments being performed in this thread - it was simply that I saw a straight line that was too good to pass up :) I think the thought experiments/discussions are fine as long as they don't jam up the main threads (and kudos to the OP who pulled a topic that would get lots of discussion into a separate thread from the start), and if they turn up an egregious problem then it gives Steve an opportunity to fix it before release. But in terms of figuring out how the complex systems of rules will behave with one another, nothing beats actual experiments where a functioning game is in the hands of users who are trying to maximize their outcomes. So having Steve spend a lot of time trying to get the "20" (in the sense of 80/20) right upfront risks actually delaying getting to the end goal of having a good working game. From comments Steve has posted in the past I'm sure he understands this, so I'm confident that he'll fix whatever he thinks is sure to be a big enough problem to justify the schedule delay and defer the rest of it to Father Tim's 1.0.1
John
Yes... I don't think delaying the release of the game for this should be a priority.
I also agree that practical experience will quickly see any glaring imbalances.
Though... I think that things such as Artillery, Tanks, Air-force and Anti-Air should not just be a function of hits and kills. When you have it like that you will quite fast find the best solution to most problems (disregarding the rock/paper/scissor style of AP versus Armour).
Air bombardment and artillery should instead enable/disable attacks, tanks and infantry should have some impact on each others abilities other than pure combat hit/kills and Anti-air should mainly suppress enemy air-attacks rather then kill the air-craft as its main job. Bombardment from space should act like artillery but be suppressed by OTS weapons in the same way anti-air suppress air-force attacks.
If there is sort of a logarithmic effect of these weapon types you will have huge advantages with your air-force if there are no Anti-air as one example. The same with Artillery and Orbital bombardment... this is basically how things work in real life.
As is, the benefit of most support are basically just a shift to the left or right (and linear) and I guess there is very little difference from deploying just infantry in defence or back them up with some artillery and slightly less infantry.
If those support elements can give you huge benefits if unopposed it will be very hard to argue against a high supply draw even if it has a marginal effect since the enemy brought enough artillery and air-force to suppress it effectively and you the same. But if they did not have a counter to your artillery you would be almost unstoppable (given roughly equal ground forces).
This is of course just my opinion.... :)
-
I am not that familiar with the new ground system yet. But was wondering if units like artillery in the background can be attacked by air wings? At least that is what they are supposed to do, when not directly supporting the front lines.
I'm pretty sure air-force will be able to hit support elements, but they are perhaps less likely to hit the rear part rather than the front lines in the same way attacking units in the front line are.
-
I am not that familiar with the new ground system yet. But was wondering if units like artillery in the background can be attacked by air wings? At least that is what they are supposed to do, when not directly supporting the front lines.
If air wings are supporting a formation that comes under attack by hostile supporting artillery, that artillery becomes one of the targets that the air wing is eligible to attack.
-
Why not fix it before release if possible... ;)
Because a fundamental Agile principle is to deliver a working vertical slice as quickly as possible and worry about fine-tuning the details in later iterations because you're almost certain to get them (the details) wrong if you try to plan them up-front :)
Note that the above should not be construed to be a criticism of the thought experiments being performed in this thread - it was simply that I saw a straight line that was too good to pass up :) I think the thought experiments/discussions are fine as long as they don't jam up the main threads (and kudos to the OP who pulled a topic that would get lots of discussion into a separate thread from the start), and if they turn up an egregious problem then it gives Steve an opportunity to fix it before release. But in terms of figuring out how the complex systems of rules will behave with one another, nothing beats actual experiments where a functioning game is in the hands of users who are trying to maximize their outcomes. So having Steve spend a lot of time trying to get the "20" (in the sense of 80/20) right upfront risks actually delaying getting to the end goal of having a good working game. From comments Steve has posted in the past I'm sure he understands this, so I'm confident that he'll fix whatever he thinks is sure to be a big enough problem to justify the schedule delay and defer the rest of it to Father Tim's 1.0.1
John
Yes, I am working on these lines. The ground combat system is complex, with a lot of competing factors that will have different weights in different situations. Until I run some combats with the constraints of a real campaign, I don't really know what the main problems will be. At the moment, I am working toward starting a single-race campaign with one or more NPRs and spoilers. Today, I am have working on ground forces for precursors, to ensure that players encounter some early ground combat situations.
-
Why not fix it before release if possible... ;)
Because a fundamental Agile principle is to deliver a working vertical slice as quickly as possible and worry about fine-tuning the details in later iterations because you're almost certain to get them (the details) wrong if you try to plan them up-front :)
Note that the above should not be construed to be a criticism of the thought experiments being performed in this thread - it was simply that I saw a straight line that was too good to pass up :) I think the thought experiments/discussions are fine as long as they don't jam up the main threads (and kudos to the OP who pulled a topic that would get lots of discussion into a separate thread from the start), and if they turn up an egregious problem then it gives Steve an opportunity to fix it before release. But in terms of figuring out how the complex systems of rules will behave with one another, nothing beats actual experiments where a functioning game is in the hands of users who are trying to maximize their outcomes. So having Steve spend a lot of time trying to get the "20" (in the sense of 80/20) right upfront risks actually delaying getting to the end goal of having a good working game. From comments Steve has posted in the past I'm sure he understands this, so I'm confident that he'll fix whatever he thinks is sure to be a big enough problem to justify the schedule delay and defer the rest of it to Father Tim's 1.0.1
John
Yes, I am working on these lines. The ground combat system is complex, with a lot of competing factors that will have different weights in different situations. Until I run some combats with the constraints of a real campaign, I don't really know what the main problems will be. At the moment, I am working toward starting a single-race campaign with one or more NPRs and spoilers. Today, I am have working on ground forces for precursors, to ensure that players encounter some early ground combat situations.
I'm pretty sure you understand we are very appreciative of all your efforts no matter what... ;)
-
Do Precursor ground forces have the same logistical constraints as players/NPRs?
Because, well, that gives us another way to get rid of them. Just throw heavily armoured units at them until they run out of bullets.
Yes, this is probably really expensive. But useful as long as you can stack the defenses.
-
Do Precursor ground forces have the same logistical constraints as players/NPRs?
Because, well, that gives us another way to get rid of them. Just throw heavily armoured units at them until they run out of bullets.
Yes, this is probably really expensive. But useful as long as you can stack the defenses.
Yes, the precursor ground forces have supply vehicles.
-
Steve... I would at least encourage you to look at what impact increased Damage of weapons have to the supply use of weapons.
Number of shots will always increase the total damage output of weapons and AP will vary according to an exponential curve and can therefor be either wasted or very efficient for the supply it draw.
Damage on the other hand only have a linear effect on a units HP and any damage above hit point is always wasted. This mean that having a damage of 10 is always preferable from a supply and cost perspective. The initial cost if the weapon are probably less important than the amount of supply you will tend to use in the long run.
So damage need to either be reflected in build/maintenance or supply cost as an efficiency factor. I would make it so that damage is not increased linear with increase in damage for supply for that reason. That is a damage 60 weapon would not draw six times more supply than a damage 10 weapon. I think this is something worth considering.
-
Keep in mind that there's reasons no military supplies every infantry man with a rocket launcher and a bunch of rockets as his main weapon.
Most of those reasons are supply based.
Rockets and rocket launchers are expensive, compared bullets and guns, and tend to run out much quicker besides.
-
Keep in mind that there's reasons no military supplies every infantry man with a rocket launcher and a bunch of rockets as his main weapon.
Most of those reasons are supply based.
Rockets and rocket launchers are expensive, compared bullets and guns, and tend to run out much quicker besides.
That has nothing to do with anything since either artillery need to have an exponential effect like AP versus Armour or high damage weapons need to cost less supplies. I would like the first option if possible.
Such as unopposed artillery are extremely damaging or better yet decrease damage against supported front units as well as increase their damage output would be better.
Artillery that are countered in some way loose some of that effect and only deal some damage like now.
This would make them more realistic and make the supply draw more balanced, I think.
The problem are as I said that damage and hit point have a linear relationship and AP versus Armour is exponential, very different impact on the battle.
-
Let me clarify my point then.
High damage weapons wasting supply due to sheer overkill is not a flaw of the system. It is partially balanced by many high damage weapons also being high AP weapons and thus when hitting heavily armoured and high HP units (as larger vehicles often are) being exponentially more effective than weapons that are low damage and thus also low AP.
-
Let me clarify my point then.
High damage weapons wasting supply due to sheer overkill is not a flaw of the system. It is partially balanced by many high damage weapons also being high AP weapons and thus when hitting heavily armoured and high HP units (as larger vehicles often are) being exponentially more effective than weapons that are low damage and thus also low AP.
Sure for Anti-Vehicle weapons it might work out but even there the Auto-Cannon (except for the light one) are probably way better from a supply per shot perspective and enough AP to be effective in the Anti-Vehicle role. I would probably arm all my regular tanks with Auto-cannons and HCAP and only some few specialist vehicles/statics with one or more Anti-Vehicle weapons
For artillery it is really atrocious with that high damage and low AP, heavy artillery especially but even medium artillery is super expensive in comparison with how effective HCAP is at killing vehicles for supplies used.
This is pure math in my opinion. The thing is that supplies is part of the same factory output so if ignoring artillery and bring more infantry and HCAP is both cheaper and more effective that is what you would do outside role-play.
-
Artillery isn't really meant for the anti-armour role. It's job is to deal with infantry and light vehicles, this is even true in real life combat. Anti vehicle weapons are for destroying things like tanks.
Also, what you see early on on the battlefield won't be the same as what you'll see in later eras. I would expect that by the early fusion era you start seeing super heavies and ultra heavies deploying on the battlefield, and for those you absolutely need dedicated anti-vehicle weapons. Especially if they start breaking out the heavier armour schemes they have access to, Auto Cannons and HCAP won't break through otherwise.
-
Artillery isn't really meant for the anti-armour role. It's job is to deal with infantry and light vehicles, this is even true in real life combat. Anti vehicle weapons are for destroying things like tanks.
Also, what you see early on on the battlefield won't be the same as what you'll see in later eras. I would expect that by the early fusion era you start seeing super heavies and ultra heavies deploying on the battlefield, and for those you absolutely need dedicated anti-vehicle weapons. Especially if they start breaking out the heavier armour schemes they have access to, Auto Cannons and HCAP won't break through otherwise.
Yes... but artillery are not very effective at either in comparison with the amount of supplies it cost to use them, that is the problem.
For anti-vehicle duty you get some anti-vehicle cannons for tanks then the Auto-Cannon is more effective since it also is potentially MORE effective against lighter vehicles as well as heavy ones.
I'm not so sure those ultra heavy things will be so effective when just a few static heavy anti-vehicle cannons will take them out for a really low cost.
You are simply better of with more of a mix of infantry and static or infantry units with HCAP and some Anti-Vehicle cannons. Those big monsters are going to be absolutely worthless against an infantry and anti-tank mix.
-
The whole supply discussion seems to boil down that since high damage weapons also happen to have the high AP values, supply usage effectively scales as dmg^2
Using the sqrt of either AP or DMG would likely reduce the impact a lot, or adding an offset as in (Base AP+1)* base dmg to prevent low dmg/low ap weapons to be overwhelming.