Fisrt stab at Ground Combat

[Cobaia (OP)]

Hello,

I'm 168 years into the game, started with research rate at 25%, all other options are at default values.

Got my fleet up and destroyed the NPR fleet. I was ready for the invasion of the enemy home planet.

My forces were the following:

TEA - Ultramarine Battalion HQ x2:

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Transport Size (tons) 75     Cost 12     Armour 30     Hit Points 15
Annual Maintenance Cost 1.5     Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters:    Capacity 15 000
Non-Combat Class

TEA - Ultramarine Company HQ Unit x10:

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Transport Size (tons) 12.5     Cost 2     Armour 30     Hit Points 15
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.25     Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters:    Capacity 2 500
Non-Combat Class

TEA - Ultramarine AT Unit x146

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Transport Size (tons) 16     Cost 0.64     Armour 30     Hit Points 15
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.08     Resupply Cost 6
Light Anti-Vehicle:      Shots 1      Penetration 20      Damage 30

TEA - Ultramarine HMG Unit x195:

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Transport Size (tons) 12     Cost 0.48     Armour 30     Hit Points 15
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.06     Resupply Cost 6
Crew-Served Anti-Personnel:      Shots 6      Penetration 8      Damage 8
TEA - Ultramarine Logistics Unitx50

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Transport Size (tons) 10     Cost 1     Armour 30     Hit Points 15
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.13     Resupply Cost 0
Logistics Module - Small:      Ground Supply Points 100
Non-Combat Class
TEA - Ultramarine Squad HQ Unitx50

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Transport Size (tons) 10     Cost 0.32     Armour 30     Hit Points 15
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.04     Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters:    Capacity 400
Non-Combat Class
TEA - Ultramarine Unit x1500

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Transport Size (tons) 6     Cost 0.6     Armour 30     Hit Points 15
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.075     Resupply Cost 1.3
Improved Personal Weapons:      Shots 1      Penetration 10      Damage 8

This amounts to ~15 000 tons of Ground Units

After the drop the information gathered from the enemy:
Unknown Unit Types: 3 220

After the initial round of attack I got this report of my attack and the names of the enemy units:

Attack	Shots	Hits	Armour Penetrated	Destroyed
Decurion AA Mech	314	14	0	0
Centurion	955	7	7	4
Praetorian Combat Mech	444	12	1	0
Construction Vehicle	19	0	0	0
Ressuply Infantry	69	1	1	1
Praetorian Leader	5	0	0	0

My loss report came next:

Unit	Losses
Ultramarine HMG Unit	39
Ultramarine Unit	60
Ultramarine Logistics Unit	2

On the second round I've got the information of the estimation of the enemy forces:

Unit	Ammount	Armour	HP	Shots	Penetration	Damage
Centurion	1589	10	10	6	12	12
Praetorian Combat Mech	242	Unknown	Unknown	1	48	48
Decurion AA Mech	77	Unknown	Unknown	1	24	48
Ressuply Infantry	269	Unknown	Unknown	0	0	0
Unknown Unit Types	408	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown

The next rounds came exactly the same. A lot of shots fired from my units low hit ratios.
Enemy round: loads of casualties on my side.

I understand they were fortified and that my units had low penetration rate.

What I don't get is:
How did my units missed so many shots? The hit ratio is abysmal.
Only 248 enemy units (that I knew of) could penetrate my armour rating and still I got many casualities? Droping hundreads per 8h tick.

Can some enlighten me?

[Ulzgoroth]

So...

Ground troop base accuracy is only 20% before you start piling on the penalties.

With good officers I think you can better than double that from direct bonuses and high morale, but I don't know where you stand there.

The enemies, as you say, will be very well fortified, so that's a big hit penalty and it can get worse from there.

What's the terrain type and environmental stats for the planet? Most terrain types give a favorable multiplier to fortification effect. And most planets that you haven't terraformed have environments that will penalize your troops unless you designed them with capabilities to handle it. In particular, you're very likely taking a 50% penalty for extreme temperature. You could also take similar penalties for atmospheric pressure and gravity, but those are probably within your species tolerance on an NPR homeworld.

Attacking a fortified enemy on a hostile world isn't a walk in the park.

As for what's going the other way, they're not suffering any of those penalties since you're not fortified and you're on their homeworld. Their hit rate could easily be above 20%. And armor is strong, but it's not an absolute defense. Praetorian mechs will blow away your troops any time they hit, but the Decurion AA Mech will also penetrate their armor and score a kill 64% of the time. Even the Centurion troops will penetrate 16% of the time, though they only have a 64% chance of converting that penetration to a kill. Those numbers aren't great for them, but with nearly 1600*6 shots it adds up. (If AP is less than armor, chance to penetrate is (AP/armor)^2. Chance to kill works the same way with damage and HP.)

[Cobaia (OP)]

Yeah I guess I wasn't ready for this much debuffing, the terrain was forested mountain, no pressure or gravity changes.

Well when you have a problem throw more marines at it.

[liveware]

Adding mountain training for your assault troops will probably improve your combat statistics quite a lot. Also the genetic enhancement line of research is quite good at improving infantry survivability. Also is temperature within your species habitable band? I rarely find planets that are natively hospitable without terraforming.

Also, you probably want to add some light bombardment capability to your ground forces. Light bombardment formations supporting infantry formations set to front line attack are extremely effective against the foes you are facing based on my own experiences. If I were you I would swap out some of my AT units for light bombardment.

You might also considering reducing the number of PWI weapons on your Ultramarines in lieu of PW units. The advantage is that for each of PWI you can have many more units of PW, ton-for-ton, resulting in much larger number of infantry per ton of transport space and also much more infantry HP per ton of transport space. Also against centurions if memory serves me correctly PW have good enough damage statistics to kill them reliably.

I also find the HCAP weapons to be less useful than expected. Using a similar argument as for PWI vs PW, in a contest of HCAP vs CAP you can field more CAP than HCAP per tonnage of shipping and CAP has quite good damage statistics against things like Centurions.

Attached is a screenshot of my most recent planetary invasion OOB against foes similar to yours. I can post unit designs also if you're interested, it's just a bit tedious to do so so I won't bother if not needed. Most units should be self explainitory but just for basic reference, Prefects are PWL infantry, Legionnaires are PW, Praetorians are PWI, and Myrmidons are CAP. The rest should be fairly straightforward to identify.

[liveware]

The Praetorian Combat Mech units you are facing are probably CAP armed light or medium vehicles. If you are attacking those with infantry you are going face heavy casualties. Adding some dedicated medium or heavy armor formations armed with AT weapons is probably a wise move in that situation.

Armored formations also have a higher chance at achieving breakthroughs than infantry so including at least a few formations composed entirely of vehicles is a worthwhile consideration.

[Thrake]

Adding mountain training for your assault troops will probably improve your combat statistics quite a lot. Also the genetic enhancement line of research is quite good at improving infantry survivability. Also is temperature within your species habitable band? I rarely find planets that are natively hospitable without terraforming.

Also, you probably want to add some light bombardment capability to your ground forces. Light bombardment formations supporting infantry formations set to front line attack are extremely effective against the foes you are facing based on my own experiences. If I were you I would swap out some of my AT units for light bombardment.

You might also considering reducing the number of PWI weapons on your Ultramarines in lieu of PW units. The advantage is that for each of PWI you can have many more units of PW, ton-for-ton, resulting in much larger number of infantry per ton of transport space and also much more infantry HP per ton of transport space. Also against centurions if memory serves me correctly PW have good enough damage statistics to kill them reliably.

I also find the HCAP weapons to be less useful than expected. Using a similar argument as for PWI vs PW, in a contest of HCAP vs CAP you can field more CAP than HCAP per tonnage of shipping and CAP has quite good damage statistics against things like Centurions.

Attached is a screenshot of my most recent planetary invasion OOB against foes similar to yours. I can post unit designs also if you're interested, it's just a bit tedious to do so so I won't bother if not needed. Most units should be self explainitory but just for basic reference, Prefects are PWL infantry, Legionnaires are PW, Praetorians are PWI, and Myrmidons are CAP. The rest should be fairly straightforward to identify.

PWI allow him to be guaranteed to pierce centurion armor, while PW would need to go through another roll.

[liveware]

Adding mountain training for your assault troops will probably improve your combat statistics quite a lot. Also the genetic enhancement line of research is quite good at improving infantry survivability. Also is temperature within your species habitable band? I rarely find planets that are natively hospitable without terraforming.

Also, you probably want to add some light bombardment capability to your ground forces. Light bombardment formations supporting infantry formations set to front line attack are extremely effective against the foes you are facing based on my own experiences. If I were you I would swap out some of my AT units for light bombardment.

You might also considering reducing the number of PWI weapons on your Ultramarines in lieu of PW units. The advantage is that for each of PWI you can have many more units of PW, ton-for-ton, resulting in much larger number of infantry per ton of transport space and also much more infantry HP per ton of transport space. Also against centurions if memory serves me correctly PW have good enough damage statistics to kill them reliably.

I also find the HCAP weapons to be less useful than expected. Using a similar argument as for PWI vs PW, in a contest of HCAP vs CAP you can field more CAP than HCAP per tonnage of shipping and CAP has quite good damage statistics against things like Centurions.

Attached is a screenshot of my most recent planetary invasion OOB against foes similar to yours. I can post unit designs also if you're interested, it's just a bit tedious to do so so I won't bother if not needed. Most units should be self explainitory but just for basic reference, Prefects are PWL infantry, Legionnaires are PW, Praetorians are PWI, and Myrmidons are CAP. The rest should be fairly straightforward to identify.

PWI allow him to be guaranteed to pierce centurion armor, while PW would need to go through another roll.

In that case it might be worth investing in improvements to your overall racial weapons. See below PW infantry I have been using for quite a while:

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Colonial Marine Legionnaire
Transport Size (tons) 5     Cost 2.44     Armour 24     Hit Points 24
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.31     Resupply Cost 1
Personal Weapons:      Shots 1      Penetration 15      Damage 15

Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Jungle Warfare
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare


[Ulzgoroth]

Mountain and if applicable extreme temperature capability would each give a 2x accuracy improvement here, which is pretty big.

Given the huge amount of automatic weapon fire, I might go with a heavy metal landing with lots of tanks. Though then the Praetorians will be wrecking you so eh.

The Praetorian Combat Mech units you are facing are probably CAP armed light or medium vehicles. If you are attacking those with infantry you are going face heavy casualties. Adding some dedicated medium or heavy armor formations armed with AT weapons is probably a wise move in that situation.

They are clearly not. The Centurions are CAP infantry, almost certainly, given the six shots. (Unless that stat is bad intel? I don't know if that's possible. But if so, they'd surely be PW infantry.) The Praetorians are a perfect fit for vehicles with MAV.

[Cobaia (OP)]

Mountain and if applicable extreme temperature capability would each give a 2x accuracy improvement here, which is pretty big.

Given the huge amount of automatic weapon fire, I might go with a heavy metal landing with lots of tanks. Though then the Praetorians will be wrecking you so eh.

The Praetorian Combat Mech units you are facing are probably CAP armed light or medium vehicles. If you are attacking those with infantry you are going face heavy casualties. Adding some dedicated medium or heavy armor formations armed with AT weapons is probably a wise move in that situation.

They are clearly not. The Centurions are CAP infantry, almost certainly, given the six shots. (Unless that stat is bad intel? I don't know if that's possible. But if so, they'd surely be PW infantry.) The Praetorians are a perfect fit for vehicles with MAV.

Clearly I underestimated the troop requirements for an full scale planetary invasion.

I need the medium vehicles added in so I can get a bigger punch and survive that smalls arms fire, and I need to pump up the troop numbers to hold the line despite the causalities.

I need to redo my Army and my Assault fleet. This is going to take at least a decade.

Thanks for the replies!

[misanthropope]

i mean, whatever else is going on here, the prescription being tossed around on these forums is "have a 5 to one superiority".  obviously that's circumstantial, but you've got one-tenth that level of force.

[liveware]

Mountain and if applicable extreme temperature capability would each give a 2x accuracy improvement here, which is pretty big.

Given the huge amount of automatic weapon fire, I might go with a heavy metal landing with lots of tanks. Though then the Praetorians will be wrecking you so eh.

The Praetorian Combat Mech units you are facing are probably CAP armed light or medium vehicles. If you are attacking those with infantry you are going face heavy casualties. Adding some dedicated medium or heavy armor formations armed with AT weapons is probably a wise move in that situation.

They are clearly not. The Centurions are CAP infantry, almost certainly, given the six shots. (Unless that stat is bad intel? I don't know if that's possible. But if so, they'd surely be PW infantry.) The Praetorians are a perfect fit for vehicles with MAV.

You're right, I should read things more carefully...

Probably the Centurian CAPs are that are giving OP problems then.

[liveware]

Mountain and if applicable extreme temperature capability would each give a 2x accuracy improvement here, which is pretty big.

Given the huge amount of automatic weapon fire, I might go with a heavy metal landing with lots of tanks. Though then the Praetorians will be wrecking you so eh.

The Praetorian Combat Mech units you are facing are probably CAP armed light or medium vehicles. If you are attacking those with infantry you are going face heavy casualties. Adding some dedicated medium or heavy armor formations armed with AT weapons is probably a wise move in that situation.

They are clearly not. The Centurions are CAP infantry, almost certainly, given the six shots. (Unless that stat is bad intel? I don't know if that's possible. But if so, they'd surely be PW infantry.) The Praetorians are a perfect fit for vehicles with MAV.

Clearly I underestimated the troop requirements for an full scale planetary invasion.

I need the medium vehicles added in so I can get a bigger punch and survive that smalls arms fire, and I need to pump up the troop numbers to hold the line despite the causalities.

I need to redo my Army and my Assault fleet. This is going to take at least a decade.

Thanks for the replies!

I don't think extreme pressure/temperature apply to infantry. Watch out for that.

[Ulzgoroth]

I don't think extreme pressure/temperature apply to infantry. Watch out for that.

Why do you say that? I'm certainly allowed to design extreme temperature capable infantry. I can't easily verify that the capability is functional but I don't see why it wouldn't be...

[Droll]

I don't think extreme pressure/temperature apply to infantry. Watch out for that.

Why do you say that? I'm certainly allowed to design extreme temperature capable infantry. I can't easily verify that the capability is functional but I don't see why it wouldn't be...

There is a bug with infantry unit capabilities - I posted this report a while ago an its been marked as "reported"

1. 11. 0
The function number: N/A
The complete error text: N/A
The window affected: Ground Forces - Unit Class Design / Template Design
What you were doing at the time: Designing Infantry w capabilities
Conventional or TN start: Conventional
Random or Real Stars: random
Is your decimal separator a comma? Nein
Is the bug is easy to reproduce, intermittent or a one-off? easy
Campaign is about 50 years in.

When adding capabilities to infantry the cost and stats I imagine are being computed correctly. However when looking at the stats of units in the template screen it does not show the capabilities of the unit when it was designed - it shows the capabilities you currently have selected in the unit class design screen. The values for unit cost seem to correspond to their actual intended design so I imagine that this might just be UI problem but I'd check anyways.

How to reproduce:
1- design any infantry with any capability
2- check what the little text representation says about the capabilities of your design
3- In unit design, select any other capabilities
4- check your infantry unit again in the template design screen - notice that the stats page has changed to show whatever was selected in the unit design page

Update: I am actually pretty convinced that infantry capabilities are not being properly applied - This gets weird:
- Capabilities for some reason not applied to any infantry unit design at the point of designing the unit
- However, if I design a unit with the desired capabilities selected, save the game, then close aurora and load my save, the last selected capabilities before the save are applied.
- Designing new units does not affect already designed infantry
- The unit cost is correct with respect to the capabilities that were selected at the point of initial design creation, this means that if you have changed the capabilities of the unit before
  saving the game the cost will be inconsistent.

Disclaimer: I am using SM mode to instant design

Reported