Infantry vs Vehicle HQ

[Ehndras (OP)]

What's the difference between infantry and vehicle HQ's? Should I put all my HQ Commanders in armored heavy vehicle command centers instead of plainclothes infantry huddled in a tent, so to speak?

It is mainly a stats vs size (tons) situation?

[Froggiest1982]

What's the difference between infantry and vehicle HQ's? Should I put all my HQ Commanders in armored heavy vehicle command centers instead of plainclothes infantry huddled in a tent, so to speak?

It is mainly a stats vs size (tons) situation?

I am not 100% sure, but you are correct. There is no "meaningful" difference between the 2 other than the armor rating.

I guess if you are designing a Panzer Corp you may want to use a Vehicle for RP purpose, otherwise, the smarter thing to do is to always have the HQ as the max armour as possible to avoid it gets obliterated in combat leaving you in a very uncomfortable position.

[Bremen]

Infantry HQs will be smaller, while vehicle HQs will have more HP. Also, infantry/static can have better fortification levels, while light vehicles will have the best evasion when not fortified.

In my opinion, speaking strictly from a mechanical point of view, it greatly depends on how big the HQ module itself is. If you have a 250 ton division HQ, spending 12+ more tons to put it on a static or vehicle chassis is a pretty tiny cost and the additional HP could help keep it alive; in fact this is a good use for command super-heavy tanks and such once you have the tech. OTOH if you're making individual companies or similar, you probably don't want to triple or quadruple the HQ size just to give it a bigger chassis, so infantry HQs would be the way to go.

[Nori]

To add to what has already been said.. Something else to keep in mind is where the HQ will be. Some will be in front lines, some will be support and some will be in the rear. For instance, I have started putting HQs in every single unit and I always have two, given that I'm usually ok with infantry HQs, but for more important positions or frontlines I may use a more armored version.

[Migi]

Personally I think the biggest difference is in research cost. A 60kT HQ for my last game cost 1200 research points if made as infantry but over 4900 if made as a Medium vehicle with medium armour. I only started with 80k research points so that's a big difference.
The way I see it, all HQ's will be set as non-combat so that's the best way for them to survive.

[Ehndras (OP)]

All great things to consider, thanks for the advice y'all!

[Exultant]

HQs get shot, because they're big.  INF HQs will die to pretty much any hit, and since only the HQ embedded in the formation gives 100% bonus (with higher level ones giving . 25^n bonus, n being the number of levels above the formation in question), you really, REALLY want to keep your HQs alive. 

Thus, heavily armored, avoid combat HQs are the way I go. 

This also seems to encourage avoiding tiny formations.  A tiny formation without an HQ is only getting ~31-33% HQ bonuses (25% from the HQ one level up, 6. 25% from the one above that, 1. 5% from the one above that).  whereas a formation with an intact HQ is getting 133% bonus. 

My initial TN starts have 1k formation as the smallest unit, but I soon transition to 5k formations as my smallest unit by the time I'm considering prepping to invade someone.  That makes a single heavy or superheavy HQ tank in the formation not all that painful, even in infantry formations. 

[Black]

In my experience from combat  in C# Aurora, I am going for 2 HQ per formation in future. In my current game smaller formations have infantry HQs and bigger formation have vehicle HQs. In my last fight, when I was halfway through wiping hostile forces my HQs of combat units were already mostly gone, only remaining HQs were in artillery formations that were in support line and Corps HQ that was in rear line.

I need to try static HQ next time to see if it has better survivability for front line units.

[Jorgen_CAB]

In my experience from combat  in C# Aurora, I am going for 2 HQ per formation in future. In my current game smaller formations have infantry HQs and bigger formation have vehicle HQs. In my last fight, when I was halfway through wiping hostile forces my HQs of combat units were already mostly gone, only remaining HQs were in artillery formations that were in support line and Corps HQ that was in rear line.

I need to try static HQ next time to see if it has better survivability for front line units.

You want as few HQ in front line position as possible so you can stack extra HQ in support and rear echelon position and move them forward as you need them replaced.

I would only personally use infantry in platoon sized formations, something I ever only use for boarding troops or other specialised formations. Otherwise I find Static HQ with best armour (make sure to tick "none combat" box) is the most viable HQ type. For front line company HQ it can be a toss up between using static or light vehicle HQ. Light vehicles is for front-line if you think the company will often go into front attack but otherwise static is way superior as they can have better armour and more fortifications and thus survive better.

Infantry just die way too often and even if it is slightly smaller and cheaper it is not always cheap and small enough when you consider how often they die.

[Black]

My basic combat formations have 16000 tons, I tried to go for smaller formations but it got too tedious especially because there is no streamlined way to replace lost units.

I deployed 12 such formation, 2 of them artillery, those VEH HQs survived the combat (in support line), from the rest (4 VEH and 6 INF HQs) only 1 VEH survived. There were 3 higher VEH HQ each taking care of 4 16000 tons units, from those 2 were also lost and those were in rear echelon.

So I agree INF HQ is definitely not worth it in larger formations. Is the unit penalized if it has static HQ and is in frontline attack or defense? I didn't try static HQs yet.

[Jorgen_CAB]

So I agree INF HQ is definitely not worth it in larger formations. Is the unit penalized if it has static HQ and is in frontline attack or defense? I didn't try static HQs yet.

A Static unit have a *1 evasion while light vehicles have *0.4 evasion if they are in Frontline Attack position... so light vehicles are 60% more difficult to hit at that position. Static units are usually better otherwise as long as they are fortified and especially if they have heavy armour.

If you are invading a planet then light vehicles can be better when you have not been able to fortify the units properly. So both have a role to play...

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

So I agree INF HQ is definitely not worth it in larger formations. Is the unit penalized if it has static HQ and is in frontline attack or defense? I didn't try static HQs yet.

A Static unit have a *1 evasion while light vehicles have *0.4 evasion if they are in Frontline Attack position... so light vehicles are 60% more difficult to hit at that position. Static units are usually better otherwise as long as they are fortified and especially if they have heavy armour.

If you are invading a planet then light vehicles can be better when you have not been able to fortify the units properly. So both have a role to play...

The question was if giving a frontline unit a rearline static HQ invokes an admin penalty for the combat portion.  I don't know the answer.

[Migi]

So I agree INF HQ is definitely not worth it in larger formations. Is the unit penalized if it has static HQ and is in frontline attack or defense? I didn't try static HQs yet.

A Static unit have a *1 evasion while light vehicles have *0.4 evasion if they are in Frontline Attack position... so light vehicles are 60% more difficult to hit at that position. Static units are usually better otherwise as long as they are fortified and especially if they have heavy armour.

If you are invading a planet then light vehicles can be better when you have not been able to fortify the units properly. So both have a role to play...

The question was if giving a frontline unit a rearline static HQ invokes an admin penalty for the combat portion.  I don't know the answer.

I don't recall seeing anything about HQ bonuses being affected by the position of the unit.
That said, if your unit is in frontline then the HQ will be in frontline, you can't have the HQ in a different stance to the unit which contains it.

[Jorgen_CAB]

So I agree INF HQ is definitely not worth it in larger formations. Is the unit penalized if it has static HQ and is in frontline attack or defense? I didn't try static HQs yet.

A Static unit have a *1 evasion while light vehicles have *0.4 evasion if they are in Frontline Attack position... so light vehicles are 60% more difficult to hit at that position. Static units are usually better otherwise as long as they are fortified and especially if they have heavy armour.

If you are invading a planet then light vehicles can be better when you have not been able to fortify the units properly. So both have a role to play...

The question was if giving a frontline unit a rearline static HQ invokes an admin penalty for the combat portion.  I don't know the answer.

If the smallest "formation" you have is a company of say 3000 size and you include an HQ in that formation it is automatically in the same position as the formation.

The Battalion HQ size 15000 on the other hand could be placed in say a support position and then include things like AA or bombardment elements within it's formation, if that is what you are asking?!?

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

It seems I misunderstood the 'Avoid Combat' flag.  Thank you both for the correction.