Figuring out ground unit failure

[Zeebie (OP)]

Hi folks -

I just tried to invade an enemy planet and my entire force was annihilated within a couple of days, and I'm hoping you can help me figure out what went wrong.  I had a numerical advantage (250k to 130k) and a slight tech advantage.  I'm guessing my troops need some special environmental capability, but I'm not sure which ones - is there any way to see what environmental penalties are in play?  The planet is tundra, 0.13 g, at -37 C, with 1.11 atm. My species is vanilla human, and my troops have extreme temperature capability.  Is there something else I need? There's no tundra specialty, is there?

[Droll]

Hi folks -

I just tried to invade an enemy planet and my entire force was annihilated within a couple of days, and I'm hoping you can help me figure out what went wrong.  I had a numerical advantage (250k to 130k) and a slight tech advantage.  I'm guessing my troops need some special environmental capability, but I'm not sure which ones - is there any way to see what environmental penalties are in play?  The planet is tundra, 0.13 g, at -37 C, with 1.11 atm. My species is vanilla human, and my troops have extreme temperature capability.  Is there something else I need? There's no tundra specialty, is there?

Extreme temperature and (maybe) low gravity seem to be in play as far as environmental goes. You have the temperature so probably low grav is screwing you.
Edit: Actually I think human g tolerance is 0.1g which would mean that low gravity is not in play.

However I do not think that the lack of environmental capability is the problem here. Assume that the defenders have passive fortification - you immediately already have a 50% accuracy on vehicles and 34% accuracy on infantry. Infantry can have upto 6 fortification in the presence of construction vehicles which IMO is guaranteed so that 17% accuracy on their infantry.

You brought around 2:1 odds against the enemy which is generally speaking not good enough unless you have a significant tech advantage. Try bringing 6:1 or more and see what happens.

Edit: Given overall low ground accuracy consider armour. I found that armour ridiculously increases survival rates. For infantry consider gene enchancement which increases their hp.

[Ulzgoroth]

Probably not low gravity. Default gravity tolerance is 0.1-1.9 AFAICT.

Most likely it is just that double the tonnage isn't good enough to win as the attacker given the tech ratio involved.

It's also possible that the invasion force organization or makeup is ineffective, but we don't have any information that would let us diagnose that.

[Droll]

It's also possible that the invasion force organization or makeup is ineffective, but we don't have any information that would let us diagnose that.

I think this would be nice to see as well but I can understand why showing unit designs can be tedious. At least seeing what the invading OOB was would be nice.

General advice - do not just put everything on front-line attack, I always have some troops on front-line defense as well. The defending formations are generally comprised of cheaper but defensible units like infantry. As the combat continues defending units will fortify (assuming CON units exist) and become even tougher. Regardless they will soak up most of the casualties and shield your attackers and most importantly, support level units like artillery, high level HQs.

Also note that artillery isn't invincible just because it is not on the frontline - you will lose arty to counterbattery fire from enemy arty. Which is why if you have HQ units and want to put artillery on them - use heavy or long range and put the formation in the rear echelon, this limits counterbattery fire to enemy heavy arty.

Also we are assuming that your units had proper supply otherwise the force you sent was going to be at 25% effectiveness.

If you want orbital support you will want some sort of FFD in your formations - for orbital bombardment generally speaking larger caliber energy weapons work well - do not use missiles if you want to use the planet, radiation dissipates much slower than dust. I like to use bombardment cruisers with 50cm railguns. I find these weapons have a good compromise between being able to kill units and having enough shots to actually hit units. However 20cm and larger laser weapons also tend to do well which is why my heavy cruisers also can help.

Just make sure that you ships have some sort of shielding in case of STO counter-fire.

[Migi]

do not just put everything on front-line attack, I always have some troops on front-line defense as well. The defending formations are generally comprised of cheaper but defensible units like infantry. As the combat continues defending units will fortify (assuming CON units exist) and become even tougher. Regardless they will soak up most of the casualties and shield your attackers and most importantly, support level units like artillery, high level HQs.

If you have units on front line defence, do they fight enemy units which are also on front line defence or are you relying on the enemy putting some units on front line attack?
I seem to recall some people indicating that units on front line defence don't fight against other units in front line defence, although I might be mistaken?

[Droll]

do not just put everything on front-line attack, I always have some troops on front-line defense as well. The defending formations are generally comprised of cheaper but defensible units like infantry. As the combat continues defending units will fortify (assuming CON units exist) and become even tougher. Regardless they will soak up most of the casualties and shield your attackers and most importantly, support level units like artillery, high level HQs.

If you have units on front line defence, do they fight enemy units which are also on front line defence or are you relying on the enemy putting some units on front line attack?
I seem to recall some people indicating that units on front line defence don't fight against other units in front line defence, although I might be mistaken?

Front-line defense will only fight enemies that are on front-line attack, this is still important since your units on front-line attack are focused more on enemies on the defense. Generally speaking you can rely on the fact that at least some of the enemy is going to attack you. Even if they don't, if for some reason combat is favourable, your now-fortified defenders will be able to hold a beachhead while you bring reinforcements or allow you to at least withdraw some of your forces and cut your losses.

In my case I had a massive tech advantage over an NPR homeworld so I sent and invasion of around 1.7m tons against 1.7m tons. I found that most of my casualties were focused around my troops that were on front-line defence. To me this indicates that having some forces focus on defence gives your attacking forces important breathing space by drawing fire away from them.

Also don't forget that your defending troops will fortify over time, making them become more efficient in combat as the fighting drags on.

Note: My 1.7m tons excludes logistics whereas the enemies 1.7m tons includes their logistics and I had OBS support, so even with massive tech advantage to ensure a landslide victory I brought an overall numerical superiority.

Edit: Officers are also important because their training increases morale, morale increases accuracy and evasion and elements that take massive losses will lose morale.
Edit2: For artillery focus their support on units that are attacking the enemy, I read somewhere on this form that FFD increases rear echelon artillery accuracy. By the end of my invasion I had medium and heavy artillery formations with 100k tons destroyed. They were mostly supporting mechanized and motorized elements that were on the offensive.

[serger]

For artillery focus their support on units that are attacking the enemy, I read somewhere on this form that FFD increases rear echelon artillery accuracy.

They are not in current version, or at least it's not what is described by Steve, and not what is evident from testing battles.
It was proposed in sugestions thread to make such a thing, though.

[Droll]

For artillery focus their support on units that are attacking the enemy, I read somewhere on this form that FFD increases rear echelon artillery accuracy.

They are not in current version, or at least it's not what is described by Steve, and not what is evident from testing battles.
It was proposed in sugestions thread to make such a thing, though.

Oh I must have misunderstood that comment then, good to know.

[Ulzgoroth]

In my case I had a massive tech advantage over an NPR homeworld so I sent and invasion of around 1.7m tons against 1.7m tons. I found that most of my casualties were focused around my troops that were on front-line defence. To me this indicates that having some forces focus on defence gives your attacking forces important breathing space by drawing fire away from them.

Seems to me that it might just indicate that your defense formations were more susceptible to damage. The heavy combat vehicles that would have populated your assault formations are a lot harder to kill than the infantry that fill out more defensive formations. And that's amplified if the enemy is technologically inferior, and if they have a significant amount of small arms in their forces rather than maximizing heavy anti-armor weapons.

Targeting is supposed to be by formation size. It doesn't matter what they're doing, so long as they're in the front line. Of course, that does mean that defensive front line formations will draw away fire from the offensive ones, but being defensive doesn't make them better at that. http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Ground_Combat#Targeting

The advantage of being front line non-attack is you can have fortification. The downside is you have no chance of hitting enemy support or rear formations in regular combat and are less likely to cause a breakthrough round.


I don't think you need to worry about your command units getting fragged by counter-battery fire, unless you actually made your command unit also a bombardment unit. Counter-battery support fire is supposed to only target a specific bombardment element that's providing support, not the entire formation that it belongs to. However, being in a support position makes it much likely that you'll take hits from enemy Front Line Attack formations compared to lurking the rear echelon. So it's probably best to keep your top command formations (which are likely crammed with squishy logistics trucks) as far back as possible.

[Droll]

In my case I had a massive tech advantage over an NPR homeworld so I sent and invasion of around 1.7m tons against 1.7m tons. I found that most of my casualties were focused around my troops that were on front-line defence. To me this indicates that having some forces focus on defence gives your attacking forces important breathing space by drawing fire away from them.

Seems to me that it might just indicate that your defense formations were more susceptible to damage. The heavy combat vehicles that would have populated your assault formations are a lot harder to kill than the infantry that fill out more defensive formations. And that's amplified if the enemy is technologically inferior, and if they have a significant amount of small arms in their forces rather than maximizing heavy anti-armor weapons.

Targeting is supposed to be by formation size. It doesn't matter what they're doing, so long as they're in the front line. Of course, that does mean that defensive front line formations will draw away fire from the offensive ones, but being defensive doesn't make them better at that. http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Ground_Combat#Targeting

The advantage of being front line non-attack is you can have fortification. The downside is you have no chance of hitting enemy support or rear formations in regular combat and are less likely to cause a breakthrough round.


I don't think you need to worry about your command units getting fragged by counter-battery fire, unless you actually made your command unit also a bombardment unit. Counter-battery support fire is supposed to only target a specific bombardment element that's providing support, not the entire formation that it belongs to. However, being in a support position makes it much likely that you'll take hits from enemy Front Line Attack formations compared to lurking the rear echelon. So it's probably best to keep your top command formations (which are likely crammed with squishy logistics trucks) as far back as possible.

To be fair I should have mentioned that most of my assaulting force was assault infantry. Its true that my mechanized/motorized formations took way less in terms of damage.
The assault infantry also took way less damage but as you said that might be a result of their gene modification giving them more hp to work with.

My intuition with having defensive formations was mainly fortification during combat. My question is - Do formations on front-line attack prevent the enemy from attacking support positions? (ignoring breakthrough). For me it made sense that formations on attack wouldn't be as effective at protecting support positions.

[Ulzgoroth]

My intuition with having defensive formations was mainly fortification during combat. My question is - Do formations on front-line attack prevent the enemy from attacking support positions? (ignoring breakthrough). For me it made sense that formations on attack wouldn't be as effective at protecting support positions.

According to what I linked, front line attack and defense should be equally good at drawing fire.

However, a front line formation that is defending and benefiting from fortification should be much less likely to suffer heavy losses and allow a breakthrough, so in that respect it's better at protecting the rear-ward formations.


From the wiki, I would expect that fortification would generally take too long to be helpful for an invading force before the planet is conquered. Getting properly dug in takes months, and there's 8 combat rounds per day. I don't think you'll see any benefits from fortification in less than 10 days. But I haven't had an occasion to test that in action - I've had a boarding action and an uncontested ground invasion, no proper planetary battles.

[Droll]

My intuition with having defensive formations was mainly fortification during combat. My question is - Do formations on front-line attack prevent the enemy from attacking support positions? (ignoring breakthrough). For me it made sense that formations on attack wouldn't be as effective at protecting support positions.

According to what I linked, front line attack and defense should be equally good at drawing fire.

However, a front line formation that is defending and benefiting from fortification should be much less likely to suffer heavy losses and allow a breakthrough, so in that respect it's better at protecting the rear-ward formations.


From the wiki, I would expect that fortification would generally take too long to be helpful for an invading force before the planet is conquered. Getting properly dug in takes months, and there's 8 combat rounds per day. I don't think you'll see any benefits from fortification in less than 10 days. But I haven't had an occasion to test that in action - I've had a boarding action and an uncontested ground invasion, no proper planetary battles.

You almost certainly wont fully dig in during combat, in my case the invasion didn't even last long but with a total of 60 construction components per 150k ton brigade my troops were at about 1.1 fortification. So assuming linear fortification rate thats about 5% more evasion on my defenders. IMO thats not negligible especially considering that there are 100s of thousands of shots being fired per combat round. But yeah it is by no means a significant factor. I think it helps in large scale conflicts more because it allows one to get more out of their cheaper soldiers like in my case.

Its also nice RP to have the elite soldiers spear-heading the assaults and the grunts to fill in the holes in the front as they open up.

Edit: I can't be sure but I think my invasion lasted around a month

[Ulzgoroth]

If it lasted a month, you should have gotten infantry up to fortification 3 by the end of it. One month is supposed to be the time to reach full self-fortification. (Also, prior to that point the construction vehicles aren't supposed to be able to help.)

Interesting that it took that long to resolve, that does suggest that an invasion force can usefully dig in.

[Droll]

If it lasted a month, you should have gotten infantry up to fortification 3 by the end of it. One month is supposed to be the time to reach full self-fortification. (Also, prior to that point the construction vehicles aren't supposed to be able to help.)

Interesting that it took that long to resolve, that does suggest that an invasion force can usefully dig in.

You might actually have a point, problem is I was going by 8 hour increments so although it felt like ages to me there's a good chance I was wrong with the time since I didn't count time. I also may have been quoting the fortification level of some of the support artillery 1.1 was the value I remembered. If I can be bothered to load the event menu back into the past I'll post a reply to see how long it lasted.

My force was 2 divisions organized into a corps, so if under the corps I were to place some combat engineer regiments I could probably get some really fast fortification going. Right now every 150t of forces has 30 construction vehicles at the brigade level which I don't think is very much.

[Ulzgoroth]

According to what's layed out in the wiki, no matter how much engineering capacity you include you're not going to actually speed up fortification beyond the maximum speed: 30 days to full self-fortification, 90 days from there to maximum fortification. And for those first 30 days, the construction elements aren't actually doing anything, they only set to work after the self-fortification is complete.