Marine Company

[Borealis4x (OP)]

Not really a ship design, but since ground force design works the same way I'd think they go here. I've been using SpaceMaster to tinker with ground units and wanted to know what you think of this first effort. I've been wanting to make a unit like this ever since we learnt of the new Ground Unit Designer.

I'm trying to create a small company-sized formation of elite Power Armored marines that can fit in a single  troop compartment. I plan to put them in all military ships over 90,000 tons to give them boarding and anti-boarding capabilities as well as a solid away team that can call down supporting fire from the mothership. Outside the fleet they'd serve as my go-to unit for extra-atmosphere ground combat.

Here are the stats for the individual Marine units. All Marines have the same capabilities:

Marine
Transport Size (tons) 6     Cost 18.54     Armour 15.0     Hit Points 12
Annual Maintenance Cost 2.3     Resupply Cost 1.3
Improved Personal Weapons:      Shots 1      Penetration 10      Damage 8

Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare

Heavy Marine
Transport Size (tons) 12     Cost 49.44     Armour 20     Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 6.2     Resupply Cost 6
Crew-Served Anti-Personnel:      Shots 6      Penetration 8      Damage 8


Marine HQ
Transport Size (tons) 10     Cost 61.8     Armour 15.0     Hit Points 12
Annual Maintenance Cost 7.7     Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters:    Capacity 1,000


Marine Fire Director
Transport Size (tons) 60     Cost 185.39     Armour 15.0     Hit Points 12
Annual Maintenance Cost 23     Resupply Cost 0
Forward Fire Direction:

Now the Marine Company:

Marine Company
Transport Size: 1,000 tons
Build Cost: 3,429.9 BP
1x Marine HQ
105x Marine
1x Marine Fire Director
25x Heavy Marine

I hope they also add Training Level to the Unit Designer in the future so my Marines are more than just infantry with fancy equipment.

[Gabethebaldandbold]

these will take forever to train... I made the mistake of making a similarly expensive unit, and its been clogging up my training facilities for a long time

[Droll]

these will take forever to train... I made the mistake of making a similarly expensive unit, and its been clogging up my training facilities for a long time

This is why I have multiple tiers of infantry - Light Infantry tend to fill up garrisons or other non-critical combat positions, standard infantry is the backbone of any assault and are trained to fight on exo-planets but not specialized to any terrain, rangers who are standard infantry with terrain training and tend to be much less in numbers but fill the role of attack infantry and finally space marines who have boarding, extreme pressure and low gravity training and are in very small units for boarding ops.

The fact that capabilities are cumulative % modifiers makes the cost go up a lot and forces you to specialize troops.

[macks]

This isn't related, but how do I fire on a population/planetside ground force from beam ships in orbit of a planet? I target them in ship combat and press open fire fc but nothing happens.

[consiefe]

This isn't related, but how do I fire on a population/planetside ground force from beam ships in orbit of a planet? I target them in ship combat and press open fire fc but nothing happens.

This should happen, I do it like that. Does your FC become orange?

[macks]

Yeah it turns orange, nothing happens. 1.9.5, I think.

[Gabethebaldandbold]

Yeah it turns orange, nothing happens. 1.9.5, I think.

are your weapons assigned to the FC?
you might also just be missing if they are too well fortified.

[consiefe]

Yeah it turns orange, nothing happens. 1.9.5, I think.

If you drag and drop their ground forces to your FC with assigned wepons and press open fire, it should certainly work. Do you also keep track of event log?

[consiefe]

To the OP;

They seem tough and fine but if I don't miss anything, you should make HQ and FF units as non-combat class to lower the probability of they get hit. Also to me, 1x HQ unit is way too risky versus one unfortunate rng.

[the obelisk]

I thought genetic modification doesn't work yet?

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

I thought genetic modification doesn't work yet?

Custom species doesn't work yet.  Super-soldier infantry works.

[serger]

IIRC, there is no non-RP reason to duplicate HQ elements to lower chance of beheading strike in current (1.9.5) version, because there will be no battle-replacement commander, and any other element will play the same role of diverting enemy fire from your HQ, and battle elemets will do it better, and they will do damage at the same time, in contrast to spare HQ. In other words, probabilities of any commander death from enemy fire, drop fail or accident are all independent from numbers of HQ elements in their formations. The only case where you can use spare HQ effectively during local combat - is the case, when you have a destroyed HQ, have a spare HQ in the same formation, and have no RP rule to not appoint another commander of the proper rank just during the same local combat. That will be little cheating, though.

And I'd prefer to have some logistical elements in my drop-companies - they go out of ammo quite promptly, fighting with usual battalion-size garrisons, and henceforth cannot use their better training effectively.

As for specialized boarding troops - I haven't tested it yet, but I think they have to be lighter: improved weapons make them larger by quarter (so less elements in the company), while their increased armour-piersing being most likely useless against very lightly armoured enemy crews.

[Gabethebaldandbold]

Isn't the chance of your commander dying in combat is lower with multiple hqs?

[consiefe]

And in addittion to that, how can a weaponless class do damage?

[serger]

No, the chance of your commander dying in combat is not lower with multiple hqs.
Why it can be that? This chance is determined by the size of HQ element, this commander is on, divided by overall size of formation being under fire. Another HQ element isn't some special fire-bait for HQ-hunters, because there are no such hunters in this version of Aurora, so any spare HQ is worse fire-bait, than any combat element of the same size. And those combat elements do damage in the same time, while spare HQ just do nothing exept roleplaying.