When you refit ships are the systems replaced put into storage or just lost? I tend to have front line fleets, kept up to date with the latest equipment and second line squadrons which I would want to upgrade with the items removed from the front line fleet. In VB6 it appears systems removed in refits are just lost. I would like the option to reuse systems removed in refits.
Yes, they are lost in C# too. Should be straightforward to add them to the stockpile instead.
IIRC part of the reason they are lost in VB6 is because the raw materials and time investment of replaced components is used to calculate the discount for the refit. Components stripped and replaced should be ignored for discount calculations in that case.
Also, looking at the numbers for the ground combat I'm noticing a few things.
First, after the first engagement of the 3rd Light Armoured Company there are no more references to Hellhound tanks. I presume this means that the 4th Company was pulled back behind the lines and kept out of combat. Rather unsurprising given that the 3rd Light evaporated on first contact.
Second, casualties were fairly even between the infantry and the armour. Normally you see larger casualty counts among the infantry. This may've been the result of the relatively poor armour of the Imperium compared to the enemy's weapon strength. There's just a point where it's impossible to kill a target more dead even if you put more energy into it, and you get to that limit much more quickly with squishy humans than with the armoured shell around the squishy humans.
Third, specialist forces suffered disproportionate losses. It's kinda hard to tell how significant that is among the armoured units, simply because there's fewer of them in numbers so an unfortunate loss of a single Vox Vehicle would skew the ratios considerably, but while Guardsmen suffered about 13% losses, Chimera saw 22% losses, Lascannons
41%, Hydra platforms 20%, vox casters 42% and Regimental HQs 75%. Infantry supply vehicles lost 11%.
Clearly something needs to be done. For vehicles, this can be partially covered by putting more armour on them. However, there is something to be said for a 'backline combatant' rule or something similar, that renders certain units less likely to be targeted in ground combat by units other than artillery/fighters in return for lower chances of engaging themselves. Lascannons and Chimera are quite frankly nearly always going to be on the frontlines because that's where their job is, but AA platforms and Regimental level HQs aren't really supposed to get into the thick of the fighting, and Vox units would be the sort of unit that get a squad dedicated to babysit them and keep them from getting killed while calling in the support, likewise reducing the chances of their dying (although IIRC historically being an FFD was a dangerous job with high casualty rates).
Fourth, Logistics units casualties would indicate that less than 450 supply units have been lost. I take it that supply use is not counted in the casualties. As that would explain the discrepancy of 3 entire regiments of supply units getting disbanded to build everything back up to strength.
Fifth and final, in reality the Valhallan, Mordian and Paragonian regiments wouldn't have been disbanded, they would if possible have been rotated back home or to another secured location where they could rendezvous with and integrate reinforcements.
And speaking of reinforcements, is there a 'Rebuild to Template' order for ground units? I can't find it on the wiki, and such an order would be helpful with rebuilding units that suffered casualties or replacing equipment. It would be reasonable for it to cost less in both minerals and time, simply because you are scrapping already processed materials so you can reuse at least some of it, but the time savings are notably smaller than the mineral savings and as the technological gap between the old equipment and the new equipment increases the savings grow smaller.
That ground combat looked pretty brutal! Given the size of the starting forces relative to a standard start I can see that the spoilers are going to be a real challenge in C#.
Regarding the ground attack fighters any thoughts on adding missions for STO engagement or do these already get caught on the flak suppression mission?
Once STO reveal themselves, they can be attacked by normal combat. The ground attack fighters would have a chance to engage them as part of overall strikes usingground support mode but currently not specifically. Might be an interesting idea though. Very Star Wars
Not just Star Wars. Happened often enough in history that part of the job of the first wave of an attack was to force enemy positions to reveal themselves so they could be bombarded from range or by aircraft.