Author Topic: Replacing PDCs  (Read 82050 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #435 on: December 03, 2017, 06:21:39 AM »
Unless the ground combat module is weightless, I don't see any way to build an effective hybrid fighter. The mass budget for weapons of a fighter is extremely tight. Would it not be better to add dedicated bombardment ammunition? That could be used by box-launcher fighters, beam fighters have an useful weapon already, and it could also be used as the upper stage of a bombardment drone/missile fired from far off warships.
As for guidance, I'd imagine the most important source of target information comes from units on the ground requesting strikes. For these kinds of strikes, only a datalink is needed.

I did consider using new munition types instead. However, that gets complex because I would be adding many new warhead types to the missile design window (and then building/tracking all the necessary munitions). That doesn't seem right when ordnance tracking is not necessary for ground units. With a specialised module, I can use ground-combat-equivalent equipment with no micromanagement.

The module sizes would be relatively small so specialised ground attack fighters could be smaller than the 'normal' type. A hybrid would be possible where a normal-sized fighter sacrificed some ship-to-ship capability for a ground attack ability.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #436 on: December 03, 2017, 06:59:13 AM »
I like this idea (but I was always pressing for a uniform air and space fighter), though I have some thoughts on the implementation. For one, I worry from how you phrase things that you have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to fighters armed with beam weapons instead of missiles.

Ideally I think I'd kind of prefer it if the same (non-missile) weapons worked in space and on the ground. Orbital bombardment already means there has to be some conversion for space based beam weapons damaging ground units, so making it so fighters could use their gauss cannons (or similar) while carrying out Close Air Support missions make sense, even if it's basically just orbital bombardment with an accuracy bonus. If weapons have a chance to break on firing and/or an MSP cost, then they'd still have ammo concerns. For missiles, what about using the same launchers but entirely different missions (so it would be like WW2 carrier strikes, and loading aircraft with either bombs or torpedoes)? I'd be okay with requiring a special fire control for close air support (even if I'd probably prefer otherwise since any weight would be a big penalty on fighters when not performing air support and I like the idea of them serving a dual purpose). If you need designs with completely different weapons, though, there's really no point in hybrid space and air fighters.

The fighters flying to the planet and then being too close for PtS weapons makes sense, though you'd probably want to have them switch over after the weapon firing phase (so PtS weapons always get one shot at point blank range before the fighters land), since otherwise fast fighters might be able to close and land before the PtS weapons can shoot. This also makes the landing a vulnerable time and incentivizes fighter designs with enough ammo to stay in the fight instead of having to constantly return to their carrier.

I definitely will have to add some equivalence for energy-armed warships. For precision targeting, they would be linked to a forward fire direction unit and fire during the ground combat phase.

One option would be to give the ship weapons AP and Damage ratings equal to a multiple of their damage (perhaps 10x). So a 10cm laser has 30 AP and 30 Damage while a 25cm laser has 160 AP and 160 Damage. A 10cm railgun would have 4 shots at 10/10 and a 20cm railgun 4 shots at 40 / 40. The downside of that simple method is that a single decent shipboard laser would be able to take out any ultra-heavy vehicle (which could be up to 500 tons) and that seems too powerful when the same laser probably wouldn't take out a fighter in one shot. However, if I make the multiple less (say 5x), then a 10cm railgun round might not take out an armoured infantry man.

The issue is that vehicles have a single armour value, regardless of size, while larger ships gain additional armour with size, making them more resistant even with the same armour value. A better solution is probably using the square root of the energy weapon damage. If we use 20x SQRT then the minimum damage is 20/20 (10cm railgun round or gauss cannon). 10cm laser is 35/35, a 25cm laser is 80/80 (80% chance of knocking out super-heavy vehicle with ceramic composite tech and 45% vs ultra-heavy)

An alternative option is to have orbital fire support as bombardment fire support, with certain calibres classed as light, medium, heavy, or super-heavy bombardment and used in the same way as artillery. The issue here is that 'heavy bombardment' for a ground unit has different values depending on tech so I think ships still need to translate to a number value (BTW the proposed fighter ground support modules would have numeric equivalents based on the tech at the time). To create the bombardment 'flavour' I use the first solution but lower the AP value.

Having said all that, the system needs to be one where orbital fire support gives a significant advantage but doesn't completely rule the battlefield. Open to suggestions :)
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #437 on: December 03, 2017, 07:02:38 AM »
I did consider using new munition types instead. However, that gets complex because I would be adding many new warhead types to the missile design window (and then building/tracking all the necessary munitions). That doesn't seem right when ordnance tracking is not necessary for ground units. With a specialised module, I can use ground-combat-equivalent equipment with no micromanagement.

The module sizes would be relatively small so specialised ground attack fighters could be smaller than the 'normal' type. A hybrid would be possible where a normal-sized fighter sacrificed some ship-to-ship capability for a ground attack ability.

I think this will be really cool. Looking forward to having some dedicated Ground support bombers and having my Space Fighters/Bombers get some hybrid small ground attack ability too so you can send big strikes to escort in landing ships and overwhelm PD + support the boots on the Ground.


Any ideas about basing such Carrier fighters on the actual planets more permanently? An "airbase" Ground unit or cheap building that can refuel and rearm them or something of that sort ( So you don't have to go back and forth between Carriers when your for example defending and the attacker landed STO units or blockades orbit? )

Would these fighters have the ability to fight against enemy fighters in dogfights close to the ground?

Would these fighters be targetable by ships in orbit when they are "flying low"?



Having said all that, the system needs to be one where orbital fire support gives a significant advantage but doesn't completely rule the battlefield. Open to suggestions :)

One of the most crude but effective ways to do this I've seen in other games is to cap damage that airpower / artillery support can do to X% of the enemy hitpoints/morale or whatever is being used. That allows it to weaken the enemy significantly but not totally destroy everything.

Edit: Another decent approach is using force multipliers. This means they do very little actual direct damage, but their main contribution is either an efficiency penalty to the enemy, or an efficiency bonus to your own ground troops, or both.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2017, 07:50:54 AM by alex_brunius »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #438 on: December 03, 2017, 07:13:44 AM »
The other subject I am still debating is how to handle drop mechanics. I am still leaning toward my original suggestion of abstract drop ships built into troop transport bays. I understand the argument regarding the bay required for long-distance transport is a lot larger than the bay designed needed for a short run at the planet. However, for everything but infantry units, those two bays are the same size.

I could create specialised short-duration troops bays only for infantry and allow transfers from long-duration to short-duration bays (as in VB6). That adds complexity and you still need to get the vehicles down using larger ships so I am not sure the game play gain is commensurate with the extra complexity.

There could also be an option for non-expendable abstract drop ships, so the ship stays in orbit a little longer to get the troops down and the drop ships back. In this case, the ship could also pick up troops from the ground using the same method.

An alternative is to have small formations in small ships, overwhelm the defences with sheer number of ships and then combine into larger formations on the ground.
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #439 on: December 03, 2017, 09:19:51 AM »
An alternative option is to have orbital fire support as bombardment fire support, with certain calibres classed as light, medium, heavy, or super-heavy bombardment and used in the same way as artillery. The issue here is that 'heavy bombardment' for a ground unit has different values depending on tech so I think ships still need to translate to a number value (BTW the proposed fighter ground support modules would have numeric equivalents based on the tech at the time). To create the bombardment 'flavour' I use the first solution but lower the AP value.

You already gate weapon values behind tech levels for both space and ground side weapons. You can use calibres to define how heavy the bombardment type is, and the various range boosting technologies for beam weapons to determine the multipliers. Or the other way around, depending on how ground units define their techlevel and damage ratings. This would naturally mean that early on heavy bombardment weapons are impossible for ship based support, while later on it's basically the only thing available outside the close in protection specialists.

The other subject I am still debating is how to handle drop mechanics. I am still leaning toward my original suggestion of abstract drop ships built into troop transport bays. I understand the argument regarding the bay required for long-distance transport is a lot larger than the bay designed needed for a short run at the planet. However, for everything but infantry units, those two bays are the same size.

I could create specialised short-duration troops bays only for infantry and allow transfers from long-duration to short-duration bays (as in VB6). That adds complexity and you still need to get the vehicles down using larger ships so I am not sure the game play gain is commensurate with the extra complexity.

There could also be an option for non-expendable abstract drop ships, so the ship stays in orbit a little longer to get the troops down and the drop ships back. In this case, the ship could also pick up troops from the ground using the same method.

An alternative is to have small formations in small ships, overwhelm the defences with sheer number of ships and then combine into larger formations on the ground.

With 'ship is grounded on planet' mechanics in place you don't need a separate drop bay technology, exactly. Let a fleet tally its total troop carrying capacity so multiple smaller ships can carry a large formation (and losses of such ships cause losses in the formation somewhat unevenly) and have a module that massively boosts unloading speeds for ground forces without necessarily impacting loading speeds. Advancing technology may impact how large a ship may be grounded, starting at just large enough to fit an engine and the smallest troop transport bay with the unloading module. You may need to restrict by unit weight and declare that no unit larger than the ship's troop transport bay rating may be loaded into a ship.

This can also let you define the crew complements of landed ships as a special ground unit type that, if defeated, cause the ship to be wrecked or taken over by the opposing party.
 

Offline Barkhorn

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #440 on: December 03, 2017, 11:45:54 AM »
A few things:

First, about fighters providing close-air-support.  I really love the idea of having a new module that allows loading of non-nuclear weaponry.  But the weapon type NEED's to not be decided on design.  In real life, modern strike fighters can carry munitions capable of attacking nearly any surface target.  The F18 for instance can carry anti-ship missiles, anti-tank missiles, rocket pods, dumb bombs of varying sizes, smart bombs of varying sizes, cluster bomb containers of varying sizes, and probably more I'm unaware of.  Any F18 can carry all of these, it's not like one version of F18 gets ATGM's, one gets rockets etc.  The F18 has hard-points where deck crews can attach the desired weapon.  So my suggestion is to have the ground attack module filled when the fighter takes off, not when it's designed.  Maybe have a few versions of varying sizes to allow loading of heavier or lighter weaponry, also maybe lock some of them behind techs.  This raises a question though.  Will there be ANY non-space-worthy air units, like helicopters or actual aircraft?  Another question: How will anti-air (NOT StO) weapons damage to fighters be calculated?  How will it even make any sense?  These fighters can have armor that can survive nuclear weapons, how can any non-StO weapon hurt them?

Second, the non-abstract dropships are very important for more than just troop transport module size reasons.  It's pretty nonsensical that I would have to run the gauntlet of StO fire with huge transport ships.  On D-Day, the LST's didn't go right up to the beach through defensive fire.  They unloaded their infantry into Higgins boats which then went to the beach.  This is even worse for boarding actions.  Assuming relative speed will play a part in the new boarding mechanics as it did in VB6, it's practically mandatory to use dedicated dropships.
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #441 on: December 03, 2017, 12:51:47 PM »
A few things:

First, about fighters providing close-air-support.  I really love the idea of having a new module that allows loading of non-nuclear weaponry.  But the weapon type NEED's to not be decided on design.  In real life, modern strike fighters can carry munitions capable of attacking nearly any surface target.  The F18 for instance can carry anti-ship missiles, anti-tank missiles, rocket pods, dumb bombs of varying sizes, smart bombs of varying sizes, cluster bomb containers of varying sizes, and probably more I'm unaware of.  Any F18 can carry all of these, it's not like one version of F18 gets ATGM's, one gets rockets etc.  The F18 has hard-points where deck crews can attach the desired weapon.  So my suggestion is to have the ground attack module filled when the fighter takes off, not when it's designed.  Maybe have a few versions of varying sizes to allow loading of heavier or lighter weaponry, also maybe lock some of them behind techs.  This raises a question though.  Will there be ANY non-space-worthy air units, like helicopters or actual aircraft?  Another question: How will anti-air (NOT StO) weapons damage to fighters be calculated?  How will it even make any sense?  These fighters can have armor that can survive nuclear weapons, how can any non-StO weapon hurt them?

Second, the non-abstract dropships are very important for more than just troop transport module size reasons.  It's pretty nonsensical that I would have to run the gauntlet of StO fire with huge transport ships.  On D-Day, the LST's didn't go right up to the beach through defensive fire.  They unloaded their infantry into Higgins boats which then went to the beach.  This is even worse for boarding actions.  Assuming relative speed will play a part in the new boarding mechanics as it did in VB6, it's practically mandatory to use dedicated dropships.

Interesting idea on the non-nuclear weaponry. I guess there could be light, medium or heavy pods and the type of ordnance could be decided by the move order. Bombardment mission, anti-tank mission, etc.. That flexibility (vs normal ground units) would be countered by limited ammunition per mission. Alternatively, a more WW2 situation with many different fighter types for different missions.

In regard to large ships or small ships braving the STO fire, you still have the option to build specialised physical drop ships (using smaller formations). However, a 100 ton tank will take up the same amount of space on a large ship intended for deep space, or a small one intended to make the final run. What you say is true for infantry, but as I noted in my original post I could create specialised short-duration troops bays only for infantry and allow transfers from long-duration to short-duration bays. That adds complexity and you still need to get the vehicles down using larger ships so I am not sure the game play gain is commensurate with the extra complexity.

One alternative I considered was to include the total manpower for each Ground Unit Class (assuming a certain number of crew per vehicle / weapon type) and then have transport sizes without life support. Extra life support could be added to the ship to support the ground personnel and would be modified depending on the deployment time of the ships. However, you would need to know up front in this case how many personnel were likely in your future ground units. In the end I decided that added too much complexity and went for the simpler idea of abstract drop ships.

As for abstract drop ships vs landing on the planet - actually landing would open up the ships to fire from anti-air (or even enemy vehicles) so I think sending down drop ships from orbit is the equivalent of sending in landing craft on D-Day. The STO units are the equivalent of coastal artillery.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2017, 01:06:40 PM by Steve Walmsley »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #442 on: December 03, 2017, 01:04:23 PM »
I think this will be really cool. Looking forward to having some dedicated Ground support bombers and having my Space Fighters/Bombers get some hybrid small ground attack ability too so you can send big strikes to escort in landing ships and overwhelm PD + support the boots on the Ground.


Any ideas about basing such Carrier fighters on the actual planets more permanently? An "airbase" Ground unit or cheap building that can refuel and rearm them or something of that sort ( So you don't have to go back and forth between Carriers when your for example defending and the attacker landed STO units or blockades orbit? )

Would these fighters have the ability to fight against enemy fighters in dogfights close to the ground?

Would these fighters be targetable by ships in orbit when they are "flying low"?



One of the most crude but effective ways to do this I've seen in other games is to cap damage that airpower / artillery support can do to X% of the enemy hitpoints/morale or whatever is being used. That allows it to weaken the enemy significantly but not totally destroy everything.

Edit: Another decent approach is using force multipliers. This means they do very little actual direct damage, but their main contribution is either an efficiency penalty to the enemy, or an efficiency bonus to your own ground troops, or both.

Yes, I did consider some form of airbase that would allow re-arming on the planet. An invading force could send down construction units and build one (or maybe invade a moon and build one there).

I can think of some serious complexities around how 'low flying' fighters and orbital ships interact :)  Perhaps the easiest option is for low flying fighters to be treated as a ground unit. They could be armed with the equivalent of anti-air weapon modules for use against other low flying fighters (using an air superiority mission). Orbital units could target low-flying fighters in the same way as other 'ground' units using forward fire direction (although this situation is probably unlikely). I'll iron this out when I code it.
 

Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #443 on: December 03, 2017, 01:30:47 PM »
You plausibly need the short duration troop bays for boarding craft.  Though that could be abstracted just like orbital drops as long as the transport can get close to the boarding target, if boarding speed requirement rules are relaxed.

If you have modules on a combat ship set up like

Troop Transport Bay
Combat Drop Module (allows drops as opposed to unloads)

there's potential for a rare-tech Teleporter (ala w40k Teleportarium) that allows short distance infantry assaults.

I think air/orbital support should stick to being classed as Bombardment weapons.  Modern artillery doesn't suffer from firepower problems - targeting is the main difficulty. 

Anti-Aircraft weapons could also be roled to decrease bombardment damage, except maybe from super heavy bombardment (like non-fighter orbital), representing area denial, low-level CIWS, etc.   Given their tonnage requirements, even the smallest orbital weapons could plausibly be classed as heavy or super heavy bombardment weapons compared to ground units, so if you have an exception for super-heavy it excises the potential problem of Hydra flak tanks reducing laser bombardment damage.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2017, 01:34:22 PM by TheDeadlyShoe »
 

Offline serger

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #444 on: December 03, 2017, 02:02:37 PM »
1. We have now ground units, that can be deployed for unlimited time on any celestial body, that have solid or liquid surface (atmosphere is not necessary). So, they have their own unlimited life support. Why are they can be deployed at comet, but cannot be deployed at any hold?

2. We have sensors and weapons, that can see and shot on any direction, without any obstacle (such as planet or ship's own corpus). So, it's quite strange, that some small crafts can hide from enemy fire behind planet's surface. It seems to me, that unit, that have an ability to hide from TN sensors, simply must be non-TN.
 

Offline Whitecold

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #445 on: December 03, 2017, 02:52:20 PM »
For storing equipment not on board of dropships:
While each item may physically take up the same amount of space, equipment can be stored more space efficiently in a large hold in containers than in drop pods with all items distributed to individual units.
Furthermore, hold space is cheaper than drop ships, so you may well want to drop in multiple waves if your army is large/not enough assault ships are available. You should be able to impress some civilian transports as troop carriers all the way to the planet.

How will supply be implemented? The quickest way to end an invasion should be to retake space and cut them off from any resupply. The VBA version of just charging some wealth seems inadequate for the otherwise much more detailed ground forces
 

Offline obsidian_green

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #446 on: December 03, 2017, 03:20:11 PM »
Having said all that, the system needs to be one where orbital fire support gives a significant advantage but doesn't completely rule the battlefield. Open to suggestions :)

I think a lot of this stuff would benefit from abstraction. The support spaceships in orbit give to friendly troops planet-side should be automatic based on the weapons in the orbiting fleet and could be reflected in the modification to ground force unit effectiveness (its combat rolls). Approaching all support (not just orbital) this way gives a simple framework that delivers the outcomes we should expect from ground combat and provides a simple mechanism for resolving the outcomes (which would make eventual NPR ground combat a lot easier for its AI). I think the constituent components of ground units could function similarly---as modifiers for a single, base combat mechanic. If the difficulty is the interaction between the space and ground combat mechanics, this solves it (I think), at least from the orbit-to-surface angle.

This wouldn't eliminate direct targeting of surface contacts by spaceships---I'd attempt to take out STO units at long range before I ever tried to park a fleet in support of a ground campaign. I don't think discrete "ground" platforms (a tank or aerial drone, for instance) should be targetable at all, even if we design them as part of ground units ... but my feeling was that STO capability would be at least a battalion-equivalent manpower and logistical organization anyway.

A planetary invasion scenario could develop as follows: a contest between whatever unit takes the role of PDCs and attacking ships using space combat rules, followed by troop landings and ground combat (using its rules) that is modified by the support-presence of ships in orbit, which is a huge advantage that should allow a smaller attacking force to contest against superior numbers instead of being overwhelmed by mass popular uprising (in the case of a homeworld). The orbital presence modifier could also be applied to speeding up the assimilation process or preventing the spontaneous generation of new enemy ground units (yeah, that should be a thing!) on a conquered world held by insufficient forces ... another way to make colony/population size matter.
 

Offline Bremen

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #447 on: December 03, 2017, 11:28:19 PM »
Having said all that, the system needs to be one where orbital fire support gives a significant advantage but doesn't completely rule the battlefield. Open to suggestions :)

I favor the abstraction approach myself as well, but I'm thinking about it in maybe a different way.

As I see it, we have two mechanics, "bombardment" from artillery and "orbital bombardment" from ships, that maybe should be treated as one mechanic. As powerful as they are, they don't win the battle; you still need boots on the ground for that. Well, mostly anyways; I think a fleet with enough firepower and a scorched earth policy should probably be able to glass a planet from orbit without landing troops.

So first off, I think ships should be able to fire at a planet like they kind of can now, but just have the damage randomly (not necessarily evenly) split between population, buildings, and troops. Call that general bombardment.

Then there would be what we're talking about here, maybe call it support bombardment. I think artillery and spaceships should probably work exactly the same there; at least I can't think of a major difference in how they'd probably be used. This also means that the defenders could effectively match the advantage of orbital bombardment by their own artillery units (until they got blown up, anyways). There should still be a chance of collateral damage (as should all ground combat, though maybe support bombardment should be higher), but it shouldn't be the primary damage source like in a general bombardment.

The question then is how to ensure you can't completely destroy your enemy with support bombardment. There's already a module for calling down artillery fire, which is good, but there should probably be some method to limit how much that benefits you. Having a thousand ships providing bombardment shouldn't be a thousand times as effective as having one, basically. One option is to give a bonus to the rolls of the supported unit, but I'm not so sure about that; might be too abstracted for me. I think a good balance mechanism might be to limit how much artillery can fire at a single enemy unit; after all, targeting is the issue, and landing a hundred shells on the same spot is probably not that much more effective than a dozen.

That just leads to another problem in that not all artillery is created equally, though. If your ships have 30cm lasers and 10cm lasers, you probably don't want your limited artillery shots to all be the 10cm ones. The specifics of this might depend heavily on how the balance details of ground units shake out, but one option I can think of is to have the game automatically assign the smallest support artillery certain to kill the target if it hits (or else the largest available if none are certain kills). That would probably result in a fairly ideal spread most of the time.
 

Offline serger

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #448 on: December 04, 2017, 12:16:49 AM »
The question then is how to ensure you can't completely destroy your enemy with support bombardment. There's already a module for calling down artillery fire, which is good, but there should probably be some method to limit how much that benefits you. Having a thousand ships providing bombardment shouldn't be a thousand times as effective as having one, basically. One option is to give a bonus to the rolls of the supported unit, but I'm not so sure about that; might be too abstracted for me. I think a good balance mechanism might be to limit how much artillery can fire at a single enemy unit; after all, targeting is the issue

1. Roll to spot enemy units, depending on their visibility. Lesser unit "volume" remains after bombardment - lesser visibility they have, lesser chance to spot these remains and target them with bombardment.

2. Have a chance of friendly fire losses. More troops you have on the ground - more chance of friendly fire losses. Orbital bombardment may have more such chances, comparing to ground units fire.

So it will be a moment, when you'll have to have more and more units on the ground just to spot enemy remains, and your units will suffer more and more losses from your own orbital bombardment. It will be cheaper to stop bombardment and send light forces to clear battlefield.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #449 on: December 04, 2017, 03:11:54 AM »
1. We have now ground units, that can be deployed for unlimited time on any celestial body, that have solid or liquid surface (atmosphere is not necessary). So, they have their own unlimited life support. Why are they can be deployed at comet, but cannot be deployed at any hold?
That's an abstraction because ground combat was originally an afterthought. Otherwise we would have to construct supply networks to maintain ground units on comets/asteroids, maybe including civilian contracts for them, as well as rotation periods because nobody stays in warzone 24/7/365 forever. While I'm all for that detail and micromanagement, I doubt many others are. Though we do already have that for ships, so extending it to GU's wouldn't be too much of a change...  :P