First screenshot of the Order of Battle tab on the Ground Forces window. This tab helps you view and organise your ground forces. It isn't complete, but has enough functionality to demonstrate the level of detail available. While this screenshot represents a fairly standard OOB, there is a lot more flexibility than VB6 Aurora. You can add more levels in the hierarchy and attach formations directly to Division or higher command levels without having to go through lower levels. I'll show that in a later post.
This is the most basic view, where a single, lowest level formation has been selected. The top line on the right shows a summary of the entire formation, while the formation unit list shows how that summary breaks down in the constituent elements. Each element has a number of specific unit class. Morale functions at the element, rather than formation, level.
Formations, or groups of formations, can be dragged and dropped within the hierarchy, so it is very easy to rearrange the order of battle.
When you click on a higher level formation, with attachments, much more information becomes available. The formation selected is shown as above, but also the the high level summary of any directly attached formations. The total organisation is the total for the current formation, plus all formations below it in the hierarchy.
As before, there is a breakdown of the elements of the current formation. That is now accompanied by a summary of all units within the hierarchy headed by the selected formation.
Now we move up another level. A summary of the formation selected is shown as below, plus the high level summary of the directly attached formations. However, those directly attached formations also have attached formations so each summary contains the complete hierarchy for each directly attached formation. The total organisation is the total for the current formation, plus all formations at any point below it in the hierarchy.
When Location Hierarchy is selected, the tree view expands to include systems, populations and ships. Units remain in their organisation structure but are now split between different locations. In this view, the summary and organisational lists only include formations within the same location. For example, the selected Third Imperial Guard Brigade has only two of its subordinate formation on Avalon and two on Barnard's Star-III. The summary and organisation list show just those two subordinate formations. Switching between the two views will allow the player to manage his organisational structure while being able to easily see where his formations are located.
Selecting a population shows a summary of all the forces at that location.
More to follow...
