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This is quite an effortful post and deserves far more credit than I can give it. As it happens, I shall have to suffice with a simple reply.
I'll not wade too deeply into the mechanics here, and keep my comments to a relatively high level. In short: I like the ideas, but I think it is rather too complex for the fidelity and mechanics of Aurora's ground combat as it currently stands, and I'd prefer to keep that simplicity where possible. Furthermore, I think we can accomplish a lot of this by simply repurposing the existing ground support fighter (GSF) mechanics in terms of targeting, combat, etc. so that we are adding a minimum of new mechanics and rules to the system.
A couple of mechanics notes:
I believe aircraft should be able to equip CAP, Auto Cannon, and Anti-Air weapons as they are now (might need tweaking to AA weapon parameters), AA components obviously being for use against hostile air units, while CAP and AC would be a sort of dual purpose weapon targeting both air and ground units. For attacking ground targets I am split between giving aircraft access to Anti-Vehicle and Bombardment weapons, or giving them a new Air-to-Ground component that blends the 2 together, again I'll detail out the +/- further in the Air Combat Phase.
Note that GSFs currently have access to LAC, LB, and LAA-like components as fighter pod loadouts, so there's not really a reason to preclude aircraft from using bombardment components.
Moving on though, non-combat equipment, FFD is a must. It is only the the first and foremost job of aircraft to be a scout/reconnaissance force and to direct friendly fires, from the first scout aircraft of the 1910s, to modern unmanned drones.
Note that FFD
only works in a frontline formation, AFAIK, so recon aircraft are limited to organic assets in frontline formations unless we change that mechanic - which we could, but I'd prefer to keep things simple and keep the impact on existing ground unit mechanics minimal.
we could also implement a new feature where if an intermediate formation is destroyed, it would cut off the supply chain from higher units to lower ones,
This functionality already exists in the game if you use LVH logistics. However, this conflicts with INF logistics managed through the replacements/unit series mechanic, which is population-based and does not depend on the order of battle. I don't think it is worth reworking this mechanic and making it much less convenient in the general case to support this specific case - destruction of headquarters already has enough benefits to be worthwhile, I think.
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As far as my more general thoughts:
Air Unit Base Types
Base Unit
Ultra-Light Air Vehicle
Light Air Vehicle
Medium Air Vehicle
Heavy Air Vehicle
I think this is too complicated. We currently have a grand total of seven ground unit types, adding several more just for aircraft seems rather awkward. I would also suggest that it is unnecessary, and an easier approach would be to simply model air units as a capability which can be applied to any vehicle type, conferring (say) 2x size, 2x GSP, 0.5x HP, and 0.5x armor multipliers in exchange for using the air combat mechanics instead of normal ground combat mechanics. I would prefer this approach as it keeps the ground units UI simple while allowing for a lot of roleplay freedom - for example, having an armor multiplier means I could use a VEH base type and choose between light armor for 'normal' warplanes and medium armor for my A-10 Warthog equivalents. On the other hand, designing a UHV with flight capability to model a massive hovering skybase sort of aircraft is very fitting for some settings.
Using the existing unit types as the basis also means the question of weaponry is cleared up as well, and personally I see no reason to add weapon restrictions and restrict roleplay - heavier weapons are generally more specialized anyways, so I doubt we're opening up some silly exploit involving UHV aircraft with 4x SHAV or something.
Lastly, the first true special rules for aircraft is how they truly do not benefit from the terrain and can not physically dig in fortify their position, because well, there is no dirt in the sky.
Partially agreed on fortification, disagreed on terrain. I think aircraft should be able to benefit from terrain, it may not be the most "realistic" but I think a lot of headcanons imagine, say, aircraft sweeping around mountain peaks or skimming forests to fly beneath enemy radar before popping up to fire a torpedo down the exhaust port... or something more realistic.
Again, no need to restrict it here.
As far as fortification goes, I would say it can still apply when aircraft are the target of normal ground unit fire - representing them being caught at base in a hangar, surely an airbase can be fortified to some degree? Of course, fortification should not apply when facing AA fire during the AA fire phase.
Now for the nitty gritty of how Air-to-Air, Air-to-Ground, and Ground-to-Air combat works. I think it best to implement semi-separate Air Combat phases that precede the Direct combat, Support Fire, Ground AA, and Resupply phases already in place.
As mentioned, I would simply take the
ground support fighter rules (including the following
ground-based AA fire rules) and paste them onto the new Flight capability. Since those rules are already written out in sufficient detail for discussion purposes, I won't rehash them here.
One simplification here is that, since we can't set orders for ground units in the UI, I would probably use existing mechanics for bombardment and AA targeting to make this work. In short, aircraft formations can be assigned to support frontline formations or left unassigned. In most cases, regardless of assignment they have the same targeting options as HB units (aside from eliminating the target size reduction for support/rear formations, as you stated). The exception would be AA components which fire as AA weapons following the targeting rules for HAA.
This does mean the bombardment components are a tad lackluster since they won't have any special ability making up for their inflated sizes, but I think that's fine as not every component needs to be equally useful in every situation.
Second, they can resupply any unit globally, rather than just internal of a specific unit and its parent formations.
I would actually prefer to keep the same rules, as this makes it easier to control the flow of supplies. I suppose an alternative would be to have airborne supply distributed last in the resupply order, which would ensure it ends up where it is needed while maintaining the special flavor, but I'm not sure if that mechanic would see a lot of use in practice. Resupply is already a big enough cost that I don't see airborne supply being very cost-effective - and Aurora doesn't really model the kinds of tactical situations where airborne supply is most useful (e.g., formations aren't getting surrounded and cut off tactically, Aurora simply does not model this).
#1 What the hell should the 3/4 letter acronym be!?!?
I'd settle for an '(A)' following the unit base class abbreviation, e.g., "LVH(A)" or "VEH(A)". Should be easy enough to pick out of a lineup.
The other big thing being in order to make aircraft somewhat viable and interesting in my eyes is that we have to give them very specific rule exceptions which kinda breaks Steve's design philosphy for Aurora C#,
This is another major reason why I prefer to work within the existing mechanics as much as possible by treating flight as another capability and repurposing the existing GSF rules. We could keep GSFs as they are but I personally see no reason to, space-to-ground fighters can use regular weapons and rules like everybody else IMHO.
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Again, great post, and I hope this doesn't come across as being overly critical, my goal is really more to look at how we can best mesh new air units with the existing mechanics without upsetting the bucket too much and still get a satisfying flight mechanic that promotes strategic decisions and roleplay openness in equal measure.