Aurora 4x

C# Aurora => Development Discussions => Topic started by: sloanjh on January 13, 2018, 09:25:34 AM

Title: C# Ground Combat
Post by: sloanjh on January 13, 2018, 09:25:34 AM
Please put any further discussions about ground combat in C# Aurora here, rather than in the general discussion thread.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on January 13, 2018, 12:18:51 PM
@Steve Walmsley; quick question, but will the upgrades to ground force strength (if the old research options are being kept), allow for the ground units weapons/stats to increase/be upgraded, like one of your example Leman Russ designs being replaced with a Mk II? Also, are there any plans to introduce a heavy infantry unit, like an Astartes/Clan Elemental?

In all other respects, please keep it up. This is undoubtedly one of the few games I've been most excited for in my life.

IIRC, some of the heavier armor options for infantry are supposed to be powered armor. But the idea of a heavier powered infantry base unit type got me thinking something like a Battletech Elemental might be better handled as a light vehicle anyways; I mean, the biggest bonus of light vehicles is they're fast and hard to hit even without fortification (and gain very little from that fortification), which seems pretty appropriate. I was thinking I'd flavor my light vehicles as stuff like jeeps (only cooler and more space-y) but now I might just flavor them as heavy power armor. Something like Master Chief from Halo, or maybe the Adeptus Astartes? That's power armor I could see fitting as armored infantry. But something like an Elemental that can jump 30 feet and mounts an anti-tank missile pack probably fits better, mechanically, as a light vehicle.

On a semi-related note, once the ground combat mechanics get finalized (and if Steve is willing to provide the stats/possible equipment for each unit type), I was thinking about running a simulated design competition; let people come up with their own designs and then crunch the numbers to see who wins. Might be fun and keep this thread from turning into another argument about what is and isn't realistic in a sci-fi video game  ;D
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 13, 2018, 05:03:09 PM
Thanks for all the feedback on the proposed interactions between fighters and ground combat. I think I have now found a good way to make this work.

A new component, the Fighter Pod Bay, is similar in function to a small Box Launcher, except it will only hold Fighter Pods (see below).

(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/GroundSupport004.PNG)

Fighter pods are created on the Missile Design window. The various pod options, such as bombardment pod, autocannon pod and air-to air pod, will appear when the requisite technology has been researched. When one of those options is selected, the warhead strength field is replaced by a pod size field. The player can choose the pod size, with larger pods being more effective. The pod capabilities will be similar to the capabilities of equivalent-sized ground unit components, although the fighter pods have more flexibility in design. For example, a bombardment pod will have three shots, armour penetration equal to Racial Weapon Modifier * ((Tons / 20) ^ 0.6) and damage equal to Racial Weapon Modifier * ((Tons / 20) ^ 1.6).

Fighter pods are ordnance, in exactly the same way as missiles. They are built by ordnance factories, transported in magazines and loaded onto fighters. Unlike missiles, they are not expended when fired and will function during ground combat phases.

(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/GroundSupport002.PNG)

(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/GroundSupport003.PNG)

A fighter can be designed with fighter pod bays. Different pods can be assigned to those bays while the fighter is in a hangar, providing flexibility of loadout. The same fighter could be used for bombardment or autocannon pods, as long as the pods bays are large enough and the parent carrier has both types of pods available. The pods can be assigned to the fighter using the normal ordnance loadout.

Pods can also be assigned to normal box launchers, so a fighter designed for space combat can also be used for ground combat in an emergency. However, box launchers are three times larger than the missiles (or pods) they are designed to fire, while fighter pod bays are equivalent in size to the pods, making fighter pod bays are a much more efficient way to mount the pods. Because of this efficiency and no requirement for fire controls or sensors in ground combat missions, dedicated ground support fighters can be much smaller than their space combat equivalents. It is also possible to have hybrid designs mounting both pods and box launchers. Due to the requirement for smaller engines for dedicated ground support aircraft, ship engines can now be designed from 0.1 HS in size.

(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/GroundSupport001.PNG)

Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on January 13, 2018, 06:58:27 PM
Do fighter pods get a techlevel modifier? They'll probably need one because otherwise you get insane podsize requirements to pierce enemy armour as technology develops.

With the construction mechanics in play you could, in theory, design a ship with the smallest possible engine (5 tons) the smallest possible fuel tank (also 5 tons IIRC) and other supporting parts (probably less than 30 tons total) and 20 8 Missile Size Point equivalent fighter pods, which with bombardment pods would be the equivalent of 20 light bombardment units taking 60 guaranteed to hit and kill most small units.

It'd also be very easy to shoot down.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on January 13, 2018, 08:07:01 PM
Hum... I'd say that's a good compromise. It's a hybrid system but not one where you need to hamstring space based fighters to make them usable in ground combat - they're just less efficient than dedicated ground support aircraft would be. That's a fair tradeoff.

It does ignore beam fighters for those that use them, but I suppose they can always just use orbital bombardment.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Person012345 on January 13, 2018, 09:44:54 PM
So, question, maybe this was answered elsewere and I just forgot, how will basing fighters at planets work now? Obviously they can't be based in PDC hangers and it would seem odd if you couldn't base atmospheric fighters on a planet at all (not to mention this would give an attacker a major advantage if having space dominance totally precludes the use of atmospheric fighter support for the defender).

Also forgive me if this question is stupid, I've never actually used fighters so far and am under the impression that right now if you want to base fighters at a planet then you use PDC hangers, if that's not how it works then my question is ignorant.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on January 13, 2018, 09:48:54 PM
So, question, maybe this was answered elsewere and I just forgot, how will basing fighters at planets work now? Obviously they can't be based in PDC hangers and it would seem odd if you couldn't base atmospheric fighters on a planet at all (not to mention this would give an attacker a major advantage if having space dominance totally precludes the use of atmospheric fighter support for the defender).

It did come up; as I recall the answer was that in C# Aurora maintenance facilities can maintain fighters. I do wonder if this means they can "hide" on the surface as ground units to avoid being targeted by missiles - though if so, that opens the question of if they keep using fuel while doing so.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Person012345 on January 13, 2018, 11:04:06 PM
It did come up; as I recall the answer was that in C# Aurora maintenance facilities can maintain fighters. I do wonder if this means they can "hide" on the surface as ground units to avoid being targeted by missiles - though if so, that opens the question of if they keep using fuel while doing so.
But can they reload them? Change their loadouts? And if maintenance facilities are based in space (which I assume they are) then they're just going to get blown up if the enemy has space dominance, as will the fighters themselves.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Person012345 on January 13, 2018, 11:22:30 PM
I don't know how feasible this is but I would just suggest a new building that could be built by factories or construction equipment that would provide a certain hanger capacity to a population. If one is destroyed then a proportionate amount of the fighters stationed there would also be destroyed. This would also allow for a gradual build up of ground-based fighter capacity by invaders to relieve the pressure on the supporting carriers over time, if they have the resources.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: ChildServices on January 13, 2018, 11:59:01 PM
How far up does the chain of command go now? Do we finally have four tiers to make use of all four army officer ranks?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Borealis4x on January 14, 2018, 01:02:53 AM
Are there going to be extra officer positions for ground forces like there are for ships? Will there be smaller and larger organization of ground forces available (companies, armies, etc).
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 14, 2018, 07:33:39 AM
Do fighter pods get a techlevel modifier? They'll probably need one because otherwise you get insane podsize requirements to pierce enemy armour as technology develops.

Yes, the pod ratings are modified by the racial weapon modifier in the same way as ground units. I've added that to the original post.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 14, 2018, 07:34:54 AM
So, question, maybe this was answered elsewere and I just forgot, how will basing fighters at planets work now? Obviously they can't be based in PDC hangers and it would seem odd if you couldn't base atmospheric fighters on a planet at all (not to mention this would give an attacker a major advantage if having space dominance totally precludes the use of atmospheric fighter support for the defender).

Also forgive me if this question is stupid, I've never actually used fighters so far and am under the impression that right now if you want to base fighters at a planet then you use PDC hangers, if that's not how it works then my question is ignorant.

You will be able to base fighters at planets using maintenance facilities. However, I may add some form of airbase as well.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 14, 2018, 07:36:03 AM
How far up does the chain of command go now? Do we finally have four tiers to make use of all four army officer ranks?

As far as you want. There are unlimited army ranks now and nine different HQ sizes.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 14, 2018, 07:37:06 AM
Are there going to be extra officer positions for ground forces like there are for ships? Will there be smaller and larger organization of ground forces available (companies, armies, etc).

Yes, you can have any formation size you want, from company or platoon up to army or army group.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on January 14, 2018, 08:42:44 AM
You will be able to base fighters at planets using maintenance facilities. However, I may add some form of airbase as well.

This should probably be a ground unit similar to one of the larger HQs in size.

As far as you want. There are unlimited army ranks now and nine different HQ sizes.

This means that effectively there are 9 ranks. It'd be nice if we had an option like with naval forces for there to be an administrative command system.


It'd probably be better if the bombardment weapons used munitions, but with the 'chance of failure' system for shipboard weapons that's sort of covered anyway.

Actually, regarding the possibility of weapons mounts needing to be taken offline for repairs/maintenance due to wear and tear when firing, right now we've got 3 shipboard systems that can explode when damaged; magazines (which get tech to lower the chance of catastrophic explosions), engines and power plants. There's a lot of power in an energy weapon's capacitors; if the weapon refuses to fire after charging or is damaged while charging that energy could do a lot of damage to the ship as it discharges. Of course, it's not a coherent energy weapon, but still.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Person012345 on January 14, 2018, 09:05:29 AM
I think that any ground based airfield should be more expensive and less wieldy than a space based hanger (which really just has to be a hanger, a hole in the mothership/station whereas airfields need more extensive facilities) and it'd mean they wouldn't just be an outright superior alternative to carriers even on defense, but a place to park atmospheric aircraft if you can't use carriers (eg. due to lack of space superiority) so that you can have fighter cover. The reason why I'd prefer it be a building or something is that it would make them difficult to use on the offense, meaning that functional carriers would still be an essential part of your force if you wanted fighter cover during an attack. I don't think they should just be droppable on a planet and immediately deployed ready to recieve fighters, I feel like that would take away from the utility of having a proper strike carrier force.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 14, 2018, 10:24:50 AM
This means that effectively there are 9 ranks. It'd be nice if we had an option like with naval forces for there to be an administrative command system.

There are 9 HQ 'components' but you can have more than 9 ranks if you wish because you can use the same components for different units at multiple levels. It is up to you to define your own command structure. That being said, it probably isn't necessary to have more than six or seven. The HQ system is the equivalent of the naval admin command system.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: alex_brunius on January 15, 2018, 01:16:05 AM
Pods can also be assigned to normal box launchers, so a fighter designed for space combat can also be used for ground combat in an emergency.

So this means you will be able to assign an autocannon pod to a box launcher? That's going to feel pretty weird.

I also second what others have wrote, that it does feel off if you won't need any resupply of munitions for air bombardment. I mean I do understand that we don't want to have to keep track different calibers of autocannon shells / ground bombs, but at least having them using same generic Supply to rearm like the ground forces will would solve that.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: ChildServices on January 15, 2018, 08:44:16 AM
How does this overhaul address the effectively Lanchesterian nature of most sci-fi 4x ground combat? So far I'm sceptical of how these changes will shift away from the mostly arithmetic formula of ground combat in these games where whoever has more stuff always wins. Even with cute things like unit counters, aircraft, and the enhanced defenders advantage, it still seems like it'll be... well, almost the same as VB6 in practice.
... Only now, with the terrain changes, it looks like it'll be harder for me to cut down most of the time and resources I'd waste trying to fight a setpiece battle. Can I still just bring a minimal army and make up the difference with orbital bombardment like in VB6, or are we gonna be more or less forced down the (frankly for me, un-fun) attrition road no matter what?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on January 15, 2018, 09:25:52 AM
You can still nuke the planet to get rid of the defenders. Orbital bombardment is actually more effective now that you can use beam weapons and forward fire controllers to target it.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Profugo Barbatus on January 15, 2018, 05:26:46 PM
In fact, orbital bombardment might even give a new use for reduced sized lasers.  With ground combat ticks being in the 5 minute range if I recall, a laser that takes 2-5 minutes to recharge is still perfectly viable, and you would be able to carry a fair number of them on warships.  Low caliber since planetary range doesn't matter, low recharge since you've got the time, they would be small and lethal even after factoring in the extra reactor draw.

Wonder if we can use Gauss weapons, even.  You'd get some literal steel rain going on there. 
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Dr. Toboggan on January 15, 2018, 06:18:01 PM
Is there any possibility of special forces/covert ops ground units?
I think it could be interesting to have a unit that could focus on attacking enemy installations and shipyards, but only attack during the construction cycle, and have a chance of detection. 
This would give a use for cloaked ships, which could enter enemy systems undetected and deploy these units on enemy colonies.
As it stands now, combat in Aurora is focused on decisive fleet-on-fleet/army-on-army battles, and this could give an alternative way of inflicting damage prior to the arrival of the main invasion force. 
Alternatively, there could be a more battlefield oriented role, where they target logistics/static units, but have a chance to be revealed and fight on the front line.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: TCD on January 16, 2018, 08:39:39 AM
Is there any possibility of special forces/covert ops ground units?
I think it could be interesting to have a unit that could focus on attacking enemy installations and shipyards, but only attack during the construction cycle, and have a chance of detection. 
This would give a use for cloaked ships, which could enter enemy systems undetected and deploy these units on enemy colonies.
As it stands now, combat in Aurora is focused on decisive fleet-on-fleet/army-on-army battles, and this could give an alternative way of inflicting damage prior to the arrival of the main invasion force. 
Alternatively, there could be a more battlefield oriented role, where they target logistics/static units, but have a chance to be revealed and fight on the front line.
Is it actually possible to get into orbit of a developed planet undetected with the current stealth system? I know stealth reduces detection range but we're talking about avoiding detection at zero range against deep space tracking stations. Can you get your TCS down to zero?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Barkhorn on January 16, 2018, 11:30:33 AM
So this means you will be able to assign an autocannon pod to a box launcher? That's going to feel pretty weird.

I also second what others have wrote, that it does feel off if you won't need any resupply of munitions for air bombardment. I mean I do understand that we don't want to have to keep track different calibers of autocannon shells / ground bombs, but at least having them using same generic Supply to rearm like the ground forces will would solve that.
I thought Steve said we WOULD need to resupply.  He said the pods are ordnance and have to be manufactured and transported just like missiles.

And if you look at the design screenshot, the bombardment pod says it has 3 pods.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Person012345 on January 16, 2018, 11:50:54 AM
I thought Steve said we WOULD need to resupply.  He said the pods are ordnance and have to be manufactured and transported just like missiles.

And if you look at the design screenshot, the bombardment pod says it has 3 pods.

He also said they aren't expended upon use. The 3 pods are just so you can configure the loadout.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on January 16, 2018, 12:08:50 PM
I believe the decision was that they'd use fuel, not ammo (and with the fuel consumption of fighters and the timescale of ground combat, that could add up fast).

If it helps, you could always flavor it as an auto-laser cannon.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 16, 2018, 12:56:52 PM
Pods won't be expended, so you will need to carry enough for a single loadout. If you want more flexibility you need multiple pods to support different loadouts.

Fighters already have maintenance requirements (maintenance facilities or hangars, plus maintenance supplies) so they won't need additional maintenance during combat. Ground units outside combat will require wealth but no consumable supplies or basing. I still haven't finalised ground unit in-combat logistics.

I know pods in box launchers seems a little odd but it provides a non-efficient way for space fighters to contribute to close air support. Having said that, it probably won't be common because even light-weight pods are likely to be size 8 or more.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on January 16, 2018, 01:39:30 PM
I know pods in box launchers seems a little odd but it provides a non-efficient way for space fighters to contribute to close air support. Having said that, it probably won't be common because even light-weight pods are likely to be size 8 or more.

Hum. If this is true, any chance of letting pods be used over multiple box launchers (so that, say, 2 size 4 box launchers could fit 1 pod). I don't mind the 3x space penalty, but I don't think many people use size 8+ missiles on fighters.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Profugo Barbatus on January 16, 2018, 08:31:48 PM
The Missile changes that happened earlier may make larger, proper torpedo style weapons more popular. Add on the need for large launchers for support pods, and they become even more appealing. I don't see much of a problem there.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: NihilRex on January 16, 2018, 10:24:03 PM
Hum. If this is true, any chance of letting pods be used over multiple box launchers (so that, say, 2 size 4 box launchers could fit 1 pod). I don't mind the 3x space penalty, but I don't think many people use size 8+ missiles on fighters.

Extended range missile busses are likely to become more common with the proposed changes, and a size 8 bus in VB6 can carry a size 3 missile and a LOT of fuel and sensors.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Borealis4x on February 08, 2018, 12:18:43 PM
Is level of training something you can manage in the new system? For instance, I want tow types of marines; marines who are simply meant to police ships, repel boarders, and escort away parties (naval infantry) and marines who do hardcore marines stuff like boarding ships and installations (marine commandos). These two groups would have similar equipment and size, the difference would be in level of training.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: waresky on February 08, 2018, 02:57:51 PM
Missile Size 8 r awesome BigShip Killer
 (Class Fighter and advance tech,obviously).

Lot of Sensor,aquisition,agility and fuel.

But Speed are the Core.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: FrederickAlexander on February 08, 2018, 03:21:04 PM
Would it be possible to make fighter/shuttles capable of acting like shuttles and dropping off small groups of ground forces? Also can you make a formation without a HQ unit? I ask this cause I am curious if it would be possible to send a small task force to establish a beach head, assist in marking targets or just have these small formation to then draw into a larger formation after they land.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 11, 2018, 07:27:57 AM
Would it be possible to make fighter/shuttles capable of acting like shuttles and dropping off small groups of ground forces? Also can you make a formation without a HQ unit? I ask this cause I am curious if it would be possible to send a small task force to establish a beach head, assist in marking targets or just have these small formation to then draw into a larger formation after they land.

The smallest troop transport bay is 100 tons or 120 tons with drop capability included, so you can make very small (fighter-sized) ships to drop off small formations.

You can make a formation without an HQ. However, that would prevent a commander being assigned.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: FrederickAlexander on February 12, 2018, 07:56:17 AM
The smallest troop transport bay is 100 tons or 120 tons with drop capability included, so you can make very small (fighter-sized) ships to drop off small formations.

You can make a formation without an HQ. However, that would prevent a commander being assigned.

I really asking is if there is an advantage to building a 500ton ship capable of holding troops or will they function like every other ship... otherwise there is no point in building large specialized space capable dropships

Also how much would a small transport bay hold anyways in terms of size or troop tons? Is it the same as as its standard  tonnage, more troop tonnage, or less troop tonnage?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 12, 2018, 01:14:47 PM
I really asking is if there is an advantage to building a 500ton ship capable of holding troops or will they function like every other ship... otherwise there is no point in building large specialized space capable dropships

Also how much would a small transport bay hold anyways in terms of size or troop tons? Is it the same as as its standard  tonnage, more troop tonnage, or less troop tonnage?

There are no advantages in terms of the troop transport bays, but there may be advantages in terms of making the ship harder to detect and target.

The 100 ton bay will transport 100 tons of troops (about 20 soldiers or a heavy tank). You could fit 3-4 of those bays on a fighter-sized craft. For example.

Pathfinder class Transport Shuttle      451 tons       10 Crew       53.1 BP       TCS 9    TH 64    EM 0
7099 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 1/1/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 3.55 Years     MSP 0    AFR 90%    IFR 1.3%    1YR 8    5YR 115    Max Repair 40.5 MSP
Troop Capacity 300 tons     
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.5 months    Morale Check Required   

Large Fighter Engine (1)    Power 64    Fuel Use 758.95%    Signature 64    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres    Range 1.1 billion km   (41 hours at full power)


Blackbeard class Boarding Shuttle      487 tons       16 Crew       59.0 BP       TCS 10    TH 64    EM 0
6565 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 1/1/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 3.29 Years     MSP 0    AFR 97%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 9    5YR 132    Max Repair 40.5 MSP
Troop Capacity 300 tons     Boarding Capable   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.5 months    Morale Check Required   

Large Fighter Engine (1)    Power 64    Fuel Use 758.95%    Signature 64    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres    Range 1 billion km   (41 hours at full power)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on February 12, 2018, 01:47:35 PM

Troop Capacity 300 tons     Boarding Capable   


Is this a new type of transport specifically for boarding or has it always been like this and I just never noticed?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 12, 2018, 01:48:46 PM
Is this a new type of transport specifically for boarding or has it always been like this and I just never noticed?

It is a new type - discussed in some of the C# threads but not in the changes list yet.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Andy8583 on July 05, 2018, 02:49:18 PM
Will we be able to rename generic unit names? Such as renaming soldiers in droids, or tanks into mechs etc?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 05, 2018, 04:32:40 PM
Will we be able to rename generic unit names? Such as renaming soldiers in droids, or tanks into mechs etc?

Yes, you can rename everything.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on July 05, 2018, 10:13:10 PM
Is it possible to create templates for real world nations that Aurora uses at game start? Is this something that we as players could help by creating American, British, Russian, Chinese and so on gear and formations using the information you provided? This would help immensely with the multi-faction Earth starts that use real countries.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 06, 2018, 05:27:21 AM
Is it possible to create templates for real world nations that Aurora uses at game start? Is this something that we as players could help by creating American, British, Russian, Chinese and so on gear and formations using the information you provided? This would help immensely with the multi-faction Earth starts that use real countries.

Definitely possible to have preset templates.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Whitecold on July 27, 2018, 04:54:24 AM
What tracking speed do STO have?
Can turrets be used as STOs?
Can they contribute to point defense of the planet, and to stations/shipyards in orbit?
How do STOs get sensor contacts for targeting?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on November 02, 2018, 12:33:17 PM
Was there a list of all ground unit weapons somewhere?

EDIT: removed my list as Steve posted a more accurate one on the next page.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on November 02, 2018, 12:57:29 PM
Steve has said that Light Vehicle get Medium weight components, and Medium Vehicles get Heavy weight components.

Super Heavy components remain the province of Super Heavies.


Also, can I say I'm surprised the only Super Heavy component is the Anti Vehicle one? And that there's no Ultra Heavy components at all despite Ultra Heavy vehicles existing.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on November 02, 2018, 01:31:21 PM
Thanks, fixed it and uploaded a new version. Also forgot that Static can have Logistics Module.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 02, 2018, 02:43:07 PM
Here is a screenshot from the database with the current values:

(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/GCComponents002.PNG)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 02, 2018, 02:44:09 PM
Steve has said that Light Vehicle get Medium weight components, and Medium Vehicles get Heavy weight components.

Super Heavy components remain the province of Super Heavies.


Also, can I say I'm surprised the only Super Heavy component is the Anti Vehicle one? And that there's no Ultra Heavy components at all despite Ultra Heavy vehicles existing.

That is mainly because I haven't done much with those options yet, rather than a deliberate intention to exclude them.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on November 02, 2018, 03:22:21 PM
Well, that's fair.

I note the existence of a component that wasn't shown before: Long Range Bombardment. It appears similar to Heavy Bombardment, but is this a new component?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 02, 2018, 03:40:37 PM
Well, that's fair.

I note the existence of a component that wasn't shown before: Long Range Bombardment. It appears similar to Heavy Bombardment, but is this a new component?

It has the same stats as medium bombardment so it probably have the range of heavy bombardment but with the power of medium bombardment.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 02, 2018, 04:04:02 PM
Well, that's fair.

I note the existence of a component that wasn't shown before: Long Range Bombardment. It appears similar to Heavy Bombardment, but is this a new component?

It has the same stats as medium bombardment so it probably have the range of heavy bombardment but with the power of medium bombardment.

Yes, exactly.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on November 05, 2018, 11:13:14 AM
Is this correct?

Infantry, Static and Light Vehicle have 1 slot for weapon/equipment.
Vehicle and Heavy vehicles have 2 slots.
Super-heavy vehicle has 3 slots.
Ultra-heavy vehicle has 4 slots.

I'm itching to plan out the initial ground force compositions for my Aurora 1890 game.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 05, 2018, 11:24:44 AM
Is this correct?

Infantry, Static and Light Vehicle have 1 slot for weapon/equipment.
Vehicle and Heavy vehicles have 2 slots.
Super-heavy vehicle has 3 slots.
Ultra-heavy vehicle has 4 slots.

I'm itching to plan out the initial ground force compositions for my Aurora 1890 game.

Yes, that's correct.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on November 13, 2018, 11:31:45 AM
Steve, is it possible to have a vehicle to use both its slots for HQ? And can those HQ "modules" be of different sizes? If that is not possible, it is possible to have two separate HQ vehicles have their total controllable tonnage stack? Basically, can we get customizable total HQ sizes by combining modules and/or vehicles in a unit. Also, does the HQ size itself factor in the command limit or is it separate?

Based on your post in the Changes thread:
Quote
HQ: The headquarters capacity of the element’s Unit Class in tons. If there are multiple units in a template element, only one is considered for the headquarters capacity. Any additional units are for redundancy. The headquarters capacity is the total size of the formation (or formation hierarchy) that can be effectively controlled by a commander based in a unit with this component
it would seem that multiple vehicles is not possible but is two HQ "modules" in a vehicle possible?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 13, 2018, 02:56:31 PM
The code uses the largest available HQ size on any unit in a formation. So while you can have two HQs on a vehicle, only the largest would count. I can add some additional HQ sizes though.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on November 13, 2018, 03:46:06 PM
I'm currently finding it difficult to fit my infantry division, as it clocks in at just under 30k tons. It's not a huge issue to use the 50k ton HQ for divisions though. I'm just a little worried that once formations get vehicle heavy (I'm currently using only infantry and static and in fairly conservative numbers), the division sizes will balloon so much that there isn't much left for corps/army level HQs to use.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on November 13, 2018, 04:47:47 PM
Note that going by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_organization a division is anywhere between 6k and 20k soldiers. For infantry units that means that 30 to 50k tons of unit size is about right for a modestly sized division, and it's quite possible for vehicle based units to be similarly sized. This is mostly because unit size in military organisation is dependent on total personnel numbers needed to keep a given piece of equipment operational.

For an infantryman, that's just the infantryman, but for tanks you need a support staff, and the reason pilots are usually officers isn't because you need to be smart to fly an aircraft, it's because you need a platoon or so worth of personnel to keep an aircraft fit to fly, and the pilot needs the authority to order that platoon around to make sure he can fly.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on November 13, 2018, 05:16:51 PM
I would certainly request that multiple HQ components on the same vehicle stack with each other for calculating unit size.  I can see times when I would want 70,000 tons HQ ratings, or 6,250 tons, or whatever.  I'm always a fan of greater granularity -- especially player-controlled granularity.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on November 14, 2018, 11:47:48 AM
Agreed, that would be a good thing. The increase in the vehicle size and cost compensates for its added proficiency.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 16, 2018, 10:16:08 AM
Based on comments above and my own play test, I have changed how HQ capacity works. Instead of multiple HQ components, there is now a single component with a configurable capacity (similar to STO in principle).

You select the HQ component and then type in the required capacity. The component cost is Capacity / 2500 and the component size is Capacity / 50 with a max of 500 tons. There is no limit on cost.

Because of this configurable aspect, the HQ can only be placed in the primary slot for those units with multiple slots.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on November 16, 2018, 11:56:03 AM
Any research cost like there is with the weapon component for STO?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on November 22, 2018, 06:48:46 AM
Is there a disadvantage to not having an HQ unit in a small formation? Or does a higher level bonus only apply if a formation has its own commander assigned?  With the new HQ change you could conceivably go down to platoon sized or even squad sized formations without wasting HQ capability, but that would eat up a lot of ground commanders and might take a while to fill out the upper levels of your army.  Maybe I should just stick with company sized formations...

As a side question, are units researched?  Or do you just build what ever units you have designed and they get the latest tech levels automatically?

Also, I vaguely remember there was going to be an improved personal weapon for infantry.  Did you remove that and I didn't see it or was that just an idea?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on November 22, 2018, 08:51:49 AM
The disadvantage of not having an HQ, is, IIRC, the fact that Commander bonuses scale down fast, and only the commander in charge of a unit gives his full bonus.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 22, 2018, 09:44:03 AM
Any research cost like there is with the weapon component for STO?

Just the normal research cost based on unit cost.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 22, 2018, 10:16:54 AM
Is there a disadvantage to not having an HQ unit in a small formation? Or does a higher level bonus only apply if a formation has its own commander assigned?  With the new HQ change you could conceivably go down to platoon sized or even squad sized formations without wasting HQ capability, but that would eat up a lot of ground commanders and might take a while to fill out the upper levels of your army.  Maybe I should just stick with company sized formations...

As a side question, are units researched?  Or do you just build what ever units you have designed and they get the latest tech levels automatically?

Also, I vaguely remember there was going to be an improved personal weapon for infantry.  Did you remove that and I didn't see it or was that just an idea?

You can't assign a commander to a formation without an HQ and you can't pass on higher-formation bonuses to formations without an HQ.

If you gain higher tech, you will need to design and research new units. For example, House Reichmann has a Panzer III, which is a Medium Vehicle with MAV and CAP using base tech 6 armour and 6 weapon. If armour and weapon tech increases to 8, they could create a Panzer III Ausf B with the same components but higher overall capability and update the formation template for the Panzer Kompanie with the new design (so newer formations will incorporate the update design). Existing formations (as in the real world) will retain the older vehicle.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: space dwarf on November 22, 2018, 12:32:13 PM
Is there a disadvantage to not having an HQ unit in a small formation? Or does a higher level bonus only apply if a formation has its own commander assigned?  With the new HQ change you could conceivably go down to platoon sized or even squad sized formations without wasting HQ capability, but that would eat up a lot of ground commanders and might take a while to fill out the upper levels of your army.  Maybe I should just stick with company sized formations...

As a side question, are units researched?  Or do you just build what ever units you have designed and they get the latest tech levels automatically?

Also, I vaguely remember there was going to be an improved personal weapon for infantry.  Did you remove that and I didn't see it or was that just an idea?

You can't assign a commander to a formation without an HQ and you can't pass on higher-formation bonuses to formations without an HQ.

If you gain higher tech, you will need to design and research new units. For example, House Reichmann has a Panzer III, which is a Medium Vehicle with MAV and CAP using base tech 6 armour and 6 weapon. If armour and weapon tech increases to 8, they could create a Panzer III Ausf B with the same components but higher overall capability and update the formation template for the Panzer Kompanie with the new design (so newer formations will incorporate the update design). Existing formations (as in the real world) will retain the older vehicle.

Will there be a way to force an upgrade of outdated equipment on a by-formation basis? (so we dont get stuck with worthless outdated formations who have to be destroyed and rebuilt)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Gyrfalcon on November 22, 2018, 02:06:22 PM
I’d really like that as well, or a something like the missile series so as you put upgraded models of a design line into production, they can be used to upgrade formations, with the obsolete models going into storage for eventual last-resort use or dismantling.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on November 22, 2018, 03:10:39 PM
Something like the Missile Series is a good idea, but I wouldn't want my existing formations auto-upgrading.  Having the option to upgrade, sure, but 99% of the time I want a new battalion of Death Commandos, not a 12% improvement to my existing battalion.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 23, 2018, 04:29:27 AM
I haven't coded it yet but my intention is to allow swapping of equipment between formation elements so you can re-equip high morale elements.

For example, you build a new formation of 100 Panzer III Ausf Bs, with 100 morale. You also have an existing formation element of 50 Panzer IIIs with 200 morale. You will be able to swap 50 of the Panzer III Ausf Bs in the new formation element with the older model in the elite formation element.

The elite formation still has 200 morale but now has the updated tank, while the new formation has 50 of the older tank and 50 Ausf Bs. Effectively, you are passing on the new tank to the elite crews (although the crew itself is not tracked specifically).
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 23, 2018, 06:58:22 AM
I haven't coded it yet but my intention is to allow swapping of equipment between formation elements so you can re-equip high morale elements.

For example, you build a new formation of 100 Panzer III Ausf Bs, with 100 morale. You also have an existing formation element of 50 Panzer IIIs with 200 morale. You will be able to swap 50 of the Panzer III Ausf Bs in the new formation element with the older model in the elite formation element.

The elite formation still has 200 morale but now has the updated tank, while the new formation has 50 of the older tank and 50 Ausf Bs. Effectively, you are passing on the new tank to the elite crews (although the crew itself is not tracked specifically).

It would be great if formations would update automatically and take new equipment based on priority so you don't have to micromanage everything. I guess you need to implement a way for the AI to do it anyway.

As such you can put a reinforcement and a upgrade priority in every element. The system will then distribute equipment as they are built automatically and keeping the up to date and swapping out old equipment as new become available.

It would also be interesting of equipment not assigned cost less maintenance so there is a reason to keep stock of equipment. But that of course mean that there must be some considerable time and cost to form elements and units or else it will be abused to store armies in warehouses until they are needed.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on November 23, 2018, 02:15:47 PM
It would be great if formations would update automatically and take new equipment based on priority so you don't have to micromanage everything. I guess you need to implement a way for the AI to do it anyway.

Something like the Missile Series is a good idea, but I wouldn't want my existing formations auto-upgrading.  Having the option to upgrade, sure, but 99% of the time I want a new battalion of Death Commandos, not a 12% improvement to my existing battalion.

At least one of us is going to be disappointed. . .
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 23, 2018, 06:45:02 PM
In an auto upgrade/reinforcement scenario new formations would take equipment until filled first. That I believe would make sense so I don't see why that would be much of a problem.

If you have ever played HoI for example you would understand roughly how that would work and it work just fine there.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: sloanjh on November 23, 2018, 09:35:55 PM
At least one of us is going to be disappointed. . .

Love the "at least" :)

John
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on November 26, 2018, 03:07:11 AM
Steve, any chance we get a long range light bombardment component?  There are a lot of armies with large infantry mortars that don't really fit with what I would consider Medium bombardment.  Or maybe I'm just spoiled for choices now lol.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: tobijon on November 26, 2018, 03:46:04 AM
Steve, any chance we get a long range light bombardment component?  There are a lot of armies with large infantry mortars that don't really fit with what I would consider Medium bombardment.  Or maybe I'm just spoiled for choices now lol.
aren't mortars short range bombardment?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on November 26, 2018, 05:01:48 AM
Yes but there is a decent difference in range between a 60mm mortar and a 81mm or 120mm mortar.  Likewise you couldn't really compare those mortars to, say, a 75mm pack howitzer.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: alex_brunius on November 26, 2018, 05:19:46 AM
Yes but there is a decent difference in range between a 60mm mortar and a 81mm or 120mm mortar.  Likewise you couldn't really compare those mortars to, say, a 75mm pack howitzer.

None of them can reach a strategic depth though. AFAIK all real infantry carried mortars ( up to 120mm ) have ranges below 10km ( which can be considered short range ). Heavy Howitzers and vehicle guns have ranges of 40km+ Rocket Artillery even longer.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on November 26, 2018, 10:30:35 AM
Yeah that's totally fair.  Maybe what I'm really asking for is a slightly more damaging short range bombardment weapon.  I only brought it up because there is a distinction in historical and modern armies between light and heavy mortars.  I figure now is the time to ask.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 26, 2018, 10:54:49 AM
Yeah that's totally fair.  Maybe what I'm really asking for is a slightly more damaging short range bombardment weapon.  I only brought it up because there is a distinction in historical and modern armies between light and heavy mortars.  I figure now is the time to ask.

One lesson I learned from VB6 was making sure I plan for future expansion. For ground-based weapon components, I can just add new ones to the database and the program will pick it up. So I don't need to cover every option at the moment. I'll add more as I (we) learn from experience.

It's more complex for components that do other things (such as construction, survey, etc.) and anything on those lines will require some coding.

One thing I am considering adding is some form of flamethrower equivalent. Low penetration, high damage, treats fortifications as half normal value, can only be used by formations on Front-Line Attack and is destroyed if damaged.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on November 26, 2018, 12:39:35 PM
In the OOBs that I'm planning now, I treat light mortars as heavy crew-served anti-personnel. Heavy mortars are light bombardment same as old-style infantry guns, and actual field artillery pieces are medium, heavy and long-range bombardment. I think it's important that we do not get too bogged in technical detail for each weapon/system, as long as there is sufficient variety, so that players are free to describe and RP their units and their weaponry in a way that fits their game. Many weapons are technically different and look very different, but perform the same task/job on the battlefield. Good example would be anti-tank weaponry, where a heavy AT mine, any sort of AT gun, an HEAT RPG and a ATGM look all very different and are radically different to build and operate, but in essence perform the same task - of defeating tanks.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: alex_brunius on November 26, 2018, 05:43:39 PM
Yeah that's totally fair.  Maybe what I'm really asking for is a slightly more damaging short range bombardment weapon.  I only brought it up because there is a distinction in historical and modern armies between light and heavy mortars.  I figure now is the time to ask.

Well on the scale Aurora models ground combat ( planetary )  the practical difference between one large heavy mortar and say 3 small should be almost nonexistant. So I bet you could just make a formation named "12×120mm Heavy Mortars" made up of 36 Light bombardment and call it a day.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: space dwarf on November 26, 2018, 05:55:15 PM
One thing I am considering adding is some form of flamethrower equivalent. Low penetration, high damage, treats fortifications as half normal value, can only be used by formations on Front-Line Attack and is destroyed if damaged.

You could genericise it to some form of "Close Assault Equipment" I guess
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on November 27, 2018, 04:38:50 AM
One thing I am considering adding is some form of flamethrower equivalent. Low penetration, high damage, treats fortifications as half normal value, can only be used by formations on Front-Line Attack and is destroyed if damaged.
You could genericise it to some form of "Close Assault Equipment" I guess

Easier I think as a unit modifier like hostile environment capability. Although quite frankly, urban/boarding combat capability should already cover most of these problems. The problem with engaging a fortification is usually not getting close enough to engage, thick smoke, jammers and heavy bombardment would suppress any defenders well enough to get close. The problem is engaging effectively when the defender has extensively stacked the deck in his favour. It's just that the circumstances involved in engaging such fortifications are basically the same as those faced in boarding and urban combat, with extremely short sight and engagement ranges with little to no options for artillery support.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: QuakeIV on November 27, 2018, 05:14:14 PM
I'm not saying this is definitely athing that should be added, but it would be hilarious if boarding teams could ask for fire support to shoot parts of the ship that have enemies they need help getting past.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on November 28, 2018, 02:32:19 AM
Honestly targeting enemy ship systems is a good idea regardless, but I have no idea how much time and effort it would take Steve to code it.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: MultiVitamin on March 31, 2019, 05:20:53 AM
Was there any consideration for "weird" ground unit components?

A few examples of what I mean by "weird":

A component that, when an enemy unit is defeated by a unit possessing it, has a chance to convert it into a friendly, pre-built unit.  (Similar to Reapers from Mass Effect)

A component that, when an enemy unit is defeated by a unit possessing it, has a chance to heal a friendly unit or give supply points (again, Reapers)

A component that has a chance to resurrect friendly units when they're destroyed/defeated (Necrons from Warhammer).

A component that does damage over time to infantry units, using less supply but has lower damage each tick of combat.  (Flamers from Warhammer and other fiction)

A component that turns a unit into a suicide bomber (Suicide Grunts from Halo).

A component that gives a morale/health/damage/defense boost depending on how many units have that same component.  (Any sci-fi hivemind, machine empire or otherwise psionic empire)

Just a few examples.  I like to play as mages that discovered TN resources and turned towards the stars a lot, so being able to play as a "necromantic" version of those mages could potentially be really fun.  Or even just playing as a race similar to the Reapers of Mass Effect.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on March 31, 2019, 02:59:35 PM
Not yet. Sounds like stuff that could be added to C# later once the "baseline" is fully working.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: MultiVitamin on April 01, 2019, 04:15:57 AM
Makes sense, i'm really excited for the C# version of aurora mainly because of the changes to Ground Units/Combat and better database usage.  I've always felt that the Ground Units/Combat could've been more refined and unique like how ship design and weapon design were.  All the same, i'll be keeping an eye out for any C# updates (and for more Aurora Fiction from Steve)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on April 01, 2019, 11:52:12 AM
Agreed, the ground combat overhaul/revamp is a pretty massive thing and it is possible that during playtesting, especially after we all get C# in our grubby mitts, bunch of weird things are discovered and need to be fixed. Steve has promised us some surprises from the spoilers on the ground combat front too, for which I am very excited.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 02, 2019, 04:15:09 AM
Agreed, the ground combat overhaul/revamp is a pretty massive thing and it is possible that during playtesting, especially after we all get C# in our grubby mitts, bunch of weird things are discovered and need to be fixed. Steve has promised us some surprises from the spoilers on the ground combat front too, for which I am very excited.

There will definitely be bugs and unintended consequences :)

I am fixing a lot of minor bugs at the moment as I am playing the latest campaign, most recently in the Swarm code :)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: MultiVitamin on April 02, 2019, 06:57:42 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=9792. msg113580#msg113580 date=1554196509
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=9792. msg113564#msg113564 date=1554137532
Agreed, the ground combat overhaul/revamp is a pretty massive thing and it is possible that during playtesting, especially after we all get C# in our grubby mitts, bunch of weird things are discovered and need to be fixed.  Steve has promised us some surprises from the spoilers on the ground combat front too, for which I am very excited.

There will definitely be bugs and unintended consequences :)

I am fixing a lot of minor bugs at the moment as I am playing the latest campaign, most recently in the Swarm code :)

Hearing about Star Swarm in a ground units thread has me both immensely worried and vastly intrigued.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on April 02, 2019, 07:04:06 AM
Regarding ground combat.

Have you thought about any mechanic where factions might not want to engage in ground combat in one location but do so in another.

Imagine a multi-faction Earth start and two faction starting a limited war over some remote colony. They don't want to start a mutually destructive war at Earth at the same time, that might not be a strategically sound strategy and would weaken them both against other potential enemies or they just don't want to fight each other that badly.

From how the mechanic works there does not seem to be an option of not engaging the enemy once you are at war.

It would be great if you had an engage flag for each planet and if both sides set that flag to not engage then there will not be any fighting there at all. But it would require both sides to agree on none engagement.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 02, 2019, 08:39:28 AM
It would be great if you had an engage flag for each planet and if both sides set that flag to not engage then there will not be any fighting there at all. But it would require both sides to agree on none engagement.

Yes, that sounds like a good idea.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on April 02, 2019, 12:13:17 PM
AFAIK, in VB6 Aurora if both sides refrain from attacking, their ground forces sit still. Attack order must be give at each colony, there is no universal "attack on every colony across the galaxy"-button. I don't think that was changed, or was it? It's been a while since I had ground war on Earth between multiple factions but I recall it went like that.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on April 02, 2019, 02:54:46 PM
AFAIK, in VB6 Aurora if both sides refrain from attacking, their ground forces sit still. Attack order must be give at each colony, there is no universal "attack on every colony across the galaxy"-button. I don't think that was changed, or was it? It's been a while since I had ground war on Earth between multiple factions but I recall it went like that.

Yes... that was why I suggested a similar solution in C#. As far as I understand this is not how the new combat mechanic work. I'm pretty sure as long as you have troops in the front line they will automatically engage each other (if you are at war), you don't select units individually to attack or not. The alternative in the new mechanic would be to have all the troops in the fourth and last line, but that would be a bit awkward and fiddly way to handle it.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on April 03, 2019, 11:33:56 AM
I forgot about that change:

"Combat potentially takes place on any system body where populations exist from two or more hostile powers."

It does make it seem that unless all the units are placed in Rear Support position, direct combat or at least bombardment would automatically take place.

Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Shuul on April 26, 2019, 08:04:55 AM
Just a question, is the idea of combat-walker unit type scratched? Or its just covered by Vehicle type? maybe there can be some sub-category or special module to turn vehicle into a walker with some sort of bonuses?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 26, 2019, 08:32:32 AM
Just a question, is the idea of combat-walker unit type scratched? Or its just covered by Vehicle type? maybe there can be some sub-category or special module to turn vehicle into a walker with some sort of bonuses?

There is no specific walker type, although you could name a vehicle as a 'walker'.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on April 26, 2019, 11:38:25 AM
Just a question, is the idea of combat-walker unit type scratched? Or its just covered by Vehicle type? maybe there can be some sub-category or special module to turn vehicle into a walker with some sort of bonuses?
There's also no wheeled - tracked - hover - flying - swimming - diving - or any other locomotive types. That's all up to the player in how to specify and describe their units. Steve has used WH40k and WW2 flavour in many of his examples but the sky is the limit here. If a sub-category for walking vehicles is added, then there must be sub-categories for every other type as well, and since every body just has one generic terrain type, they wouldn't really have any meaningful game mechanics change, meaning that it's a lot of work for Steve to add them for very little gain. As with the details of most things in Aurora, it is probably best to leave it up to the imagination of the players. That way everyone can RP their units in the way they want and fits best with the themes of their game. If I want flying steam tanks, I'll have flying steam tanks!  ;D
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: alamoes on May 02, 2019, 09:27:02 PM
This is similar to how I did my combat system.    Different theme of game though.    Mine is meant to be terrestrial.   

Can't wait to invade the Federation though.   Siege Zeon. 
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: professorpicke on May 14, 2019, 07:01:42 PM
just wanted to mention that irl cruise missiles fly low to the ground because the curvature of the earth blocks them from being seen, giving them less time to be reacted to compared to the faster high altitude missiles that can be detected from far away.  I have no idea if this is relevant to c# ground combat, but it might be worth noting so i'm mentioning it.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Marski on May 20, 2019, 04:39:12 PM
Mechs are overrated anyway and anything a mech can do, you can do the same and better for cheaper by improving a tank.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on May 20, 2019, 04:56:37 PM
Mechs are overrated anyway and anything a mech can do, you can do the same and better for cheaper by improving a tank.

From a physical perspective then waling on legs and having a weight above a few tons are a complete waste of energy and you would only be able to use this at any reasonable pace and manoeuvre on very hard grounds. Another bad problem is that walking on legs rather than wheels or track require way more energy for the weight supported and speed used.

Mechs walking on two legs are pure fantasy sci fi without some form of anti-gravity field to make the object very light.

In real life even soldiers today need to watch they weight while operating in areas with very soft ground, imagine adding even more weight without your feet being several feets worth. They have experimented with say exoskeletons so soldiers can carry more weight, the problem is that more weight is already a problem on a soldier today in some environments. It probably would generate more problem than it solves.

Another problem is spotting, a mech will by its very nature be quite tall in comparison with its weight, that is NOT a good thing in a modern battlefield.

I have no problem imagining super large vehicles, the problem is being able to spot before being spotted... given the destructive power of weapons this will not be smart in the future and I have a hard time imagining a future where this will not be true unless defences are way more powerful the weapons which does not seem likely anytime soon.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on May 20, 2019, 06:56:14 PM
For 'Mechs to be useful in combat, there are two requirements that need to be fulfilled:

 A) To be at least as economical, if not MORE economical than another vehicle of comparable role.

 B) To be at least as capable, if not MORE capable in it's role than another type of vehicle of comparable role.

Unless it's the BattleTech Universe, in which case F Yeah! Giant Robots!

...or Megas XLR, because Megas XLR.

Hey, at least they aren't Hobokoen amirite?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on May 21, 2019, 12:04:30 PM
Yeah, as much as I love BattleTech, the setting breaks down the moment you try to put a hard sci-fi spin on any battle/campaign in it.

just wanted to mention that irl cruise missiles fly low to the ground because the curvature of the earth blocks them from being seen, giving them less time to be reacted to compared to the faster high altitude missiles that can be detected from far away.  I have no idea if this is relevant to c# ground combat, but it might be worth noting so i'm mentioning it.
There is currently no territory in C# combat and neither does the game calculate LOS between space and planets, since each planet/moon/asteroid is just a dot. So there's no hiding behind a moon nor are the planetary surface-to-space weapons ever incapable of firing at space ships, or anything like that.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on May 21, 2019, 01:48:59 PM
To be fair, for beam weapons body occlusion would be relevant, but for self propelled projectiles?

Even low tech missiles tend to move fast enough to reach halfway to Luna even from the wrong side of the planet, and as missiles go faster that only gets worse.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on May 22, 2019, 11:43:45 AM
Well, it was more an answer to professorpicke who mentioned sea-skimmers and surface-hugging cruise missiles that avoid counter-measures by hiding behind the curvature of the Earth. That could, in certain circumstances, be relevant to space and ground-to-space combat. However in Aurora, as things currently are, it isn't because it's 2D and planets are just points in space, not actual "bodies".
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on May 22, 2019, 12:23:33 PM
Once you get to a certain level of technological TN technological sophistication those certain circumstances in planet-to-orbit or orbit-to-orbit combat don't really occur and would be eclipsed by the much greater utility of a Line of Sight Anti Ship Missile not unlike the LOSAT concept. And that level is basically 'you have TN engines.'

Sea skimmers and surface hugging cruise missiles work because the sensor systems cannot penetrate large masses or distinguish easily between small masses and large masses that are close to each other at range. This is not true of TN sensors, which are not obscured at all by the masses of planets, stars and black holes, nor find it difficult to distinguish between a mass of a million tons and a mass of only a couple of hundred right next to it as long as they're both in range of the sensor. Indeed, a sufficiently low resolution sensor might fail entirely to pick up the smaller craft but it will perfectly identify the larger entity, without conflating its companion's signature with its own from any range.

It can work in certain ground combat circumstances, but that would be abstracted by the way ground combat works. It's a perfectly valid interpretation of how your Heavy Bombardment equipped units work after all, firing their missiles from hundreds of kilometers behind the lines and sending them off on NOE courses to attack.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Shuul on September 17, 2019, 03:59:30 PM
Was playing tabletop WH40k recently and thought about infantry transports. Maybe you can add a new module for vehicles, something like "infantry compartment" that will give small defense bonus for infantry in the same formation) to show the benefits of mechanized support?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on September 17, 2019, 08:43:18 PM
In my mock formations I’ve been using light vehicles with CAP as transports in my infantry formations. Infantry will also have armor levels that could be abstracted as armored transport protection.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: QuakeIV on September 17, 2019, 09:42:23 PM
Seems like it would get closer to what is hoped for there, by having to fabricate actual infantry transport vehicles (instead of just armored infantry).
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on September 17, 2019, 10:23:16 PM
I’m not against more granularity in ground force units, just pointing out that you could role play it as is.  I would wonder how this could be implemented though.  A component that houses x amount of tonnage of infantry?  Could be getting into some large vehicles in that case.  Or maybe actual x amount of inf units regardless of size?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on September 18, 2019, 08:56:00 AM
You can already do that. Because hits are distributed against all equipment in a unit, put light armoured vehicles in the same formation as infantry and you have achieved APC/IFV capability. Because of how ground combat currently works, anything else would be superfluous. The infantry still fights outside their transport and since each combat round is 8 hours, the difference between being inside a vehicle and outside is a moot one. The vehicles will soak some hits, thus reducing infantry casualties.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Tactical_Torpedo on October 04, 2019, 05:31:37 PM
I was just wondering (and couldn't see any concrete info in the thread) what kind of control will we have over the ground combat itself?

Mainly I'm curious as I'm planning a campaign in C# that could involve Special Forces on hostile planets, and with how it seems that the Ground Forces automatically engage & attack without orders I'd have to do some funky stuff to not get the small team (which is meant to be Stealthy, undetected etc) Stomped by an entire planets garrison.

As such, will there be any option to force-disable a unit from participating in combat or anything of the like?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on October 04, 2019, 06:51:58 PM
Control is limited to stationing troops on planet and putting them in 1 of 4 different positions which have different engagement rules. Trying to shove a special operations unit on planet will just get them obliterated as a result as all enemy troops target them.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on October 05, 2019, 12:43:43 PM
You're better off as just RPing the SF team. If it's a scouting mission, just write it up the way you want and then use SM mode to "peek" on the planet to get the information that the team would get. If it's a search-and-destroy mission, then use SM mode to delete/wreck/abandon the installations you want. There is currently no way to run a small and stealthy SF team on a planet strictly through game mechanics.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Joe94 on October 18, 2019, 04:22:22 AM
Is there gonna be a difference between normal infantry or more specialized soldiers? Like, more hit points or hit possibilities? I mean do we get to train like special forces or something like that?
Keep on the good work!
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on November 18, 2019, 02:49:20 PM
Currently by the rules posted by Steve:

* Light AA will only fire if it is directly attacked, in other words is part of the formation attacked by enemy fighters.
* Medium AA will only fire if a sub-ordinate formation, in a direct line, is attacked by enemy fighters or in above situation.
* Heavy AA will fire in both above situations, but also will take potshots freely at any enemy fighters (ground support, bombardment, CAP).

This means that creating special AA-only formations only works with Heavy AA. If we want to shield our ground units from enemy fighters, Light AA needs to be in each formation and Medium AA will need to be directly attached to a superior formation.

So, creating an AA battalion for a division is counter-productive if it consists of Light or Medium AA. Instead, players should create AA units out of Heavy AA, put Medium AA together with division/battalion HQs (or whatever equivalent they are using) and put Light AA into front line units where it can both improve ground combat as well as help bleed out enemy fighters.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on November 18, 2019, 04:14:41 PM
Currently by the rules posted by Steve:

* Light AA will only fire if it is directly attacked, in other words is part of the formation attacked by enemy fighters.
* Medium AA will only fire if a sub-ordinate formation, in a direct line, is attacked by enemy fighters or in above situation.
* Heavy AA will fire in both above situations, but also will take potshots freely at any enemy fighters (ground support, bombardment, CAP).

This means that creating special AA-only formations only works with Heavy AA. If we want to shield our ground units from enemy fighters, Light AA needs to be in each formation and Medium AA will need to be directly attached to a superior formation.

So, creating an AA battalion for a division is counter-productive if it consists of Light or Medium AA. Instead, players should create AA units out of Heavy AA, put Medium AA together with division/battalion HQs (or whatever equivalent they are using) and put Light AA into front line units where it can both improve ground combat as well as help bleed out enemy fighters.

Alternately put heavy AA in frontline units so they pull double duty, since the heavy AA will fire at fighters from wherever but only AA in front line units will contribute to ground combat, medium AA in command units, and light AA in units you feel are particularly vulnerable to air attack (such as supporting artillery or possibly fragile STO weapon batteries).
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 18, 2019, 04:38:31 PM
Currently by the rules posted by Steve:

* Light AA will only fire if it is directly attacked, in other words is part of the formation attacked by enemy fighters.
* Medium AA will only fire if a sub-ordinate formation, in a direct line, is attacked by enemy fighters or in above situation.
* Heavy AA will fire in both above situations, but also will take potshots freely at any enemy fighters (ground support, bombardment, CAP).

This means that creating special AA-only formations only works with Heavy AA. If we want to shield our ground units from enemy fighters, Light AA needs to be in each formation and Medium AA will need to be directly attached to a superior formation.

So, creating an AA battalion for a division is counter-productive if it consists of Light or Medium AA. Instead, players should create AA units out of Heavy AA, put Medium AA together with division/battalion HQs (or whatever equivalent they are using) and put Light AA into front line units where it can both improve ground combat as well as help bleed out enemy fighters.

Alternately put heavy AA in frontline units so they pull double duty, since the heavy AA will fire at fighters from wherever but only AA in front line units will contribute to ground combat, medium AA in command units, and light AA in units you feel are particularly vulnerable to air attack (such as supporting artillery or possibly fragile STO weapon batteries).

Would you in general want to risk expensive pieces of equipment in the front line?!?

To be honest I would probably not place heavy equipment that is not armoured and designed for front line duty in the front line. If you place them further back the chances of them being hit is reduces significantly.

The only time I would place them there is if I'm loosing and I need all the firepower I can get or it might be the only good anti armour guns I have like the German 88mm gun in WW2, although that would probably be a medium type gun in Aurora terms.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on November 18, 2019, 05:11:43 PM
Would you in general want to risk expensive pieces of equipment in the front line?!?

To be honest I would probably not place heavy equipment that is not armoured and designed for front line duty in the front line. If you place them further back the chances of them being hit is reduces significantly.

The only time I would place them there is if I'm loosing and I need all the firepower I can get or it might be the only good anti armour guns I have like the German 88mm gun in WW2, although that would probably be a medium type gun in Aurora terms.

Yes. I mean, if the front line dies the support equipment is going to die too. And while you risk losing them instead of infantry/tanks if they're on the front line, "instead" is an important word here, since any shots that hit them would otherwise be hitting other units. So a unit which has its AA in the front line will have both more HP and more firepower, and thus almost certainly win against a similar force which keeps them in reserve. It's more expensive to replace the losses, sure, but it's less expensive than to replace the entire force if it loses.

I suppose it might make a good argument for dedicated heavy AA formations - then you can have it on support for easy mop up operations where you want to take losses on the expensive equipment, but change it to front line if it's a fight you're worried about actually losing and need to maximize your effectiveness (especially if there's no enemy aircraft and they are otherwise useless). But I'll probably just mix them in, especially on planetary garrisons where any fight is very likely to be a desperate one where every advantage counts.

Meanwhile, putting light AA in front line positions is only better than non-AA options if enemy air attacks your front line units - and generally air is going to prefer to target literally anything else than the units designed to take a pounding.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 18, 2019, 05:26:49 PM
Would you in general want to risk expensive pieces of equipment in the front line?!?

To be honest I would probably not place heavy equipment that is not armoured and designed for front line duty in the front line. If you place them further back the chances of them being hit is reduces significantly.

The only time I would place them there is if I'm loosing and I need all the firepower I can get or it might be the only good anti armour guns I have like the German 88mm gun in WW2, although that would probably be a medium type gun in Aurora terms.

Yes. I mean, if the front line dies the support equipment is going to die too. And while you risk losing them instead of infantry/tanks if they're on the front line, "instead" is an important word here, since any shots that hit them would otherwise be hitting other units. So a unit which has its AA in the front line will have both more HP and more firepower, and thus almost certainly win against a similar force which keeps them in reserve. It's more expensive to replace the losses, sure, but it's less expensive than to replace the entire force if it loses.

I suppose it might make a good argument for dedicated heavy AA formations - then you can have it on support for easy mop up operations where you want to take losses on the expensive equipment, but change it to front line if it's a fight you're worried about actually losing and need to maximize your effectiveness (especially if there's no enemy aircraft and they are otherwise useless).

Meanwhile, putting light AA in front line positions is only better than non-AA options if enemy air attacks your front line units - and generally air is going to prefer to target literally anything else than the units designed to take a pounding.

If it is a hard fight and it is close or you are otherwise loosing. Otherwise I don't think a few AA shot does much if what most you shoot at are enemy infantry anyway. In case you are in a good lead then having them lost to enemy infantry is a bit like wasting minerals to be honest when a few more infantry losses overall will matter very little in the big picture.

The AA guns has much wider front than regular infantry so they are quite easily hit in comparison to regular infantry and dies almost as easily while providing rather little firepower against infantry in comparison. That is probably why you stick to light AA in the front line in general.

I would say the same thing with anti-armour assets as well, might as well withdraw them as long as the opponent have mostly infantry on the front line and throw them on the line when their armour take up a wider area of the battle space. That way you save their effective fire-power to matter. An expensive anti-armour cannon hitting mostly infantry is not terribly efficient and only risk their destruction for nothing.

Again, if the combat is hard fought then you obviously throw everything on the front line, but if you want to conserve your resources for the next fight you might try and sacrifice mostly light units that is more easily replaced.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on November 18, 2019, 05:39:14 PM
Would you in general want to risk expensive pieces of equipment in the front line?!?

To be honest I would probably not place heavy equipment that is not armoured and designed for front line duty in the front line. If you place them further back the chances of them being hit is reduces significantly.

The only time I would place them there is if I'm loosing and I need all the firepower I can get or it might be the only good anti armour guns I have like the German 88mm gun in WW2, although that would probably be a medium type gun in Aurora terms.

Yes. I mean, if the front line dies the support equipment is going to die too. And while you risk losing them instead of infantry/tanks if they're on the front line, "instead" is an important word here, since any shots that hit them would otherwise be hitting other units. So a unit which has its AA in the front line will have both more HP and more firepower, and thus almost certainly win against a similar force which keeps them in reserve. It's more expensive to replace the losses, sure, but it's less expensive than to replace the entire force if it loses.

I suppose it might make a good argument for dedicated heavy AA formations - then you can have it on support for easy mop up operations where you want to take losses on the expensive equipment, but change it to front line if it's a fight you're worried about actually losing and need to maximize your effectiveness (especially if there's no enemy aircraft and they are otherwise useless).

Meanwhile, putting light AA in front line positions is only better than non-AA options if enemy air attacks your front line units - and generally air is going to prefer to target literally anything else than the units designed to take a pounding.

If it is a hard fight and it is close or you are otherwise loosing. Otherwise I don't think a few AA shot does much if what most you shoot at are enemy infantry anyway. In case you are in a good lead then having them lost to enemy infantry is a bit like wasting minerals to be honest when a few more infantry losses overall will matter very little in the big picture.

The AA guns has much wider front than regular infantry so they are quite easily hit in comparison to regular infantry and dies almost as easily while providing rather little firepower against infantry in comparison. That is probably why you stick to light AA in the front line in general.

I would say the same thing with anti-armour assets as well, might as well withdraw them as long as the opponent have mostly infantry on the front line and throw them on the line when their armour take up a wider area of the battle space. That way you save their effective fire-power to matter. An expensive anti-armour cannon hitting mostly infantry is not terribly efficient and only risk their destruction for nothing.

Again, if the combat is hard fought then you obviously throw everything on the front line, but if you want to conserve your resources for the next fight you might try and sacrifice mostly light units that is more easily replaced.

I think we're just approaching things from fundamentally different directions, then. Your ideas make sense if you're confident you're going to win and want to minimize losses - for example, dropping a large assault force on a small garrison. Whereas I'm viewing things from the expectation that the entire force might lose and thus being a few percent stronger is worth having to pay a few percent more for reinforcements (if they survive at all) - important for, say, a planetary garrison where who knows what you might face, and even if you lose you'll want to inflict as many losses as possible. This is doubly true for things like withdrawing frontline anti-vehicle units if there aren't any enemy vehicles.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on November 18, 2019, 06:52:09 PM
Keep in mind that while it's certainly wise to withdraw frontline anti vehicle units when enemy vehicles are non-existent, there's also something to be said for leaving the tanks on the front anyway, even with the heavy and expensive anti vehicle guns.

Because they'll soak a good chunk of the enemy that would otherwise be hitting the infantry, and tanks are a lot more sturdy. You just need to be careful of enemy anti vehicle formations.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 19, 2019, 01:16:47 AM
I think we're just approaching things from fundamentally different directions, then. Your ideas make sense if you're confident you're going to win and want to minimize losses - for example, dropping a large assault force on a small garrison. Whereas I'm viewing things from the expectation that the entire force might lose and thus being a few percent stronger is worth having to pay a few percent more for reinforcements (if they survive at all) - important for, say, a planetary garrison where who knows what you might face, and even if you lose you'll want to inflict as many losses as possible. This is doubly true for things like withdrawing frontline anti-vehicle units if there aren't any enemy vehicles.

I think we basically agree, I just think that the situation where combat are indecisive probably are more rare than the opposite situation most of the time.



Keep in mind that while it's certainly wise to withdraw frontline anti vehicle units when enemy vehicles are non-existent, there's also something to be said for leaving the tanks on the front anyway, even with the heavy and expensive anti vehicle guns.

Because they'll soak a good chunk of the enemy that would otherwise be hitting the infantry, and tanks are a lot more sturdy. You just need to be careful of enemy anti vehicle formations.

I think there might be some situations where you want to withhold even tanks, but probably not very often because they are basically designed to be very good against infantry for their cost.

You could however find yourself in a situation where the enemy have an unusual amount of static anti-armour and anti-armour vehicles in their front line and it might be wise to keep them back until you whittled them down a bit first, or you get reinforced with more  infantry to dilute the front line a bit more.

But the same can even hold true for infantry to some extent. If the enemy have next to no anti-armour capacity you might withdraw some infantry to increase  the enemy hitting your tanks instead and then though deploy the really good anti-personnel tanks.

If you are assaulting a planet you might even consider bringing some forces up into space if you control space around the planet completely instead of withdrawing them to the support or rear lines.

But this again is only if you are otherwise more powerful than the opponent and simply want to save resources. It will drag out the combat for a few more days or weeks but you will loose less resources overall.

Sometimes time is more important and loosing the resources more acceptable, I guess it all depends on external factors.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on November 19, 2019, 06:40:14 AM
Tanks become less cost effective as effective fortification rises, because tanks cannot be as fortified as infantry, and as enemy anti vehicle weapons improve and/or become more numerous because those can effectively engage tanks.

So basically, on anything you can effectively maneuver with a tank, you want a tank as a mobile pillbox and moving cover, if nothing else. When the tank can't move freely enough and/or is just ambush bait that can't defend itself effectively you want to withdraw the tanks.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on November 19, 2019, 01:25:48 PM
Which means that it will probably make sense to create tank heavy and tank light formations, or in other words, "good" terrain armies and "bad" terrain armies. Former would be used on planets that allow only few levels of fortifications, the latter on planets that allow many levels of fortification.

I posted my earlier thing about AA mainly as a reminder to myself but to everyone else who is like me and wants to make "realistic" combined arms units that follow modern OOB and TO&E.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 19, 2019, 05:28:16 PM
Which means that it will probably make sense to create tank heavy and tank light formations, or in other words, "good" terrain armies and "bad" terrain armies. Former would be used on planets that allow only few levels of fortifications, the latter on planets that allow many levels of fortification.

I posted my earlier thing about AA mainly as a reminder to myself but to everyone else who is like me and wants to make "realistic" combined arms units that follow modern OOB and TO&E.

Yeah... I basically made this one at work today because I was bored and in a long dreary meeting...



Mechanized Brigade

1x Brigade HQ section
1x Heavy Support Company
5x Mechanized Companies


                                   Cost          Size
Mechanized Company                  274      4234
181x Combat Personnel
84x Noncombat Personnel (abstracted)
10x Heavy Vehicles
27x Medium Vehicles
15x Light Vehicles


1x Company HQ Section                  26.23   473
1x HQ Vehicle (M.Vehicle, LAA, HQ 5000)         12.23   163
2x HQ Support Vehicles (L.Vehicle, LAA)         3.2      64
3x Supply Vehicle (L.Vehicle, Supply)            9.3      186
12x Infantry (PW)                     1.5      60

1x Heavy Weapons Section               39.92   822
1x Section HQ Vehicle (M.Vehicle, LAA, CAP)      3.75      50
1x FOB Vehicle (L.Vehicle, FFD)               3.6      72
3x Mortar Vehicle (M.Vehicle, 2xLBB)            13.05   174      
3x Anti-Tank Vehicle (L.Vehicle, MAV)            6.6      132
3x Anti-Personnel Vehicle (M.Vehicle, 2xHCAP)      13.05   174      
44x Infantry (Power Armor, PW)               5.5      220

1x Scout Platoon                     18.125   390
1x Section HQ Vehicle (M.Vehicle, LAA, CAP)      3.75      50      
1x FOB Vehicle (L.Vehicle, FFD)               3.6      72      
4x Scout Vehicle (L.Vehicle, HCAP)            6.4      128
28x Infantry (Power Armor, PW)               4.375   140

1x Support Platoon                  48.45   730      
1x HQ Support Vehicles (L.Vehicle, LAA)         1.6      32
3x Artillery Vehicle (M.Vehicle, 2xMBB)         22.05   294
3x Anti-Air Vehicle (2xMAA)               22.05   294
22x Infantry (PW)                     2.75      110

3x Infantry Platoons                  3x18.01   3x313
1x Section HQ Vehicle (M.Vehicle, LAA, CAP)      3.75      50      
3x IFV (M.Vehicle, LAV, CAP)               10.35   138
4x Infantry (Power Armor, PW)               0.625   20   
12x Infantry (Power Armor, CAP)               1.875   60
6x Infantry (Power Armor, LAV)               0.9375   30
3x Infantry (Power Armour, HCAP)            0.469   15

2x Tank Platoons                     2x44      2x440
5x Tanks (H.Vehicle, MAV, HCAP)               44      440


Heavy Support Company

1x Company HQ Section
1x HQ Vehicle (M.Vehicle, LAA, CAP)
2x FOBV (M.Vehicle, LAA, CAP)
3x Supply Vehicles (M.Vehicle, 2xSupply)
12x Infantry (PW)

1x Company Artillery Section
1x HQ Vehicle (L.Vehicle, LAA)
6x Medium Artillery (M.Vehicle, 2xLR-MBB)
3x Heavy Artillery (M.Vehicle, 2xHBB)
40x Infantry (PW)

1x Company Anti-Air Section
1x HQ Vehicle (L.Vehicle, LAA)
6x Heavy Anti-Air
28x Infantry (PW)
   
2x Security Platoons
1x HQ Vehicle (L.Vehicle, LAA)
3x APC (L.Vehicle, CAP)
40x Infantry (PW)





General combat equipment                  Stats

Eagle model A (Company HQ section communication tank)      M. Vehicle (HQ 5000, LAA)
Eagle model B (Brigade HQ section communication tank)      M. Vehicle (HQ 20000, LAA)
Eagle model C (Division HQ section communication tank)

Prianha model A (Armoured Personnel Carrier), 12 Crew & Passangers   L. Vehicle (CAP)
Piranha model B (Command Support Vehicle), 4 Crew         L. Vehicle (LAA)
Piranha model C (Forward Observer command vehicle), 4 Crew       L. Vehicle (FFD)

Avenger model A (Infantry Fighting Vehicle), 9 Crew & Passengers   M. Vehicle (LAV, CAP)
Avenger model B (Command Tank), 4 Crew            M. Vehicle (LAA, CAP)

Ranger model A (Armored Scout Vehicle), 7 Crew & Passengers      L. Vehicle (HCAP)

Lynx model A (Light Tank)                  M. Vehicle (MAC,CAP)

Panther model A (Heavy Tank)                  H. Vehicle (MAV, HCAP)


It is not ready yet but it is suppose to be self contained Brigade and suitable for a couple of Assault Carriers, it should have a total weight of about 30-35.000t all in all. It is suppose to be an elite Space Marine Core Brigade. There are going to be some elite special forces marines for capturing and boarding space stations and allot other more specialised troops in this brigade.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: TinkerPox on November 19, 2019, 05:59:18 PM
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB link=topic=9792. msg117076#msg117076 date=1574206096
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=9792. msg117069#msg117069 date=1574191548
Which means that it will probably make sense to create tank heavy and tank light formations, or in other words, "good" terrain armies and "bad" terrain armies.  Former would be used on planets that allow only few levels of fortifications, the latter on planets that allow many levels of fortification.

I posted my earlier thing about AA mainly as a reminder to myself but to everyone else who is like me and wants to make "realistic" combined arms units that follow modern OOB and TO&E.

Yeah. . .  I basically made this one at work today because I was bored and in a long dreary meeting. . .



Mechanized Brigade

1x Brigade HQ section
1x Heavy Support Company
5x Mechanized Companies




I really like the thought you put in designing this hierarchy.  I would suggest that you make it a Mechanized Battalion as opposed to a Brigade.  Platoons -> Companies -> Battalions -> Regiments (Not always used) -> Brigades
That would also help with rank structure within the force.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 19, 2019, 07:09:48 PM
I really like the thought you put in designing this hierarchy.  I would suggest that you make it a Mechanized Battalion as opposed to a Brigade.  Platoons -> Companies -> Battalions -> Regiments (Not always used) -> Brigades
That would also help with rank structure within the force.

Yeah... it is not ready by a longshot and the structure was a bit different from the modern standard as the formation is smaller than a regular Division and the Brigade is sort of like a self contained elite force. It is going to have allot more fire-power than a similar force that is quite a bit larger and with more soldiers.

Each "company" is quite a bit larger than a standard company and is sort of in between that of a company and a battalion, is also carry its own organic support troops. There will also be a few squadron of fighter crafts and boarding pods attached to the Brigade. The company is suppose to be a self contained units and each company can be deployed in even separate bodies within a solar system if need be. So I could call them companies or battalions, both would suffice I think.

The idea is that this "brigade" is an elite force and part of the Space Marine Corps which is a separate military force from either the navy or the PDF (Planetary Defence Forces or plain Ground Army). The Space Marine Corps is suppose to get their own ships, space fighters and ground fighters with the ability to act independently and swiftly when needed.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: TinkerPox on November 19, 2019, 08:39:03 PM
Understandable, your organization is to suit your RP after all.  I personally like the idea of basing mine off the Marine Air Ground Task Force, just integrating what is needed for that particular mission, whether it be armor, infantry, support, air support etc.  with built in logistical support.  Armies do use Brigade Combat Teams, their own expeditionary version.  However they use the traditional companies within battalions to make it up.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 20, 2019, 02:05:50 AM
Understandable, your organization is to suit your RP after all.  I personally like the idea of basing mine off the Marine Air Ground Task Force, just integrating what is needed for that particular mission, whether it be armor, infantry, support, air support etc.  with built in logistical support.  Armies do use Brigade Combat Teams, their own expeditionary version.  However they use the traditional companies within battalions to make it up.

Yes... I'm perfectly aware of that... my take in this is that each individual part here is more potent and the C3 and command structure are more advanced as combat information can be processed through AI integration. This mean the organisation can be more compressed.

But I understand that organisations in the real world work like the do for a reason.

A company for  example is about 100-150 men because that is the largest body of men one commander can get to know and order personally... there are similar reasons for other step in the hierarchy that are more or less universal in human culture across the globe.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: misanthropope on December 22, 2019, 01:52:53 PM
i have several questions (and a couple statements, cos i'm just Like That)

In the assignment of targets step, are opposing units "paired"?  by which i mean, do X and Y hit each other, or does X hit Y and Y hits some other dude Z?
Important corollary:  in a breakthrough attack, is the breaker going to suffer a second attack himself, or is he just essentially getting a free kick?

if the latter, between morale and breakthroughs you have combat which is likely to be extremely snowball-y, i mean markedly more than the usual "proportionate damage" model.  breakthrough mechanics also seem to uniformly and strongly favor larger formation sizes.  five size 2 units contending with ten size one units (ceteris paribus), are going to get twice as many breakthroughs (same damage done, smaller divisor) and breakthroughs seem to be a major contributor to total damage done. 

feel that "smile so your bullets go straight" is too strong, in addition to being kinda silly.

what benefit is there to being front line defense instead of attack?  i can imagine entrenchment but can't find a statement that confirms this clearly.  you lose less morale for getting your tail kicked, but that seems... not a great thing to be banking on.

in the crusade fiction, there is a ground action where it is observed the Bad Guys can't attack to disrupt the Good Guys fortifying without giving up their own entrenchment bonus.  But after the Good Guys fortify, they go back to fighting, presumably with some kind of benefit for having done so.  whatever the Good Guys did later, why couldn't the Bad Guys have done that sooner? 

since hit points associate pretty closely with armor, (infy is 2/1, tanks are 4/4 6/6 or 9/12) and have interchangeable effects, a lot of pen/ damage combos seem to be pretty worthless.  i mean, when you mount a heavy autocannon, exactly what target are you wishing for?  having hit points be warhammer-style "wounds" instead of "toughness" is probably too big a change, but maybe have some interaction between penetration/ damage and fortification?  just throwing this out there, you've already got a collateral damage mechanic, maybe have entrenchment levels of the unit you're shooting at be a likely target of the collateral?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 22, 2019, 03:31:07 PM
In terms of small versus large formation I remember that Steve did something to the mechanic to make small formations work, don't remember what that was though.

Otherwise I think your analysis is correct.

The biggest worries for me is your second point of fortification and defensive lines. The defensive line can engage the enemy defensive line while benefiting fully from its own fortification levels.

This effectively means that if two factions each have a population on a planet and are at peace and later go into a war you will only need a very small advantage in combat power as there are no real way to actually defend. In real life you usually need somewhere between 2-4 times the combat power to defeat someone on their own ground. In the game you will only need a very minor advantage to beat another entrenched enemy.

The current mechanic will probably work very well when you attack en enemy colony and need to start from a position of having no fortification. But in a multi-faction game I will simply need to role-play actual entrenched defences by only using offensive line for the attacker and defensive line for the defender in those situations. It will be workable I'm sure but not optimal, but it will feel more realistic.

So I will likely always have one attacker and one defender in my games when engaging only human controlled forces. If you want to attack you will have to leave the trenches and do so.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 22, 2019, 03:37:04 PM
In terms of small versus large formation I remember that Steve did something to the mechanic to make small formations work, don't remember what that was though.

If you have one large formation, then the best defence is many small formations, because you can only attack one formation at once while all those small formations will attack you. On the other hand, many small formations are unlikely to achieve breakthroughs, plus it will be hard to find good commanders for all of them so overall combat power is reduced. Morale loss is dependent on casualties formation size, so small formations will lose morale quickly.

The mechanics may still adjust depending on play test as it is quite a complex system.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on December 22, 2019, 04:57:38 PM
what benefit is there to being front line defense instead of attack?  i can imagine entrenchment but can't find a statement that confirms this clearly.  you lose less morale for getting your tail kicked, but that seems... not a great thing to be banking on.

in the crusade fiction, there is a ground action where it is observed the Bad Guys can't attack to disrupt the Good Guys fortifying without giving up their own entrenchment bonus.  But after the Good Guys fortify, they go back to fighting, presumably with some kind of benefit for having done so.  whatever the Good Guys did later, why couldn't the Bad Guys have done that sooner?

I'm not Steve, but I have been following the ground combat pretty avidly, so I think this is right.

Front Line Defense will participate in direct combat, but get to use fortifications. Front Line Attack also participate in the same combat, but give up any fortification bonus in return for the chance at breakthroughs. On a breakthrough you get free attacks, but IIRC the defending support units don't, which means you get free extra shots.

In the AAR Steve's forces hit on a situation where the enemy was fortified and they weren't (the Imperium was conducting an invasion), so he elected to move his forces into rear assignments, so the enemy's front line defense units had nothing to engage, and wait for fortification. This tactic has an easy counter - Let's say Side A is the invader and Side B is the defender. If Side B puts even a single unit on front line attack, it will start getting one sided attacks in on Side A, and if Side B put any units into front line defense to block the breakthroughs, those units would then be forced to engage all of Side A's units on front line defense and be rapidly overwhelmed. So, assuming I have the rules right, the scenario in the AAR only worked because the AI wasn't programmed to put any units on front line attack and let the Imperium spend months fortifying - hopefully the AI on release will be smart enough to do this if you try that tactic.

I've already incorporated this into my theorycrafting and am thinking it's an excellent reason for even highly fortified units intended for garrisons to have at least a small formation intended for front line attack, with tanks or light vehicles being obvious candidates.

Jorgen also brings up a different scenario, where two empires have colonies on the same planet and are at peace, allowing both to fortify their units. If they then go to war, both sides are fortified and have little reason to give it up - there's an interesting balance discussion to be had here but I think it might be best to wait and see how things work out with the current rules.

since hit points associate pretty closely with armor, (infy is 2/1, tanks are 4/4 6/6 or 9/12) and have interchangeable effects, a lot of pen/ damage combos seem to be pretty worthless.  i mean, when you mount a heavy autocannon, exactly what target are you wishing for?  having hit points be warhammer-style "wounds" instead of "toughness" is probably too big a change, but maybe have some interaction between penetration/ damage and fortification?  just throwing this out there, you've already got a collateral damage mechanic, maybe have entrenchment levels of the unit you're shooting at be a likely target of the collateral?

Keep in mind that you can use less than the maximum amount of armor for a unit. You'll probably want to do this for units where cost is a concern - colonial garrisons being an obvious candidate to me, but I'm sure people will find roles for cheaper units. So if I were to say, have a formation of mostly cheap infantry (1/1) with some cheap static anti-tank guns (1/3), then a light autocannon (1.2/2) or medium bombardment (1.5/3) lines up pretty well.

Weapons with high AP and low damage made sense as hybrid weapons when the comparison of damage to HP was linear (that is, 1 damage against 4 hp was a 1/4 chance of a kill, instead of 1/16 as it is now) since 3 1 damage shots had the same chance to kill a heavy tank as 1 3 damage shot, but could kill 3x more infantry. That has since changed, but I don't know if the stats on weapons like the heavy autocannon have.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: misanthropope on December 23, 2019, 09:49:27 AM
steve, "many small formations" only works if, *after* accepting an automatic second attack each battle round, *after* adjusting for the possibility you get kicked in the rear (echelon), if your targets are so small that i am _still_ wasting some of my offensive potential.  iow, your formations need to be appreciably smaller than _half_ of what my big formations can kill in a single battle round.  I may be mis-estimating the lethality of combat but i don't think you've got a very effective counterweight to Stack O Death TM. 

Without a significant rework, i think you need to control pretty carefully the way HQ and commander traits determine maximum formation size. 

I have some ideas; i'll pass them along in a word doc so they're more convenient to ignore.  don't want to be That Guy From the Internet, ya know.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 23, 2019, 10:29:15 AM
steve, "many small formations" only works if, *after* accepting an automatic second attack each battle round, *after* adjusting for the possibility you get kicked in the rear (echelon), if your targets are so small that i am _still_ wasting some of my offensive potential.  iow, your formations need to be appreciably smaller than _half_ of what my big formations can kill in a single battle round.  I may be mis-estimating the lethality of combat but i don't think you've got a very effective counterweight to Stack O Death TM. 

Without a significant rework, i think you need to control pretty carefully the way HQ and commander traits determine maximum formation size. 

I have some ideas; i'll pass them along in a word doc so they're more convenient to ignore.  don't want to be That Guy From the Internet, ya know.

Before you go into too much detail, bear in mind that the AI won't be using either the stack of death or a lot of tiny formations. The ground combat is detailed so that players can role-play a huge variety of ground force formations, rather than find the most efficient formation size for any given situation. So far I have designed small formations such as a Space Marine Platoon or an SS Panzerkompanie and large formations such as an Imperial Guard regiment, but none of those were designed purely with formation size as a goal in itself. They were just intended to match the genre of the campaign.

If it turns out to be correct that the best strategy is one massive formation or many tiny formations, the only person who can choose to use that 'exploit' is the player and TBH that doesn't sound like much fun, so I don't expect it will be a major issue.

At the moment, the area I might change is the 'two fortified armies fighting' situation. I need to give it a lot more thought though.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 23, 2019, 10:48:33 AM
steve, "many small formations" only works if, *after* accepting an automatic second attack each battle round, *after* adjusting for the possibility you get kicked in the rear (echelon), if your targets are so small that i am _still_ wasting some of my offensive potential.  iow, your formations need to be appreciably smaller than _half_ of what my big formations can kill in a single battle round.  I may be mis-estimating the lethality of combat but i don't think you've got a very effective counterweight to Stack O Death TM. 

Without a significant rework, i think you need to control pretty carefully the way HQ and commander traits determine maximum formation size. 

I have some ideas; i'll pass them along in a word doc so they're more convenient to ignore.  don't want to be That Guy From the Internet, ya know.

Before you go into too much detail, bear in mind that the AI won't be using either the stack of death or a lot of tiny formations. The ground combat is detailed so that players can role-play a huge variety of ground force formations, rather than find the most efficient formation size for any given situation. So far I have designed small formations such as a Space Marine Platoon or an SS Panzerkompanie and large formations such as an Imperial Guard regiment, but none of those were designed purely with formation size as a goal in itself. They were just intended to match the genre of the campaign.

If it turns out to be correct that the best strategy is one massive formation or many tiny formations, the only person who can choose to use that 'exploit' is the player and TBH that doesn't sound like much fun, so I don't expect it will be a major issue.

At the moment, the area I might change is the 'two fortified armies fighting' situation. I need to give it a lot more thought though.

I was just about to comment something along those lines myself. As in a few other areas of the game there have always been ways to "break" it. As a player you can just ignore these and dictate what works and don't work in your universe.

As for the two armies on fortified position the easiest way to do this I think would be to have a flag if you are defending or attacking on that world. If both are defending then there are no ground combat other than some type of air to ground strikes or space to ground bombardment going on. If you put your armies on attack then all your units in defensive line get a reduction of its fortification level on 75% and a to hit penalty of 50% (or just a 90% to hit penalty to defensive line perhaps) while the defender fight as per the normal rules in both offensive and defensive line.

Then allow air to ground and space to ground bombardment to degrade enemy fortification over time, could take considerable time but eventually you can attack and win that way.

This also would make ground fighters and space bombardment a really important part of ground warfare. But the AI also would need to know when to attack, defend or when to wait for attrition by air-power or space bombardment.


It should make it possible to actually defend and you would need a considerable effort to win when both sides are fortified in the same place.

As the mechanic are right now it is possible for me to "simulate" it by only allow either side to put troops in either Offensive or Defensive line depending on who is attacking or defending, but it is not an optimal solution but doable. So no need to go crazy on this if it means taking allot of coding time away from a releasable version in my opinion.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Borealis4x on December 23, 2019, 02:54:13 PM
Sorry if this was asked or clarified already, but is there a way to model the base combat abilities of different species? For instance, having an Ork be stronger and bigger than a human.

Similarly, is there a way to make "genetic super-soldiers" like SPARTANS that have greater base abilities but are made from humans?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: JustAnotherDude on December 23, 2019, 03:27:18 PM
There's a genetic modification option for infantry, and nothing for different species atm.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 23, 2019, 03:36:54 PM
Sorry if this was asked or clarified already, but is there a way to model the base combat abilities of different species? For instance, having an Ork be stronger and bigger than a human.

I probably would give Orks a lower species score for Ground Combat in Aurora terms than humans because intelligence and fine motor skills probably are way more important for war than strength.  ;)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on December 23, 2019, 03:51:04 PM
Sorry if this was asked or clarified already, but is there a way to model the base combat abilities of different species? For instance, having an Ork be stronger and bigger than a human.

I probably would give Orks a lower species score for Ground Combat in Aurora terms than humans because intelligence and fine motor skills probably are way more important for war than strength.  ;)

I suppose there could be separate multipliers for "ground combat effectiveness" and "ground combat cost". Necrons? Extremely high effectiveness, high cost. Orks, err, sorry,
"Rakhas", poor but not horrible effectiveness, extremely low cost :P

I think these are all more in the realm of possible future changes, though.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 23, 2019, 04:02:25 PM
Orks probably would not even make for a coherent regular Aurora empire species, they would be much better fitted with some Marauder special NPC who raid other empires for resources and technology. They would not actually take planets, just invade and loot them and then leave as fast as they turned up.

Give them some special technology to move between systems in a different way so their scrapyard armadas show up, attack and raid anywhere... would be pretty scary.  ;)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 23, 2019, 04:56:00 PM
Orks, err, sorry, "Rakhas"

I thought someone as geeky as myself would have picked this up by now but...

Rakhas means Orcs, but in Khuzdul, the language of the Dwarves of Middle-Earth :)

Was that just going a nerd-step too far? :)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on December 23, 2019, 05:18:26 PM
Orks probably would not even make for a coherent regular Aurora empire species, they would be much better fitted with some Marauder special NPC who raid other empires for resources and technology. They would not actually take planets, just invade and loot them and then leave as fast as they turned up.

Give them some special technology to move between systems in a different way so their scrapyard armadas show up, attack and raid anywhere... would be pretty scary.  ;)

I'd love to see a special spoiler race that just has a chance to spawn light forces from any unexplored jump points and would try to loot your planets and then vanish back into those JPs, as a motivation for surveying out further and defending all of your perimeter worlds instead of stacking everything in one death fleet. Sort of a pirate/raider faction, but not meant to necessarily be members of your own race. However, this might not fit well with the more simulationist nature of Aurora, since you could never really run them down or find their shipyards.

Though in this case I meant Orks as referring to, as Steve notes, the new spoiler race.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: JustAnotherDude on December 23, 2019, 05:22:25 PM
Orks, err, sorry, "Rakhas"

I thought someone as geeky as myself would have picked this up by now but...

Rakhas means Orcs, but in Khuzdul, the language of the Dwarves of Middle-Earth :)

Was that just going a nerd-step too far? :)

That's great, never even suspected! I know a little Black Speech and Sindarin but never picked up any of the few Khuzdul phrases. Huge nerd cred from me.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on December 25, 2019, 08:46:24 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=9792. msg117649#msg117649 date=1577141760
Quote from: Bremen link=topic=9792. msg117647#msg117647 date=1577137864
Orks, err, sorry, "Rakhas"

I thought someone as geeky as myself would have picked this up by now but. . .

Rakhas means Orcs, but in Khuzdul, the language of the Dwarves of Middle-Earth :)

Was that just going a nerd-step too far? :)

No such thing, as long as you're willing to explain it to the rest of us when we miss it the first time ;)


Also, I've been digging into these rules, and I must say, they look really cool.  The interaction between heavier units and heavier weapons is well-done as well - each doubling in damage or penetration quadruples the kill chance, until the point where you max out and it's got no value.  It also seems to basically double the cost (exactly 2x for supply, a little less than 2x for size, and I don't see anywhere that BP cost calcs are posted).  Given that there'll always be a spread of toughnesses of an enemy force, this should help encourage a reasonable mix of weapons.  The use of box launchers to hold fighter pods is ingenious, as well, and really helps weld ground and space into a cohesive whole.  I'll probably dork out and post a TO&E below, but for now let me just give a big thumbs-up. 
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on December 25, 2019, 11:48:56 AM
As promised, I'm dorking out.   

(Edited to add costs, per discussion on the next page)

Unit Designs
Line Infantry[Infantry]: 1x Personal Weapons, size 5, supply 1, cost 0. 1 BP
Machine Gunner[Infantry]: 1x Crew-Served AP, size 12, supply 6, cost 0. 24 BP
Light AT Gun[Infantry]: 1x Light Anti-Vehicle, size 16, supply 6, cost 0. 32 BP
Light Mortar[Infantry]: 1x Light Bombardment, size 20, supply 6, cost 0. 4 BP
Light AA[Infantry]: 1x Light Anti-Aircraft, size 20, supply 2, cost 0. 4 BP

Support Vehicle[Light Vehicle]: 1x Light Autocannon, size 36, supply 7. 5, cost 1. 44 BP
Main Battle Tank[Vehicle]: 1x Heavy Anti-Vehicle, 1x Heavy Crew-Served AP, size 104, supply 45, cost 8. 32 BP
Elite Battle Tank[Super-Heavy Vehicle]: 1x Super-Heavy AV, 2x Heavy Autocannon, size 332, supply 141, cost 59. 76 BP

Brigade AA[Light Vehicle]: 1x Medium AA, size 52, supply 8, cost 2. 08 BP
Brigade Artillery[Light Vehicle]: 1x Medium Bombardment, size 52, supply 18, cost 2. 08 BP
Division AA[Vehicle]: 2x Heavy AA, size 138, supply 36, cost 11. 04 BP
Division Artillery[Vehicle]: 2x Heavy Bombardment: size 138, supply 96, cost 11. 04 BP
Supply Truck[Light Vehicle]: 1x Logistics Module, size 62, cost 2. 48 BP
Engineering Vehicle[Vehicle]: 2x Construction Equipment, size 318, cost 12. 72 BP (assumed light armour, not medium)

Regiment HQ[Medium Vehicle]: HQ size 10k, FFD, size 328, cost 26. 24 BP
Brigade HQ[Heavy Vehicle]: HQ size 50k, FFD, size 596, cost 71. 52 BP
Division HQ[Ultra-Heavy Vehicle]: HQ size 300k, 3x Super-Heavy AV, size 956, supply 243, cost 229. 44 BP


While I know we can have units of arbitrary size now, I feel like 9-10k tons for a regiment is still a good number - they'll fit neatly in most realistic transports, and it matches the Canadian regiment structure(~2000 soldiers) I'll be modelling this around.   This is super-generic, and I'm sure more wrinkles will get added, but it's enough to scratch my designer itch.   

Basic Formation Designs
Infantry Regiment (Front Line)
1x Regiment HQ
36x Machine Gunner
36x Light AT Gun
36x Light Mortar
36x Light AA
1440x Line Infantry
Total size = 9976 tons
Total supply = 2160/round
Total cost = 219. 2 BP

Armor Regiment (Front Line Attack)
1x Regiment HQ
12x Elite Battle Tank
36x Main Battle Tank
54x Support Vehicle
Total size = 10,000 tons
Total supply = 3717/round
Total cost = 1120. 64 BP

Brigade HQ (Support)
1x Brigade HQ
36x Brigade AA
36x Brigade Artillery
90x Supply Truck
Total size = 9920 tons
Total supply = 936/round (provides 45k)
Total cost = 444. 48 BP

Division HQ (Rear)
1x Division HQ
36x Division AA
36x Division Artillery
1080x Supply Truck
60x Engineering Vehicle(fortifies 6000 tons without bonuses)
Total size = 96,932 tons
Total supply = 4752/round (provides 540k)
Total cost = 4465. 92 BP

Formation Structure Designs
Infantry Brigade:
4x Infantry Regiment
1x Brigade HQ
Total size = 49,824 tons
Total supply = 9576/round (provides 45k = 4.  7 rounds)
Total cost = 1321. 28 BP

Armor Brigade:
4x Armor Regiment
1x Brigade HQ
Total size = 49,920 tons
Total supply = 15,804/round (provides 45k = 2.  8 rounds)
Total cost = 4927. 04 BP

Generic Front-Line Division:
2x Infantry Brigade
2x Armor Brigade
1x Division HQ
Total size = 296,420 tons
Total supply = 55,512/round (provides 720k = 13 rounds)
Total cost = 16,962. 56 BP
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on December 25, 2019, 12:28:37 PM
If you know the real Canadian Table of Organization and Equipment, please add it to my Real World 21st Century templates thread. Better to have as many as possible!
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on December 25, 2019, 06:37:51 PM
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=9792. msg117684#msg117684 date=1577298517
If you know the real Canadian Table of Organization and Equipment, please add it to my Real World 21st Century templates thread.  Better to have as many as possible!

Not in enough detail to be useful, sadly.  This was just basic top-level stats from Wikipedia. 
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on December 27, 2019, 11:01:18 AM
I also did a bunch of math on weapon system efficiency. 

A few technical notes before we start. 
Off-Topic: show
- Basic assumptions here are that both sides are at equal tech, all vehicles use the heaviest available armour, and we're only looking at shots that actually hit the target - I'm looking at AP vs Armour and Damage vs HP, not to-hit numbers. 
- Assumed armour values are based on the screenshots Steve posted, with the heaviest option equipped.  Infantry = x1, LV = x2, V = x4, HV = x6, SHV = x9, UHV = x12, Static = x3.  Combat rules are pages 7-8 of the C# changes thread, and weapon lists are on page 4 of this thread. 
- The equal tech assumption really matters.  At equal tech, basic riflemen (PW-equipped infantry) have a 100% chance of killing each other if they hit.  If you up the armor tech on the defender from 10 armor and 10 HP to 12 of each, the attacker only has a 48% chance of a kill. 
- I don't know of any publicly posted cost info, which means I can't measure cost efficiency.  In practice, this will probably matter a lot.  UHVs are amazing on a per-ton basis, for example, but I'd wager they'll stink on a per-BP basis. 
- When I discuss size efficiency, I'm looking at the smallest system available of each type.  That means infantry-based light weapons, and light vehicles carrying every LV-available weapon.  For the few weapons that require Vehicles or Super-Heavy Vehicles, I mounted multiples of the system (e. g. , SHAV is judged on the basis of a SHV with three of them equipped).  For targets, I assumed that they used the smallest combat weapon mix they could.  For infantry, that means PWLs, and for vehicles, that means all their slots filled with CAPs. 
- I haven't considered any systems that don't directly deal damage.


Attacking a Given Target
vs Infantry:
Literally everything kills infantry except Light Personal Weapons, which have only a 6% chance.  Because of multiple shots, the champions at killing them are the crew-served anti-personnel weapons, killing 6 per round.  The most space-efficient option for killing them is a CAP, which can kill 150% of their own size each round.  Heavy CAP, regular personal weapons, and light bombardment are all reasonable choices as well (90%, 60%, and 45%, respectively).  Light AC is 25%, and nothing else is above 20%. 

vs Light Vehicles:
LVs are 100% killed by every AV type, heavy bombardment, and medium/heavy AA.  Because of multiple shots, medium bombardment and medium/heavy AC average more than 1 kill per round as well.  Heavy bombardment is the champ in raw kills, being the only unit to hit 3/round.  Most weapon systems have decent space-efficiency here, with everything breaking 20% except PWL, PW, and LAA.  Light AV is naturally the best, at 150%, followed by heavy bombardment at 104%, medium bombardment at 78%, MAV at 55%, medium autocannon at 53%, medium AA at 46%, HCAP at 45%. . . it's really all over the map.  Even personal weapons are 13%.  Basically, everything bigger than a rifleman does decently here, and even riflemen are passable. 

vs Vehicles:
The only 100% killers are medium/heavy/superheavy AV.  Heavy bombardment, heavy AC, and heavy AA all manage better than half a kill per round as well.  On space efficiency, medium AV at 95% is the best, followed by heavy AV at 74%, heavy bombardment at 46%, heavy AC at 39%, light AV at 37%, SHAV at 36%, MB and MAA at 34%, and medium AC at 30%.  Light weapons really start to fall off in effectiveness here - PW are 3%, and CAP/LAC/LB are all below 10%. 

vs Heavy Vehicles:
Only HAV/SHAV get 100% kill rates here.  Nothing else manages more than a third of a kill per round.  On space efficiency, the champ is HAV, of course, killing 105% of its size per round.  SHAV is 52%, and HB/MAV/HAA/HAC are in the 17-29% range.  Nothing else breaks 10%. 

vs Super-Heavy Vehicles:
Nothing gets a guaranteed kill here.  SHAV has a 56% chance, HAV has 11%, and nothing else kills more than 4% of a SHV per round.  On space efficiency, it's similar - SHAV is 70%, HAV is 28%, and nothing else beats 8%. 

vs Ultra-Heavy Vehicles:
Same story here.  Even the mighty SHAV only has an 8% chance of getting a kill each round, and 17% space efficiency.  HAV is 1. 6% to kill, and 6. 8% space efficiency.  Nothing else beats 0. 5% kill chances or 2% space efficiency.  UHVs are absolute monsters on the battlefield, and it'll likely only be cost that keeps them from taking over as primary combatants. 

vs Static:
We're back to the land where things can be killed - these are halfway between light and regular vehicles.  MAV/HAV/SHAV/HAA get guaranteed kills if they hit, and HB/MAC/HAC average better than one kill per round.  LAV kills 67% of its size each round, followed by MAV at 55%, MAC at 53%, HB at 46%, HAV at 42%, HAC at 40%, and so on. 

Weapon Systems
Personal Weapons:
Regular personal weapons are solid infantry-killers, tolerable against light vehicles, and very weak against everything else.  Light personal weapons are just trash, unless you're attacking someone who's way behind you in tech.  PWL-equipped infantry are a damage sponge, not a serious combat unit, in a near-peer war.  I expect these to do well on cost-efficiency, but not on any other metric.  That said, cost efficiency matters a lot. 

Crew-Served Anti-Personnel:
These are the kings of anti-infantry work, and decent against light vehicles(especially the heavy).  They can make a showing against static installations and regular vehicles too.  I expect to see a lot of these around. 

Anti-Vehicle:
Does exactly what it says on the tin.  These are the only realistic choices against SHV/UHV behemoths, and by far the most efficient against the more plebeian vehicles and static in.  They're not great against infantry though - too big, for too little effect.  That said, for a nation with a massive tech disadvantage, a lot of LAV as anti-infantry weapons makes good sense. 

Bombardment:
Given that these can be fired from behind the front lines, they're surprisingly good.  If LB needs to be at the front it's pretty weak, though (I'm not 100% sure of the rules here).  MB and HB rip apart a lot of smaller vehicles very well, and they can even be built with weaker armour if desired, since they're not front-line combatants.  MBL will be interesting to see in practice, since it has the extra-long range of HB, the damage of MB, and size halfway between the two.  I suspect MBL use will depend more heavily on doctrine than most.  These seem like effective garrison units, since they can (presumably) be built fairly cheap and the supply use is easier to accommodate than on the attack, but I'd wager the collateral damage from that will hurt. 

Anti-Aircraft:
Obviously these are specialized units, so their raw damage isn't anything special.  That said, MAA and HAA are actually fairly decent in the AV role too.  It feels a bit WW2 here tbh, like the famous 88s and 5" DP naval guns.  If HAA isn't too expensive, I expect to see it as a secondary weapon on some tanks, since it can cover your whole force while still doing decent anti-vehicle work.  MAA's rules work against it a bit as a front-line combatant, since it can only cover its own formation or a direct subordinate formation as I understand it, which means you don't want it in the front lines (where it's as limited as LAA for a higher cost).  But for support formations, it'll help against breakthroughs, which I expect to typically be tank-led. 

Autocannons:
These are a bit jack-of-all-trades.  Not superior at anything, but useful across a broad spectrum.  That said, they seem balanced pretty low right now - I think they could get a fourth shot and still be balanced.  Unless these are fairly cheap (or they get buffed), I can't imagine using them seriously.  If they are quite cheap, though, they give a good spectrum of anti-tank effects, with broader utility against a range of classes than the AV guns. 

Bombardment Pods:
Steve gave the rules for bombardment fighter pods specifically, and while they're not ground units per se, I did a bit of analysis here as well.  For killing infantry, 20-ton(=8 MSP) pods are pretty decent (as good as LB), and 40-70 ton pods are quite effective against LV.  Against heavier units, there's a fairly flat performance per ton once your damage exceeds their HP - 40 tons for Static, 50 for V, 70 for HV, 100 for SHV, and 150 tons for UHV.  The increased AP thereafter keeps pace with the increased tonnage, more or less.  And the stats are fairly good - a 150-ton pod has 3x the chance to kill a UHV that a SHAV does. 

Also, because the on-ground tonnage is fairly low, the FFDs are less likely to draw ground fire than an their effective firepower would imply.  A 60-ton FFD draws fire like a 60-ton tank, but it can direct the firepower of 3000 tons of fighters.  Even with box-launcher fighters for space work, you can very realistically get 500 tons of weapon pods into the fight with a single FFD.  The fighters cost more transport space, but a few FFDs are likely not to get hit too badly, and they can direct a hell of a lot of firepower.  If the enemy has weak AA, your aerial firepower is going to be quite safe relative to the damage it's doing. 

Overall
Steve's done a pretty good job here.  Units work like you'd expect, nothing is a god weapon, there's definite need for combined arms, and I expect realistic-looking forces to come out.  I'll need to see costs before I judge it too definitively, but on paper it really looks good.  My only real concerns are SHV/UHV costs (and how well the AI reacts to a player building lots of them, since it seems like the sort of thing a lot of players will do just for fun), and autocannon balance, but those are fairly minor.  I really like this system. 
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on December 27, 2019, 12:58:56 PM
- I don't know of any publicly posted cost info, which means I can't measure cost efficiency.  In practice, this will probably matter a lot.  UHVs are amazing on a per-ton basis, for example, but I'd wager they'll stink on a per-BP basis. 

Cost is equal to armor * (total) size. This has some interesting effects, including the fact that in a direct matchup* heavy armor is never more cost effective than minimal armor; even in a situation where the armor gives the maximum survivability boost (ie the enemy weapon cannot penetrate any of the added armor) doubling the armor results in taking one quarter the damage - at the expense of having half the resilience and half the firepower, which means you're one quarter as effective. However, that's only if you measure purely on cost - where armor excels is letting you fit more combat power in the same space, which will probably be very important when dropping troops on a defended planet, since you will be limited by transport capacity. This is why I expect a metagame of heavily armored assault units vs minimally armored infantry and static unit garrisons.

*There are potentially some situations where armor becomes more cost effective than unarmored units if you have a mix of armored and unarmored units and can use the armored units to "tank", such as armored infantry and unarmored bombardment weapons.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on December 27, 2019, 01:45:54 PM
On an unrelated note, while I was fact checking my previous post I noticed that the cost of ground units is Base Armor Rating * Size, not racial. This, if I'm reading it correctly, means that one infantry with a personal weapon costs the same amount regardless of your tech, while your ability to afford ground units will scale with tech (including both wealth and mining rate, even if ground force training speed isn't a tech line).

If I might make a suggestion, I think there should be some modifier to tech cost so that a higher tech tank, for example, would cost more. Not necessarily a lot more (I see no reason they shouldn't still be more cost efficient than a lower tech one), but keeping up with expanded economies, so that one million population could sustain the same number of high tech tanks as low tech ones. This also avoids weirdness with pre-TNE civilizations, where because of the reduced economies and mining rates, a pre-TNE civilization would probably end up with like a third to a fifth as many tanks and soldiers as a TNE one, despite those units being far weaker.

One way to do this would be scaling the costs by racial armor strength, though that would produce a bit of oddness where increasing your racial weapon strength increased the strength of ground units but not their cost, while armor strength increased cost twice as much as it should. An alternative would be to modify ground unit cost by SQRT(Racial Armor Strength * Racial Weapon Strength)/10.

This change would probably also need a ground force training speed tech line, if there isn't one already, and may be such a core change that it should wait until the next (post release) version. But I felt strongly enough about it I thought it was worth pointing out.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on December 27, 2019, 02:36:44 PM
I believe Steve mentioned there was a ground forces build tech line similar to shipyard and fighter/ordnance production.  I also thought that unit cost was already based on the racial ground weapon tech, then modified by the level of armor it had, but I haven't looked through the ground forces posts in a while.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on December 27, 2019, 02:41:17 PM
Another thing to keep in mind though is the Supply issue. While that is not as much an issue in ground combat as it is in space, in space a lack of supplies can cause the ship to explode (no seriously, it's unlikely but a beam weapon that is charged and suffers a failure that isn't repaired can explode and cause a chain reaction), but a supplied ground force has double the fire rate than a force that is lacking supply. While that won't matter so much during the first few rounds of combat because ground forces spawn with a supply for 10 rounds of combat, it can get very expensive for the bigger weapons because those consume large amounts of supply.

They also tend to be very effective, but when you have to chose between 1 round of fire by a heavy bombardment component or 1 round of fire from 36 different personal weapon components it can be important how you prioritize supply in your army, and if you have more supply than your enemy but equal size armies, you probably will fair better than the enemy, even if your supplies only last 1 turn longer.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 27, 2019, 02:59:25 PM
A supplied ground force has double the fire rate than a force that is lacking supply

It is 4x the fire rate, so supply makes a huge difference.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on December 27, 2019, 03:31:43 PM
Given the sample units in the C# changes thread, it seems to be cost = size (in HS) * base armor. Or if you just look at the numbers given, cost = tons * armour value / 500.

That's a very simple system, though it doesn't yet make my analysis correspondingly easy.

- PWL infantry is basically an admission of defeat. You're giving up almost all your offensive firepower, in exchange for making the enemy take more hits to beat you. The only situation where it might make sense is if you're using it to meat-shield for gargantuan stacks of artillery, or big tech advantages as stated above. These might be fun as a "Zerg rush" unit for NPRs, though, but I can't imagine a player building them for anything besides RP reasons. Actually, I think a fun way to balance this might be making it possible to train unarmoured PWL infantry at any planet, whether or not it has a GFTF. Call it "militia", and make it trainable by any factory type.

- Autocannons really do need a buff.

- Doubling armour doubles the cost of a unit, but quadruples its survivability (assuming the enemy doesn't have excess AP on their attacks). It doesn't increase firepower, though. So if you consider otherwise-equal vehicles with armour 2 vs 4, and you build twice as many of the former, you'll have twice the firepower but half the total survivability. On paper, those are balanced equally. The dominating factors here will be transport space/HQ capacity (which pushes to higher armour), morale mechanics (which could go either way), how much high-AP weaponry the enemy has (more means you want lower armour), and the ability to break units up as needed (which pushes towards lower armour).

- On that note, SHVs/UHVs look fairly decent, as long as you're not digging in. Consider a unit like a UHV equipped with SHAV, HAA, 2x HCAP. That's 396 tons, armour multiplier 12, so 95.04 BP. Compare that to my main battle tank from the previous page(vehicle with HAV and HCAP), which cost 8.32 BP. The UHV kills an average of 1.66 tanks per round(or 13.81 BP), the tanks kill a total of 0.0158 UHVs per round(or 1.502 BP each = 17.15 BP for a tank force that costs the same as the UHV). It's not that big a difference. If you're tonnage-limited, the UHV is doing similar damage for 1/3 the tonnage. And even with the huge supply burden of the SHAV, it's using 117 supplies per round, compared to 514 for the tanks. (The big drawback is that it has 2 machine guns instead of 11-12 - the tanks can kill 80 infantry a round, versus 14 for the UHV.)

- Adding up the cost totals from my formations on the last page (I've edited numbers in), it's clear that many of my decisions on force structure were cost-inefficient. (Edit: This section is incorrect, see posts below) 1440 supply units for a division cost 3571.2 BP this way, but if they're changed to infantry-based instead of vehicle-based, they're 1440 BP instead. I can increase supply count by a quarter and reduce cost by half without affecting tonnage, which reduces the total cost of the force by more than 10%. Vehicle-based logistics is an extravagance. Similarly, you can save a lot of cash by going with lightly armoured support forces - e.g., I could save almost 400 BP by down-armouring my division AA/arty.

- I'm not sure what I think about increasing vehicle sizes while keeping armour levels down. You can fit more weapons per ton on a V than 2x LV, since the V is 18 tons with 2 slots compared to 12 tons with 1 slot. If you keep the V to x2 armour, it's also less BP, since it's fewer tons with the same armour. Assuming enemy weapons do <= 3 damage, the extra HP makes it 78% more survivable as well, which is good recompense for putting two eggs in one basket.

A part of me just wants to code a battle simulator now. I am having far too much fun with this.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on December 27, 2019, 04:10:47 PM
You're not the first one to post that Auto Cannons seem weak. There's definitely a niche there, a weapon that combines anti-personnel and anti-vehicle firepower into a single weapon. Obviously, they can't be better than the dedicated weapons in their role, but since every vehicle has at least two slots, I'm not sure if it is better to have an AC+something instead of just CAP+AV combo.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on December 27, 2019, 04:43:36 PM
(Someone posted about how infantry-based supplies shouldn't be the most efficient option, but it's disappeared before I started writing this)

An easy fix would be to make the full-sized logistics module unavailable on infantry, and to make the small module 25 tons instead of 10. 100 supplies for 0.5 BP is less efficient than 500 supplies for 2.48 BP, and the vehicles would be better protected if your front line breaks. The infantry will only be very slightly more expensive, though, and will still be usable for things like marine forces.

You're not the first one to post that Auto Cannons seem weak. There's definitely a niche there, a weapon that combines anti-personnel and anti-vehicle firepower into a single weapon. Obviously, they can't be better than the dedicated weapons in their role, but since every vehicle has at least two slots, I'm not sure if it is better to have an AC+something instead of just CAP+AV combo.

Playing with numbers, I like the idea of LAC being available for infantry, MAC getting 4 shots, and HAC getting 5(but going up to 80 tons from 72, because otherwise it's a touch too strong relative to MAC). None of them are tops in any category, but they get good broad-spectrum efficiency out of it. With those numbers:
- Best-in-class against each target type is 150% for CAP vs Inf, 150% for LAV vs LV, 95% for MAV vs V, 105% for HAV vs HV, and 70% for SHAV vs SHV
- LAC is 38% vs Inf, 52% vs LV, 13% vs V, 4% vs HV, and 1% vs SHV
- MAC is 20% vs Inf, 71% vs LV, 39% vs V, 11% vs HV, and 3% vs SHV
- HAC is 7% vs Inf, 60% vs LV, 59% vs V, 26% vs HV, and 7% vs SHV

They're not going to light the world on fire, but they function as good all-arounders. It also matches the progression of other weapon types well, where infantry can use the light model, and the increase in shot count replaces an increase in damage. It should also be super-easy to implement, since it's just changing values in the database, no coding changes required.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on December 27, 2019, 04:48:39 PM
- I'm not sure what I think about increasing vehicle sizes while keeping armour levels down.  You can fit more weapons per ton on a V than 2x LV, since the V is 18 tons with 2 slots compared to 12 tons with 1 slot.  If you keep the V to x2 armour, it's also less BP, since it's fewer tons with the same armour.  Assuming enemy weapons do <= 3 damage, the extra HP makes it 78% more survivable as well, which is good recompense for putting two eggs in one basket.   

78% more survivable compared to a single light vehicle; since in this scenario it's two light vehicles vs 1 normal vehicle, it's actually 22% less survivable in exchange for being cheaper and lighter (and there's some benefit to not losing firepower after one of the two is destroyed). Light Vehicles also have a really nice hit modifier when unfortified, which makes them attractive for assault forces.

As for autocannons, I agree the stats we have seem weak but they may have changed since, and even if they haven't it may be best to wait on balancing until there's wider scale playtesting.

(Someone posted about how infantry-based supplies shouldn't be the most efficient option, but it's disappeared before I started writing this)

An easy fix would be to make the full-sized logistics module unavailable on infantry, and to make the small module 25 tons instead of 10. 100 supplies for 0.5 BP is less efficient than 500 supplies for 2.48 BP, and the vehicles would be better protected if your front line breaks. The infantry will only be very slightly more expensive, though, and will still be usable for things like marine forces.

Shouldn't infantry based supply be the most efficient? They can only supply their own formation while vehicle based supplies can supply other formations (and do it from the support position to avoid being directly attacked). Infantry based supply is strictly inferior but cheaper.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on December 27, 2019, 05:10:28 PM
78% more survivable compared to a single light vehicle; since in this scenario it's two light vehicles vs 1 normal vehicle, it's actually 22% less survivable in exchange for being cheaper and lighter (and there's some benefit to not losing firepower after one of the two is destroyed). Light Vehicles also have a really nice hit modifier when unfortified, which makes them attractive for assault forces.

As for autocannons, I agree the stats we have seem weak but they may have changed since, and even if they haven't it may be best to wait on balancing until there's wider scale playtesting.

Waiting on playtesting is fair. This doesn't need to happen today, god knows. If nothing else, I'm working from a year-old post here, and things may well have changed.

Agreed re 78% more survivable being less good than having 2x the ability to take damage. The argument I was making was that it's a bit less survivable but also a bit cheaper, so there's some decent tradeoffs there.

The fact that I haven't yet analyzed hit modifiers is the biggest weakness of my analysis thus far. No doubt it'll make some things look rather different.

Shouldn't infantry based supply be the most efficient? They can only supply their own formation while vehicle based supplies can supply other formations (and do it from the support position to avoid being directly attacked). Infantry based supply is strictly inferior but cheaper.

Whoops! Good catch. I withdraw that criticism. This system now makes a lot more sense to me. (I'd have made a right fool of myself if I had tried to actually build the force specified without noticing that...)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on December 28, 2019, 08:08:26 AM
It is 4x the fire rate, so supply makes a huge difference.

I stand corrected.


As for autocannons; something to keep in mind is that they're decent at all jobs. Frankly, when enemies start fielding power armoured and/or genetically enhanced infantry you will start to see autocannons doing a very good job, as they'll chew through enemy PA/GE infantry and light vehicles much better than the anti personnel weaponry that generally lacks the punch to deal with the extra armour and hitpoints those units have, while having a much better firing rate.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on December 28, 2019, 10:23:04 AM
As for autocannons; something to keep in mind is that they're decent at all jobs. Frankly, when enemies start fielding power armoured and/or genetically enhanced infantry you will start to see autocannons doing a very good job, as they'll chew through enemy PA/GE infantry and light vehicles much better than the anti personnel weaponry that generally lacks the punch to deal with the extra armour and hitpoints those units have, while having a much better firing rate.

Less than you'd think. I ran the numbers with infantry at 2 armour and 2 HP (which I think is max for both PA and GE). The most efficient killer of them is LAV at 19%, followed by MAC at 15%, HCAP and HB at 13%, HAC and LB at 11%, and LAC and MB at 10%. (Attacking LV, it's unchanged from my above post, so ACs are again mediocre). At any lower level of PA/GE than x2 armor/x2 HP, either CAP or HCAP is the most efficient. Playing around with it, I still feel like my proposed solution is fairly balanced.

LAV-equipped infantry is more damaging than a LAC- or MAC-equipped LV against literally every target type if your target is using upgraded infantry. It's slightly worse than a HAC against medium vehicles and heavier, but only slightly. And this isn't a surprise - LAV infantry is 16 tons, so 3 of them is 48 tons to get you 3x 2/3 shots. A LAC-equipped LV is 36 tons for 3x 1.25/2 shots. That's almost as big a unit, firing an equal number of shots, but the shots are far less powerful. Similarly, a MAC-equipped LV is 60 tons for 3x 3/2 shots, which is equal firepower to 3x LAV for most purposes, with higher weight.

The only advantage I can see for ACs is that the low damage numbers mean fairly low collateral damage. But it's not so much less that you can really plan around ACs as your "I want to take planets with low collateral damage" option. For example, I'd want HCAP instead of LAC for low-damage fighting, since it does 1/4 the collateral damage, but deals comparable damage against most targets. A HAC does similar damage to a MAV with about 1/3 the collateral damage, but it's also more than twice as large, uses twice the supplies, and needs a heavier vehicle to carry it.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on December 28, 2019, 12:57:59 PM
Are those chances per shot or per round, because it looks to me that 1 19% chance of killing an infantry unit per round with a LAV is strictly inferior to 3 15% chances with a MAC, or 3 chances of 10% with a LAC. Sure, that autocannons are larger (the MAC is 3 times as large than a LAV, but the LAC only 1.5 times as large), but on the face of it LACs seem slightly more efficient than LAVs for this purpose.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on December 28, 2019, 01:47:26 PM
The percentage numbers are the percentage of the attacking weapon's tonnage that the weapon can kill each round if all attacks hit.

So for example, consider a LAC against PA/GE infantry with x2 HP and x2 armour. All three shots are assumed to hit. AP is 1.25 vs 2 armour, so there's (1.25/2)^2 = 39% chance of penetrating armour with each shot. A penetrating shot deals 2 damage against 2 HP, so it'll always kill. That means each shot has a 39% chance to kill, and with 3 shots per round, there's an average of 1.17 kills per round.

However, a LAC on a LV is a 36-ton weapon system. An infantry target can be as small as 3 tons(if they're carrying PWL). So I assume the infantry it's killing are 3 tons each. 1.17x3 tons = 3.51 tons per round of infantry killed. That 3.51 tons is equal to 9.75% of the 36 tons of the weapon system, so I round it off to 10%. You can assume the more common 5-ton infantry if you like, but it'll boost every weapon's efficiency proportionally, so it won't make much difference.

Similarly, if we look at CAP versus vanilla infantry, it's a 12-ton weapon system that kills 6x 3-ton infantry targets each turn, or 18 tons of enemies. 18/12 = 150%, which was the number I used in my original post on this topic.

Also, the LAV gets another big boost from being infantry-mounted. It's a 16-ton weapon to the LAC's 24 tons, but you can't actually create a 24-ton LAC, because it needs to go on a LV. That means you add the 12 tons of LV on top, and get 36 tons for the weapon in total. So it's actually more than twice as heavy in practice, which really hurts its efficiency.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on December 28, 2019, 05:06:41 PM
All fair. Although IIRC damage ratings also benefit from technology increases, as do non-infantry armour and hitpoints, so once you get power armour CAP and HCAP appear to still be the most cost and size effective ways of fighting enemies of the same or lower tech levels.

Against higher tech enemies you need to start bringing heavier weapons, but that was to be expected.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on December 31, 2019, 10:50:40 PM
So, while working on theorycrafting ground unit designs, a question occurred to me that I really should have thought of earlier: "How practical is a Bolo?"

For those who haven't heard of them, Bolos are a sci-fi concept of gigantic tanks mounting both anti-ground and anti-orbital weapons. Also AI controlled, but that's more a story theme; what I was wondering is how practical ultra-heavy vehicles with STO weapons that basically engage in gunnery duels with full warships would be.

Lets start with base armor rating of 10 (Ceramic Composite, I think). A fully armored Ultra heavy vehicle would have 120 armor and 240 hp - since bombardment damage is 20*SQRT(Damage) and armor piercing is half that, we can computer that it takes a 144 damage beam or warhead to have a 100% kill chance. That's a lot higher than I expected, due to the square root in the equation. Here's some chances for other weapon damages:

100 damage: 48%
64 damage: 20%
36 damage: 6.3%
25 damage: 3%
9 damage: .4%

In my experience, at around that tech level you might hit 36 damage with a spinal laser or a huge missile warhead (Warhead damage MSP x 6 is 15k RP compared to 10k for Ceramic Composite), so clearly a Bolo would be able to tank a few hits. Now, based on some of the screenshots of ground unit design, a fully armored UHV with a 25cm STO laser would probably cost around 200-250 BP (assuming armor rating doesn't multiply the cost of the STO weapon, anyways). That's, based on my Aurora experience, about the cost of a handful of fighters.

So somewhat to my surprise my conclusion is "this definitely sounds feasible".

Of course, at some point it's probably more cost effective to land ground forces specifically to kill the Bolo for your warships, which honestly is probably the ground combat system working as intended. Or build a gigantic 100 MSP Exterminatus missile (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67JpMyrOVE&feature=youtu.be&t=76) purely to demolish the bolo tank and screw the planet it's sitting on, so always remember to support your Bolos with point defense ground units!
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Arwyn on January 10, 2020, 04:01:53 PM
Thats an interesting analysis. Ironically it also jives with the lore of the Bolo. Which is that it was damn hard to kill one, and it usually made an absolute mess of the local area when you did.

Still, thats a lot of killing. And to your point on point defense, the Bolo's themselves (well, the later Marks) had pretty intense PD batteries on them for precisely that reason. Not to mention battle screens. :)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on January 10, 2020, 04:13:29 PM
I might be mistaken but I believe STO weapons are Static units only.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on January 10, 2020, 04:43:30 PM
I might be mistaken but I believe STO weapons are Static units only.

Judging by the chart on page 4 you are correct. Oh well, it was more just a RP consideration than anything.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: QuakeIV on January 10, 2020, 09:06:01 PM
Thats actually pretty disappointing, the idea of giant rolling surface to orbit tanks greatly amuses me.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on January 11, 2020, 02:46:42 PM
I didn't build a full-fledged calculator, but I did make an Excel sheet more advanced than my last one, so I could compute overall performance of units, in a somewhat less theoretical setting. This still doesn't take into account morale, orbital bombardment, fighters, generals, terrain, or breakthrough rules, but it does allow for calculations of whole formations shooting at each other, and includes hit chances and fortification levels.

For a simple example, I took the units I built back on page 10 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg117682#msg117682). I had an armour regiment attack an infantry regiment. Each was supported by a proportional part of the brigade and divisional artillery, so 9 medium bombardment and 4x heavy bombardment modules each. Since the armoured unit is a much bigger and scarier force, I compensated by saying that the infantry has reached max dig-in(including construction vehicles), while the armour has none.

As I expected from a combat system this clean, it's pretty well balanced. The armour unit kills 37 BP of defenders in the first round, but spends 20 BP of vehicle-based supply to do it. The infantry actually kills 54 BP worth of attackers, and only burns 12 BP of vehicle-based supply to do it. From an economic point of view, this tenacious defence is pretty effective. But the attacker will still win, as it's a much heavier unit which can withstand those losses. The losses on the attacker's side only represent 4.2% of his force in BP terms, whereas the defender has lost 16.8% of his BP.

The fortification level matters a lot, though. Reducing the defender to self-fortified only, their losses go up dramatically, to 62 BP/round. With no fortification at all, it's 92 BP/round, and the defender is virtually wiped out after two rounds.

At max fortification, here's the unit results:
Off-Topic: show
Attacker regimental HQ(V w/ HQ, FFD): No kills, loses 0.4 units = 10.63 BP, uses no supply.
12x Elite Battle Tank (SHV w/ SHAV, 2x HAC): Kills 13.9 units = 10.85 BP, loses 0.2 units = 11.44 BP, uses 8.4 BP of supply.
36x Main Battle Tank (HV w/ HAV, HCAP): Kills 41.0 units = 17.57 BP, loses 1.4 units = 17.96 BP, uses 8.0 BP of supply.
54x Support Vehicle (LV w/ LAC): Kills 26.2 units = 5.42 BP, loses 9.7 units = 14.02 BP, uses 2.0 BP of supply.
9x Brigade Bombardment (LV w/ MB): Kills 4.4 units = 1.81 BP, no losses, uses 0.8 BP of supply.
2x Division Artillery (V w/ 2x HB): Kills 2.0 units = 1.18 BP, no losses, uses 0.7 BP of supply.

Defender regimental HQ(V w/ HQ, FFD): No kills, loses 0.9 units = 22.62 BP, uses no supply.
1440x Line Infantry (Inf w/ PW): Kills 3.6 units = 14.18 BP, loses 64.6 units = 6.46 BP, uses 7.1 BP of supply.
36x Machine Gunner (Inf w/ CAP): Kills 0.5 units = 2.13 BP, loses 3.9 units = 0.93 BP, uses 1.1 BP of supply.
36x Light AT Gun(Inf w/ LAV): Kills 3.2 units = 12.76 BP, loses 5.2 units = 1.65 BP, uses 1.1 BP of supply.
36x Light AA Gun(Inf w/ LAA): Kills 0.4 units = 1.42 BP, loses 6.5 units = 2.58 BP, uses 0.4 BP of supply.
36x Light Mortar(Inf w/ LB): Kills 1.1 units = 4.25 BP, loses 6.5 units = 2.58 BP, uses 1.1 BP of supply.
9x Brigade Bombardment (LV w/ MB): Kills 1.5 units = 8.25 BP, no losses, uses 0.8 BP of supply.
2x Division Artillery (V w/ 2x HB): Kills 1.4 units = 11.05 BP, no losses, uses 0.7 BP of supply.


Don't take any of these numbers too literally - efficiency varies pretty fast if you start changing the assumptions - but it's a reasonable case study, I think.

The results are largely unsurprising - AV is good against tanks, SHAV is overkill vs infantry, and so on. However, two things jump out at me.
- The regimental HQs I designed are extremely vulnerable. They should probably be doubled up for redundancy, and/or moved to a heavier chassis. Alternately, for a cheap garrison force, perhaps give up on the concept entirely. Also, pairing it with the FFD makes them both too vulnerable - probably better to split them up.
- Personal weapons are actually pretty efficient, even against tanks. They meat-shielded the defending force very well, but their damage was also surprisingly good too. They're supply hogs for the damage they do, but they still dished out more pain in total than the AT gunners did, just by sheer weight of numbers.

Also, testing things out more broadly, some extra conclusions:


If I get even more ambitious, I'll see if I can clean up the sheet and post it on Google Sheets, so others can play with it.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on January 11, 2020, 05:17:10 PM
Interesting.

It is to be noted that that armoured force is about 4 times the industrial commitment of the infantry force it was facing, and while it was effectively taking down the infantry even with the infantry well fortified, it seems fairly clear that against an equal BP force that has been properly entrenched bringing equal BP forces to bear on them is non-viable without a major technology or support advantage.

Likewise of interest is how the odds shift when the defenders haven't had the help of construction vehicles to dig in. It'd definitely move in the favour of the attacker, but by how much is the question.

PWL will probably also do pretty well shielding HQ units, or basically any force that should not be on the frontline but is likely to get shot at during the course of the battle. AA formations and artillery are particularly likely targets of enemy fire.

Terrain will matter. A lot. Mostly because of the to-hit and fortification modifiers. The more the terrain protects either side, the more you will want to bring extra supplies for the rate of fire advantage it gives. On desert planets you probably don't need to bring a formation of supply vehicles to back up the stores in the units themselves because with equal forces the battle will be over pretty quickly. When on a mountainous, rifts, forested or jungle planet, or worse any combination of the above, that assumption is flat out wrong.

It would be fair to consider the question of how useful PAI forces are in the assault role compared to a similar BP and a similar weight of unarmoured infantry, if you are willing to run a simulation. Given that they would have different commitments in BP for the same weight.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on January 11, 2020, 05:38:09 PM
I didn't build a full-fledged calculator, but I did make an Excel sheet more advanced than my last one, so I could compute overall performance of units, in a somewhat less theoretical setting. This still doesn't take into account morale, orbital bombardment, fighters, generals, terrain, or breakthrough rules, but it does allow for calculations of whole formations shooting at each other, and includes hit chances and fortification levels.

For a simple example, I took the units I built back on page 10 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg117682#msg117682). I had an armour regiment attack an infantry regiment. Each was supported by a proportional part of the brigade and divisional artillery, so 9 medium bombardment and 4x heavy bombardment modules each. Since the armoured unit is a much bigger and scarier force, I compensated by saying that the infantry has reached max dig-in(including construction vehicles), while the armour has none.

As I expected from a combat system this clean, it's pretty well balanced. The armour unit kills 37 BP of defenders in the first round, but spends 20 BP of vehicle-based supply to do it. The infantry actually kills 54 BP worth of attackers, and only burns 12 BP of vehicle-based supply to do it. From an economic point of view, this tenacious defence is pretty effective. But the attacker will still win, as it's a much heavier unit which can withstand those losses. The losses on the attacker's side only represent 4.2% of his force in BP terms, whereas the defender has lost 16.8% of his BP.

Something to keep in mind is that you're testing formations with no anti-heavy vehicle weapons. It's true infantry can't use anything bigger than light anti vehicle, but static can, and they get similar fortification values to infantry. I was playing around with possible formations, and I came up with the following for my "cheap planetary garrison":

Garrison Regiment (5,000 tons)
1 Regimental HQ (AR 3, Static-HQ 5000, 112 tons)
548 Troopers (AR 1, Inf-PW, 5 tons)
58 Anti-Tank Squads (AR 1, Inf-LAV, 16 tons)
50 Supply Caches (AR 1, Inf-LOG-S, 10 tons)
6 Anti-Tank Emplacement (AR 1, Static-HAV, 60 tons)
5 Anti-Air Emplacement (AR 1, Static-HAA, 72 tons)

(the artillery was in a separate command formation)

Also units that don't fight, like command units, can be given the "avoid combat" tag to make it much less likely they take hits.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on January 11, 2020, 06:27:33 PM
In double-checking things while posting this comment, I realize that I seem to have misunderstood the supply rules a bit. The supply amount listed for a unit is the amount for a full 10-round resupply, not the per-round usage. That means I overstated my supply usage above by a factor of 10. I also grossly oversupplied my units in the formation design post on page 10 that I was basing this on. I thought I was providing 13 rounds of fire for the formation, but I was actually providing 130 rounds. I'll want to adjust that substantially. (No wonder the supply requirements felt so onerous!)

It is to be noted that that armoured force is about 4 times the industrial commitment of the infantry force it was facing, and while it was effectively taking down the infantry even with the infantry well fortified, it seems fairly clear that against an equal BP force that has been properly entrenched bringing equal BP forces to bear on them is non-viable without a major technology or support advantage.

For sure, but a BP advantage for the attacker is expected. The attacker is hitting one planet at a time, while the defender needs to garrison all their planets. Similarly, space-efficient attacking forces(even at the cost of more BP per unit of combat power) are entirely expected, because of the cost of building troop transports.

Likewise of interest is how the odds shift when the defenders haven't had the help of construction vehicles to dig in. It'd definitely move in the favour of the attacker, but by how much is the question.

Losses per round go up by about 70%. Everything gets twice as easy to hit, except the HQ, which is only 50% easier.

Of note - the math breaks down a bit here. The attacker is getting credit for 1.3 kills on the HQ per round, but of course there's only one HQ in the force. As a result, the loss cost is slightly overstated. Again, don't take these numbers too literally.

PWL will probably also do pretty well shielding HQ units, or basically any force that should not be on the frontline but is likely to get shot at during the course of the battle. AA formations and artillery are particularly likely targets of enemy fire.

My understanding is that they can be held behind the front lines, and mostly avoid combat that way. You're at risk of breakthroughs, but at that point you're already in trouble.

Terrain will matter. A lot. Mostly because of the to-hit and fortification modifiers. The more the terrain protects either side, the more you will want to bring extra supplies for the rate of fire advantage it gives. On desert planets you probably don't need to bring a formation of supply vehicles to back up the stores in the units themselves because with equal forces the battle will be over pretty quickly. When on a mountainous, rifts, forested or jungle planet, or worse any combination of the above, that assumption is flat out wrong.

Fully agreed.

It would be fair to consider the question of how useful PAI forces are in the assault role compared to a similar BP and a similar weight of unarmoured infantry, if you are willing to run a simulation. Given that they would have different commitments in BP for the same weight.

Changing the infantry defenders from 1 armour to 2 armour means they go from losing 36.83 BP/round to losing 40.19 BP/round. Losses fall substantially(from 87 units to 54 per round), but since the cost of all infantry has just doubled, the net effect is a bit detrimental. You save more forces for future rounds, though, so a more detailed multi-round model might show it being somewhat advantageous.

It'd probably be a good plan if your primary limitation is troop transport and not BP, though. Marines getting power armour looks like a good decision, and maybe also landing forces.

Something to keep in mind is that you're testing formations with no anti-heavy vehicle weapons. It's true infantry can't use anything bigger than light anti vehicle, but static can, and they get similar fortification values to infantry. I was playing around with possible formations, and I came up with the following for my "cheap planetary garrison":

Garrison Regiment (5,000 tons)
1 Regimental HQ (AR 3, Static-HQ 5000, 112 tons)
548 Troopers (AR 1, Inf-PW, 5 tons)
58 Anti-Tank Squads (AR 1, Inf-LAV, 16 tons)
50 Supply Caches (AR 1, Inf-LOG-S, 10 tons)
6 Anti-Tank Emplacement (AR 1, Static-HAV, 60 tons)
5 Anti-Air Emplacement (AR 1, Static-HAA, 72 tons)

(the artillery was in a separate command formation)

Interesting. This is a good point - my force was originally intended to work in mixed formations alongside armour units, but that means it's not expecting to do its own heavy lifting at anti-tank work. Yours is more balanced in this regard.

And sure enough, its performance improves a lot. Those AT emplacements do amazing work - each one costs 1.2 BP, and kills 6.75 BP per round. The sum total for the unit is that it'd take 22.85 BP per round of damage, and inflict 95.41 BP worth.

I also rather like the front-line HAA because of a quirk in the rules - LAA is as good in the front line as anywhere(since it can only cover its own unit), and HAA is equally good anywhere(since it can shoot at anything), but MAA really wants to be in a supporting position so it can back up several subordinate units at once. HAA also makes a pretty good anti-tank gun on top of that, roughly comparable to MAV(though twice the size). For a real garrison force, I think this would be a reasonable choice. Back it up with some supporting STO weapon emplacements, of course.

The one quibble I'd make here is the infantry logistics. They get massacred - you're losing 9 a round to enemy fire, and only consuming 2-3 per round for supply needs. You might do better to swap them out for another 100 riflemen, switch to vehicle logistics at the support level, and accept the increased supply cost in exchange for decreased impact of enemy fire.

Also units that don't fight, like command units, can be given the "avoid combat" tag to make it much less likely they take hits.

I didn't see that rule - I know you can set a while formation to support/rear, but not individual units within a formation. I can't see it in Steve's change log or screenshots, but I know there's probably a lot I've missed. That'd make HQs and the like a lot better. It'd also soften what I said above about infantry-based supply.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on January 11, 2020, 06:40:11 PM
I also rather like the front-line HAA because of a quirk in the rules - LAA is as good in the front line as anywhere(since it can only cover its own unit), and HAA is equally good anywhere(since it can shoot at anything), but MAA really wants to be in a supporting position so it can back up several subordinate units at once. HAA also makes a pretty good anti-tank gun on top of that, roughly comparable to MAV(though twice the size). For a real garrison force, I think this would be a reasonable choice. Back it up with some supporting STO weapon emplacements, of course.

I really like HAA as well, mostly for two reasons. First, it scales well with multiple formations - for LAA or even MAA to some degree, the more formations you have on a planet the wider the firepower is scattered, but HAA always gets the shot. Since my planetary garrison plan is basically "quantity has a quality all its own" I like the idea of HAA and spreading it out.  The second reason I like them is that AA damage to fighters is exponential, so a hit from a HAA deals 2.25x the damage of MAA and 9x of LAA. From there it's only a question of if they should be front line units or in reserve, and since I suspect planetary garrisons are frequently going to be be overwhelmed and destroyed to the last man, I figure they're at high risk anyways and might as well be put where they can contribute the most to the fighting/make victory as costly as possible for the attacker.

And yeah, my plan is to drop a mix of cheap garrison units and a few STO formations on a colony as an alternative to keeping ships on station. I wouldn't expect them to survive any major assault but they're a cheap way to give a planet some teeth (and also deal with the whole "demand more military protection" protests). And as a colony grows I can keep dropping more ground units on it (or start training them on site), hopefully making the largest colonies quite tough nuts to crack.

Quote
The one quibble I'd make here is the infantry logistics. They get massacred - you're losing 9 a round to enemy fire, and only consuming 2-3 per round for supply needs. You might do better to swap them out for another 100 riflemen, switch to vehicle logistics at the support level, and accept the increased supply cost in exchange for decreased impact of enemy fire.

A fair point about the quantity - I hadn't looked into the supply rules as much as you had, so I mostly just picked 50 since it was a round number. OTOH I figure each supply cache only costs as much as two PW infantry, so if they take the hit instead of a trooper I'm not losing much, and they're cheaper than vehicle logistics.

Quote
I didn't see that rule - I know you can set a while formation to support/rear, but not individual units within a formation. I can't see it in Steve's change log or screenshots, but I know there's probably a lot I've missed. That'd make HQs and the like a lot better. It'd also soften what I said above about infantry-based supply.

It's a bit hidden, but the change is in this post (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10096.msg116211#msg116211)

Quote
3) When you design a ground unit class, you can designate it as a 'Non-Combat Class'. A class with this designation suffers an 80% penalty to hit and any hostile unit selecting targets treats this unit as 80% smaller. This could be used for supply vehicles, HQs, FFD units, etc. It is intended to simulate the type of unit that will actively avoid combat and is therefore much less likely to be chosen as a target. This applies regardless of field position.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on January 11, 2020, 08:39:25 PM
Thank you for the info. That makes a bigger difference than you might expect. Instead of killing 37 BP/round, the attacker only kills 19 BP/round instead. The defender's HQ getting blown up was a huge part of the attacker's damage. The attacker's losses also drop, from 54 BP/round to 47 BP/round, but that's much less drastic. Using your garrison force, the updated values are it killing 86.99 BP/round and losing 19.89 BP/round, so roughly comparable ratios.

I'm also much more bullish on infantry logistics than I was previously. Your unit goes from losing 9/round to enemy fire down to 2/round, for example.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on January 11, 2020, 09:50:33 PM
In double-checking things while posting this comment, I realize that I seem to have misunderstood the supply rules a bit. The supply amount listed for a unit is the amount for a full 10-round resupply, not the per-round usage. That means I overstated my supply usage above by a factor of 10. I also grossly oversupplied my units in the formation design post on page 10 that I was basing this on. I thought I was providing 13 rounds of fire for the formation, but I was actually providing 130 rounds. I'll want to adjust that substantially. (No wonder the supply requirements felt so onerous!)

That's... rather much. It can work out that such a level of supply is necessary though, when a planet is very defensible. 130 rounds of combat works out to about a month of fighting (IIRC 1 round is 6 hours, if it's 3 hours is about 2.5 weeks of fighting), and I can see very well defended planets take that long to get the defenders ground down unless you go in with absolutely overwhelming force, and at that point you are basically committing a vast chunk of your GFTF production for an extended period of time.

For sure, but a BP advantage for the attacker is expected. The attacker is hitting one planet at a time, while the defender needs to garrison all their planets. Similarly, space-efficient attacking forces(even at the cost of more BP per unit of combat power) are entirely expected, because of the cost of building troop transports.

True, but at the same time the relative cheapness of stationing and keeping troops in secured space is not to be neglected. This is not real life where regardless of engagement you are going to need to ship tons of material to a regiment every day just to keep the soldiers in fighting form. I mean, just a day ration (let's take the Humanitarian Day Ration as an example) weighs 850 grams and provides about 2200 calories. Soldiers burn between 4500 and 5000 calories per day, so let's say that's 2 ration packs at 1700 grams total and we'll fudge the difference.

The infantry regiment you used has 1595 individual units, and let us round it to 1600 people in a regiment (this is nonsense, the weapons teams and administrative staff would comprise of at least 100 people between them, and far more likely several hundred). With 2 ration packs per person you'd need to supply just the soldiers with at minimum 2.7 tons of food every day. And that's just food, we're not talking about munitions, spare parts, or fuel, all of which would by the way strictly speaking be abstracted away into the ground supply system, and you don't have to provide any supply until soldiers are in combat.

So, sure, the defender has to have a presence of some sort everywhere and probably can't afford to place as much BP density as the attacker on any given planet that could end up under attack. Given that the defender is likely to be at a naval disadvantage he probably also can't move the troops he does have as easily as the attacker. But at the same time, GFTF are production facilities with a defined amount of production capacity and if both the attacker and the defender have the same BP totals available for their armies, attacking and defending forces may well end up costing the same anyway, with only their relative concentrations differing.

Losses per round go up by about 70%. Everything gets twice as easy to hit, except the HQ, which is only 50% easier.

Of note - the math breaks down a bit here. The attacker is getting credit for 1.3 kills on the HQ per round, but of course there's only one HQ in the force. As a result, the loss cost is slightly overstated. Again, don't take these numbers too literally.

Of course, but it does show the importance for the defenders to dig in very deep.

My understanding is that they can be held behind the front lines, and mostly avoid combat that way. You're at risk of breakthroughs, but at that point you're already in trouble.

While true, it's relevant to note that bombardment and counterbattery fire are just as random as normal ground unit fire, only fighters flying Flak Suppression missions directly target a specific type of enemy formation. Because of this, having PWL infantry in the formation is just as effective at soaking bombardment fire and keeping valuable formations safe as they are at soaking fire from enemy breakthrough units.

Tagging relevant forces as combat avoidant just makes the PWL 500% as effective as they would normally be, because you wouldn't define them as combat avoidant, you want them to get shot at in such circumstances.

Changing the infantry defenders from 1 armour to 2 armour means they go from losing 36.83 BP/round to losing 40.19 BP/round. Losses fall substantially(from 87 units to 54 per round), but since the cost of all infantry has just doubled, the net effect is a bit detrimental. You save more forces for future rounds, though, so a more detailed multi-round model might show it being somewhat advantageous.

It'd probably be a good plan if your primary limitation is troop transport and not BP, though. Marines getting power armour looks like a good decision, and maybe also landing forces.

Iterative testing would be required here, yes. I would expect that the compounding effect of losing about 1/3rd less units is helpful, because that also means you lose 1/3rd less firepower over time. It's definitely something that will require a bit of thought though, because it also means that you are effectively bringing 1/2 the infantry to the fight on the same production budget. It's one of those 'we could equip everyone with 5 million credits worth of equipment and see them swarmed and torn apart, or we could equip everyone with 500 000 thousand credits worth of equipment and lose half of them and win anyway' cases.

It wouldn't be the first time where the numerically superior side wins on count of being numerically superior and having more guns to shoot, despite the enemy being better protected.

Interesting. This is a good point - my force was originally intended to work in mixed formations alongside armour units, but that means it's not expecting to do its own heavy lifting at anti-tank work. Yours is more balanced in this regard.

And sure enough, its performance improves a lot. Those AT emplacements do amazing work - each one costs 1.2 BP, and kills 6.75 BP per round. The sum total for the unit is that it'd take 22.85 BP per round of damage, and inflict 95.41 BP worth.

That's a pretty damn good trade.

I also rather like the front-line HAA because of a quirk in the rules - LAA is as good in the front line as anywhere(since it can only cover its own unit), and HAA is equally good anywhere(since it can shoot at anything), but MAA really wants to be in a supporting position so it can back up several subordinate units at once. HAA also makes a pretty good anti-tank gun on top of that, roughly comparable to MAV(though twice the size). For a real garrison force, I think this would be a reasonable choice. Back it up with some supporting STO weapon emplacements, of course.

More like such a formation would be the ground security complement for the STO emplacements. Those HAA units are rather expensive in supplies for an AT weapon, but the question of 'do I deploy them forward and risk them getting shot apart by ground forces early but deter enemy tanks' or 'do I keep them in the back so they can bully enemy airpower but get flattened in an instant in a breakthrough' is an entirely valid one that I expect will depend at least in part on what sort of enemy forces you are facing. I'd move them forward sooner with an enemy assault force with a large armour component.

Thank you for the info. That makes a bigger difference than you might expect. Instead of killing 37 BP/round, the attacker only kills 19 BP/round instead. The defender's HQ getting blown up was a huge part of the attacker's damage. The attacker's losses also drop, from 54 BP/round to 47 BP/round, but that's much less drastic. Using your garrison force, the updated values are it killing 86.99 BP/round and losing 19.89 BP/round, so roughly comparable ratios.

I'm also much more bullish on infantry logistics than I was previously. Your unit goes from losing 9/round to enemy fire down to 2/round, for example.

If you are losing logistics to enemy fire from non-breakthrough units it might be worth reconsidering forward deploying logistics units. Due to how logistics work they are always at risk, and the highest logistics unit in the planetary OOB gets drained first anyway. It might work out better to have a small(ish) vehicular logistics unit attached to the force but separate and kept in the rear, where it's not as likely to get flattened during the fighting unless the battle is lost anyway.

Because in any fight where that garrison force is part of a higher command with vehicle supply units on hand, supply integrated in any formation that is likely to take fire is going to be lost supply. So you wouldn't want to put infantry supply forces forward anyway except when your forces have drained their supply pool and need a top up, which is just a micromanagement hell issue, and you want to keep your logistics vehicles as far back as possible because they are going to supply everything down the chain of command from the HQ they are attached to anyway.

The most efficient use of infantry supply units in a way that doesn't create a micromanagement problem would be to use them to supply to MAA and HAA units away from the frontlines who are likely to be targeted by fighters on Flak Suppression missions, which don't target non-AA unit elements, and nowhere else as no other units would not be fired upon while having a draw on supply.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Marski on January 11, 2020, 10:05:40 PM
Thats actually pretty disappointing, the idea of giant rolling surface to orbit tanks greatly amuses me.
always imagined they were one of these bad boys, except with massive railgun on the back instead of a missile
(https://i.imgur.com/Zra9Mre.jpg)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on January 11, 2020, 10:25:11 PM
Actually, for mobile STO railgun units you want an absolutely massive vehicle (think more railway gun than tractor with trailer), because nothing else is going to absorb the recoil well enough without digging the vehicle into the ground or sending it skipping across the surface. That's part of why STOs are Static only; that's an entire structure build around the gun so it can fire repeatedly without the whole thing tipping over.

Beam weapons would have lower recoil, but still require very large supplies of power, so it'd be less one tractor with trailer and more like a bunch of trailers holding the sensor arrays, firing computers, power supply and 1 trailer holding the gun itself. If only because having to align multiple lasers into a beam bundling trailer would be fiddly and inconvenient.

If we actually could do STO missile systems you'd get something you can haul around in a trailer though.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: QuakeIV on January 12, 2020, 01:08:28 AM
Well, consider this.  We are supposed to have classes of units that are meant to act as imperial titans from warhammer 40k.  Those things actually canonically can shoot down starships if said ships get close enough.  Also mobility would presumably help a lot with survivability against orbital bombardment, though I think that might not actually be factored into the current ground combat mechanics.  In general though, the idea of a giant tank or mech shooting down giant starships in space is very amusing to me.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Marski on January 12, 2020, 06:36:19 AM
that's an entire structure build around the gun so it can fire repeatedly without the whole thing tipping over.
Wrong, unless firing at horizon, orbital targets would require almost vertical elevation of the barrel, the recoil would be directed downwards and on to the soil.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on January 12, 2020, 08:56:26 AM
That's... rather much. It can work out that such a level of supply is necessary though, when a planet is very defensible. 130 rounds of combat works out to about a month of fighting (IIRC 1 round is 6 hours, if it's 3 hours is about 2.5 weeks of fighting), and I can see very well defended planets take that long to get the defenders ground down unless you go in with absolutely overwhelming force, and at that point you are basically committing a vast chunk of your GFTF production for an extended period of time.

Oh, it's insane. I thought I needed that to get 13 rounds of resupply, which felt reasonable. But 130 is bonkers. I'd probably cut about 80-90% of that supply force in favour of either construction vehicles/STO forces (if I expect the units to stay as garrison after conquering a planet), or just reducing the total size of the force. Supply was over 20% of the all-in cost of that division, so it's a meaningful difference.

True, but at the same time the relative cheapness of stationing and keeping troops in secured space is not to be neglected.
(snip)
...you don't have to provide any supply until soldiers are in combat.

Remember that ground forces require upkeep. The Wealth cost to keep forces even when they're not fighting represents these costs. It's not a BP cost, but it'll still be meaningful.

While true, it's relevant to note that bombardment and counterbattery fire are just as random as normal ground unit fire, only fighters flying Flak Suppression missions directly target a specific type of enemy formation. Because of this, having PWL infantry in the formation is just as effective at soaking bombardment fire and keeping valuable formations safe as they are at soaking fire from enemy breakthrough units.

Tagging relevant forces as combat avoidant just makes the PWL 500% as effective as they would normally be, because you wouldn't define them as combat avoidant, you want them to get shot at in such circumstances.

Remember that avoiding combat also reduces their offensive firepower 80%. So it'll work fine for supply, HQ, and FFD units, but you wouldn't want to use it for artillery, AA, or STO.

Iterative testing would be required here, yes. I would expect that the compounding effect of losing about 1/3rd less units is helpful, because that also means you lose 1/3rd less firepower over time. It's definitely something that will require a bit of thought though, because it also means that you are effectively bringing 1/2 the infantry to the fight on the same production budget. It's one of those 'we could equip everyone with 5 million credits worth of equipment and see them swarmed and torn apart, or we could equip everyone with 500 000 thousand credits worth of equipment and lose half of them and win anyway' cases.

It wouldn't be the first time where the numerically superior side wins on count of being numerically superior and having more guns to shoot, despite the enemy being better protected.

Yup. The more I dig into this system, the more I like it. It's clean, it creates realistic fighting where I want combined arms instead of spamming one god unit, and the tradeoffs are designed really well. Big props to Steve.

Those AT emplacements do amazing work - each one costs 1.2 BP, and kills 6.75 BP per round. The sum total for the unit is that it'd take 22.85 BP per round of damage, and inflict 95.41 BP worth.

That's a pretty damn good trade.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/xT0BKk9aPtLzKJiUi4/giphy.gif)

More like such a formation would be the ground security complement for the STO emplacements. Those HAA units are rather expensive in supplies for an AT weapon, but the question of 'do I deploy them forward and risk them getting shot apart by ground forces early but deter enemy tanks' or 'do I keep them in the back so they can bully enemy airpower but get flattened in an instant in a breakthrough' is an entirely valid one that I expect will depend at least in part on what sort of enemy forces you are facing. I'd move them forward sooner with an enemy assault force with a large armour component.

Not that expensive - they're comparable to MAV in anti-tank work(3 AP/6 damage/18 supply for HAA, 4 AP/4 damage/16 supply for MAV). They do fire twice a round because of the extra AA phase, and thus use double the supplies, but you'll need to fire the AA from somewhere regardless. The big costs are that it's about twice the size (60 tons vs 32), so you won't want to use AA unless you actually expect enemy air power, and that if you lose the unit you lose both the AV and AA weapons instead of them being broken up.

If you are losing logistics to enemy fire from non-breakthrough units it might be worth reconsidering forward deploying logistics units. Due to how logistics work they are always at risk, and the highest logistics unit in the planetary OOB gets drained first anyway. It might work out better to have a small(ish) vehicular logistics unit attached to the force but separate and kept in the rear, where it's not as likely to get flattened during the fighting unless the battle is lost anyway.

Because in any fight where that garrison force is part of a higher command with vehicle supply units on hand, supply integrated in any formation that is likely to take fire is going to be lost supply. So you wouldn't want to put infantry supply forces forward anyway except when your forces have drained their supply pool and need a top up, which is just a micromanagement hell issue, and you want to keep your logistics vehicles as far back as possible because they are going to supply everything down the chain of command from the HQ they are attached to anyway.

The most efficient use of infantry supply units in a way that doesn't create a micromanagement problem would be to use them to supply to MAA and HAA units away from the frontlines who are likely to be targeted by fighters on Flak Suppression missions, which don't target non-AA unit elements, and nowhere else as no other units would not be fired upon while having a draw on supply.

Yeah, infantry supply for the AA/arty formation behind the front lines sounds like a solid plan to me.

Wrong, unless firing at horizon, orbital targets would require almost vertical elevation of the barrel, the recoil would be directed downwards and on to the soil.

That's far too strong a claim to simply say "wrong". A STO weapon can presumably fire at an entire hemisphere over the horizon. Most of that isn't straight up.

That said, you don't need to be static to open fire at an angle with heavy ordinance. Artillery exists. A 10cm railgun is 150 tons - that's well within the realm where real-world mobile artillery has been built. The biggest gun ever built (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav) was 1350 tons = 27 HS, and that was (barely) mobile. It could also fire at any angle from flat to 48 degrees up, which is to say all the angles where recoil mostly isn't straight down.

I think "STO can only be static" is a reasonable game rule, not least because it means that the installations can't be too insanely fortified. If you could put them on UHVs, the natural way to defend would probably just be to spam all-in-one Ogres, and that would be both boring and stupid. But the better argument here is gameplay, not realism, IMO.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on January 12, 2020, 10:44:00 AM
Oh, it's insane. I thought I needed that to get 13 rounds of resupply, which felt reasonable. But 130 is bonkers. I'd probably cut about 80-90% of that supply force in favour of either construction vehicles/STO forces (if I expect the units to stay as garrison after conquering a planet), or just reducing the total size of the force. Supply was over 20% of the all-in cost of that division, so it's a meaningful difference.

Unless you expect to lose naval control of the system or engage in defensive combat during the assault I'd advise against shipping in ConVecs or STO forces in the first wave. You rarely know for certain what the enemy has down there, and those forces are generally useless in a direct manner in a ground battle. I'd send in the assault forces first and let them take the hits until you are certain you can maintain the integrity of your defenses.

This does presume that you have effectively suppressed enemy STO forces, because a wave of high value units that's not protected by a shell of low value units to distract enemy fire is a disaster waiting to happen, and that HAA cannot engage landing fighter craft. I wouldn't count on that, so Flak Suppression would also be necessary. Otherwise you might as well drop them at the same time and hope for the best.

Remember that ground forces require upkeep. The Wealth cost to keep forces even when they're not fighting represents these costs. It's not a BP cost, but it'll still be meaningful.

Compared to the cost of running the rest of your economy the wealth upkeep for ground units is rather trivial.

Remember that avoiding combat also reduces their offensive firepower 80%. So it'll work fine for supply, HQ, and FFD units, but you wouldn't want to use it for artillery, AA, or STO.

You would want it for STO, because STO AFAICT work on naval combat rules, not ground combat rules. A fair point about AA and artillery though, which likely would be affected, but I'm not certain about that. At least, not when the AA is acting in the air defense role and the artillery is acting in the bombardment role.

Not that expensive - they're comparable to MAV in anti-tank work(3 AP/6 damage/18 supply for HAA, 4 AP/4 damage/16 supply for MAV). They do fire twice a round because of the extra AA phase, and thus use double the supplies, but you'll need to fire the AA from somewhere regardless. The big costs are that it's about twice the size (60 tons vs 32), so you won't want to use AA unless you actually expect enemy air power, and that if you lose the unit you lose both the AV and AA weapons instead of them being broken up.

Given the poorer AP value for AA units I'd say they are less effective in all stats except for actually making the kill once the armour is breached, but they'd make a decent stopgap measure or dual purpose deployment when a formation is small enough that'd work out.

Yeah, infantry supply for the AA/arty formation behind the front lines sounds like a solid plan to me.

Eh, supply units with the artillery would get hit with counterbattery fire, and units dedicated to counterbattery fire are very likely to be relatively heavy while supply units are not going to be armoured that well so they're going to die when hit. Unless you have a major bombardment advantage it'd probably be more effective to have vehicle based supply units in a different formation that are not as likely to get targeted performing the supply duties.

AA formations cheat because Flak Suppression missions only target the AA units themselves and ignore all others.

That's far too strong a claim to simply say "wrong". A STO weapon can presumably fire at an entire hemisphere over the horizon. Most of that isn't straight up.

That said, you don't need to be static to open fire at an angle with heavy ordinance. Artillery exists. A 10cm railgun is 150 tons - that's well within the realm where real-world mobile artillery has been built. The biggest gun ever built (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav) was 1350 tons = 27 HS, and that was (barely) mobile. It could also fire at any angle from flat to 48 degrees up, which is to say all the angles where recoil mostly isn't straight down.

I think "STO can only be static" is a reasonable game rule, not least because it means that the installations can't be too insanely fortified. If you could put them on UHVs, the natural way to defend would probably just be to spam all-in-one Ogres, and that would be both boring and stupid. But the better argument here is gameplay, not realism, IMO.

Actually, Static units are basically 12 ton base size units that can be as well fortified as infantry (so fortification 3/6), and they can equip every weapon system that isn't an autocannon, personal weapon or the Super Heavy Anti Vehicle weapon. Sure, they also get the infantry armour ratings so they'll probably die if you hit them, but you need to hit them first. Static units are great for anchoring defensive units with heavy weapons that otherwise need the much larger and expensive vehicles instead.

UHVs may have some very heavy armour, but they are very large and don't have anywhere near the fortification protections Static units get, so they're also going to get hit a lot more often.


Also, that 150 ton 10cm railgun will be bigger as an STO weapon because things like sensors and a powerplant will be attached to it during ground weapon design. Depending on how much the 150 tons is dedicated to the capacitors it might be haulable with a heavy duty truck for the gun itself and a fleet of trucks for the capacitors and the cables necessary to link everything up though.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Bremen on January 12, 2020, 12:42:12 PM
A side effect of the ground unit system is that you generally want a larger chassis for a larger weapon - ie if a weapon weighs 100 tons, it's pretty wasteful to put it on a 12 ton chassis, since a larger chassis like a 36 ton heavy vehicle would give it much more survivability (even without increased armor) for a small increase in total size. Since large STO weapons could easily be 500 tons or more, if you could put them on large vehicles that probably would be the most emergent choice, though you might well choose to give the STO vehicles light vehicle armor (the high hitpoints would still give them decent resistance to anything but the heaviest weapons).

So I agree that for gameplay purposes limiting them to statics makes sense.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on January 12, 2020, 03:21:09 PM
That's... rather much. It can work out that such a level of supply is necessary though, when a planet is very defensible. 130 rounds of combat works out to about a month of fighting (IIRC 1 round is 6 hours, if it's 3 hours is about 2.5 weeks of fighting), and I can see very well defended planets take that long to get the defenders ground down unless you go in with absolutely overwhelming force, and at that point you are basically committing a vast chunk of your GFTF production for an extended period of time.
One round of combat is 8 hours, so you get 3 rounds per day. Every unit inherently has supply for 10 rounds of combat so without extra supply units you can go 80 hours at full steam before switching to half unless supplied.

130 rounds would thus be 43 days and little extra which is most likely overkill unless the enemy is fully fortified on a jungle mountain rift planet AND outnumbers your attacking force significantly.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Rabid_Cog on January 13, 2020, 02:30:31 AM
I have noticed that combat seems to be quick and brutal, doesn't matter how big the forces involved are. We say 43 days is a ludicrously long time for a ground invasion to last, but we have to ask what the purpose of ground based defences are?

Since STO's cannot actually force enemies out of the system, the best that planetary defences can do is to delay and hold on until a mobile force can arrive to retake the space. With that in mind... is even 30 days a reasonable time to hold out for the cavalry to arrive? Isn't it a bit short? Especially since 30 days is very much an optimistic estimate.

I guess all I am asking is if combat should perhaps slow down slightly to allow the greater strategic picture more time to evolve while the fight is ongoing.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on January 13, 2020, 05:31:46 AM
Well, that's as long as the attacker has a rough idea of how strong the defender is AND that they bring sufficient firepower to deal with the defender.

If that's not the case, then the combat can last a long time. If the attacker gets bollocked during the first few combat rounds, they'll switch to defence to fortify themselves and/or to buy time to bring up reinforcements, which might take a month or three. Which gives the defender plenty of time to do the same.

What we meant is that a month of continuous full intensity combat will probably not last unless the participants are very lopsided when it comes to firepower.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on January 13, 2020, 06:14:33 AM
Actually, the better forces can be fortified on a planet the longer a battle will last. Likewise, small forces with a major tech advantage will probably outfight substantially larger forces with poorer weapons and armour, but take longer in doing so and as such will need a large supply cache for their size for best effect.

Presuming peer forces on planets with poor fortification and to hit modifiers however, combat is likely to be over in a couple of weeks at most. Aurora doesn't really support the notion of planetary guerilla combat, and presumes a degree of set piece battle plans on all sides to duke it out that would probably be somewhat unrealistic in real life because no way any military wouldn't prepare for losing the orbitals and continuing the battle under such circumstances. It would be far more likely that under such circumstances the defenders fade into bad terrain where they are hard to find to maintain pressure on the attackers and drawn in oversized garrisons in an attempt to limit the enemy the freedom to maneuver and concentrate its forces by ongoing commitments while waiting for reinforcements to relieve the siege.

Can't blame Steve for doing it this way though. It'd be pretty boring.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on January 13, 2020, 09:04:09 AM
I have noticed that combat seems to be quick and brutal, doesn't matter how big the forces involved are. We say 43 days is a ludicrously long time for a ground invasion to last, but we have to ask what the purpose of ground based defences are?

Since STO's cannot actually force enemies out of the system, the best that planetary defences can do is to delay and hold on until a mobile force can arrive to retake the space. With that in mind... is even 30 days a reasonable time to hold out for the cavalry to arrive? Isn't it a bit short? Especially since 30 days is very much an optimistic estimate.

I guess all I am asking is if combat should perhaps slow down slightly to allow the greater strategic picture more time to evolve while the fight is ongoing.

STOs mostly exist to prevent orbital bombardment from totally screwing the defender, I think. Also, to see if they can kill some landing shuttles and improve the odds on the ground.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Deutschbag on February 23, 2020, 07:36:43 PM
Brainstorming an idea for a project and was wondering if anyone knew for sure if we will be able to save/import ground formation templates from a file? Like, imagine you create a template you enjoy in one campaign and want to use it in others. I can't recall if there's been any information on that regard.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on February 24, 2020, 12:21:36 PM
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg108838#msg108838

Is it possible to create templates for real world nations that Aurora uses at game start? Is this something that we as players could help by creating American, British, Russian, Chinese and so on gear and formations using the information you provided? This would help immensely with the multi-faction Earth starts that use real countries.

Definitely possible to have preset templates.

Which is why I created this thread:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10116.0
so that we could make real 21st-century - and maybe later real 20th-century ground unit and ground formation templates.

Steve hasn't given us any updates since though.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 24, 2020, 12:29:24 PM
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg108838#msg108838

Is it possible to create templates for real world nations that Aurora uses at game start? Is this something that we as players could help by creating American, British, Russian, Chinese and so on gear and formations using the information you provided? This would help immensely with the multi-faction Earth starts that use real countries.

Definitely possible to have preset templates.

Which is why I created this thread:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10116.0
so that we could make real 21st-century - and maybe later real 20th-century ground unit and ground formation templates.

Steve hasn't given us any updates since though.

Yes, it is possible. I haven't done it yet though.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Deutschbag on February 24, 2020, 10:10:45 PM
Gotcha, okay. When we do eventually know the formatting of the file for importing ground formations I plan to make an application to allow planning of formations out of game for import into game :) Might not be super useful since... well, the game is there, but it'll be a fun project at least.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on February 25, 2020, 06:13:03 AM
It'll mostly be useful by letting you move around the in game technology costs when developing your formations. You do need to research the units you intend to use, and that application will let you take a look at how large and costly a formation might end up being.

It'll be even better if you make that application capable of responding to technology levels. Armour technology directly influences the unit's protection values and the highest of the weapon technologies directly influences the unit's attack values after all.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Ektor on February 25, 2020, 02:31:05 PM
If you make a very heavy PWL infantry formation, won't it be a highly effective bullet sponge? I'm not good at maths so I can't run a simulation like some other people have here, but would the cost in BP from losing PWLs be less than actually putting a more expensive formation on the line? The heavy formation would mean it's likely to be attacked first.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 25, 2020, 03:25:08 PM
If you make a very heavy PWL infantry formation, won't it be a highly effective bullet sponge? I'm not good at maths so I can't run a simulation like some other people have here, but would the cost in BP from losing PWLs be less than actually putting a more expensive formation on the line? The heavy formation would mean it's likely to be attacked first.

Yes, it will be a good bullet sponge but it will only cause minimal damage in return.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Deutschbag on February 25, 2020, 05:33:59 PM
It'll mostly be useful by letting you move around the in game technology costs when developing your formations. You do need to research the units you intend to use, and that application will let you take a look at how large and costly a formation might end up being.

It'll be even better if you make that application capable of responding to technology levels. Armour technology directly influences the unit's protection values and the highest of the weapon technologies directly influences the unit's attack values after all.

That's the intent, yes. I plan to integrate being able to select individual technology levels to see how things scale at different levels of technological sophistication :) Will have to wait til it's released, though, to fully dig into the numbers.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on February 25, 2020, 08:16:49 PM
If you make a very heavy PWL infantry formation, won't it be a highly effective bullet sponge? I'm not good at maths so I can't run a simulation like some other people have here, but would the cost in BP from losing PWLs be less than actually putting a more expensive formation on the line? The heavy formation would mean it's likely to be attacked first.

Yes.

You kind of don't want to use PWL infantry in a frontline combat role though. As Steve notes, they will do only minimal damage. The main uses of PWL infantry will be garrison duties in rear areas of the empire, beating down substantially lower teched natives and as security for support formations, which is the bullet sponge role.

For the frontline combat role it's generally more cost and transport capacity effective to make use of PW equipped infantry.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on February 26, 2020, 12:27:55 PM
PWL backed by artillery and/or ground attack fighters could work pretty well.

The downside is that those are weapon systems that get punished badly by the collateral damage rules, so you'll be turning the planet you fight over into a parking lot.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on February 26, 2020, 12:38:33 PM
PW backed by artillery and/or ground attack fighters would work even better, and lean much less heavily on the collateral damage heavy support formations to do damage.

Now, artillery formations with PWL security attached to absorb bullets for the moments the enemy breaks through the lines or performs counter battery? That does work.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on February 26, 2020, 02:37:15 PM
PW backed by artillery and/or ground attack fighters would work even better, and lean much less heavily on the collateral damage heavy support formations to do damage.

Depends on how much value you place on bullet sponging, and how much you place on organic damage being done by the front-line forces.

Roleplaying an especially brutal empire, PWL+arty sounds like a very fitting combination.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: mtm84 on February 26, 2020, 04:04:04 PM
PWL+arty sounds like a very fitting combination.

Pretty much how I played HoI 3 USSR.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on February 28, 2020, 07:56:58 PM
From a pure math perspective then regular cheap infantry are industry to military power the most efficient military force you can build with some back up hard hitting things. So, as long as you intend to have them on the planet in question or you have time to ship them out to colonies in many trips then for that purpose you should build them. Call it garrison forces or meat for the grinder or what ever...

As the game does not care about the morality of casualties in any way and there is no manpower issues (only industrial power counts) you will have to role-play any form of restrictions around these facts. There are no mechanics that means that a guy with a gun is worth as much as a tank or even more, such as with suppression or policing for example. In the mechanic there are not a huge number of interaction between the type of mixed forces you actually have, such as the sum of the whole is larger than each individual part, every part sort of fights on its own merit only.
If you play more of a Star-Trek oriented faction which highly value life and the prosperity of the people then giving the people doing the fighting anything less then the best possible equipment to survive would not be an option unless you are forced to another solution. If you are the evil god emperor like in the Warhammer universe you can throw life away in any fashion you like... ;)

The game mechanic will just be the mechanics around the rules you set. As long as there are no other consideration but industry there will be hard core facts at what is the best solution to any given problem. Even for assaulting a world you probably can come up with the most efficient mix of expensive troops depending on the cost of the ships in return for the space they provide to drop the troops on a hostile planet in significant enough numbers to matter.

I bet someone will do the math once the game is out... ;) 

I'm just not going to care what is the most optimum way to do it as long as it is not completely broken as I will add things like philosophy, culture, doctrines, experience and politics into the reasons a military look like it does, just like I do with military ship designs. I don't run my campaigns with the people living in it have any sort of foreknowledge of anything and certainly not about game mechanics.  ;)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on February 29, 2020, 09:09:38 AM
Note that infantry backed up by heavy weapons has historically pretty much always been the most industrially efficient military force, with few exceptions. And in those cases a counter was devised that resulted in the supremacy returning to properly equipped and supported infantry forces.

This did not change with the invention of the gun; if anything, as the gun became more effective the infantry became more potent. Even today infantry has a key role in warfare, and one of their tasks has been one that has occurred throughout history, fixing the enemy in place so that harder hitting weapons can be used.


That said, there are a number of ways in which infantry actually is definitely superior to more industrial power demanding units. For one, the fortification mechanics greatly favours infantry forces, to the point that a properly fortified infantry unit is very difficult to dig out of mountainous or overgrown terrain. And the gods help you if the terrain is both. Two, infantry does in fact do a better job policing a planet then tanks do; enforcement here is dependent on numbers, not the biggest guns, so an infantry unit with the greater numbers would be much more capable in this job and quite possibly cheaper than a force of tanks with the same job. Three, infantry just lets you stack a lot more weapons on the same load of tonnage. They're not as sturdy as a vehicle, but you can generally expect to stack at least 2 weapons for the same amount of tonnage as with even light vehicles.

They also have a few drawbacks. For one, infantry can't carry Medium or Heavy weapons. For another, when hit they are extremely fragile. And third, CAP and HCAP weapons will mow infantry forces down in a way no weapon system can mow down vehicles or static units. Their volume of fire is obscene compared to other weapons.

Raw manpower isn't an issue in Aurora because in Aurora the ability to equip and ship soldiers is insignificant compared to the total population of a given empire. A major ground side engagement would be at most a few divisions slugging it out with maybe a few hundred thousand soldiers total, when the nations involved both number in the billions in population. At that point, even if everybody dies over the course of the fighting it's a rounding error compared to the total number of people that die every year. Trained manpower is an issue however, because there's only so many academies and GFTFs you've got running that can get you the personnel you need.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 01, 2020, 05:35:11 AM
I agree that the numbers in Aurora is insignificant in contrast to the cost of training and equipping even the cheapest soldier in comparison to the economy as a whole. So even if you spam the cheapest infantry in the game by the time you equipped enough of the (like several million of not hundreds of millions that is required for a total war army) then that economy is ruined.

I guess that even the cheapest soldier still is rather well equipped when you look at the cost needed to equip them seen to the economy at large.

That of course still does not answer to philosophical question of casualties and keeping them to a minimum in some societies, that still have to be role-played in my opinion.

If I would anything to be added to the game eventually would be formations of mixed types having certain ability or impact which make the whole stronger then the individual part becasue that is how things work in real life. A tank formation are usually way more powerful when you mix them with a functional infantry, artillery and air-force... as a lone formation they are not all that useful.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: misanthropope on March 01, 2020, 09:50:54 PM
Now, artillery formations with PWL security attached to absorb bullets for the moments the enemy breaks through the lines or performs counter battery? That does work.

in fact, it doesn't.  add five thousand tons of meat shield to your 5000 ton arty formation, sure they sink half the hits the formation takes, but they also make the formation twice the target size.  infy in your support and rear formations are protecting your _front line_ formations to the extent they are doing anything, which isn't much. 

Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 03, 2020, 02:49:33 AM
Now, artillery formations with PWL security attached to absorb bullets for the moments the enemy breaks through the lines or performs counter battery? That does work.

in fact, it doesn't.  add five thousand tons of meat shield to your 5000 ton arty formation, sure they sink half the hits the formation takes, but they also make the formation twice the target size.  infy in your support and rear formations are protecting your _front line_ formations to the extent they are doing anything, which isn't much.

This is why I would like to have mixed formations in the ground combat rules. You should be able to mix a garrison with your artillery which make a relatively small garrison size able to protec a larger artillery size as one example. A good example on how the sum of the part are greater than the whole.

Or that you can use light vehicles and infantry in the same formation where the infantry can protect the light vehicle against tanks and the vehicle against enemy infantry. This would be your mechanised assault force.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on March 03, 2020, 12:13:29 PM
You're running into the simulationist vs gamist problem, that all strategy games grapple with. What you're asking for is actually a gamist solution. Infantry assigned to artillery don't actually protect it except against other infantry, and they will make it an easier target to hit because you have more "stuff" to destroy. Same with armoured/mechanized infantry - while the grunts and the vehicles can work well together, they are also both vulnerable to enemy fire.

The current system is actually surprisingly simulationist even though it's relatively simple.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 04, 2020, 05:57:29 AM
You're running into the simulationist vs gamist problem, that all strategy games grapple with. What you're asking for is actually a gamist solution. Infantry assigned to artillery don't actually protect it except against other infantry, and they will make it an easier target to hit because you have more "stuff" to destroy. Same with armoured/mechanized infantry - while the grunts and the vehicles can work well together, they are also both vulnerable to enemy fire.

The current system is actually surprisingly simulationist even though it's relatively simple.

That is the exact opposite of what I try to do... it is to strengthen the simulation not reduce it. The current state are more gamey if you ask me in that respect.

My intent with formation is to make it possible for the infantry to ACTUALLY protect the artillery... there are no way to do this from a math perspective as it is always better to put the infantry on the front not at the rear with the artillery to protect it from any breakthroughs. That is sort of how it works in real life, you don't keep all your combat troops at the front for many different reasons.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on March 04, 2020, 09:05:58 AM
IIRC the selection of which formation gets attacked is random with a few specific exceptions (counter battery duty artillery always hits artillery formations that fired that round and are in range and SEAD missions by fighters always target AA units). Because of this, if you put a combat formation on the Support or Rear Echelon line any unit breaking through can select that combat formation instead of a support formation. Give your support formations the 'Avoid Combat' trait and they count for 1/5th the listed size when it comes to target selection for attack, although they also take penalties when engaged directly.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on March 04, 2020, 02:01:25 PM
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you Jorgen and misanthropope.

Currently, your artillery unit in the Rear/Support echelon is pretty safe from enemy units until your Front echelon breaks. You can safely put as many infantry with your artillery as you like, it makes little difference. From Steve:

Quote
Hostile formations are checked for their weighted size.  This is based on actual size for front line size, 25% for support and 5% for rear-echelon. Each hostile formation is given a range for potential selection, based on its weighted size.

Each front line friendly formation randomly targets a hostile formation. Friendly units with front line defence can target hostile front line formations. Friendly units with front line attack can target any hostile formation, although support and rear echelon are less likely given their smaller weighted size. In fact, the more formations that are pushed into front line positions, the less likely it is that rear areas will be attacked.

So your Support echelon artillery unit (light and medium) has to be 4x as large as any individual Front echelon unit to be as likely to get targeted by enemy attacker than your Front echelon unit if you're on the defence. And even then, if you have more Front echelon units, their combined chance  to get selected will most likely "lure" the enemy away from your artillery. If your artillery unit is Rear echelon (heavy and long), it has be to 20x as large as Front echelon unit! If you're the attacker, then your Support and Rear echelons are completely safe. Except for enemy bombardment units and fighters of course.

Which means that you have lot of space to pack PWL infantry into the artillery unit before you're making that unit significantly likelier to get hit. And if it does get hit, there's then a higher chance that the PWL infantry are struck instead of the cannons.

So if you're the defender and you have a 250 ton Front unit and a 1000 ton Support unit and nothing else on a planet, then it's 50/50 chances of which one gets hit. But if you have four 250 ton Front units and a single 1000 ton Support unit, the odds are 75/25 for Front echelon units. And since tanks will be just as big if not bigger than artillery, your front line units will both be bigger and more numerous than your support/rear units, most likely.

So yeah adding 5000 tons of meat shields to your 5000 ton artillery unit does not make it twice as likely to get hit. It makes it somewhat more likely to get hit but without knowing what your front line echelon units - attack & defence - look like, the actual odds are impossible to calculate. But they aren't as bad as you make them out to be.

Having said that, while that meat shield would be somewhat useful in a breakthrough situation, the problem is that for that to happen, your Front echelon needs to be pretty badly shredded or outnumbered in the first place, meaning that you would probably have been better off in putting that 5000 tons of PWL infantry into the front line unit instead or artillery, where they could have held out longer.

Quote
That is sort of how it works in real life, you don't keep all your combat troops at the front for many different reasons.
Aurora doesn't model operational level for ground combat. We jump from strategic level straight into tactical level. On tactical level, infantry does not protect artillery in real life. For infantry to have meaningful protection in the current model, you would need to include some sort gamist"special ability" that forces enemy to target your infantry instead of your artillery. Or Steve would need to include operational level into the ground combat model, which I doubt he is interested in.

Maybe one day TOAW3 will become open-source and someone will integrate it into Aurora  ;D
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 04, 2020, 02:50:28 PM
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you Jorgen and misanthropope.

Currently, your artillery unit in the Rear/Support echelon is pretty safe from enemy units until your Front echelon breaks. You can safely put as many infantry with your artillery as you like, it makes little difference. From Steve:

Quote
Hostile formations are checked for their weighted size.  This is based on actual size for front line size, 25% for support and 5% for rear-echelon. Each hostile formation is given a range for potential selection, based on its weighted size.

Each front line friendly formation randomly targets a hostile formation. Friendly units with front line defence can target hostile front line formations. Friendly units with front line attack can target any hostile formation, although support and rear echelon are less likely given their smaller weighted size. In fact, the more formations that are pushed into front line positions, the less likely it is that rear areas will be attacked.

So your Support echelon artillery unit (light and medium) has to be 4x as large as any individual Front echelon unit to be as likely to get targeted by enemy attacker than your Front echelon unit if you're on the defence. And even then, if you have more Front echelon units, their combined chance  to get selected will most likely "lure" the enemy away from your artillery. If your artillery unit is Rear echelon (heavy and long), it has be to 20x as large as Front echelon unit! If you're the attacker, then your Support and Rear echelons are completely safe. Except for enemy bombardment units and fighters of course.

Which means that you have lot of space to pack PWL infantry into the artillery unit before you're making that unit significantly likelier to get hit. And if it does get hit, there's then a higher chance that the PWL infantry are struck instead of the cannons.

So if you're the defender and you have a 250 ton Front unit and a 1000 ton Support unit and nothing else on a planet, then it's 50/50 chances of which one gets hit. But if you have four 250 ton Front units and a single 1000 ton Support unit, the odds are 75/25 for Front echelon units. And since tanks will be just as big if not bigger than artillery, your front line units will both be bigger and more numerous than your support/rear units, most likely.

So yeah adding 5000 tons of meat shields to your 5000 ton artillery unit does not make it twice as likely to get hit. It makes it somewhat more likely to get hit but without knowing what your front line echelon units - attack & defence - look like, the actual odds are impossible to calculate. But they aren't as bad as you make them out to be.

Having said that, while that meat shield would be somewhat useful in a breakthrough situation, the problem is that for that to happen, your Front echelon needs to be pretty badly shredded or outnumbered in the first place, meaning that you would probably have been better off in putting that 5000 tons of PWL infantry into the front line unit instead or artillery, where they could have held out longer.

Quote
That is sort of how it works in real life, you don't keep all your combat troops at the front for many different reasons.
Aurora doesn't model operational level for ground combat. We jump from strategic level straight into tactical level. On tactical level, infantry does not protect artillery in real life. For infantry to have meaningful protection in the current model, you would need to include some sort gamist"special ability" that forces enemy to target your infantry instead of your artillery. Or Steve would need to include operational level into the ground combat model, which I doubt he is interested in.

Maybe one day TOAW3 will become open-source and someone will integrate it into Aurora  ;D

You don't have to just break through to hit support and rear echelon forces. Attacking forces have always a chance to hit the rear and echelon their size just count for less. That usually means that putting infantry in the support section will increase the chance of them being hit in the first place every round. If you put them in the front they actually protect the rear and echelon allot more.
Even if you only count break through as a chance you are still better of putting the infantry in the defensive front line... they will do damage to the enemy and will still make break through in general less likely AND as I said above defend rear/support units better.

Even if you can make a formation 1/5 less likely to attack that does not make infantry better in the rear as they still protect better at the front. Just add them to the front in relatively large formations so the enemy can't break through them so easily. Then use the 1/5 rule on the most important rear formations... don't remember what the rule for this was, but I was under the impression this was mainly for supply forces. Artillery should not be able to use it if they want to attack at all if I understand. So you would only set formations with no combat abilities what so ever... or?!?

The only reason for using small garrison platoons in with your artillery formation will be role-play the way I see it...

If we instead could put a few platoons of infantry to protect the artillery and make it allot less likely the artillery is hit instead of the protecting platoon, like a 1/10 chance to hit the artillery instead of the infantry platoon, then it would make sense to attach some infantry to defend the artillery.

You would do the same thing with infantry mounted in light vehicle AFV. When the AFV is attacked by an anti-vehicle weapon there is a higher chance you hit the infantry instead and if the formation is attacked with small arms fire there should be a much higher chance the vehicle is hit instead. This would be because the units are working as one entity which is stronger then they are separately. This would make mechanized infantry very effective at protecting tanks in offensive operations and you might have some interactione between heavh vehicle and mechanize vehicle on the offensive.

You also could add in mobility as both offensive and defensive abilities as well. Mobility is a very strong multiplier in a war as the side with higher mobility can shift forces to be where they need to be when they need to be there and make a smaller force seem much larger than it really is.

Having air superiority also should hamper the enemy mobility and thus reduce their offensive and/or defensive capacity.

It would also be MUCH worse to have mobility disadvantage if you are on the offensive than defensive. Having a defending army who are able to out deploy you is always a disaster.

And as I said before there need to be a better distinction between defender and attacker, there currently is none unless the scenario is someone attacking a planet while the other is already entrenched there.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on March 04, 2020, 06:09:32 PM
Your problem is that you're mixing up tactical and operational things together. C# ground combat does not model operational level at all, only tactical level - where each formation shoots at each other. At the tactical level, an infantry platoon is not going to protect an artillery battery at all and no army organizes itself in that manner. The gunners are on their own - infantry protects artillery by preventing the enemy from ever reaching the artillery in the first place - but that's operational level and Aurora doesn't do that at all.

Quote
You don't have to just break through to hit support and rear echelon forces. Attacking forces have always a chance to hit the rear and echelon their size just count for less
Yes, exactly as I said in my post and the quote from Steve. But both Support echelon and Rear echelon units are counted significantly smaller than their real size. I gave you numbers and all.

Quote
That usually means that putting infantry in the support section will increase the chance of them being hit in the first place every round
Not really because the difference is so huge - 25% for Support echelon and 5% for Rear echelon. Sure, going from 100 tons to 125 tons is an increase but if your Front echelon is 15 units each 1200 tons or more, then the odds have not really been changed in any significant manner.

Quote
If you put them in the front they actually protect the rear and echelon allot more
Yes, this has not been in dispute and it's how it should be.

Quote
Even if you can make a formation 1/5 less likely to attack that does not make infantry better in the rear as they still protect better at the front.
That's a different argument and different calculation - you're mixing two things together that should not be mixed together.

Quote
The only reason for using small garrison platoons in with your artillery formation will be role-play the way I see it...
Yes and not much of that either because AFAIK no army puts "garrison platoons" with artillery.

Quote
If we instead could put a few platoons of infantry to protect the artillery and make it allot less likely the artillery is hit instead of the protecting platoon, like a 1/10 chance to hit the artillery instead of the infantry platoon, then it would make sense to attach some infantry to defend the artillery.
I think you've been carried away by your own argument. There is a reason to attach PWL/PW infantry to artillery, but that reason isn't so overwhelmingly strong that it would be mandatory.

I'll repeat the mechanics here because I have a feeling that people have forgotten how it works. There are two, entirely separate calculations:

1) The odds of each enemy formation attacking your artillery formation
2) The odds of attacking enemy formation firing at your cannons instead of anything else inside your artillery formation

So first, let's look at the odds. I'll use Steve's WH40k units as examples. His IG Brigade is 5268 tons, whereas the four regiments are 6738, 5546, 6882 and 8942 tons respectively. And remember that Steve's brigade includes HG and AAA units in addition to artillery, plus some guardsmen and supply trucks. A pure artillery unit would actually be slightly smaller. The regiments will be in Front Defensive echelon while the brigade will be in Support echelon. So when each enemy formation rolls for target, they choose between:
8942
6882
6738
5546
1317 (that's 25% of 5268 tons)

I'm not sure how exactly Aurora does the calculation but I'm going to assume that it's similar to how internal damage is allocated in a ship, meaning that all component sizes are compared to each other and then a roll is made against them. The easiest way to illustrate this is with an Excel chart:

(https://i.imgur.com/4kXSCYL.png)

You can see how vanishingly small the odds are that the support brigade is going to get hit.



Now we get to the second calculation. Still using the same example, we get the following sizes:
36x artillery 2592 tons
12x anti-air 1176 tons
2x headquarters 1000 tons
100x infantry 500 tons

AFAIK, the attacking formation then has each of its constituent units shoot at the various units inside the defending formation and the calculation is done in the same manner, leading us to this:
(https://i.imgur.com/GoWoXPG.png)

The 100 Guardsmen Steve put into the Brigade isn't going to make much of a difference, true. But we could double their size without really affecting the first calculation. In fact, if we increase the infantry five times so that it matches the artillery at 2500 tons, that's still only an increase of 500 tons in the first calculation - not much of a chance there.

Summa summarum - I don't think that you should worry about it. It is far more important to avoid your Support and Rear echelon units getting hit in the first place but if you want to play it safe and have cannon fodder/meat shield protecting your artillery (or other high-value units) then you can do so without significantly increasing their risk of getting hit in the first place.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 04, 2020, 07:17:37 PM
Hummm... I must have been dreaming of all the MG nests that was used to protect artillery positions in WW2?!?!  Artillery regiments had allot of machine guns for the sole purpose of defending the formation, sometimes it came from the MG or AA companies. So this was done... I'm pretty sure there are dedicated defence formation in modern armies too, they just work a bit differently.

In Aurora the "protection" might not be MG nests but more of an operational protection, but the troops are NOT at the front line. As far as I'm aware all modern forces have what is called rear area security forces whose job is to make the area behind the front elements secure so front elements have a safe zone to operate within and keep a defence in depth to protect support elements. So obviously they don't use the same tactics today as in WW2 but they serve the same purposes.

And no... it is NEVER useful to put infantry in support echelon...

1. They NEVER get to fire their weapons (EVER!!!)

2. Let's say you have 10 infantry regiment with a width of 20 and two artillery regiments also with a width of 20... just to make a point. If you put the artillery in support echelon they get a width of 5 (25% of the front) so the total width of the formation is 210, that give you a chance of 2/42 that any of the artillery regiment is targeted instead of an infantry regiment.
Now, let's assume you put one of the regiment in support echelon... you now have a total width of 9*20 plus 3*5 which is 195... suddenly the chance that any attack hit the artillery is 2/39. In this case you not only lost some of your offensive power you also made the artillery easier to hit and the enemy a greater chance for a breakthrough as you have less forces in the front (more likely they hit the same formation multiple times).

Please correct me if I'm wrong... I might be...
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: SevenOfCarina on March 05, 2020, 02:31:54 AM
A quick fix might be to allow ground formations to 'guard' other formations in the same battlefield position. A formation assigned to 'protect' another formation will not be able to attack, irrespective of where it is positioned.

Let us say an Infantry Company is assigned to protect an Artillery Battery stationed in the support position. If the artillery is attacked in this situation, the hostile forces will instead first have to engage the infantry and the artillery will be unharmed till the hostiles break through the infantry. The rules for a breakthrough will be the same as the present rules for breaking through the frontlines.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 05, 2020, 07:15:13 AM
A quick fix might be to allow ground formations to 'guard' other formations in the same battlefield position. A formation assigned to 'protect' another formation will not be able to attack, irrespective of where it is positioned.

Let us say an Infantry Company is assigned to protect an Artillery Battery stationed in the support position. If the artillery is attacked in this situation, the hostile forces will instead first have to engage the infantry and the artillery will be unharmed till the hostiles break through the infantry. The rules for a breakthrough will be the same as the present rules for breaking through the frontlines.

A guard mechanic would be nice... if you put a formation using direct fire weapons in support echelon and activate the guard flag there should be a big chance that any attacks targeting a support echelon formation gets rerouted to targeting them instead. But the benefit have to be large enough to counteract the reduced width in the front and the fact they are never going to use their offensive firepower at all. If a support echelon unit is hit which is NOT a guard unit there is a new set of calculations using only the support elements. This way they are twice as effective in that role and then it would make sense to put some units in support and rear echelon to protect your otherwise more expensive and high value targets.

You also could have a trait which you can give troops that makes them more effective guards like increasing their width by twice in that second calculation but that comes at a small price making them less effective in the front lines for the invested resources put into them.

This would be an easy way of adding some interesting choices and make things a bit more realistic from a simulation perspective.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on March 05, 2020, 12:13:34 PM
Hummm... I must have been dreaming of all the MG nests that was used to protect artillery positions in WW2?!?!  Artillery regiments had allot of machine guns for the sole purpose of defending the formation, sometimes it came from the MG or AA companies. So this was done... I'm pretty sure there are dedicated defence formation in modern armies too, they just work a bit differently.
I'm sorry Jorgen but you were indeed dreaming. One of the best sources for WW2 era Orders of Battle is this website:
http://www.niehorster.org/000_admin/000oob.htm (http://www.niehorster.org/000_admin/000oob.htm)

Using it you can see that artillery regiments did not have any organic infantry (or machineguns or anything) attached to them. The only things they had were (in some cases) anti-aicraft machineguns. Because the divisional artillery was protected by the infantry regiments at the front line. The artillery was still vulnerable for sneaky enemy attacks as well as breakthroughs, air attack, and counter-battery fire. Front line units held in reserve are used to stop breakthroughs and reinforce either success or weakness, depending on national doctrine. They are not kept behind to specifically protect support units.

In Aurora the "protection" might not be MG nests but more of an operational protection, but the troops are NOT at the front line. As far as I'm aware all modern forces have what is called rear area security forces whose job is to make the area behind the front elements secure so front elements have a safe zone to operate within and keep a defence in depth to protect support elements. So obviously they don't use the same tactics today as in WW2 but they serve the same purposes.
Ah, I see where the misconception comes from. Security forces are used to contain and hunt insurgents and partisans and special forces. They are not there to protect artillery against enemy conventional forces. Neither is any military confident that their rear areas are actually secure. Due to increased mobility and operations taking place among large civilian populations, all Western militaries tell their soldiers that there is no secure rear zone anymore. Terms like front line and rear area are falling out of use, being replaced by terms such as area of operations and other similar terms that better describe the more fluid concept of modern battle space.

My point is that what you're asking for would not be an increase in realism. Not for WW2 and not for modernity.

Please correct me if I'm wrong... I might be...
You are wrong because you're still confused about how the target selection calculation happens. You would never ever place an nfantry regiment in the Support echelon. You would place a number of PW/PWL equipped infantry INSIDE the artillery regiment(s). That's what the mechanics are encouraging players to do.

Remember that unit and formation are two distinct categories and that, when determining targets, there are separate calculations for them.

A quick fix might be to allow ground formations to 'guard' other formations in the same battlefield position. A formation assigned to 'protect' another formation will not be able to attack, irrespective of where it is positioned.
I would not like that. What is this magical 'guard' ability and where does it come from? Why would some units have it but not all? Does it require certain technologies to be researched before it becomes available? Can I research another technology to train my attacking troops to neutralise the enemy's 'guard' ability? I should be able to have my fighters specifically target 'guard' units so that I can neutralise them first. How does the 'guard' ability work with counter-battery fire or orbital bombardment?

We can see that once you open the can of worms that is gamist special abilities, there is no end to them. Just think of games like Final Fantasy Tactics or the modern X-Com remake. The current system is fairly elegant in its simplicity and I'm not convinced that any problem with protecting high-value support units actually exists.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 05, 2020, 02:49:41 PM
Hummm... I must have been dreaming of all the MG nests that was used to protect artillery positions in WW2?!?!  Artillery regiments had allot of machine guns for the sole purpose of defending the formation, sometimes it came from the MG or AA companies. So this was done... I'm pretty sure there are dedicated defence formation in modern armies too, they just work a bit differently.
I'm sorry Jorgen but you were indeed dreaming. One of the best sources for WW2 era Orders of Battle is this website:
http://www.niehorster.org/000_admin/000oob.htm (http://www.niehorster.org/000_admin/000oob.htm)

Using it you can see that artillery regiments did not have any organic infantry (or machineguns or anything) attached to them. The only things they had were (in some cases) anti-aicraft machineguns. Because the divisional artillery was protected by the infantry regiments at the front line. The artillery was still vulnerable for sneaky enemy attacks as well as breakthroughs, air attack, and counter-battery fire. Front line units held in reserve are used to stop breakthroughs and reinforce either success or weakness, depending on national doctrine. They are not kept behind to specifically protect support units.

In Aurora the "protection" might not be MG nests but more of an operational protection, but the troops are NOT at the front line. As far as I'm aware all modern forces have what is called rear area security forces whose job is to make the area behind the front elements secure so front elements have a safe zone to operate within and keep a defence in depth to protect support elements. So obviously they don't use the same tactics today as in WW2 but they serve the same purposes.
Ah, I see where the misconception comes from. Security forces are used to contain and hunt insurgents and partisans and special forces. They are not there to protect artillery against enemy conventional forces. Neither is any military confident that their rear areas are actually secure. Due to increased mobility and operations taking place among large civilian populations, all Western militaries tell their soldiers that there is no secure rear zone anymore. Terms like front line and rear area are falling out of use, being replaced by terms such as area of operations and other similar terms that better describe the more fluid concept of modern battle space.

My point is that what you're asking for would not be an increase in realism. Not for WW2 and not for modernity.

Please correct me if I'm wrong... I might be...
You are wrong because you're still confused about how the target selection calculation happens. You would never ever place an nfantry regiment in the Support echelon. You would place a number of PW/PWL equipped infantry INSIDE the artillery regiment(s). That's what the mechanics are encouraging players to do.

Remember that unit and formation are two distinct categories and that, when determining targets, there are separate calculations for them.

A quick fix might be to allow ground formations to 'guard' other formations in the same battlefield position. A formation assigned to 'protect' another formation will not be able to attack, irrespective of where it is positioned.
I would not like that. What is this magical 'guard' ability and where does it come from? Why would some units have it but not all? Does it require certain technologies to be researched before it becomes available? Can I research another technology to train my attacking troops to neutralise the enemy's 'guard' ability? I should be able to have my fighters specifically target 'guard' units so that I can neutralise them first. How does the 'guard' ability work with counter-battery fire or orbital bombardment?

We can see that once you open the can of worms that is gamist special abilities, there is no end to them. Just think of games like Final Fantasy Tactics or the modern X-Com remake. The current system is fairly elegant in its simplicity and I'm not convinced that any problem with protecting high-value support units actually exists.

In terms of WW2 they often used both and/or MG companies to protect supportive units... some even had machine-guns in the artillery regiments themselves. There are for example some brief mentioning of heavy defences for artillery in this document... https://history.army.mil/html/books/104/104-14-1/cmhPub_104-14-1.pdf. But obviously it is mostly during more static defence operation more elaborate defence is made... but it was quite common to have lighter defence forces to protect artillery positions. It certainly depended on the danger the artillery might find themselves in and less so when a formation is on attack.

**EDIT**
Anouther great source... for example the paper strength of a Japanese artillery regiment in WW2...
Quote
The organization of the divisional artillery regiment, war
strength, is generally as shown above:
Notes: 1. The 105-mm. howitzer battalion is organized
similarly to the 75-mm. gun battalion.
2. Combat trains consist of caissons; field trains of twowheeled carts.
3. Regiment contains a total of 105 officers and 2,365
enlisted men.
4. Auxiliary weapons—365 pistols, 152 sabers, 72 LMG's.
https://sill-www.army.mil/firesbulletin/archives/1941/MAR_1941/MAR_1941_FULL_EDITION.pdf
***EDIT***

The type of security forces I was talking about have nothing about insurgency to do... it is also a battlefield term of the elastic forces you use in between the main combat element and the support and HQ elements in a division or brigade. You can look it up...

Not sure if it really matters if the infantry is attached to the artillery formation itself or not... an attack still target the width of the formation and that just make the artillery wider as a target just as if you added the regiment there... it will be the same thing. You still have to determine if an attack hit the infantry or the artillery at the end anyway so I don't see how it makes any difference so far.

***EDIT***
Example 1. 10 regiments width 40 and two Artillery regiments with width 40. Two artillery in support line gives 1/42 chance to hit (10*40+2*10)/10.

Example 2.  9 regiments width 40 and two mixed Infantry/Artillery regiments of width 60 (40 artillery and 20 infantry). The initial selection for formation is 390/15 so a 1/26 chance to hit the support formation. You then check for which unit you hit in each formation using the same weighted chance so there is a 2/3 chance to hit the artillery and 1/3 chance to hit the infantry. That means that the total chance to hit the artillery is still 1/39... or 26*3/2=39. Exactly the same as before.


Mixing on troops in the same formation does not change a thing unless there is something I'm missing in the calculations or how it works. The main advantage of mixing troops in a formation is for it to withstand a breakthrough by the formation being bigger and able to absorb more damage. That is the only benefit that I could see and the only reason to stick some infantry with the artillery as the mechanics stand.
***EDIT***
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on March 05, 2020, 02:55:57 PM
I've been considering a Self-Propelled Gun formation w/ Medium and Light Vehicles.

The basic element of the formation would consist of:

 - 4x Medium SPG (Crew-Served Anti-Personnel / Medium Bombardment)

 - 3x Light Vehicle (Logistics)

 - 2x Light Vehicle (AA)

The formation would consist of three elements for a total of:

 - 12x Medium SPG

 - 9x Light Logisitcs

 - 6x Light AA

I think that would be a defensible artillery formation.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 05, 2020, 05:16:17 PM
I've been considering a Self-Propelled Gun formation w/ Medium and Light Vehicles.

The basic element of the formation would consist of:

 - 4x Medium SPG (Crew-Served Anti-Personnel / Medium Bombardment)

 - 3x Light Vehicle (Logistics)

 - 2x Light Vehicle (AA)

The formation would consist of three elements for a total of:

 - 12x Medium SPG

 - 9x Light Logisitcs

 - 6x Light AA

I think that would be a defensible artillery formation.

Using AA weapons in with an artillery formation makes perfect sense to bolster them as those weapons actually can be useful. In WW2 most of the machine guns assigned to them was mainly meant for AA duty even though they often had to serve both in ground and air roles.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on March 05, 2020, 05:48:21 PM
Yup. I figure something like the M7 "Priest"; a big gun, a bit o' armor and a HMG to deter infantry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M7_Priest#/media/File:American_tank_M7_105-MM_-_JPG1.jpg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M7_Priest#/media/File:American_tank_M7_105-MM_-_JPG1.jpg)


 - AA escort is more of a nice to have than a need in my opinion, as Aerospace superiority is, well... superior. :P Although I do like the idea of an unarmoured Medium Vehicle with a Light Bombardment module and a Logistics module as a cheap, self-contained, and (mostly) self-sufficient SPG.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 05, 2020, 06:21:06 PM
Yup. I figure something like the M7 "Priest"; a big gun, a bit o' armor and a HMG to deter infantry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M7_Priest#/media/File:American_tank_M7_105-MM_-_JPG1.jpg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M7_Priest#/media/File:American_tank_M7_105-MM_-_JPG1.jpg)


 - AA escort is more of a nice to have than a need in my opinion, as Aerospace superiority is, well... superior. :P Although I do like the idea of an unarmoured Medium Vehicle with a Light Bombardment module and a Logistics module as a cheap, self-contained, and (mostly) self-sufficient SPG.

The only sad thing though is that the Crew-Served Anti-Personnel weapon would never be used as the formation need to be in the front lines for that.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on March 05, 2020, 07:02:25 PM
Using AA weapons in with an artillery formation makes perfect sense to bolster them as those weapons actually can be useful. In WW2 most of the machine guns assigned to them was mainly meant for AA duty even though they often had to serve both in ground and air roles.

It also means that when (not if) you lose aerospace superiority your support forces don't get flattened by waves of fighter bombardment. The whole point of AA isn't really to destroy enemy fighters (although it's nice if you can pull it off), the point is to force the enemy fighters to stop interfering. Although the flak suppression missions are something you'll need to keep in mind; a large number of fairly light AA might be more valuable than a small number of heavy AA, if only from a redundancy point of view.

Yup. I figure something like the M7 "Priest"; a big gun, a bit o' armor and a HMG to deter infantry.

 - AA escort is more of a nice to have than a need in my opinion, as Aerospace superiority is, well... superior. :P Although I do like the idea of an unarmoured Medium Vehicle with a Light Bombardment module and a Logistics module as a cheap, self-contained, and (mostly) self-sufficient SPG.

Given how Aurora works, it's better to have 3 doubled up Medium Bombardment component medium vehicles and a dedicated ground defense vehicle. On the M7, that HMG and its munition is basically of no real consequence to the vehicle's primary function, taking up maybe 100 kilograms total if you really overload on the bullets, on a vehicle that weighs nearly 23 tons. But in Aurora? What you use your weapon slots for greatly impacts its ability to fight.

And that Medium vehicle with a Logistics module can't exist IIRC. The only things that can mount logistics modules are infantry (small modules only) and light vehicles. Which is helpful, because units with logistics modules get deleted when the module is depleted.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 06, 2020, 02:13:56 AM
The MG in the Priest was primarily for self defence against air threats as was common for most artillery formation in WW2. From that perspective they made allot of sense. Even if the allied rarely had to use them as such because they had such huge air-superiority to the enemy. These weapons were probably more often used in their secondary ground role rather than their intended role, and even that were probably quite rare for the allies.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: kks on March 06, 2020, 11:03:11 AM
Regarding the infantry assigned to artillery formations in the examples of WWII, I think it is important to remember that in that era quite a lot of artillery was in direct fire missions.

The medium and heavy bombardment weapons in C# represent heavier, indirect firing artillery pieces imho. As such they can be located quite some distance behind the front lines (e.g. >20km range of the british AS-90 SPG). I do not think that it makes sense to assign these units larger infantry for protection. AA and MGs in primary AA role is something else.

On the other hand light and direct firing weapons will naturally deploy much closer to the frontline, so that it makes sense to prepare them for "close" combat by giving them LMGs, for example.
The cited japanese artillery battalion was often directly supporting Infantry units quite close to the front, if I read it correctly, so it only feels natural to have such weapons.
But I don't think that the crew of such artillery guards would go on the offensive and fire against enemy units. They will only shoot on units attacking their formation, which are enemies which have penetrate the defenses of the frontline units. So I don't think any "guard" mechanism, which allows guards in rear/support role to fire at other units, is needed.
Summa summarum: Guards guard their guns, they don't leave them to go into "close" combat.

However, I think we could argue about a mechanism which allows non-bombardment units in rear/support to shoot back at units attacking their formation.
I don't think that would be "gamist", as having fallback lines and reserve units was a tactic widely used in WWII. I am sadly not up to date on modern combat doctrines, but probably defense in depth is not an outdated concept (at least concerning symetrical warfare).
I have an superb book on the sowjet tactical doctrine used and developed in WWII (based on the info Gehlen collected for the Fremde Heere Ost intelligence service) and if I recall correctly, the sowjets used these even down to the tactial level.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on March 06, 2020, 12:17:05 PM
Jorgen, unfortunately your source is wrong. That's not a surprise as it is from "MARCH, 1941", meaning that it is based on American espionage & intelligence data from before the Pacific War started. Historians need to be very careful with OOBs as even today, many are based on faulty sources. Doctor Niehorster's website uses research done after the war and shows that Japanese Artillery regiments did not have such massive numbers of LMGs - in fact, only the headquarters and the supply column had a grand total of 3 LMGs assigned to them for self-defence.

As for the rest of, I wholly disagree with your claim that it was common to assign units to specifically guard artillery in WW2 and I think your belief stems from misunderstanding source material. This is important because this debate started with your claim that it would be more realistic to have to assign infantry formations in the Rear or Support echelons to "guard" artillery formations.

I was going to get into a further debate about the maths of target selection but I realized that it's bit pointless. Because your whole premise is flawed. Yes, in that narrowly defined example that you created, it makes no difference whether you have that infantry regiment in the Front echelon or you split it up inside the two Support echelon artillery formations - but that is a situation that is unlikely to ever happen. Because the odds of one of the two Support formations being picked is measly 2.381% (1 in 42). This whole argument is pointless because that sort of situation is unlikely to ever happen. Even the cheapest artillery is 1.4 BP per cannon whereas cheap infantry is 0.2 BP per grunt.

If your Front line formations are few and small, your Support formations are going to get hit all the time. If your Front line formations are many and large, your Support formations are hardly ever going to get hit.

Going back to your initial statement:
Quote
If I would anything to be added to the game eventually would be formations of mixed types having certain ability or impact which make the whole stronger then the individual part becasue that is how things work in real life. A tank formation are usually way more powerful when you mix them with a functional infantry, artillery and air-force... as a lone formation they are not all that useful.
But we can have mixed formations and in fact, the mechanics already encourage mixed formations. Because you cannot select which enemy formations your formations target, nor can you select which of your own formations gets targeted by the enemy. So a pure Anti-Vehicle formation might target Infantry and not do much damage, while a pure Anti-Personnel formation might target Vehicles and do equally poorly. The power of mixed formations is that they can deal decent damage regardless of their opponent. Which is pretty much why we have combined arms formations in reality.



I don't think that would be "gamist", as having fallback lines and reserve units was a tactic widely used in WWII. I am sadly not up to date on modern combat doctrines, but probably defense in depth is not an outdated concept (at least concerning symetrical warfare).
Defence in depth is certainly a still valid concept and I'm not arguing that it wasn't used in WW2, nor that fallback lines or reserve units didn't exist. I'm saying that having infantry units held back solely to defend artillery was not a thing in WW2. Before and during WW1 it was a thing because, as you also said, artillery mostly fired directly at the enemy, not indirectly, and ranges were much shorter.

What I find "gamist" is putting in special abilities that are outside the normal framework of combat mechanics.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on March 06, 2020, 12:33:57 PM
I've been considering a Self-Propelled Gun formation w/ Medium and Light Vehicles.

The basic element of the formation would consist of:

 - 4x Medium SPG (Crew-Served Anti-Personnel / Medium Bombardment)

 - 3x Light Vehicle (Logistics)

 - 2x Light Vehicle (AA)

The formation would consist of three elements for a total of:

 - 12x Medium SPG

 - 9x Light Logisitcs

 - 6x Light AA

I think that would be a defensible artillery formation.

First of all, flavour- and RP-wise, do whatever makes you happy and/or fits into your story.

Mechanically, you shouldn't create such units for three reasons:

1) Vehicle based supply can work with any formation in its chain of command and putting it into Front echelon is just wasting it - the supply trucks might get shot up before being consumed.

2) MB can work from Support echelon but CAP only works from Front echelon. Regardless of which stance you use with them, 50% of their capability is wasted.

3) The Light vehicle with AA is going to get hit fairly often so you might as well make it a Medium vehicle to give it more armour. At Front echelon, it can pull double-duty, but at Support echelon it can only defend this formation, nothing else, making it likely to remain passive.

Now, it's perfectly valid to make SPG formation that is armoured and still stays in Support echelon, because the armour protects its from enemy counter-battery fire, orbital bombardment and ground support fighters. Similarly, you can make a perfectly valid Front echelon SPG formation.

Here are my proposals:

Front Echelon Bombardment Formation:
12x Medium vehicle (max armour) with Light Bombardment + Crew-Served Anti-Personnel modules
6x Medium vehicle (max armour) with Light Anti-Aircraft + Crew-Served Anti-Personnel modules

This formation can use all of its weapons at every combat round with the LAA pulling double duty in attacking ground support fighters in addition to firing ground-to-ground mode. It will use double supplies though! With medium armour, the vehicles have some survivability without becoming too expensive.

Support Echelon Bombardment Formation:
12x Medium vehicle (max armour) with Medium Bombardment
6x Heavy vehicle (max armour) with Heavy Anti-Aircraft

This formation can remain in the Support Echelon and still bombard most enemy formations as well as support Front echelon formations. It's AAA element can hit any enemy fighters regardless of their mission or target, so it'll fire each round as well. With armour and their location, they have a good chance of surviving combat. As a cost- and size-cutting measure, both vehicles only have 1 module on them.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 06, 2020, 01:01:53 PM
Jorgen, unfortunately your source is wrong. That's not a surprise as it is from "MARCH, 1941", meaning that it is based on American espionage & intelligence data from before the Pacific War started. Historians need to be very careful with OOBs as even today, many are based on faulty sources. Doctor Niehorster's website uses research done after the war and shows that Japanese Artillery regiments did not have such massive numbers of LMGs - in fact, only the headquarters and the supply column had a grand total of 3 LMGs assigned to them for self-defence.

As for the rest of, I wholly disagree with your claim that it was common to assign units to specifically guard artillery in WW2 and I think your belief stems from misunderstanding source material. This is important because this debate started with your claim that it would be more realistic to have to assign infantry formations in the Rear or Support echelons to "guard" artillery formations.

I was going to get into a further debate about the maths of target selection but I realized that it's bit pointless. Because your whole premise is flawed. Yes, in that narrowly defined example that you created, it makes no difference whether you have that infantry regiment in the Front echelon or you split it up inside the two Support echelon artillery formations - but that is a situation that is unlikely to ever happen. Because the odds of one of the two Support formations being picked is measly 2.381% (1 in 42). This whole argument is pointless because that sort of situation is unlikely to ever happen. Even the cheapest artillery is 1.4 BP per cannon whereas cheap infantry is 0.2 BP per grunt.

If your Front line formations are few and small, your Support formations are going to get hit all the time. If your Front line formations are many and large, your Support formations are hardly ever going to get hit.

Going back to your initial statement:
Quote
If I would anything to be added to the game eventually would be formations of mixed types having certain ability or impact which make the whole stronger then the individual part becasue that is how things work in real life. A tank formation are usually way more powerful when you mix them with a functional infantry, artillery and air-force... as a lone formation they are not all that useful.
But we can have mixed formations and in fact, the mechanics already encourage mixed formations. Because you cannot select which enemy formations your formations target, nor can you select which of your own formations gets targeted by the enemy. So a pure Anti-Vehicle formation might target Infantry and not do much damage, while a pure Anti-Personnel formation might target Vehicles and do equally poorly. The power of mixed formations is that they can deal decent damage regardless of their opponent. Which is pretty much why we have combined arms formations in reality.



I don't think that would be "gamist", as having fallback lines and reserve units was a tactic widely used in WWII. I am sadly not up to date on modern combat doctrines, but probably defense in depth is not an outdated concept (at least concerning symetrical warfare).
Defence in depth is certainly a still valid concept and I'm not arguing that it wasn't used in WW2, nor that fallback lines or reserve units didn't exist. I'm saying that having infantry units held back solely to defend artillery was not a thing in WW2. Before and during WW1 it was a thing because, as you also said, artillery mostly fired directly at the enemy, not indirectly, and ranges were much shorter.

What I find "gamist" is putting in special abilities that are outside the normal framework of combat mechanics.

There are many other sources that clearly state that artillery regiments had lots of MGs or other AA guns... the problem is that most sources don't mention small arms in artillery regiments just the big guns. I could dig up a few more "modern" sources if you wish... but the Japanese artillery had lots of MGs... mainly because they lacked allot of heavier good AA guns. There are many records of battles that show elaborate defences round artillery positions... literature is also full of mentioning how they early on learned about the chock of armoured formation overrunning artillery positions, something the Russians learned the hard way during Barbarossa and started to use good anti-tank perimeter defences around artillery in particular as the artillery often was a high valued target by the Germans. The new chock tactics of the panzer formation meant that artillery was no longer safe even at the great distances they were used.
You can read MANY battle after action reports that state this. Obviously most forces was not intrinsic to the artillery regiment but a divisions MG, AT or AA battalions are sort of a support unit that for the most part acted as a defence in depth or supported at long range during attacks.

You might also look at the Vietnam war which was a very elastic war... the US often did have to fortify their artillery regiments as the enemy often managed to infiltrate behind the front line and support elements.


From a math perspective it matter not at all if you mix the formations. The chance they they hit each other are exactly the same no matter what as the chance are purely based on the width of the formation. First you match formations based on width then you base each unit based on width within the formation (exactly as I showed above). So unless there are some other function of the math that I missed then please show how it works so I can be informed of the correct way.

In my opinion based on my knowledge on how it works it don't matter how you mix formations, the chance that one unit hit anyone specific unit in the game is exactly the same no matter what. The only thing it does by spreading them out is that you distribute the hits more and reduce the spread on the randomness. So if you put 10 units if anti-vehicle in every infantry regiment you are more likely that some of them hit an actual vehicle every combat round but over time they will hit the same number of vehicles as putting them all in one formation. You rely less on the luck of the draw by doing so.

If this is not how it work then pleas give me a simple example on how it does work?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on March 06, 2020, 03:37:17 PM
Quote
the problem is that most sources don't mention small arms in artillery regiments just the big guns.
My source includes all weapons. For the Japanese artillery regiment, that means 3 LMG. For a German artillery regiment, that means 30 LMG (if part of a Panzer division) or 6 (if part of a Infanterie division). For a British artillery regiment, that means 6 LMG and 9 HMG. All meant for anti-aircraft work. Now, it's entirely possible that some artillery unit somewhere at sometime had loads of automated weapons assigned to it. But it certainly was not normal or standard.

Quote
There are many records of battles that show elaborate defences round artillery positions... literature is also full of mentioning how they early on learned about the chock of armoured formation overrunning artillery positions, something the Russians learned the hard way during Barbarossa and started to use good anti-tank perimeter defences around artillery in particular as the artillery often was a high valued target by the Germans. The new chock tactics of the panzer formation meant that artillery was no longer safe even at the great distances they were used.
Okay you're mixing up things here. Artillery did not receive any special treatment - German mechanized offensive emphasized the importance of disrupting the enemy's ability to command troops, so headquarters, supply, and artillery units in the rear were all valuable targets but the objective was usually to either encircle the enemy or force their dislocation by making their present position useless and untenable. And again, reserve units were not placed solely to defend artillery units but to respond to breakthroughs - these are two different things.

Quote
You can read MANY battle after action reports that state this. Obviously most forces was not intrinsic to the artillery regiment but a divisions MG, AT or AA battalions are sort of a support unit that for the most part acted as a defence in depth or supported at long range during attacks.
You're mixing things up here too. The pre-war and early-war MG battalion that most countries had, was almost always broken up into MG companies that were dispersed into the rifle battalions. The AT battalion evolved the most during the war as situations changed but naturally its placement was where the risk of enemy armoured attack was the highest - not in the rear. And AA battalion, if it existed, usually protected the divisional supply depot but I agree that it was the one battalion that most often was used in a fire support role.

Quote
You might also look at the Vietnam war which was a very elastic war... the US often did have to fortify their artillery regiments as the enemy often managed to infiltrate behind the front line and support elements.
Asymmetrical war like Vietnam cannot be modeled by Aurora as it is. In Vietnam, the whole front / rear dichotomy lost all meaning for the most part.

Now, if you want the combat model to include an operational level (currently it jumps from strategic straight into tactical) then I'm all for it. We could then have planetary maps where units move and all the other good stuff - which is why I mentioned The Operational Art of War 3 in one of my earlier posts. It would also mean that creating multi-layered, defense-in-depth operations would be important and practical. But as it is, including a special ability to mimic unit acting as a reserve and stopping an enemy Front echelon unit from attacking a Support/Rear echelon unit, is kinda half-assed.

Quote
From a math perspective it matter not at all if you mix the formations... more likely that some of them hit an actual vehicle every combat round but over time they will hit the same number of vehicles as putting them all in one formation
Again, your math is correct but irrelevant. Because actual ground campaigns are not going to be rolls of equal values reaching singularity. When combat lasts less than twenty rounds - and some of that is pure mopping up - a combined arms formations that "rely less on the luck of the draw" will win over singular type formations.

Also, my apologies if I'm coming across as rude. I think we're hitting some sort of language/comprehension barrier here, using same terms but with different meaning, or something akin to that.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 06, 2020, 03:56:21 PM
The amount of MG and other lighter weapons in artillery regiments (as was mainly for AA) will of course vary from regiment to regiment and country to country and when in the war you look at it. But they were there in different forms. I think that at some point German artillery regiment could even have some 88mm AA in them if I'm not totally mistaken.

I also fail to see how i mentioned that entire battalions defended artillery formation... I just said they were mainly situated in between the main front line element and support elements such as Artillery, HQ and other maintenance units, I never meant to imply artillery only and I don't think I ever wrote that either.

Suffice to say there are good evidence that troops (such as MG, AT and AA battalions) was used to protect not only the artillery but all support and rear echelon forces which the game don't simulate well at all (unless you count them as defensive front line forces). The whole point I made was that putting infantry in with support formations is generally bad as it does not really protect the support troops at all, rather the reverse is true. The only thing it does is make a breakthrough less likely as the formation is bigger but I don't think it is worth it... better to stick light AA weapons on some units to bolster the formations some or just more artillery.

Once the game is out I guess someone will run simulations and breaking the system and coming up with a few best scenario type formation combinations.  ;)

I have also said before that the combat are too snowballs as a large formation can unrealistically overwhelm a smaller force. As we are talking large scale operation battles then it should be almost impossible to bring huge overwhelming force down on an enemy all at once. I would like for a small force to be able to survive a bit longer than the current mechanical rules suggest. So you should only be able to bring a certain width advantage over the opponent to bear at once and some might simply be in reserve. It could somehow depend on the terrain and general population of the planet in question. But that is a personal preference... I can simulate this to some extent in multi faction campaigns by manipulating the unit stances on both sides.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on March 06, 2020, 07:44:33 PM

You might also look at the Vietnam war which was a very elastic war... the US often did have to fortify their artillery regiments as the enemy often managed to infiltrate behind the front line and support elements.

Asymmetrical war like Vietnam cannot be modeled by Aurora as it is. In Vietnam, the whole front / rear dichotomy lost all meaning for the most part.

I think it can, and fairly easily.  To do so, I would put all of the U.S. and its allies' units in the Front Line (though still split between FLA and FLD) while allowing the Communists and their allies to use Support and Rear Area formations.

I give this solution bonus points as it's basically a political decision to hamstring the combat capabilities of one's own side.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: misanthropope on March 07, 2020, 09:03:20 AM
it's even easier than that.  model vietnam as jungle mountain and have the attacker not abuse the exploit which gives them unlimited time to dig in.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: misanthropope on March 07, 2020, 10:26:27 AM
i was looking for the rules on morale gain during combat (and still haven't found them) and had a small realization:

if this thread is about A# ground combat, maybe there could be a single post with links in it to the posts steve has made regarding the ground combat rules?  those are scattered, mostly through "changes" but some of them here, and finding stuff is pretty much of a headache.  idk if you could retcon it to the top of the thread but that would be pretty sweet.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 07, 2020, 03:23:56 PM
it's even easier than that.  model vietnam as jungle mountain and have the attacker not abuse the exploit which gives them unlimited time to dig in.

In my multi-faction campaign I will only allow ONE side to put troops in defensive front... so I will move all forces on one side to defensive or attacking and the other to attacking during an offensive.

This will be to simulate that it is way harder to attack then defend in all scenarios. As I control both sides of the conflict I can make it fair for all sides involved and not abuse the quirks in it.. This way it certainly will make sense to put infantry in with your support forces as you might not want to put them in the attack formation because they will loose their entrenched positions if you want to break off the attack.

If for some reason both sides want to go on the offensive I will allow both sides to put troops on both attack and defence line.

Obviously this will not work against any NPR I find in these games but that is OK as I have no intention to abuse the system by exploiting the fact the AI will not go on the offensive if I just sit back and entrench my troops.

In my opinion there should be some rules about offensive versus defensive stance of two armies and how defensive lines can engage in those scenarios. If both sides are in defensive mode then only troops in the offensive line should be able to attack. If one side is on offensive while the other is in defence the offensive sides defensive line should not be able to attack or do so with a very high to hit penalty. If both sides are on offensive stance then it should work as normal... or some such.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on March 30, 2020, 02:22:42 PM
Can the Anti-Air Weapons be used on enemy Ground Forces? I would hope so, since a quad 20mm cannon does tend to hurt when you point it at some hapless infantry...
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 30, 2020, 02:52:27 PM
Can the Anti-Air Weapons be used on enemy Ground Forces? I would hope so, since a quad 20mm cannon does tend to hurt when you point it at some hapless infantry...

Yes... it should work as any other weapon. The difference is that it also can fire at air targets as well.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on March 30, 2020, 02:58:39 PM
But can my STO emplacements bombard the planet they're on?  And can they do so more effectively than heavy bombardment set to 'indiscriminate nuke' mode?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 30, 2020, 03:09:38 PM
But can my STO emplacements bombard the planet they're on?  And can they do so more effectively than heavy bombardment set to 'indiscriminate nuke' mode?

I don't think STO weapons can partake in actual ground combat at all... they can only shoot at space ships... as far as i understand anyway.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on March 30, 2020, 03:14:16 PM
How long do my landing ships need to unload my forces? Cargo Handling Systems aren't a thing anymore in C#, so how would that be calculated?

I was thinking of cargo shuttles with LOG-S infantry for resupply...
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Hazard on March 30, 2020, 03:53:13 PM
But can my STO emplacements bombard the planet they're on?  And can they do so more effectively than heavy bombardment set to 'indiscriminate nuke' mode?

No.

But an STO emplacement on the Moon can hit the Earth for orbital bombardment purposes as long as the weapon has that range.

How long do my landing ships need to unload my forces? Cargo Handling Systems aren't a thing anymore in C#, so how would that be calculated?

I was thinking of cargo shuttles with LOG-S infantry for resupply...

Landed ships unload instantly IIRC, orbiting ships use the Cargo Shuttle technology and components in place of the Cargo Handling Systems technology in C# to determine how fast they load/unload.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on March 30, 2020, 04:46:03 PM
Wait, so I can actually LAND things now!?

Even my Fighters? I can simulate Airbases now w/o needing a metric f-ton of PDCs!?

AWESOME!
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: papent on March 30, 2020, 04:57:41 PM
But can my STO emplacements bombard the planet they're on?  And can they do so more effectively than heavy bombardment set to 'indiscriminate nuke' mode?

No.

But an STO emplacement on the Moon can hit the Earth for orbital bombardment purposes as long as the weapon has that range.

So a hypothetical superjovian moon hopping campaign is going to be a blast. Clearing moons of sto and ground troops and finally getting a foothold to bombard other moons without risking ships. That's ... Brilliant. Space Solomon island campaign with troop transports have to run "the slot".

How the fire director work with coordinating fire support from STOs on other bodies? Or it's the general strategic bombing option instead of the combat support?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 30, 2020, 07:05:55 PM
Wait, so I can actually LAND things now!?

Even my Fighters? I can simulate Airbases now w/o needing a metric f-ton of PDCs!?

AWESOME!

You can designate fighter to ground and they can't be targeted as a space object... I still think they will require maintenance facilities on the ground or in space to function normally though. So if you have maintenance facilities on the planet you can station fighters and use the ground stance and they will function as ground fighters.

At least that is how I believe how it will work.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Barkhorn on March 30, 2020, 09:15:26 PM
But can my STO emplacements bombard the planet they're on?  And can they do so more effectively than heavy bombardment set to 'indiscriminate nuke' mode?

No.

But an STO emplacement on the Moon can hit the Earth for orbital bombardment purposes as long as the weapon has that range.

So a hypothetical superjovian moon hopping campaign is going to be a blast. Clearing moons of sto and ground troops and finally getting a foothold to bombard other moons without risking ships. That's ... Brilliant. Space Solomon island campaign with troop transports have to run "the slot".

How the fire director work with coordinating fire support from STOs on other bodies? Or it's the general strategic bombing option instead of the combat support?
It's better than the Solomon Island campaign, because the "islands" in this case move.  Imagine island-hopping when the islands aren't always the same distance apart.

"Dear diary, We made our landing on Io a week ago.  The Martians put up stiff resistance, but with fire support from our railgun batteries on Europa we were able to establish a beach-head during Europa's closest approach.  Now though, Europa's almost out of range, and the Martians know it.  One way or another, this invasion will be over soon."
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on March 31, 2020, 03:39:26 AM
Wait, so I can actually LAND things now!?

Even my Fighters? I can simulate Airbases now w/o needing a metric f-ton of PDCs!?

AWESOME!
Only fighters - or things less than 500 tons - can land:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105591#msg105591 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105591#msg105591)
Quote
Part of the background in C# Aurora will be that large TN ships function only in space and cannot move any closer to planetary bodies than low orbit. Small craft below a limit of 500 tons, such as fighters and shuttles, are capable of landing on planets. Ship are built in orbit and habitats are assembled in orbit. Only fighters can be built on the ground.

As part of this change, Cargo Handling Systems have been replaced by Cargo Shuttle Bays. They function in a similar way, although they are larger (10 HS) and more expensive.

Because large ships cannot land on planets, a freighter or colony ship cannot load / unload unless it has at least one Cargo Shuttle Bay, or the target population has either a Spaceport or a Cargo Shuttle Station (new installation, 1200 BP). Spaceports and Cargo Shuttle Stations can service any number of ships simultaneously but they do not stack. In effect they count as a single Cargo Shuttle Bay for any ship at the population.

Fighters do not need any special facilities to be housed on a planet but they do require maintenance facilities:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg106102#msg106102 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg106102#msg106102)
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You will be able to base fighters at planets using maintenance facilities.

Examples of fighter size troop transports are here:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg106580#msg106580 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg106580#msg106580)

You can still keep using bigger troop ships to perform landings. You'll have to use Troop Transport Bay - Drop Ships instead of the commercial Troop Transport Bay:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9679.msg105565#msg105565 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9679.msg105565#msg105565)
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2) Troop Transport Bays - Drop Ship Equipped is a new module which can function as a normal troop transport bay or quickly deliver troops from orbit using abstract drop ships. If the fast orbital delivery is chosen, there will be two options for the drop - Normal and Abandon. A normal drop will include waiting for the drop ships to return to the bays, which will require two minutes without additional research. A new tech line will reduce drop ship return times, starting with 90 seconds for 2000 RP and ending with 20 seconds for 64,000 RP. In an Abandon drop, the drop ships make a one way trip, allowing the ship to leave orbit immediately after the drop. In this case the bay is damaged (to simulate the loss of the drop ships) and can only be repaired at a shipyard. A ship with intact drop ships can also pick up troops from a planet, although this requires double the normal return trip time (as it is faster to unload than load). In all cases, the ship may only carry out landing or recovery operations if it starts the movement phase in the same location as the planet. For example, in an Abandon drop, the troop ship will arrive at the planet, take any fire for that turn, then launch drop ships and move away in the following turn. There are drop ship equivalents for the three normal bays. They have the same capacities but are 20% larger, 150% more expensive and a military system.

So you have the option of having a single huge, heavily armoured & shielded, troopship carrying an entire army, that uses multiple "Troop Transport Bay - Drop Ships" to land all the troops in one go while tanking fire from defending STO units. Or you can have an Assault Carrier with a bunch of Landing Shuttles, that is sitting safely beyond enemy STO range and is equipped with cheap commercial troop transport bays and commercial hangars, and then the Landing Shuttles brave enemy fire, hopefully being fast enough that STO will miss them on the approach but if you lose one it's only a small percentage of your total force.

From Steve's Crusade campaign:
Code: [Select]
Cetaceous class Troop Transport      239,925 tons       1,360 Crew       7,280.2 BP       TCS 4,798    TH 7,344    EM 0
1530 km/s      Armour 4-341       Shields 0-0       HTK 544      Sensors 6/8/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 18    Max Repair 200 MSP
Troop Capacity 100,000 tons     Drop Capable    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 10   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   

Commercial Ion Drive (34)    Power 7344    Fuel Use 1.41%    Signature 216    Explosion 3%
Fuel Capacity 600,000 Litres    Range 31.9 billion km (241 days at full power)

Commercial Defence Turret (4x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16,000 km/s     ROF 5       
MK I Commercial Active Augur Array (1)     GPS 1920     Range 31.5m km    Resolution 120
MK I Electromagnetic Augur Array (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km
MK I Thermal Augur Array (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km

and

Code: [Select]
Delphinus class Troop Transport      31,840 tons       194 Crew       824.9 BP       TCS 637    TH 1,296    EM 0
2035 km/s      Armour 1-89       Shields 0-0       HTK 78      Sensors 6/8/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 16    Max Repair 200 MSP
Troop Capacity 10,000 tons     Drop Capable    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 1   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   

Commercial Ion Drive (6)    Power 1296    Fuel Use 1.41%    Signature 216    Explosion 3%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 100.3 billion km (570 days at full power)

MK I Commercial Active Augur Array (1)     GPS 1920     Range 31.5m km    Resolution 120
MK I Electromagnetic Augur Array (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km
MK I Thermal Augur Array (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km

and

Code: [Select]
Orca class Troop Transport      45,905 tons       230 Crew       939.8 BP       TCS 918    TH 2,304    EM 0
2509 km/s      Armour 1-114       Shields 0-0       HTK 109      Sensors 6/11/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 12    Max Repair 80 MSP
Troop Capacity 20,000 tons     Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   

Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (8)    Power 2304    Fuel Use 1.41%    Signature 288    Explosion 3%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 69.6 billion km (320 days at full power)

MK II Commercial Active Augur Array (1)     GPS 2100     Range 39.8m km    Resolution 100
MK II Electromagnetic Augur Array (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km
MK I Thermal Augur Array (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km

Hope that helps.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: harpyeagle on April 11, 2020, 01:26:58 AM
Quote
If a target is destroyed, the firing element gains morale and the target element suffers a loss of morale.   This morale gain/loss is doubled if the firing unit is in front-line attack mode. 

Does this mean that, in the case where a front-line attacker fights a front-defender, if say they are evenly matched and inflict equal losses, the attacker will get a net morale gain, and the defender will suffer a net morale loss?

And therefore that the attacker has an advantage in morale loss in ground combat? Or was it meant that morale loss is doubled for losses inflicted on or by a front-line attacker, to reflect the heightened intensity of battle involving a front-line attacker?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 11, 2020, 04:43:59 AM
Quote
If a target is destroyed, the firing element gains morale and the target element suffers a loss of morale.   This morale gain/loss is doubled if the firing unit is in front-line attack mode. 

Does this mean that, in the case where a front-line attacker fights a front-defender, if say they are evenly matched and inflict equal losses, the attacker will get a net morale gain, and the defender will suffer a net morale loss?

And therefore that the attacker has an advantage in morale loss in ground combat? Or was it meant that morale loss is doubled for losses inflicted on or by a front-line attacker, to reflect the heightened intensity of battle involving a front-line attacker?

Morale impact is doubled for the front-line attacker only. Double gains and double losses.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: harpyeagle on April 11, 2020, 07:48:47 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=9792.  msg120773#msg120773 date=1586598239
Quote from: harpyeagle link=topic=9792.  msg120770#msg120770 date=1586586418
Quote
If a target is destroyed, the firing element gains morale and the target element suffers a loss of morale.     This morale gain/loss is doubled if the firing unit is in front-line attack mode.   

Does this mean that, in the case where a front-line attacker fights a front-defender, if say they are evenly matched and inflict equal losses, the attacker will get a net morale gain, and the defender will suffer a net morale loss?

And therefore that the attacker has an advantage in morale loss in ground combat? Or was it meant that morale loss is doubled for losses inflicted on or by a front-line attacker, to reflect the heightened intensity of battle involving a front-line attacker?

Morale impact is doubled for the front-line attacker only.   Double gains and double losses. 

Ah, so it is doubled if the firing element (gain) or the target element (loss) is a front line attacker. 

edit: and only doubled for whichever one of the (firer/target) pair is the attacker, as you just said.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Marski on April 12, 2020, 02:50:32 PM
So what's the smallest infantry formation this game simulates? Platoon? Company?
If I make "Infantry" HQ, does it count it as Platoon HQ or Company HQ?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on April 12, 2020, 02:56:04 PM
So what's the smallest infantry formation this game simulates? Platoon? Company?
If I make "Infantry" HQ, does it count it as Platoon HQ or Company HQ?

One man/person/being/robot/small furry green creature from Proxima Centauri.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Marski on April 12, 2020, 02:57:22 PM
So what's the smallest infantry formation this game simulates? Platoon? Company?
If I make "Infantry" HQ, does it count it as Platoon HQ or Company HQ?

One man/person/being/robot/small furry green creature from Proxima Centauri.
Why post if you don't know the answer?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on April 12, 2020, 03:09:43 PM
I do know the answer.

One Infantry is 0 tons, and the smallest unit Aurora can make.  One Headquarters component is variable in command rating (user set), 10 tons, and INF-mountable.

One junior officer, freshly graduated, is Command 10, 0+10 tons, cost (with starting tech) 0.00001, Annual Maint 0.0005.

An Army (unit) of One, as the saying goes.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Marski on April 12, 2020, 03:34:37 PM
Is there a repository for this information that I can look up? I don't know what "Headquarter" capacity means, total size of the formation the HQ unit is in? Number of units?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on April 12, 2020, 04:51:57 PM
Is there a repository for this information that I can look up? I don't know what "Headquarter" capacity means, total size of the formation the HQ unit is in? Number of units?

Tonnage (a.k.a. Transport Size) of unit.

And yes, the HQ needs to be inside the unit in question.

Code: [Select]
Militia Battalion
-----------------
10 tons -- 1 INF-HQ (size 1000)
990 tons --  330 INF-PWL
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Marski on April 12, 2020, 06:25:11 PM
Is there a repository for this information that I can look up? I don't know what "Headquarter" capacity means, total size of the formation the HQ unit is in? Number of units?

Tonnage (a.k.a. Transport Size) of unit.

And yes, the HQ needs to be inside the unit in question.

Code: [Select]
Militia Battalion
-----------------
10 tons -- 1 INF-HQ (size 1000)
990 tons --  330 INF-PWL
Alright, thanks.
Do the infantry units automatically update when better technology is researched or do you have to make new "model" each time?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on April 12, 2020, 06:34:37 PM
You have to make new models each time.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Marski on April 12, 2020, 06:54:17 PM
Alright. Two questions left;
Do geological survey vehicles need supply with them or HQ unit?
And when are supply vehicles with logistics modules needed? How many related to what number? Is it dependent to "Annual maintenance cost" to how many supply units I need?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on April 12, 2020, 08:16:14 PM
Can I use Cargo Shuttles to transfer troops to the ground?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 13, 2020, 03:39:23 AM
Alright. Two questions left;
Do geological survey vehicles need supply with them or HQ unit?
And when are supply vehicles with logistics modules needed? How many related to what number? Is it dependent to "Annual maintenance cost" to how many supply units I need?

Supply units are only used in combat.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109760;topicseen#msg109760
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on April 13, 2020, 05:40:46 AM
Alright. Two questions left;
Do geological survey vehicles need supply with them or HQ unit?
And when are supply vehicles with logistics modules needed? How many related to what number? Is it dependent to "Annual maintenance cost" to how many supply units I need?

Geological Survey Unit does not need supply nor an HQ unit. But giving it the latter means that you can assign a commander with a survey bonus to help things out.

Supply vehicles are consumed during combat to replenish GSP used. They are not needed during peacetime as the normal maintenance cost takes care of day-to-day supply.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on April 13, 2020, 05:41:17 AM
Can I use Cargo Shuttles to transfer troops to the ground?
No, you need Drop Module to perform combat drops.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on April 13, 2020, 11:13:44 AM
I don't want to combat drop them, I just want to move my troops onto and off of the transport. Like a ferry.

Do I really need fighters for that?

If so, that's... kinda much as Fighters suffer maintenance failures in Commercial Hangars, thus making commercial ferries kinda effing huge as they also need a maintenance module.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: DFNewb on April 13, 2020, 11:20:07 AM
I don't want to combat drop them, I just want to move my troops onto and off of the transport. Like a ferry.

Do I really need fighters for that?

If so, that's... kinda much as Fighters suffer maintenance failures in Commercial Hangars, thus making commercial ferries kinda effing huge as they also need a maintenance module.

You just need the new shuttle bay comp on your transport you start with it researched. You also need it on colony ships and cargo ships if the place you are unloading does not have a shuttle or spaceport building.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: firsal on April 13, 2020, 11:27:33 AM
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I was wondering if Light Bombardment units within a front-line unit be able to conduct bombardment attacks, or can this only be done from units in the support position?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Fe-eze on April 13, 2020, 11:37:55 AM
First post here.
So excited about the Aurora release, thanks Steve for sharing this awesome game with us.  I know we're expecting a big patch soon, so I decided to try creating a standard Marine Rifle/ Expeditionary Unit in Aurora C#.  Here's the first attempt

Rifle Company (Expeditionary)
Transport Size: 1 250 tons
Build Cost: 36. 8 BP
1x Company HQ
134x Rifle Infantry (G1 Assault Rifle)
30x Light Machinegun (SAW)
3x Infantry Mortar (60mm)
27x Rifle Grenadier
6x Light AT(Shiva AT Missile)
6x Medium Machinegun

Weapons Company (Expeditionary)
Transport Size: 1 250 tons
Build Cost: 42. 5 BP
1x Company HQ (Size 300)
78x Rifle Infantry (G1 Assault Rifle)
7x Rifle Grenadier
8x Battalion Mortar (80mm, Light)
4x Light AT(Shiva AT Missile)
6x Medium Machinegun (M240B)
4x Heavy Machinegun (HMG, 50cal)
4x TOW Launcher
4x 40mm Grenade Launcher


This is based on the current USMC TOE but modified slightly to fit into 1250 tons for the sake of standardization. 
Here's the actual USMC Toe:

Rifle Company (Expeditionary)
Transport Size: 1 392 tons
Build Cost: 41 BP
166x Rifle Infantry (G1 Assault Rifle)
27x Light Machinegun (SAW)
3x Infantry Mortar (60mm)
27x Rifle Grenadier
1x Company HQ (Size 300)
6x Light AT(Shiva AT Missile)
6x Medium Machinegun (M240B)

Weapons Company (Expeditionary)
Transport Size: 1 431 tons
Build Cost: 48. 8 BP
1x Company HQ
105x Rifle Infantry (G1 Assault Rifle)
8x Battalion Mortar (80mm, Light)
4x Light AT(Shiva AT Missile)
6x Medium Machinegun
4x Heavy Machinegun (HMG, 50cal)
6x TOW Launcher
4x 40mm Grenade Launcher


Finally, Here are my Current Unit Classes (attached below, how the hell does one insert screenshots here?)


Note that I've simulated Rifle Grenades and SAWs as improved Infantry weapons (I wish there was something like Ultralight bombardment) .  Also, My Shiva AT is the Carl Gustav(SMAW)/Javelin equivalent.  I know Javelin packs a bigger punch but I just simulate them both as Man-portable Anti Tank systems.
No Tanks, IFVs or heavy Artillery yet.  I'll try to post more later.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on April 13, 2020, 12:58:41 PM
For TO&E and OOB stuff, you could use the 21st Century Real World templates thread here:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10116.0

That way this thread is purely for gameplay discussion related to ground combat.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I was wondering if Light Bombardment units within a front-line unit be able to conduct bombardment attacks, or can this only be done from units in the support position?
LB can commit bombardment from the front line position unless that got stealthily changed at some point.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: thashepherd on April 13, 2020, 01:03:24 PM
Is there a way to update units using a formation template when that template changes?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Garfunkel on April 13, 2020, 01:08:36 PM
No, you have to replace either the formation, or the elements of it.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 13, 2020, 05:19:47 PM
Is there a way to update units using a formation template when that template changes?

No, a formation doesn't retain a template. The template represents the formation at the point of creation. After that, you can make whatever changes you like. Add or remove units, add new unit types, etc.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Alsadius on April 14, 2020, 08:44:12 AM
Is there a way to update units using a formation template when that template changes?

No, a formation doesn't retain a template. The template represents the formation at the point of creation. After that, you can make whatever changes you like. Add or remove units, add new unit types, etc.

Will we get a "Rebuild to Template" option, for replacing losses or doing upgrades more easily?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Person012345 on May 12, 2020, 12:13:49 AM
Is there a repository for this information that I can look up? I don't know what "Headquarter" capacity means, total size of the formation the HQ unit is in? Number of units?
About the HQ capacity - It's in size and it represents the total size of units the HQ can control in the heirarchy below it (including it's own unit and including ALL units in subordinate HQ's). So when you ask "is it a platoon hq or a company hq" the answer is yes. You can create a hq to represent a platoon HQ and then put it under the command of a company HQ and so on up the heirarchy, just depending on the command limit you give each design. There's no limit to the granularity or grandiosity, though mechanically some approaches may be more effective or have different upsides and downsides than others.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Ulzgoroth on May 16, 2020, 12:15:03 PM
I'm just lately getting back into Aurora after having played back in the pre-C# days, and found a couple of ground combat points I'm not clear on.


1) When a ground weapon has multiple shots, are they all fired at the same unit?
1b) When a ground unit has multiple weapons, are they all fired at the same unit?


2) How much of this do NPRs actually use so far? Presumably certain non-standard NPRs are ground-combat oriented, but do the regular NPRs field armies?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Pedroig on May 16, 2020, 12:18:00 PM
I'm just lately getting back into Aurora after having played back in the pre-C# days, and found a couple of ground combat points I'm not clear on.


1) When a ground weapon has multiple shots, are they all fired at the same unit?
1b) When a ground unit has multiple weapons, are they all fired at the same unit?


2) How much of this do NPRs actually use so far? Presumably certain non-standard NPRs are ground-combat oriented, but do the regular NPRs field armies?

1ab)  Yes.  The target selection happens at the Unit Level, the resolution takes place at the element level.  Breakthrough can occur, which then begins another "round" of selection and resolution.
2)  Yes, they use it.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Ulzgoroth on May 16, 2020, 12:46:50 PM
And a question 3: is FFD used for supporting ground units with bombardment weapons, or only for air/space support? If it's used with ground support, how is that budgeted?
Quote from: Pedroig link=topic=9792. msg133385#msg133385 date=1589649480
Quote from: Ulzgoroth link=topic=9792. msg133382#msg133382 date=1589649303
I'm just lately getting back into Aurora after having played back in the pre-C# days, and found a couple of ground combat points I'm not clear on. 


1) When a ground weapon has multiple shots, are they all fired at the same unit?
1b) When a ground unit has multiple weapons, are they all fired at the same unit?


2) How much of this do NPRs actually use so far? Presumably certain non-standard NPRs are ground-combat oriented, but do the regular NPRs field armies?

1ab)  Yes.   The target selection happens at the Unit Level, the resolution takes place at the element level.   Breakthrough can occur, which then begins another "round" of selection and resolution.
2)  Yes, they use it.
Ah, since targeting is by element, does it follow that a single multi-shot attack can kill multiple units within the targeted element?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: consiefe on May 16, 2020, 01:42:36 PM
Yeah real FFD mechanics for support or rear bombardment units are a thing that I'd like to know too. Steve mentioned they are needed but didn't explain how exactly. We know how they work with orbital only.

If we have a bombing unit and a front line unit supported by it, should FL unit have some FFD capability?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on May 17, 2020, 03:27:46 PM
And a question 3: is FFD used for supporting ground units with bombardment weapons, or only for air/space support? If it's used with ground support, how is that budgeted?

Ah, since targeting is by element, does it follow that a single multi-shot attack can kill multiple units within the targeted element?


3 -- Air/space bombardment only;  One ship (including FAC) or up to six fighters
No effect on ground bombardment.

4 -- Yes.  Crew-served Anti-Personal, for example, gets six shots and therefore can 'kill' up to six elements of the opposing unit.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Borealis4x on May 25, 2020, 11:21:36 AM
Do science Ground Units need logistics at all assuming they don't get into fights?

Nothing I've read says they do, but I have a sneaking suspicion...
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: consiefe on May 25, 2020, 12:46:28 PM
No, they don't use it. Otherwise mine would go crazy after two years on the digging site.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steelpoint on May 25, 2020, 01:03:56 PM
I must be missing something, but how do you apply multiple capabilities to a single unit? I was intending to create a boarding capable infantry with genetic engineering but I can only have one capability on a unit at a time.

I've only brought this up since I've seen other people showing off ground units that have multiple capabilities attached to them.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: DFNewb on May 25, 2020, 01:13:04 PM
I must be missing something, but how do you apply multiple capabilities to a single unit? I was intending to create a boarding capable infantry with genetic engineering but I can only have one capability on a unit at a time.

I've only brought this up since I've seen other people showing off ground units that have multiple capabilities attached to them.

It's either shift or control clicking on multiple ones.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Steelpoint on May 25, 2020, 01:14:17 PM
I must be missing something, but how do you apply multiple capabilities to a single unit? I was intending to create a boarding capable infantry with genetic engineering but I can only have one capability on a unit at a time.

I've only brought this up since I've seen other people showing off ground units that have multiple capabilities attached to them.

It's either shift or control clicking on multiple ones.

That was it, not at all intuitive it seems.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on June 06, 2020, 06:23:20 AM
Do science Ground Units need logistics at all assuming they don't get into fights?

Nothing I've read says they do, but I have a sneaking suspicion...


Well, no unit needs logistics. . .

Supply is only used during combat, and can only be used during combat, so if your survey or xeno ground units don't have any shots (weapons) they can't use any supplies.  Being out of supply only penalizes attack, not defense (numbers, not stance), so a unit that can't shoot in the first place that is out of supply now can't shoot with one-quarter the chance to hit.  It also can't use up any of the 'free' ten rounds of supply it's built with so it can get out of supply.

Now, if you build 'science' vehicles with on-board CAP or something in their second slot you have a unit that uses supplies the same as any other.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Father Tim on June 06, 2020, 06:27:18 AM
It's either shift or control clicking on multiple ones.
That was it, not at all intuitive it seems.


It's the default windows behaviour.  It seems a lot of C# works that way, so now Aurora does as well 'cause why write all new code just to do a thing differently than the way the language pre-built it?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: QuantumPete on August 17, 2020, 04:24:05 AM
So I have a question about ranks when it comes to RP.

According to my (limited) understanding, a platoon is generally commanded by a lieutenant, a company by a captain, a battalion by a lieutenant-colonel and a brigade by a brigadier-general.  So as you go up platoon->company->battalion->brigade, you end up skipping some ranks, like major and colonel.  I understand that that these are typical ranks and that a major can command a company.  Though generally a major would be some sort of XO or operational officer within a battalion.

My issue/question is this: When using automated assignments (and preserving my sanity), commanders get relieved when they go up in rank, meaning in my RP scenario a captain going up to major would lose his company, but wouldn't be able to get a battalion.  He's now sitting around trying to accumulate promotion score to get back into a formation.

Could we get either min/max ranks per formation (so I can put major/lieutenant-colonel for a battalion) or better yet, HQ Staff Officer positions? Where they can add some part of their skills to the formation they're in?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Polestar on August 17, 2020, 08:10:26 AM
I have had the same question. I could have resolved it by making or asking for a altered list of ranks. The way I actually resolved it was to place companies in cohorts, and cohorts in battalions.

In reality, modern military units often incorporate ~3 subordinate units within the span of control of a superior formation - and if they diverge significantly from this, as with companies do in a battalion, then, in order to widen the effective span of control, they set up some way to support the superior officer with intermediate subordinates. Such as Majors supporting the Lieutenant Colonel typically commanding a battalion.

A way for Aurora to natively support this phenomenon would to assign a "span of control" to every HQ. This would replace the officer command stat. All such HQs could be assigned a limited number of subordinate formations and directly attached units, as well as a limited size, before penalties kick in. This limit could be increased if an "executive officer" or "second-in-command" were assigned, having a rank less than the commanding officer, and at least equal to the maximum of any officer commanding any subordinate formation.

A Battalion would, under this proposed system, have a Lieutenant Colonel in command, a Major as second-in command, and have sufficient "span of control" to accommodate the number of units and subordinate formations Steve desires such formations to be able to handle.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: ranger044 on August 17, 2020, 04:38:09 PM
Quote from: QuantumPete link=topic=9792. msg140101#msg140101 date=1597656245
So I have a question about ranks when it comes to RP. 

According to my (limited) understanding, a platoon is generally commanded by a lieutenant, a company by a captain, a battalion by a lieutenant-colonel and a brigade by a brigadier-general.   So as you go up platoon->company->battalion->brigade, you end up skipping some ranks, like major and colonel.   I understand that that these are typical ranks and that a major can command a company.   Though generally a major would be some sort of XO or operational officer within a battalion. 

My issue/question is this: When using automated assignments (and preserving my sanity), commanders get relieved when they go up in rank, meaning in my RP scenario a captain going up to major would lose his company, but wouldn't be able to get a battalion.   He's now sitting around trying to accumulate promotion score to get back into a formation. 

Could we get either min/max ranks per formation (so I can put major/lieutenant-colonel for a battalion) or better yet, HQ Staff Officer positions? Where they can add some part of their skills to the formation they're in?

You can do this to a degree.  When designing you formations you can pick the rank that commands it.  You can't put a range in it but you can still pick who commands what.  In my games I tend to use Majors at the battalion level and LTCs for Regiments and Colonels for Brigades.  I usually delete Major Generals and Generals of the Army.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: H11F on August 17, 2020, 05:54:26 PM
Quote from: QuantumPete link=topic=9792. msg140101#msg140101 date=1597656245
So I have a question about ranks when it comes to RP. 

According to my (limited) understanding, a platoon is generally commanded by a lieutenant, a company by a captain, a battalion by a lieutenant-colonel and a brigade by a brigadier-general.   So as you go up platoon->company->battalion->brigade, you end up skipping some ranks, like major and colonel.   I understand that that these are typical ranks and that a major can command a company.   Though generally a major would be some sort of XO or operational officer within a battalion. 

My issue/question is this: When using automated assignments (and preserving my sanity), commanders get relieved when they go up in rank, meaning in my RP scenario a captain going up to major would lose his company, but wouldn't be able to get a battalion.   He's now sitting around trying to accumulate promotion score to get back into a formation. 

Could we get either min/max ranks per formation (so I can put major/lieutenant-colonel for a battalion) or better yet, HQ Staff Officer positions? Where they can add some part of their skills to the formation they're in?

This can also be different within different countries.  For example, in the Canadian Army: a Major is an OC - Officer Commanding.  An OC commands a Company.  The Deputy Commanding Officer of an Inf Bn is also a Major, albeit a senior one.  The Pl Comd's are typically Lt or Capt, depending on the type of Pl.  For example, a Mech Inf Pl is typically commanding by an Lt.  Support Pl's, such as Recce, Mortar, Pioneer, Anti-Armour, are typically (though not always) commanded by a Capt.  And of course, that is just using an Inf Bn as an example.

Now, how your RP is up to you.  But I typically follow what I am familiar with.  Plus, let's me use all those wonderful ranks!
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: QuantumPete on August 18, 2020, 02:05:49 AM
Quote from: H11F link=topic=9792. msg140126#msg140126 date=1597704866
The Pl Comd's are typically Lt or Capt, depending on the type of Pl.   For example, a Mech Inf Pl is typically commanding by an Lt.   Support Pl's, such as Recce, Mortar, Pioneer, Anti-Armour, are typically (though not always) commanded by a Capt.

Right, so let's say in my infantry brigade I have three infantry battalions and an artillery battalion, I could make the artillery companies commanded by a major in stead of a captain, but that means that a captain with an amazing Artillery Skill bonus languishes in an infantry battalion, until he gets promoted.  Likewise, an excellent captain with great front-line bonuses gets a promotion and finds himself in an artillery company, where he's far less useful.

I think having Staff Officers would solve all of those issues.  They could be added like HQs (much like FFDs are) and you can then decide that your company needs just an XO, but your battalion requires a logistics officer as well.  Your brigade additionally an operations officer and a signals officer.  Heck, let us create our own staff officer positions like we can Naval Commands.  That way my Imperial Guards can have a commissar to watch over them  ;D
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on August 18, 2020, 02:40:48 AM
I think you can freeze promotions using a button on the Commander Window, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

You can however make a medal with a huge negative promotion score and that will accomplish the same thing, namely, making sure your good Frontline Captain doesn't end up a Major.

I believe you can SpaceMaster demote officers, though that might be unappealing to you.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: QuantumPete on August 18, 2020, 06:05:13 AM
Quote from: xenoscepter link=topic=9792. msg140133#msg140133 date=1597736448
I think you can freeze promotions using a button on the Commander Window, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

You can however make a medal with a huge negative promotion score and that will accomplish the same thing, namely, making sure your good Frontline Captain doesn't end up a Major.

I believe you can SpaceMaster demote officers, though that might be unappealing to you.

I'm not worried about them promoting, I just don't want to have promotion gaps from captain to lieutenant-colonel for example, while not having to make one branch of my military use a different rank structure than another. 

I mean, I can always go say that a lieutenant-colonel commands a battalion and a colonel a brigade, though that's not correct based on NATO military ranks and usual assignments.  Perhaps I will go with the idea of having intermediary units like a demi-battalion (or company-group) so I can put a major in the chain of command, but it breaks the immersion for me.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Elvin on August 18, 2020, 07:36:59 AM
You are able to rename all of the ranks to whatever you want, if that helps. Then you can just adjust the names to suit your play style, and assume any intermediate ranks are handled behind the scenes or whatever you wish. The game is open to all sorts of RP interpretations.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: ranger044 on August 18, 2020, 01:08:45 PM
Theoretically you could make xo positions, make an hq unit by itself, or with some FFD or Supply, pick a rank to command it and then have it support another formation.  I don't think it would actually do anything as any extra hq is redundant though.  If you gave it some supply units and FFD it might be useful if some Frontline units die off.  It would make for good role-playing, but even I think that would be overly micro and time consuming.

You could also put it in the OOB, like have a Battalion HQ > Battalion Staff > Battalion Support > Company HQ > Company Staff > Company Support > Company Line Units.  Again, that's a lot of formations and micro but it could theoretically do something
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Borealis4x on September 25, 2020, 01:14:19 AM
I have had the same question. I could have resolved it by making or asking for a altered list of ranks. The way I actually resolved it was to place companies in cohorts, and cohorts in battalions.

In reality, modern military units often incorporate ~3 subordinate units within the span of control of a superior formation - and if they diverge significantly from this, as with companies do in a battalion, then, in order to widen the effective span of control, they set up some way to support the superior officer with intermediate subordinates. Such as Majors supporting the Lieutenant Colonel typically commanding a battalion.


I put Majors in command of battalions and Colonels in charge of regiments. Its just nicer to have a full bird in charge of a regiment, since in my armies regiments are the 'core' units of the army. It does leave LT. COLs kinda in an awkward place tho. I wish XOs were a thing in ground units.

It would be cool if the larger an HQ was, the more officers could be assigned to it in addition to the CO and XO. For example, an HQ with a command capacity of 100,000 and up (roughly division-sized if you assume 1000 size = company) would have an intelligence officer slot, a logistics officer, a liaison officer, and an operations officer.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Borealis4x on September 25, 2020, 01:15:10 AM
Is there any benefit to have mobile artillery or AA if they are going to provide indirect support anyways? I feel like they should get a defensive bonus from being able to shoot and scoot.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on September 25, 2020, 06:35:55 AM
 - There is no specific benefit IF you put them in the Support or Rear line positions. In Front Line attack or Front Line Defense, however, Medium Bombardment can be useful. First off though, if you set the Artillery or AA to "Avoid Combat" they'll take an 80% malus to their accuracy along with an 80% bonus to their evasion. So it's not an ideal arrangement to say the least. :) All Bombardment types EXCEPT Light Bombardment fire in a separate Bombardment phase. In the C# Ground Combat, you also have counter-battery fire. If you include Medium Bombardment vehicles in your Front Line Attack or Front Line Defense positions, they will fire on any enemy formations in the Support position that fired a bombardment at them, such as Light Bombardment.

 - At least, they SHOULD do that; I still have yet to test this out for myself. As for vehicular Artillery and AA in general, vehicles have more armor and hit points than Infantry OR Static, but much, MUCH lower Fortification. That includes both Max Fortification AND Self Fortification. In terms of combat rules, this means they are decidedly worse than static or infantry, but with a big pair of caveats. The first big caveat is that it assumes your infantry and/or static units are allowed to get fortified. If the enemy is attacking you while your invading their planet... well that could be a problem. It is worth noting that you need Construction Vehicles to get to Max Fortification with anything anyways, so that's a factor too.

 - The second caveat is that if/when your units DO get hit, they'll have more armor AND hit points, which is a bigger deal than it might seem at first glance. Penetration values of enemy Artillery, hell, ANY artillery tend to be meaningfully lower than equivalent tech armor, while the damage they do per individual shot isn't that good. So your hit points will go further since you can more easily tank their shots, and if you're under fire during say, a contested landing, that will help... IMMENSELY. As for AA, Ground Support Fighters are underwhelming, so go nuts and do whatever you want. I recommend a Medium Vehicle with Light AA, Light Bombardment and Medium Vehicle Armor for Support Line and a Medium Vehicle with Heavy AA, Heavy Bombardment and Medium Vehicle Armor for Rear Line. It's worked a treat for me thus far. ;)
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on September 25, 2020, 07:06:53 AM
The evasion stat ONLY works for units in Offensive Line. All the other positions use the current fortification level as a means to avoid being hit in combat.

The only reason to put artillery into a vehicle is to give them survivability in a smaller space when transporting them in a space ship. You get more quality for the same space on your ships.

The main issue I have with this though is that is always is better from a resource perspective to build more invasion ships and cheaper ground units. This only if you remove the role-play aspect of reducing loss of life in combat over more resources spent in combat.

I also found that tanks in general are less efficient than just more infantry... especially against NPR as most NPR seem to use very little vehicles anyway. This from a resource perspective. Or at least light or medium vehicles armed only with CAP or HCAP weapons. You can keep some anti-vehicle forces in reserve and only engage them when most of the enemy infantry is gone.

In my opinion there are some issues with how the system works in general. Especially when you also include supplies... as long as there is a big chunk of enemy infantry on the field there is zero reason to keep any anti-vehicle forces on the front lines as they eat way too much supplies to be useful. You always need to kill the enemy infantry with infantry specific weapons first and then you take your anti-vehicle forces from either reserves in space or rear echelon and finish off the enemy vehicle forces.

Even if the enemy don't have allot of infantry you still want to attack with infantry first, enemy vehicles with heavy weapon will destroy their own supplies long before they destroy your infantry... THEN you add your anti-vehicle weapons... after you killed any supporting infantry and their supplies. This is why extremely cheap infantry is so useful as they soak up the enemy supplies and your troops hardly anything... you could even put your troops all in support echelon so you don't use up any supplies at all and just wait for the enemy to waste all their supplies. But this is only useful if your line is infantry with light infantry weapons.

In my opinion ground combat do need something to make it way less deterministic and where it make a bit more sense from a mechanic perspective, but that is just me.

If you just ignore the mechanic and role-play it probably work well and you are willing to pay the extremely high price in supplies and resources. But when you do the math you will become a bit frustrated with how the mechanic works, at least I do.

I would like to see different intensity where a combat round can be anything from a few ours to maybe one or two whole construction cycles and some more different ways to approach invasions of either small colonies or large developed worlds with hundreds of millions or even billions of people.

I like the troop system to some degree but I think units should be building blocks and not individual equipment. Every building block should have a purpose depending on the circumstance and the scale of any type of conflict.

But this is just my wish list...
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: xenoscepter on December 27, 2020, 09:33:43 AM
 - How the hairy hecc do I assign units to direct support now? The "Support" checkbox is missing it seems...
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: nuclearslurpee on December 27, 2020, 09:42:47 AM
- How the hairy hecc do I assign units to direct support now? The "Support" checkbox is missing it seems...

Same click-and-drag mechanism as assigning a command hierarchy. The system is ostensibly "smart" enough to recognize whether you are assigning hierarchy or support. Note that in order to support a formation, the supporting formation must be in the same command hierarchy as the supported formation (though I think this is a loose requirement, i.e. anywhere in the same hierarchy is fine rather than directly above/below/at the same level).
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Droll on December 27, 2020, 11:08:19 AM
Also make sure the supporting element has a bigger/equal HQ size to the formation being supported.

Otherwise the assignment system will "outsmart" you and assign the support as a sub-formation under the ones you want to support.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: Jethro_E7 on April 07, 2021, 07:24:16 PM
Hi, when I try and build surface to orbit weapons, they don't come up in the unit design screen under static - what are the pre-requisites?
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: TheTalkingMeowth on April 07, 2021, 07:53:16 PM
You need to have designed and researched a beam weapon. You also need fire control techs.

EDIT: this question probably belongs in the short questions thread: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11545.msg150225#new
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: HeroicHan on March 02, 2024, 12:56:49 PM
Is there any reason that (assuming the tech prices indicate a "tier" of technology) particle beams and carronades give less ground unit damage than the rest? Even meson focal size has a better tech cost return on ground damage than carronades, which seems absurd.
Title: Re: C# Ground Combat
Post by: nuclearslurpee on March 02, 2024, 01:23:07 PM
Is there any reason that (assuming the tech prices indicate a "tier" of technology) particle beams and carronades give less ground unit damage than the rest? Even meson focal size has a better tech cost return on ground damage than carronades, which seems absurd.

All of plasma, laser, railgun, meson*, and particle beam tech lines give the same benefit to ground units at each level of the relevant caliber tech. This does mean that plasma and particle beams are less effective per caliber tech for improving ground units (plasma used to be far cheaper but was revamped in the most recent versions), but this is not something intrinsic to those weapon types and is simply a consequence of how the ground unit attack is tied to beam weapon tech levels (and tech levels, in turn, are not explicitly related to the tech costs).

*Is this new in 2.5? I don't recall mesons giving any ground unit benefits in earlier C# versions...

Note that plasma is still cost-effective, since the caliber tech costs 2x as much as the laser or meson caliber tech but there is no companion focusing tech for plasma, so the net cost per "tier" of weapon is the same. This does leave particle beams in a somewhat awkward spot - which IMO is yet another argument in favor of changing ground units to have the attack (and armor?) techs separated from the beam weapon types - this is also a huge problem for missile-centric races as the missile warhead tech gives no benefit for ground units (very silly given how missile-centric modern ground warfare is!).