Micromanaging ground force setups.

[Panpiper (OP)]

I have the situation where I have built a mechanized assault Corps of three divisions. The force hierarchy goes all the way down to the company level. I have only just now discovered that I have to set the elements in those units to being either rear echelon, support, front line defence or front line attack. VERY fortunately, the unit composition of those forces is such that I can set all the units to rear echelon 'except' the foremost company level units (It's all heavy bombardment and long-range).

The problem is that it appears that I now have to manually, one by one, go through an extremely laborious process involving no less than five separate mouse selections for each and every of my 81 assault companies! Is there no easier way to do this?

Additional question. Can I get away with setting all my assault division companies to front line attack? What if I also land a defensive, static garrison corps alongside the offensive assault corps? Will the garrison take the brunt of any troops on the enemy side that happens to be set to attack, leaving my assault forces free to do what they were built to do, attack?

[Zap0]

extremely laborious

Welcome to Aurora!

There are buttons for setting the field position for all units below another unit, (ALSO and ONLY checkboxes), which could help a bit. But dumping all your fighting units into one hierarchy to set their position and then redistribute them to where they belong is also pain. This kind of micro work is why I prefer as large and simplistic a ground force as possible.

You don't want to just set all units to front line attack because fortification is a powerful thing.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

While the statement "fortification is powerful" is true and defensive units should 100% be using the front-line defense position so they can use fortification, fortification takes a (long) time to build up.

As a result, when you are landing troops on enemy held planets you can and should be putting everyone on front line attack. They lose the ability to fortify, but it takes 90 days for them to self fortify and most of them will probably be dead by then. In exchange for giving up this small, future advantage, they get the chance to breakthrough AND get to use their evasion stat (which makes them harder to hit). Infantry and medium vehicles have a 40% evasion chance, while light vehicles have 60%.

I.e. on offense, don't use FLD. On defense, mostly use FLD with maybe some vehicle companies in FLA.

[Panpiper (OP)]

You don't want to just set all units to front line attack because fortification is a powerful thing.

Yes, but if I ALSO land a static garrison unit alongside the assault unit, and the forward garrison units are ALL set to front line defence, would that not achieve the same thing? It is an absolute necessity that my assault forces include forces inside their hierarchy whose only purpose is to defend, while just 'part' of those forces actually attack? My garrison forces are 'designed' to defend. My assault forces are 'designed' to attack.

[Zap0]

It is an absolute necessity that my assault forces include forces inside their hierarchy whose only purpose is to defend, while just 'part' of those forces actually attack?

No, you can have only front line attack units if you want to, and combat drops exclusively with such attack units like tanks would be a situation where that's sensible.

I just wanted to caution against blindly setting all units to front line attack, regardless of what they are or what they do.

[Panpiper (OP)]

Just in case anyone is curious, this is the force that I do NOT want to put on defence.

16 Troop Transports each carrying 50,000 tons, drop capable.

Mech Assault Corps: 50,000ton
1  HQ/FOB medium chassis, med armor 800,000 command
6  Flak Guns medium chassis, med armor 2 x medium anti-aircraft
792 supply trucks = 396000 GSP  Core uses 231,204 GSP per 10 rounds.

Up to 3x Supply Depot: 50,000 ton (designated replacements)
1 HQ, static light armor 50,000 command
802 supply trucks

3x Mech Assault Division: 5000ton
1  HQ/FOB medium chassis, med armor 200,000 command
6  Flak Guns medium chassis, med armor 2 x medium anti-aircraft
35 Longtom Artillery medium chassis, med armor, 2 x long range bombardment

9x Mech Assault Regiment: 5000ton
1  HQ/FOB medium chassis, med armor 65,000 command
6  Flak Guns medium chassis, med armor 2 x medium anti-aircraft
35 Longtom Artillery medium chassis, med armor, 2 x long range bombardment

27x Mech Assault Battalion: 5000ton
1  HQ/FOB medium chassis, med armor 20,000 command
6  Flak Guns medium chassis, med armor 2 x medium anti-aircraft
43 Field Artillery medium chassis, med armor, 2 x medium bombardment

81x Mech Assault Company: 5000ton
1  HQ/FOB heavy chassis, heavy armor 5000 command
12 Ogre APC, medium chassis, med armor, heavy anti-vehicle, medium autocannon.
12 Battlemechs, medium chassis, med armor, 2 x medium autocannon.
178 Power Armor Gatling Marines, crew AP