Author Topic: Crusade - Comments Thread  (Read 44268 times)

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Offline vorpal+5

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #90 on: September 04, 2019, 09:23:48 AM »
When you refit ships are the systems replaced put into storage or just lost? I tend to have front line fleets, kept up to date with the latest equipment and second line squadrons which I would want to upgrade with the items removed from the front line fleet. In VB6 it appears systems removed in refits are just lost. I would like the option to reuse systems removed in refits.

Yes, they are lost in C# too. Should be straightforward to add them to the stockpile instead.

I would like that too, we can scrap them for a few pennies worth of resources, or re-use it for 'colonial fleets units'.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #91 on: September 05, 2019, 11:17:46 AM »
First, after the first engagement of the 3rd Light Armoured Company there are no more references to Hellhound tanks. I presume this means that the 4th Company was pulled back behind the lines and kept out of combat. Rather unsurprising given that the 3rd Light evaporated on first contact.

They were still engaged. I think they were mentioned in one of the last breakthroughs.

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Second, casualties were fairly even between the infantry and the armour. Normally you see larger casualty counts among the infantry. This may've been the result of the relatively poor armour of the Imperium compared to the enemy's weapon strength. There's just a point where it's impossible to kill a target more dead even if you put more energy into it, and you get to that limit much more quickly with squishy humans than with the armoured shell around the squishy humans.

Not sure what you mean here. Only a small number of tanks (45 Leman Russ, 34 Hellhounds, etc.) were lost compared to thousands of infantry

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Third, specialist forces suffered disproportionate losses. It's kinda hard to tell how significant that is among the armoured units, simply because there's fewer of them in numbers so an unfortunate loss of a single Vox Vehicle would skew the ratios considerably, but while Guardsmen suffered about 13% losses, Chimera saw 22% losses, Lascannons 41%, Hydra platforms 20%, vox casters 42% and Regimental HQs 75%. Infantry supply vehicles lost 11%.

That is the nature of the system. Infantry is squishy but individually small, so a single hit on an element with 2400 infantry causes 0.042% casualties. The Lascannon (for example) is an infantry-based light-anti-tank weapon, which is larger than infantry but just as easy to kill. So one hit on the element with 100 Lascannon would inflict 1% casualties. The regimental HQs are very large and also easy to kill. This is why I introduced the new rule about non-combat units. I will also be designing some HQs with a lot more armour.

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Fourth, Logistics units casualties would indicate that less than 450 supply units have been lost. I take it that supply use is not counted in the casualties. As that would explain the discrepancy of 3 entire regiments of supply units getting disbanded to build everything back up to strength.

I was a little loose with my description of 'casualties'. A small portion of the destroyed supply vehicles were actually consumed, mainly in the armoured forces as they were drawing on their own supplies. The majority of the consumed supplies were in the 'Corps Assets' formations, and those supplies were replaced by the logistics formations

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Fifth and final, in reality the Valhallan, Mordian and Paragonian regiments wouldn't have been disbanded, they would if possible have been rotated back home or to another secured location where they could rendezvous with and integrate reinforcements.

You can choose to do that if you wish. I didn't actually use up all the infantry in one of the disbanded formations, so I renamed it the 1st Replacement Regiment so it can fulfill the above function. Also, some units will be combined in wartime rather than rotated home.

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And speaking of reinforcements, is there a 'Rebuild to Template' order for ground units? I can't find it on the wiki, and such an order would be helpful with rebuilding units that suffered casualties or replacing equipment. It would be reasonable for it to cost less in both minerals and time, simply because you are scrapping already processed materials so you can reuse at least some of it, but the time savings are notably smaller than the mineral savings and as the technological gap between the old equipment and the new equipment increases the savings grow smaller.

That doesn't exist at the moment, but it might be possible. Once constructed, ground formations don't have a template, which means they can grow, shrink or change over time. If you want replacements, you can build them and drag-drop onto the existing formation. The Race maintains a list of current templates, so it might be possible to have a ground formation 'fill in the gaps' to match one of those templates by assigning it to a training facility.
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #92 on: September 05, 2019, 12:14:45 PM »
They were still engaged. I think they were mentioned in one of the last breakthroughs.

Yup, I just missed them. They appear to have had little impact. No note on casualties of the Light Armoured Companies other than the slaughter the Third Light Armoured suffered though.

Not sure what you mean here. Only a small number of tanks (45 Leman Russ, 34 Hellhounds, etc.) were lost compared to thousands of infantry

Ah, sorry. I meant casualty rates.

While it's true thousands of guardsmen died during the battle compared to the 45 Leman Russ tanks, casualty rates for guardsmen and Leman Russ tanks appears to be about equal at 13%. Historically this is odd; WW2 saw much lower casualty rates among tank crew than among infantry, even if the tanks had a rather terrible habit of drawing nearly all the fire.

That is the nature of the system. Infantry is squishy but individually small, so a single hit on an element with 2400 infantry causes 0.042% casualties. The Lascannon (for example) is an infantry-based light-anti-tank weapon, which is larger than infantry but just as easy to kill. So one hit on the element with 100 Lascannon would inflict 1% casualties. The regimental HQs are very large and also easy to kill. This is why I introduced the new rule about non-combat units. I will also be designing some HQs with a lot more armour.

Such specialist units would in reality be a preferred target to enemy forces, drawing more fire as a result. Normally that means that precautions are taken, either by keeping such units a little further behind the lines, or by providing them with better protection on the front lines with armour and fortified positions. Good to see you are implementing this.

You can choose to do that if you wish. I didn't actually use up all the infantry in one of the disbanded formations, so I renamed it the 1st Replacement Regiment so it can fulfill the above function. Also, some units will be combined in wartime rather than rotated home.

With the conclusion of the specific conflict, a lack of need for immediate redeployment and the capacity to ship them around indicates it was entirely possible to have them reconstituted, even if most of the survivors might've been used to bring other units up to speed and a cadre force was returned to recruiting grounds to reconstruct the regiment. Military command tends to be quite careful with their veterans and very commonly uses them to strengthen otherwise very raw forces with their experience. It makes for a better force and lower casualties.

Usually this is true. There are exceptions.

That doesn't exist at the moment, but it might be possible. Once constructed, ground formations don't have a template, which means they can grow, shrink or change over time. If you want replacements, you can build them and drag-drop onto the existing formation. The Race maintains a list of current templates, so it might be possible to have a ground formation 'fill in the gaps' to match one of those templates by assigning it to a training facility.

Would that also replace old equipment?
« Last Edit: September 08, 2019, 07:51:03 AM by Hazard »
 

Offline Gyrfalcon

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #93 on: September 10, 2019, 01:24:06 AM »
I'd (also) be one to appreciate being able to create template formations that units will build back up to if reserves of the necessary units exist on planet. Especially if running a larger military, I'd be annoyed having to manually calculate how many infantry each damaged formation needs, needing to create a specific unit with that many infantry for that formation, and then merging the two together.
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #94 on: September 10, 2019, 03:54:13 AM »
Or training a number of units of thousands of replacement infantry, only to see them obsoleted by advancing technology before they are deployed.
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #95 on: September 13, 2019, 04:14:15 AM »

Ah, sorry. I meant casualty rates.

While it's true thousands of guardsmen died during the battle compared to the 45 Leman Russ tanks, casualty rates for guardsmen and Leman Russ tanks appears to be about equal at 13%. Historically this is odd; WW2 saw much lower casualty rates among tank crew than among infantry, even if the tanks had a rather terrible habit of drawing nearly all the fire.

Based on my reading tank formations often suffered higher loss rates than infantry with some allied tank formations losing up to 500% of their assigned numbers of tanks within a year of fighting after the landings in France 44.

Your right that the tank crews survived destruction of the tanks most of the time though.
 

Offline JustAnotherDude

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #96 on: September 26, 2019, 10:31:30 AM »
Have you run into the new spoilers at all? If you have, how are you feeling about their implementation?
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #97 on: September 26, 2019, 12:00:45 PM »
Have you run into the new spoilers at all? If you have, how are you feeling about their implementation?

I haven't run into the new spoilers yet, but I have run into the new version of one of the old ones :)
 
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Offline The Forbidden

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #98 on: November 06, 2019, 11:28:33 AM »
Yes ! A new update ! Time for a new binge read !
 

Offline Bremen

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #99 on: November 06, 2019, 11:39:15 AM »
Wow, lots of interesting stuff in this update. I feel a little bad for the Imperium, but also kind of glad things are rocky enough to keep the game interesting :)

On a related note, I just want to say that I feel like the WH40k flavoring is working really well for this campaign. It's great reading about ground battles with Tyranid invaders and similar; really strikes the right notes and memories of tabletop games help me visualize it :).
« Last Edit: November 06, 2019, 11:40:47 AM by Bremen »
 

Offline Zincat

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #100 on: November 06, 2019, 02:02:15 PM »
Really nice update, thanks Steve.

The new spoilers are brutal. I like that a lot. Look forward to fighting them. I don't remember, was the multiplier starting option to make the spoilers harder already in game? (say, 200% spoilers) Iirc you said you'd add it.
I'd really like the chance to make spoilers even more brutal!

P.S.
Calling those ultra small fleets Tyranids.. eh :P
 

Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #101 on: November 06, 2019, 03:09:42 PM »
wow that was a truly brutal episode but thoroughly enjoyable to read!
 

Offline jonw

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #102 on: November 06, 2019, 06:10:43 PM »
Good grief, swarm 2.0 looks horrific. Talk about existential threat!

Good (i think?) to see microwave weapons, now the hardening tech line will actually see some use
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #103 on: November 07, 2019, 03:16:44 AM »
Good (i think?) to see microwave weapons, now the hardening tech line will actually see some use

Yes, already in the research queue :)
 

Offline Panopticon

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Re: Crusade - Comments Thread
« Reply #104 on: November 07, 2019, 04:11:35 AM »
I know your Imperium ship designs are probably not the most optimized designs for your tech level, but I thought they'd put up a better fight than that, Swarm is brutal now.

How predictable will they be? Are their ship designs and loadouts going to be the same throughout every game or will they change it up now and again?