Ground Combat Observations and 'Rough Spots'

[Malorn (OP)]

So, I ended up doing a lot of ground combat in my most recent game, and I do mean a LOT of ground combat. And as a result I have learned many things, mostly about how I was wrong about something. But it also gave me a chance to figure out some of the 'rough spots' involved with ground combat currently. I figured I'd share a few observations, and see if any of the rest of you have similar thoughts.

• The first and most obvious thing, which many have already mentioned, is that it would be very helpful to have a 'rebuild to template' build option, so it is not necessary to manually rebuild ground formations after they have been mauled horribly by the enemy. This could be as simple as just calculating the build cost of the current formation, and then the build cost of the formation you have selected, and cost the difference. This would also allow you to 'refit' divisions with new technology, if you so chose.
• Supply...oh my, supply. Right now there is little purpose to have any integrated supply into your troop formations, simply because in any large or long scale battle, those supplies will not be consumed unless everything has gone wrong. And, odds are, those supply elements will be destroyed by enemy action by the point they are needed. Supply is also quite frustrating in general, since it requires the constant building of new formations and the integration of those formations into an existing OoB. Lots of clicking, moving, micromanagement, etc. This can be somewhat justified in the case of an invasion, since that has the players full attention, but in the case of constant border skirmishing...it becomes a bit tiresome quickly.
• Still on supply, perhaps a system where supply elements become 'exhausted' rather then deleted, and then renew themselves with maintenance supplies? Or since that would do weird things to the minerals involved, perhaps just with vendarite? They could use construction factories (or the attached construction units which already count as 0.05 factories) to renew supply elements. It would add a really cool element to extended operations, and makes sense as they are manufacturing their own equipment according to all the rules. A 'exhaust/renew' supply logic also has all the other existing advantages of the system: having things consumed in units, being a little random, etc.
• STO setup: I love STOs, the idea is awesome, the concept is fun, they are great for defending planets. However setting up their targeting is a bit less great, especially when you have a couple hundred of them scattered across a dozen planets. First it's hard to find the proper ones and then you do huge amounts of clicking until your hand dies. It'd be great to have a planet view option, that only had the STOs on the planet. But the really important thing is it would be VERY nice if we could select multiple STOs at once to change their targeting. It would also be great if we could specify a 'default' targeting option for each STO, meaning that we don't have to manually set all the PD to missile interception. Thank god they choose their own targets...
• Also with STOs, there's a minor design problem which means that turrets are a really bad idea for STOs, but logically shouldn't be. Either turrets shouldn't be an option, because they are universally a bad plan, or that should be corrected. Basically, putting a turret on an STO means it costs more then the number of weapons on it, and is just as easily destroyed, so it effectively has less hp. Four single-weapon STOs cost less, and are four times harder to destroy then one Quad-turret STO. They also are just as powerful and accurate. Ideally this could be corrected, since I like turrets.
• Finally...unrest control. There is really no indication of which units are better at controlling unrest, or the 'capacity' each unit has to control a certain amount of population. Might be cool to have displayed somewhere, and equally, to have specialized military police elements for those troublesome rebellious colonies.

In short, I love the detail, the flexibility, and the potential lore implications. There are only a few problems that I found even with extensive use, but those rough patches are pretty rough, and make it very tempting to just nuke everything and move on. That removes a LOT of cool gameplay, but clicking is brutal past a certain point. C# aurora can actually allow massive games, so the UI problems are magnified.

Edit:

Speaking of things I didn't know, I just now discovered that supply formations which are subordinate to an HQ, cannot provide supply to other formations attached to the same HQ. This is not a good idea. Having dedicated supply formations was the only thing keeping me sane...why would having a dedicated supply formation mean it couldn't supply other units, that's what dedicated logistics is like in the real world? 

[xenoscepter]

I too, would like some dedicated MPs, perhaps an option like Boarding Capability and Mountain Terrain etc.

As for STOs with turrets, you can make a turret with 0 km/s tracking speed that weighs only as much as the sum total of it's weapons, so long as it is also unarmored. STOs do not benefit from turrets that have a higher than 0 tracking speed, but turrets with a zero tracking speed can be stacked within turrets, allowing quad laser STOs, or quad-quad laser STOs and other such silliness.

Not sure if STOs benefit from armored turrets... they really should though...

[Droll]

I think in terms of cost effectiveness light armor, light weapons 3t infantry is the best Occupation unit class you can design. Policing strength is based on unit quantity and the square-root of unit size. So the number of units you can have is more important than their total size.

[Malorn (OP)]

I too, would like some dedicated MPs, perhaps an option like Boarding Capability and Mountain Terrain etc.

As for STOs with turrets, you can make a turret with 0 km/s tracking speed that weighs only as much as the sum total of it's weapons, so long as it is also unarmored. STOs do not benefit from turrets that have a higher than 0 tracking speed, but turrets with a zero tracking speed can be stacked within turrets, allowing quad laser STOs, or quad-quad laser STOs and other such silliness.

Not sure if STOs benefit from armored turrets... they really should though...

Right...but why spend the research to gain nothing? There is no advantage to having a turret. Sure, you can avoid a disadvantage, but there's still no point and it wastes research time. Though..it would mean less targeting adjustments, so that's a plus I suppose.

I think in terms of cost effectiveness light armor, light weapons 3t infantry is the best Occupation unit class you can design. Policing strength is based on unit quantity and the square-root of unit size. So the number of units you can have is more important than their total size.

That's interesting, but that still gives no idea how much unrest they might be able to control, or what size populations they might be able to manage. My point is not that I personally don't know the answers to this, but rather that such information should be integrated into the UI.

[davidb86]

Steve has addressed the occupation mechanics in the post quoted below

Occupation Strength and Police Modifiers

As a result of my current campaign, I've found two problems in the occupation and police code.

The first is that the Resistance Modifier of a population used for occupation or reducing unrest should be (Determination + Militancy + Xenophobia) / 300, but was actually Determination + Militancy + (Xenophobia / 300). Assuming all stats were 50, that meant the result would be 100.6 rather than the correct 0.5, creating a resistance modifier 200x higher than intended.

The second bug is that the occupation strength of ground units was far higher than intended. A ground element should have occupation strength of SQRT(Size) * Units * (Morale/100) * 0.01. However, I forgot the 0.01, so the actual occupation strength was 100x higher than intended. So the occupation strength bug countered half the effect of the resistance bug

For v1.12.0 the following formulae are used for occupation and police:

Occupation

• Required Occupation Strength = ((Determination + Militancy + Xenophobia) / 300) * Population Amount * Political Status Occupation Modifier.
• Political Status Occupation Modifier = Slave Colony 1.5, Conquered 1.0, Occupied 0.75, Subjugated 0.25, All Others 0
• Actual Occupation Strength is the sum of the individual element occupations strengths.
• Element Occupation Strength = (SQRT(Size) * Units * Morale) / 10000

Reduction in Unrest

• Police Strength = Actual Occupation Strength - Required Occupation Strength
• Effective Population Size = ((Determination + Militancy + Xenophobia) / 300) * Population Amount
• Police Modifier = Police Strength / Effective Population Size
• Unrest points are reduced by 100 * Police Modifier per year

As stated above the most effective occupation would be by large formation of the cheapest infantry unit you can get with a high morale.  If you want to call this unit Military Police you can,  I call mine Militia and station a battalion or two to deal with occasional unrest issues.  Given the formulas above you would need a very large force to occupy and police a large hostile population.

For example the typical 1500 unit infantry formation could occupy approximately 15,000 population (using averages here, your mileage may vary) meaning I think you would need 100,000 formations to occupy a 1.5 billion pop world, at least until you could bring the political modifiers down.  High morale troops are more effective, but I know we talked with Steve about implementing a drag on occupying unit morale.  I do not know if he ever intends to implement that.

I kind of like that you can't always see the exact numbers, but are forced to try something and then see how it works (kind of like in the real world where we are currently discussing the correct number and use of police forces for a given City size)

[Malorn (OP)]

As stated above the most effective occupation would be by large formation of the cheapest infantry unit you can get with a high morale.  If you want to call this unit Military Police you can,  I call mine Militia and station a battalion or two to deal with occasional unrest issues.  Given the formulas above you would need a very large force to occupy and police a large hostile population.

For example the typical 1500 unit infantry formation could occupy approximately 15,000 population (using averages here, your mileage may vary) meaning I think you would need 100,000 formations to occupy a 1.5 billion pop world, at least until you could bring the political modifiers down.  High morale troops are more effective, but I know we talked with Steve about implementing a drag on occupying unit morale.  I do not know if he ever intends to implement that.

I kind of like that you can't always see the exact numbers, but are forced to try something and then see how it works (kind of like in the real world where we are currently discussing the correct number and use of police forces for a given City size)

Yes, as I said, it's not that I personally am unaware that is the relevant point. The point is that information is useful, rather then having to pull out a calculator and do it by hand. Clearly you may not feel the same way, but that information exists, as you just quoted, therefore one has access to it. 'Experimentation' is not a good gameplay mechanic, that would be like experimenting with how much military protection is needed. Obviously a bad idea, there's a reason we have that listed in colonies.

It's like MMO logic where you get items that have 'a chance' of doing something. Could be 60%, could be 1%, just 'a chance'. Sure, you can read patch notes obsessively to find the actual answer, but it's silly not to give information where information exists. Respectfully, this was a suggestion, clearly one you disagree with, but I don't see how that information existing changes the suggestion that it should be listed in-game, or that military policing options might be useful?

[davidb86]

So you are suggesting a combat specialization (Military Police Capability) similar to boarding capability or low grav capability that increases police effectiveness, reduces combat power and increases unit cost? 

It would be less expensive to simply create an infantry unit with light armor and light personal weapons and call them MP's, Militia, or the Brute Squad. 

It could be useful to add Occupation Required/Actual to the ground forces summary in the third column of the Colony summary tab similar to the Protection Required/Actual.

[Ulzgoroth]

Is occupation required/actual not there? Because I'm pretty sure I've seen it when I was dealing with unrest on my in-system colonies due to the total absence of any naval forces.

[davidb86]

I just tried with one of my colonies.   I drove the stability modifier to 1% by SM ing a huge population with no naval presence.  the occupy Required/Actual never came up.  maybe you have to actually occupy an alien colony

[Malorn (OP)]

So you are suggesting a combat specialization (Military Police Capability) similar to boarding capability or low grav capability that increases police effectiveness, reduces combat power and increases unit cost? 

It would be less expensive to simply create an infantry unit with light armor and light personal weapons and call them MP's, Militia, or the Brute Squad. 

It could be useful to add Occupation Required/Actual to the ground forces summary in the third column of the Colony summary tab similar to the Protection Required/Actual.

Honestly, that is very low on the priority list of my suggestions, more an idle thought. 1, 2, & 4 are the actual important points for making it less of a misery to handle ground combat on larger scales.

Is occupation required/actual not there? Because I'm pretty sure I've seen it when I was dealing with unrest on my in-system colonies due to the total absence of any naval forces.

It might be there on hostile worlds, but I'm aiming more at policing elements, i.e. to contain unrest on your own worlds. Troops do that, make no mistake, but it's rather hard to tell how much you need without a lot of trial and error.

I just tried with one of my colonies.   I drove the stability modifier to 1% by SM ing a huge population with no naval presence.  the occupy Required/Actual never came up.  maybe you have to actually occupy an alien colony

Yep, I'd suspect so.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

I too, would like some dedicated MPs, perhaps an option like Boarding Capability and Mountain Terrain etc.

As for STOs with turrets, you can make a turret with 0 km/s tracking speed that weighs only as much as the sum total of it's weapons, so long as it is also unarmored. STOs do not benefit from turrets that have a higher than 0 tracking speed, but turrets with a zero tracking speed can be stacked within turrets, allowing quad laser STOs, or quad-quad laser STOs and other such silliness.

Not sure if STOs benefit from armored turrets... they really should though...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a turret with 0 tracking speed have a 0% CTH against all targets?  STOs ignoring tracking speed smells like a bug.

[Ulzgoroth]

I just tried with one of my colonies.   I drove the stability modifier to 1% by SM ing a huge population with no naval presence.  the occupy Required/Actual never came up.  maybe you have to actually occupy an alien colony

Did you occupy the colony at all? Because, again, I've seen those lines, and not on an alien colony.

[Malorn (OP)]

Did you occupy the colony at all? Because, again, I've seen those lines, and not on an alien colony.

Question...how low did the unrest need to go for that to show up? I've had mine at 80% with nothing.

[Ulzgoroth]

Did you occupy the colony at all? Because, again, I've seen those lines, and not on an alien colony.

Question...how low did the unrest need to go for that to show up? I've had mine at 80% with nothing.

My stability didn't go below 90% before I sent in the troops, at which point they kept things stable.

[DFNewb]

There is a post by Steve somewhere that explains the policing and how it will be changed in the next patch.