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Topic Summary

Posted 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!).
Posted 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.
Posted 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
Posted 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?
Posted 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.
Posted 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).
Posted 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...
Posted 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...
Posted 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. ;)
Posted 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.
Posted 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.
Posted 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
Posted 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.
Posted 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.
Posted 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.