Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread: C# Edition

[Garfunkel]

Oh right, I blame early onset dementia. It was broken at one point but clearly Steve has fixed it now 

[ChubbyPitbull]

Is there any reason to place units in a "Front Line Attack" position besides adding the (very low) potential to hit enemy units in the Support or Rear Echelon formations?

I was playing my first game ever playing two Human empires; primarily to have my normal main empire, and then a secondary Independent empire that I used as an RP catch-all for hostile ground garrisons holding any mineral-containing planets I find. Idea is my main empire needs to invest in Ground OOB/forces to be able to expand.

I had my first colony defended by 4 Independent formations, set to Front Line Defense, and could see their Fortification values tick up. I then dropped an armored brigade from my main empire onto the planet, initially also leaving most of the units in Front Line Defense, with some artillery and HQ units in Support providing supporting fire with MB. A short while afterwards, I saw combat initiate between the main empire armored brigade and the Independent formations.

I originally assumed that if everyone was set to Front Line Defense, no one would be initiating combat so both sides would not attack. However, it looks like combat happens either way if hostile units share a system body. It also appeared that despite fighting, the main empire armored brigade was still beginning to fortify thanks to both self-fortification and construction vehicles in the brigade.

Given that, it's not clear to me what benefit being in Front Line Attack position would give. According to the wiki (http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Ground_Combat#Field_Positions) , you lose any Fortification being in Attack mode, but the only benefit gained is the change to hit Support positions; no other attack or damage bonus that I saw. Meanwhile Front Line Defense lets you fortify, while still being able to do damage, breakthrough, etc.

What is the benefit/situations where you would want to use Front Line Attack?

Thanks!

[Kelewan]

I have not played for some time, but i remember that breakthough rules provides an additional bonus to the Breakthrough Value for
formations in the front line attack position.

Also formations need time to fortify after beeing dropped/unloaded and vehicles have a lower max fortification and self fortification level. 
With the To-Hit modifier for vehicle/light vehicle which is used for elements that are not fortified, I would consider the frontline attack position
for newly dropped light vehicles and vehicles.

C-Ground_Combat - Breakthough
The total Breakthrough Value is summed for all elements in the attacking formation and compared to the formation size.
The value is multiplied by 2 if the formation has a field position of Front Line


C-Ground_Units - Ground Unit Class Design - Base_Type
To-Hit Modifier: Used to modify the chance of the unit being hit during combat (based on the mobility of the unit). This only applies if the unit is not fortified.

[ChubbyPitbull]

Thanks! Second question, is there a way to award a medal to a Ground Force Commander, and have it automatically award the same medal to subordinate commanders?

In my ground-force heavy current game, the 2nd Colonial Division managed to re-take heavily-defended Venus from the Cylons. I created a Venus Campaign Ribbon to commemorate the brave commanders who participated in the hard-fought battle. I awarded the medal to the Division commander, and selected "Ground Formation Commanders" from the checkbox on the right. However, after awarding the medal, the Division Commander had received it but no commanders in the subordinate brigades, regiments, or battalions had.

Is there a way to award a medal automatically to a commander and all subordinates?

[nuclearslurpee]

There is a button at the bottom of the ground forces window called "Hierarchy Medal". This might be what you are looking for.

[ChubbyPitbull]

Thanks very much! That worked; I had been awarding the medals through the Officers menu.

Sorry to keep hammering questions, but my searches failed to find an answer for me:

How do you disable CMC's spawning for just one player empire? Googling around it seems like turning off Civilian shipping may do it, but I want civilian shipping/CMCs for my main empire, but not the Cylons. What is happening is I spawn Cylon defense bases on most (but not all) major mineral-containing bodies in the system. If it's a valuable planet, I'll spawn larger colonies with more defenses, colony buildings, and population. What happens is that my main player empire slowly starts to capture bodies in the system as the Cylon's are spawned with much larger/stronger ground forces than are available to the colonies.

The problem is in systems where I own one of the large planets, Colonies' CMCs spawn on smaller bodies like asteroids, moons, comets, etc. However, if the Cylons also own a large planet, Cylon CMCs will also sometimes spawn on the same planet as a Colonies' CMC and the garrison's immediately initiate combat.

Originally this was ok, I RP-ed it as random outpost invasions, but as the game grows it's becoming annoying to keep extra garrisons on every CMC I have, and manage an ever-growing list of captured CMCs in my Economies window.

If there was a way to turn off CMCs for the Cylons, or tell the game not to spawn CMCs on bodies where a Hostile empire also has a population, that would be great!

[nuclearslurpee]

Best approach I am aware of is that you can create empty player race colonies on any system which is eligible for a CMC, since CMCs will not spawn on such bodies. I think empty colonies will do the trick, but if not then plopping a DSTS on each one probably works. It is a rather tedious manual procedure but I don't think you can accomplish what you want with any automated method.

The rules for CMC spawning is that any body with more than 10,000 duranium OR gallicite at 0.7 or better accessibility can be considered. Note that some people think sorium is included in the list, this is not true. Only duranium and gallicite matter to CMCs.

[lumporr]

Best approach I am aware of is that you can create empty player race colonies on any system which is eligible for a CMC, since CMCs will not spawn on such bodies. I think empty colonies will do the trick, but if not then plopping a DSTS on each one probably works. It is a rather tedious manual procedure but I don't think you can accomplish what you want with any automated method.

The rules for CMC spawning is that any body with more than 10,000 duranium OR gallicite at 0.7 or better accessibility can be considered. Note that some people think sorium is included in the list, this is not true. Only duranium and gallicite matter to CMCs.

It might be worthwhile to note that in the upcoming version, player races without a shipyard will not spawn CMCs. See here, in the fixes on the first page: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13090.0

[Garfunkel]

Empty colony in every suitable body will prevent CMCs spawning on them and nuclearslurpee is right, there is no automated way to do it. Blocking civilian shipping does not help in this regard.

[Mint Keyphase]

How to make a rescue ship? What modules do I need to transport survivors?

[Andrew]

Any of the cryogenic passenger  modules, ideally the smaller ones will let you store survivors.   Any ship can but the extra people use up their  deployment time faster

[Mint Keyphase]

There is an empire that dropped a colony on the planet my colony is on a while ago, now relations have turned sour, can I just have my troops drive there and "murder sort out our differences"?

[Steve Walmsley]

There is an empire that dropped a colony on the planet my colony is on a while ago, now relations have turned sour, can I just have my troops drive there and "murder sort out our differences"?

Your troops will attack automatically if you set the other Empire to hostile on the Intelligence window.

[Mint Keyphase]

Are PDCs still available in current version of C#? Couldn't work out how to set a design as PDC and get the Bonus.  Also, how to designate fighter-only and PDC-only systems?

[Andrew]

None of those exist
Ground units with Surface to Orbit weapons replace PDC's along with orbital missile bases
There are no fighter only systems just build small engines and small weapons and they can be used on any vessel