@Steve Walmsley; quick question, but will the upgrades to ground force strength (if the old research options are being kept), allow for the ground units weapons/stats to increase/be upgraded, like one of your example Leman Russ designs being replaced with a Mk II? Also, are there any plans to introduce a heavy infantry unit, like an Astartes/Clan Elemental?
In all other respects, please keep it up. This is undoubtedly one of the few games I've been most excited for in my life.
So, question, maybe this was answered elsewere and I just forgot, how will basing fighters at planets work now? Obviously they can't be based in PDC hangers and it would seem odd if you couldn't base atmospheric fighters on a planet at all (not to mention this would give an attacker a major advantage if having space dominance totally precludes the use of atmospheric fighter support for the defender).
It did come up; as I recall the answer was that in C# Aurora maintenance facilities can maintain fighters. I do wonder if this means they can "hide" on the surface as ground units to avoid being targeted by missiles - though if so, that opens the question of if they keep using fuel while doing so.But can they reload them? Change their loadouts? And if maintenance facilities are based in space (which I assume they are) then they're just going to get blown up if the enemy has space dominance, as will the fighters themselves.
Do fighter pods get a techlevel modifier? They'll probably need one because otherwise you get insane podsize requirements to pierce enemy armour as technology develops.
So, question, maybe this was answered elsewere and I just forgot, how will basing fighters at planets work now? Obviously they can't be based in PDC hangers and it would seem odd if you couldn't base atmospheric fighters on a planet at all (not to mention this would give an attacker a major advantage if having space dominance totally precludes the use of atmospheric fighter support for the defender).
Also forgive me if this question is stupid, I've never actually used fighters so far and am under the impression that right now if you want to base fighters at a planet then you use PDC hangers, if that's not how it works then my question is ignorant.
How far up does the chain of command go now? Do we finally have four tiers to make use of all four army officer ranks?
Are there going to be extra officer positions for ground forces like there are for ships? Will there be smaller and larger organization of ground forces available (companies, armies, etc).
You will be able to base fighters at planets using maintenance facilities. However, I may add some form of airbase as well.
As far as you want. There are unlimited army ranks now and nine different HQ sizes.
This means that effectively there are 9 ranks. It'd be nice if we had an option like with naval forces for there to be an administrative command system.
Pods can also be assigned to normal box launchers, so a fighter designed for space combat can also be used for ground combat in an emergency.
Is there any possibility of special forces/covert ops ground units?Is it actually possible to get into orbit of a developed planet undetected with the current stealth system? I know stealth reduces detection range but we're talking about avoiding detection at zero range against deep space tracking stations. Can you get your TCS down to zero?
I think it could be interesting to have a unit that could focus on attacking enemy installations and shipyards, but only attack during the construction cycle, and have a chance of detection.
This would give a use for cloaked ships, which could enter enemy systems undetected and deploy these units on enemy colonies.
As it stands now, combat in Aurora is focused on decisive fleet-on-fleet/army-on-army battles, and this could give an alternative way of inflicting damage prior to the arrival of the main invasion force.
Alternatively, there could be a more battlefield oriented role, where they target logistics/static units, but have a chance to be revealed and fight on the front line.
So this means you will be able to assign an autocannon pod to a box launcher? That's going to feel pretty weird.I thought Steve said we WOULD need to resupply. He said the pods are ordnance and have to be manufactured and transported just like missiles.
I also second what others have wrote, that it does feel off if you won't need any resupply of munitions for air bombardment. I mean I do understand that we don't want to have to keep track different calibers of autocannon shells / ground bombs, but at least having them using same generic Supply to rearm like the ground forces will would solve that.
I thought Steve said we WOULD need to resupply. He said the pods are ordnance and have to be manufactured and transported just like missiles.
And if you look at the design screenshot, the bombardment pod says it has 3 pods.
I know pods in box launchers seems a little odd but it provides a non-efficient way for space fighters to contribute to close air support. Having said that, it probably won't be common because even light-weight pods are likely to be size 8 or more.
Hum. If this is true, any chance of letting pods be used over multiple box launchers (so that, say, 2 size 4 box launchers could fit 1 pod). I don't mind the 3x space penalty, but I don't think many people use size 8+ missiles on fighters.
Would it be possible to make fighter/shuttles capable of acting like shuttles and dropping off small groups of ground forces? Also can you make a formation without a HQ unit? I ask this cause I am curious if it would be possible to send a small task force to establish a beach head, assist in marking targets or just have these small formation to then draw into a larger formation after they land.
The smallest troop transport bay is 100 tons or 120 tons with drop capability included, so you can make very small (fighter-sized) ships to drop off small formations.
You can make a formation without an HQ. However, that would prevent a commander being assigned.
I really asking is if there is an advantage to building a 500ton ship capable of holding troops or will they function like every other ship... otherwise there is no point in building large specialized space capable dropships
Also how much would a small transport bay hold anyways in terms of size or troop tons? Is it the same as as its standard tonnage, more troop tonnage, or less troop tonnage?
Troop Capacity 300 tons Boarding Capable
Is this a new type of transport specifically for boarding or has it always been like this and I just never noticed?
Will we be able to rename generic unit names? Such as renaming soldiers in droids, or tanks into mechs etc?
Is it possible to create templates for real world nations that Aurora uses at game start? Is this something that we as players could help by creating American, British, Russian, Chinese and so on gear and formations using the information you provided? This would help immensely with the multi-faction Earth starts that use real countries.
Steve has said that Light Vehicle get Medium weight components, and Medium Vehicles get Heavy weight components.
Super Heavy components remain the province of Super Heavies.
Also, can I say I'm surprised the only Super Heavy component is the Anti Vehicle one? And that there's no Ultra Heavy components at all despite Ultra Heavy vehicles existing.
Well, that's fair.
I note the existence of a component that wasn't shown before: Long Range Bombardment. It appears similar to Heavy Bombardment, but is this a new component?
Well, that's fair.
I note the existence of a component that wasn't shown before: Long Range Bombardment. It appears similar to Heavy Bombardment, but is this a new component?
It has the same stats as medium bombardment so it probably have the range of heavy bombardment but with the power of medium bombardment.
Is this correct?
Infantry, Static and Light Vehicle have 1 slot for weapon/equipment.
Vehicle and Heavy vehicles have 2 slots.
Super-heavy vehicle has 3 slots.
Ultra-heavy vehicle has 4 slots.
I'm itching to plan out the initial ground force compositions for my Aurora 1890 game.
HQ: The headquarters capacity of the element’s Unit Class in tons. If there are multiple units in a template element, only one is considered for the headquarters capacity. Any additional units are for redundancy. The headquarters capacity is the total size of the formation (or formation hierarchy) that can be effectively controlled by a commander based in a unit with this componentit would seem that multiple vehicles is not possible but is two HQ "modules" in a vehicle possible?
Any research cost like there is with the weapon component for STO?
Is there a disadvantage to not having an HQ unit in a small formation? Or does a higher level bonus only apply if a formation has its own commander assigned? With the new HQ change you could conceivably go down to platoon sized or even squad sized formations without wasting HQ capability, but that would eat up a lot of ground commanders and might take a while to fill out the upper levels of your army. Maybe I should just stick with company sized formations...
As a side question, are units researched? Or do you just build what ever units you have designed and they get the latest tech levels automatically?
Also, I vaguely remember there was going to be an improved personal weapon for infantry. Did you remove that and I didn't see it or was that just an idea?
Is there a disadvantage to not having an HQ unit in a small formation? Or does a higher level bonus only apply if a formation has its own commander assigned? With the new HQ change you could conceivably go down to platoon sized or even squad sized formations without wasting HQ capability, but that would eat up a lot of ground commanders and might take a while to fill out the upper levels of your army. Maybe I should just stick with company sized formations...
As a side question, are units researched? Or do you just build what ever units you have designed and they get the latest tech levels automatically?
Also, I vaguely remember there was going to be an improved personal weapon for infantry. Did you remove that and I didn't see it or was that just an idea?
You can't assign a commander to a formation without an HQ and you can't pass on higher-formation bonuses to formations without an HQ.
If you gain higher tech, you will need to design and research new units. For example, House Reichmann has a Panzer III, which is a Medium Vehicle with MAV and CAP using base tech 6 armour and 6 weapon. If armour and weapon tech increases to 8, they could create a Panzer III Ausf B with the same components but higher overall capability and update the formation template for the Panzer Kompanie with the new design (so newer formations will incorporate the update design). Existing formations (as in the real world) will retain the older vehicle.
I haven't coded it yet but my intention is to allow swapping of equipment between formation elements so you can re-equip high morale elements.
For example, you build a new formation of 100 Panzer III Ausf Bs, with 100 morale. You also have an existing formation element of 50 Panzer IIIs with 200 morale. You will be able to swap 50 of the Panzer III Ausf Bs in the new formation element with the older model in the elite formation element.
The elite formation still has 200 morale but now has the updated tank, while the new formation has 50 of the older tank and 50 Ausf Bs. Effectively, you are passing on the new tank to the elite crews (although the crew itself is not tracked specifically).
It would be great if formations would update automatically and take new equipment based on priority so you don't have to micromanage everything. I guess you need to implement a way for the AI to do it anyway.
Something like the Missile Series is a good idea, but I wouldn't want my existing formations auto-upgrading. Having the option to upgrade, sure, but 99% of the time I want a new battalion of Death Commandos, not a 12% improvement to my existing battalion.
At least one of us is going to be disappointed. . .
Steve, any chance we get a long range light bombardment component? There are a lot of armies with large infantry mortars that don't really fit with what I would consider Medium bombardment. Or maybe I'm just spoiled for choices now lol.aren't mortars short range bombardment?
Yes but there is a decent difference in range between a 60mm mortar and a 81mm or 120mm mortar. Likewise you couldn't really compare those mortars to, say, a 75mm pack howitzer.
Yeah that's totally fair. Maybe what I'm really asking for is a slightly more damaging short range bombardment weapon. I only brought it up because there is a distinction in historical and modern armies between light and heavy mortars. I figure now is the time to ask.
Yeah that's totally fair. Maybe what I'm really asking for is a slightly more damaging short range bombardment weapon. I only brought it up because there is a distinction in historical and modern armies between light and heavy mortars. I figure now is the time to ask.
One thing I am considering adding is some form of flamethrower equivalent. Low penetration, high damage, treats fortifications as half normal value, can only be used by formations on Front-Line Attack and is destroyed if damaged.
One thing I am considering adding is some form of flamethrower equivalent. Low penetration, high damage, treats fortifications as half normal value, can only be used by formations on Front-Line Attack and is destroyed if damaged.
You could genericise it to some form of "Close Assault Equipment" I guess
Agreed, the ground combat overhaul/revamp is a pretty massive thing and it is possible that during playtesting, especially after we all get C# in our grubby mitts, bunch of weird things are discovered and need to be fixed. Steve has promised us some surprises from the spoilers on the ground combat front too, for which I am very excited.
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=9792. msg113564#msg113564 date=1554137532Agreed, the ground combat overhaul/revamp is a pretty massive thing and it is possible that during playtesting, especially after we all get C# in our grubby mitts, bunch of weird things are discovered and need to be fixed. Steve has promised us some surprises from the spoilers on the ground combat front too, for which I am very excited.
There will definitely be bugs and unintended consequences :)
I am fixing a lot of minor bugs at the moment as I am playing the latest campaign, most recently in the Swarm code :)
It would be great if you had an engage flag for each planet and if both sides set that flag to not engage then there will not be any fighting there at all. But it would require both sides to agree on none engagement.
AFAIK, in VB6 Aurora if both sides refrain from attacking, their ground forces sit still. Attack order must be give at each colony, there is no universal "attack on every colony across the galaxy"-button. I don't think that was changed, or was it? It's been a while since I had ground war on Earth between multiple factions but I recall it went like that.
Just a question, is the idea of combat-walker unit type scratched? Or its just covered by Vehicle type? maybe there can be some sub-category or special module to turn vehicle into a walker with some sort of bonuses?
Just a question, is the idea of combat-walker unit type scratched? Or its just covered by Vehicle type? maybe there can be some sub-category or special module to turn vehicle into a walker with some sort of bonuses?There's also no wheeled - tracked - hover - flying - swimming - diving - or any other locomotive types. That's all up to the player in how to specify and describe their units. Steve has used WH40k and WW2 flavour in many of his examples but the sky is the limit here. If a sub-category for walking vehicles is added, then there must be sub-categories for every other type as well, and since every body just has one generic terrain type, they wouldn't really have any meaningful game mechanics change, meaning that it's a lot of work for Steve to add them for very little gain. As with the details of most things in Aurora, it is probably best to leave it up to the imagination of the players. That way everyone can RP their units in the way they want and fits best with the themes of their game. If I want flying steam tanks, I'll have flying steam tanks! ;D
Mechs are overrated anyway and anything a mech can do, you can do the same and better for cheaper by improving a tank.
just wanted to mention that irl cruise missiles fly low to the ground because the curvature of the earth blocks them from being seen, giving them less time to be reacted to compared to the faster high altitude missiles that can be detected from far away. I have no idea if this is relevant to c# ground combat, but it might be worth noting so i'm mentioning it.There is currently no territory in C# combat and neither does the game calculate LOS between space and planets, since each planet/moon/asteroid is just a dot. So there's no hiding behind a moon nor are the planetary surface-to-space weapons ever incapable of firing at space ships, or anything like that.
Currently by the rules posted by Steve:
* Light AA will only fire if it is directly attacked, in other words is part of the formation attacked by enemy fighters.
* Medium AA will only fire if a sub-ordinate formation, in a direct line, is attacked by enemy fighters or in above situation.
* Heavy AA will fire in both above situations, but also will take potshots freely at any enemy fighters (ground support, bombardment, CAP).
This means that creating special AA-only formations only works with Heavy AA. If we want to shield our ground units from enemy fighters, Light AA needs to be in each formation and Medium AA will need to be directly attached to a superior formation.
So, creating an AA battalion for a division is counter-productive if it consists of Light or Medium AA. Instead, players should create AA units out of Heavy AA, put Medium AA together with division/battalion HQs (or whatever equivalent they are using) and put Light AA into front line units where it can both improve ground combat as well as help bleed out enemy fighters.
Currently by the rules posted by Steve:
* Light AA will only fire if it is directly attacked, in other words is part of the formation attacked by enemy fighters.
* Medium AA will only fire if a sub-ordinate formation, in a direct line, is attacked by enemy fighters or in above situation.
* Heavy AA will fire in both above situations, but also will take potshots freely at any enemy fighters (ground support, bombardment, CAP).
This means that creating special AA-only formations only works with Heavy AA. If we want to shield our ground units from enemy fighters, Light AA needs to be in each formation and Medium AA will need to be directly attached to a superior formation.
So, creating an AA battalion for a division is counter-productive if it consists of Light or Medium AA. Instead, players should create AA units out of Heavy AA, put Medium AA together with division/battalion HQs (or whatever equivalent they are using) and put Light AA into front line units where it can both improve ground combat as well as help bleed out enemy fighters.
Alternately put heavy AA in frontline units so they pull double duty, since the heavy AA will fire at fighters from wherever but only AA in front line units will contribute to ground combat, medium AA in command units, and light AA in units you feel are particularly vulnerable to air attack (such as supporting artillery or possibly fragile STO weapon batteries).
Would you in general want to risk expensive pieces of equipment in the front line?!?
To be honest I would probably not place heavy equipment that is not armoured and designed for front line duty in the front line. If you place them further back the chances of them being hit is reduces significantly.
The only time I would place them there is if I'm loosing and I need all the firepower I can get or it might be the only good anti armour guns I have like the German 88mm gun in WW2, although that would probably be a medium type gun in Aurora terms.
Would you in general want to risk expensive pieces of equipment in the front line?!?
To be honest I would probably not place heavy equipment that is not armoured and designed for front line duty in the front line. If you place them further back the chances of them being hit is reduces significantly.
The only time I would place them there is if I'm loosing and I need all the firepower I can get or it might be the only good anti armour guns I have like the German 88mm gun in WW2, although that would probably be a medium type gun in Aurora terms.
Yes. I mean, if the front line dies the support equipment is going to die too. And while you risk losing them instead of infantry/tanks if they're on the front line, "instead" is an important word here, since any shots that hit them would otherwise be hitting other units. So a unit which has its AA in the front line will have both more HP and more firepower, and thus almost certainly win against a similar force which keeps them in reserve. It's more expensive to replace the losses, sure, but it's less expensive than to replace the entire force if it loses.
I suppose it might make a good argument for dedicated heavy AA formations - then you can have it on support for easy mop up operations where you want to take losses on the expensive equipment, but change it to front line if it's a fight you're worried about actually losing and need to maximize your effectiveness (especially if there's no enemy aircraft and they are otherwise useless).
Meanwhile, putting light AA in front line positions is only better than non-AA options if enemy air attacks your front line units - and generally air is going to prefer to target literally anything else than the units designed to take a pounding.
Would you in general want to risk expensive pieces of equipment in the front line?!?
To be honest I would probably not place heavy equipment that is not armoured and designed for front line duty in the front line. If you place them further back the chances of them being hit is reduces significantly.
The only time I would place them there is if I'm loosing and I need all the firepower I can get or it might be the only good anti armour guns I have like the German 88mm gun in WW2, although that would probably be a medium type gun in Aurora terms.
Yes. I mean, if the front line dies the support equipment is going to die too. And while you risk losing them instead of infantry/tanks if they're on the front line, "instead" is an important word here, since any shots that hit them would otherwise be hitting other units. So a unit which has its AA in the front line will have both more HP and more firepower, and thus almost certainly win against a similar force which keeps them in reserve. It's more expensive to replace the losses, sure, but it's less expensive than to replace the entire force if it loses.
I suppose it might make a good argument for dedicated heavy AA formations - then you can have it on support for easy mop up operations where you want to take losses on the expensive equipment, but change it to front line if it's a fight you're worried about actually losing and need to maximize your effectiveness (especially if there's no enemy aircraft and they are otherwise useless).
Meanwhile, putting light AA in front line positions is only better than non-AA options if enemy air attacks your front line units - and generally air is going to prefer to target literally anything else than the units designed to take a pounding.
If it is a hard fight and it is close or you are otherwise loosing. Otherwise I don't think a few AA shot does much if what most you shoot at are enemy infantry anyway. In case you are in a good lead then having them lost to enemy infantry is a bit like wasting minerals to be honest when a few more infantry losses overall will matter very little in the big picture.
The AA guns has much wider front than regular infantry so they are quite easily hit in comparison to regular infantry and dies almost as easily while providing rather little firepower against infantry in comparison. That is probably why you stick to light AA in the front line in general.
I would say the same thing with anti-armour assets as well, might as well withdraw them as long as the opponent have mostly infantry on the front line and throw them on the line when their armour take up a wider area of the battle space. That way you save their effective fire-power to matter. An expensive anti-armour cannon hitting mostly infantry is not terribly efficient and only risk their destruction for nothing.
Again, if the combat is hard fought then you obviously throw everything on the front line, but if you want to conserve your resources for the next fight you might try and sacrifice mostly light units that is more easily replaced.
I think we're just approaching things from fundamentally different directions, then. Your ideas make sense if you're confident you're going to win and want to minimize losses - for example, dropping a large assault force on a small garrison. Whereas I'm viewing things from the expectation that the entire force might lose and thus being a few percent stronger is worth having to pay a few percent more for reinforcements (if they survive at all) - important for, say, a planetary garrison where who knows what you might face, and even if you lose you'll want to inflict as many losses as possible. This is doubly true for things like withdrawing frontline anti-vehicle units if there aren't any enemy vehicles.
Keep in mind that while it's certainly wise to withdraw frontline anti vehicle units when enemy vehicles are non-existent, there's also something to be said for leaving the tanks on the front anyway, even with the heavy and expensive anti vehicle guns.
Because they'll soak a good chunk of the enemy that would otherwise be hitting the infantry, and tanks are a lot more sturdy. You just need to be careful of enemy anti vehicle formations.
Which means that it will probably make sense to create tank heavy and tank light formations, or in other words, "good" terrain armies and "bad" terrain armies. Former would be used on planets that allow only few levels of fortifications, the latter on planets that allow many levels of fortification.
I posted my earlier thing about AA mainly as a reminder to myself but to everyone else who is like me and wants to make "realistic" combined arms units that follow modern OOB and TO&E.
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=9792. msg117069#msg117069 date=1574191548Which means that it will probably make sense to create tank heavy and tank light formations, or in other words, "good" terrain armies and "bad" terrain armies. Former would be used on planets that allow only few levels of fortifications, the latter on planets that allow many levels of fortification.
I posted my earlier thing about AA mainly as a reminder to myself but to everyone else who is like me and wants to make "realistic" combined arms units that follow modern OOB and TO&E.
Yeah. . . I basically made this one at work today because I was bored and in a long dreary meeting. . .
Mechanized Brigade
1x Brigade HQ section
1x Heavy Support Company
5x Mechanized Companies
I really like the thought you put in designing this hierarchy. I would suggest that you make it a Mechanized Battalion as opposed to a Brigade. Platoons -> Companies -> Battalions -> Regiments (Not always used) -> Brigades
That would also help with rank structure within the force.
Understandable, your organization is to suit your RP after all. I personally like the idea of basing mine off the Marine Air Ground Task Force, just integrating what is needed for that particular mission, whether it be armor, infantry, support, air support etc. with built in logistical support. Armies do use Brigade Combat Teams, their own expeditionary version. However they use the traditional companies within battalions to make it up.
In terms of small versus large formation I remember that Steve did something to the mechanic to make small formations work, don't remember what that was though.
what benefit is there to being front line defense instead of attack? i can imagine entrenchment but can't find a statement that confirms this clearly. you lose less morale for getting your tail kicked, but that seems... not a great thing to be banking on.
in the crusade fiction, there is a ground action where it is observed the Bad Guys can't attack to disrupt the Good Guys fortifying without giving up their own entrenchment bonus. But after the Good Guys fortify, they go back to fighting, presumably with some kind of benefit for having done so. whatever the Good Guys did later, why couldn't the Bad Guys have done that sooner?
since hit points associate pretty closely with armor, (infy is 2/1, tanks are 4/4 6/6 or 9/12) and have interchangeable effects, a lot of pen/ damage combos seem to be pretty worthless. i mean, when you mount a heavy autocannon, exactly what target are you wishing for? having hit points be warhammer-style "wounds" instead of "toughness" is probably too big a change, but maybe have some interaction between penetration/ damage and fortification? just throwing this out there, you've already got a collateral damage mechanic, maybe have entrenchment levels of the unit you're shooting at be a likely target of the collateral?
steve, "many small formations" only works if, *after* accepting an automatic second attack each battle round, *after* adjusting for the possibility you get kicked in the rear (echelon), if your targets are so small that i am _still_ wasting some of my offensive potential. iow, your formations need to be appreciably smaller than _half_ of what my big formations can kill in a single battle round. I may be mis-estimating the lethality of combat but i don't think you've got a very effective counterweight to Stack O Death TM.
Without a significant rework, i think you need to control pretty carefully the way HQ and commander traits determine maximum formation size.
I have some ideas; i'll pass them along in a word doc so they're more convenient to ignore. don't want to be That Guy From the Internet, ya know.
steve, "many small formations" only works if, *after* accepting an automatic second attack each battle round, *after* adjusting for the possibility you get kicked in the rear (echelon), if your targets are so small that i am _still_ wasting some of my offensive potential. iow, your formations need to be appreciably smaller than _half_ of what my big formations can kill in a single battle round. I may be mis-estimating the lethality of combat but i don't think you've got a very effective counterweight to Stack O Death TM.
Without a significant rework, i think you need to control pretty carefully the way HQ and commander traits determine maximum formation size.
I have some ideas; i'll pass them along in a word doc so they're more convenient to ignore. don't want to be That Guy From the Internet, ya know.
Before you go into too much detail, bear in mind that the AI won't be using either the stack of death or a lot of tiny formations. The ground combat is detailed so that players can role-play a huge variety of ground force formations, rather than find the most efficient formation size for any given situation. So far I have designed small formations such as a Space Marine Platoon or an SS Panzerkompanie and large formations such as an Imperial Guard regiment, but none of those were designed purely with formation size as a goal in itself. They were just intended to match the genre of the campaign.
If it turns out to be correct that the best strategy is one massive formation or many tiny formations, the only person who can choose to use that 'exploit' is the player and TBH that doesn't sound like much fun, so I don't expect it will be a major issue.
At the moment, the area I might change is the 'two fortified armies fighting' situation. I need to give it a lot more thought though.
Sorry if this was asked or clarified already, but is there a way to model the base combat abilities of different species? For instance, having an Ork be stronger and bigger than a human.
Sorry if this was asked or clarified already, but is there a way to model the base combat abilities of different species? For instance, having an Ork be stronger and bigger than a human.
I probably would give Orks a lower species score for Ground Combat in Aurora terms than humans because intelligence and fine motor skills probably are way more important for war than strength. ;)
Orks, err, sorry, "Rakhas"
Orks probably would not even make for a coherent regular Aurora empire species, they would be much better fitted with some Marauder special NPC who raid other empires for resources and technology. They would not actually take planets, just invade and loot them and then leave as fast as they turned up.
Give them some special technology to move between systems in a different way so their scrapyard armadas show up, attack and raid anywhere... would be pretty scary. ;)
Orks, err, sorry, "Rakhas"
I thought someone as geeky as myself would have picked this up by now but...
Rakhas means Orcs, but in Khuzdul, the language of the Dwarves of Middle-Earth :)
Was that just going a nerd-step too far? :)
Quote from: Bremen link=topic=9792. msg117647#msg117647 date=1577137864Orks, err, sorry, "Rakhas"
I thought someone as geeky as myself would have picked this up by now but. . .
Rakhas means Orcs, but in Khuzdul, the language of the Dwarves of Middle-Earth :)
Was that just going a nerd-step too far? :)
If you know the real Canadian Table of Organization and Equipment, please add it to my Real World 21st Century templates thread. Better to have as many as possible!
- I don't know of any publicly posted cost info, which means I can't measure cost efficiency. In practice, this will probably matter a lot. UHVs are amazing on a per-ton basis, for example, but I'd wager they'll stink on a per-BP basis.
A supplied ground force has double the fire rate than a force that is lacking supply
You're not the first one to post that Auto Cannons seem weak. There's definitely a niche there, a weapon that combines anti-personnel and anti-vehicle firepower into a single weapon. Obviously, they can't be better than the dedicated weapons in their role, but since every vehicle has at least two slots, I'm not sure if it is better to have an AC+something instead of just CAP+AV combo.
- I'm not sure what I think about increasing vehicle sizes while keeping armour levels down. You can fit more weapons per ton on a V than 2x LV, since the V is 18 tons with 2 slots compared to 12 tons with 1 slot. If you keep the V to x2 armour, it's also less BP, since it's fewer tons with the same armour. Assuming enemy weapons do <= 3 damage, the extra HP makes it 78% more survivable as well, which is good recompense for putting two eggs in one basket.
(Someone posted about how infantry-based supplies shouldn't be the most efficient option, but it's disappeared before I started writing this)
An easy fix would be to make the full-sized logistics module unavailable on infantry, and to make the small module 25 tons instead of 10. 100 supplies for 0.5 BP is less efficient than 500 supplies for 2.48 BP, and the vehicles would be better protected if your front line breaks. The infantry will only be very slightly more expensive, though, and will still be usable for things like marine forces.
78% more survivable compared to a single light vehicle; since in this scenario it's two light vehicles vs 1 normal vehicle, it's actually 22% less survivable in exchange for being cheaper and lighter (and there's some benefit to not losing firepower after one of the two is destroyed). Light Vehicles also have a really nice hit modifier when unfortified, which makes them attractive for assault forces.
As for autocannons, I agree the stats we have seem weak but they may have changed since, and even if they haven't it may be best to wait on balancing until there's wider scale playtesting.
Shouldn't infantry based supply be the most efficient? They can only supply their own formation while vehicle based supplies can supply other formations (and do it from the support position to avoid being directly attacked). Infantry based supply is strictly inferior but cheaper.
It is 4x the fire rate, so supply makes a huge difference.
As for autocannons; something to keep in mind is that they're decent at all jobs. Frankly, when enemies start fielding power armoured and/or genetically enhanced infantry you will start to see autocannons doing a very good job, as they'll chew through enemy PA/GE infantry and light vehicles much better than the anti personnel weaponry that generally lacks the punch to deal with the extra armour and hitpoints those units have, while having a much better firing rate.
I might be mistaken but I believe STO weapons are Static units only.
I didn't build a full-fledged calculator, but I did make an Excel sheet more advanced than my last one, so I could compute overall performance of units, in a somewhat less theoretical setting. This still doesn't take into account morale, orbital bombardment, fighters, generals, terrain, or breakthrough rules, but it does allow for calculations of whole formations shooting at each other, and includes hit chances and fortification levels.
For a simple example, I took the units I built back on page 10 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg117682#msg117682). I had an armour regiment attack an infantry regiment. Each was supported by a proportional part of the brigade and divisional artillery, so 9 medium bombardment and 4x heavy bombardment modules each. Since the armoured unit is a much bigger and scarier force, I compensated by saying that the infantry has reached max dig-in(including construction vehicles), while the armour has none.
As I expected from a combat system this clean, it's pretty well balanced. The armour unit kills 37 BP of defenders in the first round, but spends 20 BP of vehicle-based supply to do it. The infantry actually kills 54 BP worth of attackers, and only burns 12 BP of vehicle-based supply to do it. From an economic point of view, this tenacious defence is pretty effective. But the attacker will still win, as it's a much heavier unit which can withstand those losses. The losses on the attacker's side only represent 4.2% of his force in BP terms, whereas the defender has lost 16.8% of his BP.
It is to be noted that that armoured force is about 4 times the industrial commitment of the infantry force it was facing, and while it was effectively taking down the infantry even with the infantry well fortified, it seems fairly clear that against an equal BP force that has been properly entrenched bringing equal BP forces to bear on them is non-viable without a major technology or support advantage.
Likewise of interest is how the odds shift when the defenders haven't had the help of construction vehicles to dig in. It'd definitely move in the favour of the attacker, but by how much is the question.
PWL will probably also do pretty well shielding HQ units, or basically any force that should not be on the frontline but is likely to get shot at during the course of the battle. AA formations and artillery are particularly likely targets of enemy fire.
Terrain will matter. A lot. Mostly because of the to-hit and fortification modifiers. The more the terrain protects either side, the more you will want to bring extra supplies for the rate of fire advantage it gives. On desert planets you probably don't need to bring a formation of supply vehicles to back up the stores in the units themselves because with equal forces the battle will be over pretty quickly. When on a mountainous, rifts, forested or jungle planet, or worse any combination of the above, that assumption is flat out wrong.
It would be fair to consider the question of how useful PAI forces are in the assault role compared to a similar BP and a similar weight of unarmoured infantry, if you are willing to run a simulation. Given that they would have different commitments in BP for the same weight.
Something to keep in mind is that you're testing formations with no anti-heavy vehicle weapons. It's true infantry can't use anything bigger than light anti vehicle, but static can, and they get similar fortification values to infantry. I was playing around with possible formations, and I came up with the following for my "cheap planetary garrison":
Garrison Regiment (5,000 tons)
1 Regimental HQ (AR 3, Static-HQ 5000, 112 tons)
548 Troopers (AR 1, Inf-PW, 5 tons)
58 Anti-Tank Squads (AR 1, Inf-LAV, 16 tons)
50 Supply Caches (AR 1, Inf-LOG-S, 10 tons)
6 Anti-Tank Emplacement (AR 1, Static-HAV, 60 tons)
5 Anti-Air Emplacement (AR 1, Static-HAA, 72 tons)
(the artillery was in a separate command formation)
Also units that don't fight, like command units, can be given the "avoid combat" tag to make it much less likely they take hits.
I also rather like the front-line HAA because of a quirk in the rules - LAA is as good in the front line as anywhere(since it can only cover its own unit), and HAA is equally good anywhere(since it can shoot at anything), but MAA really wants to be in a supporting position so it can back up several subordinate units at once. HAA also makes a pretty good anti-tank gun on top of that, roughly comparable to MAV(though twice the size). For a real garrison force, I think this would be a reasonable choice. Back it up with some supporting STO weapon emplacements, of course.
The one quibble I'd make here is the infantry logistics. They get massacred - you're losing 9 a round to enemy fire, and only consuming 2-3 per round for supply needs. You might do better to swap them out for another 100 riflemen, switch to vehicle logistics at the support level, and accept the increased supply cost in exchange for decreased impact of enemy fire.
I didn't see that rule - I know you can set a while formation to support/rear, but not individual units within a formation. I can't see it in Steve's change log or screenshots, but I know there's probably a lot I've missed. That'd make HQs and the like a lot better. It'd also soften what I said above about infantry-based supply.
3) When you design a ground unit class, you can designate it as a 'Non-Combat Class'. A class with this designation suffers an 80% penalty to hit and any hostile unit selecting targets treats this unit as 80% smaller. This could be used for supply vehicles, HQs, FFD units, etc. It is intended to simulate the type of unit that will actively avoid combat and is therefore much less likely to be chosen as a target. This applies regardless of field position.
In double-checking things while posting this comment, I realize that I seem to have misunderstood the supply rules a bit. The supply amount listed for a unit is the amount for a full 10-round resupply, not the per-round usage. That means I overstated my supply usage above by a factor of 10. I also grossly oversupplied my units in the formation design post on page 10 that I was basing this on. I thought I was providing 13 rounds of fire for the formation, but I was actually providing 130 rounds. I'll want to adjust that substantially. (No wonder the supply requirements felt so onerous!)
For sure, but a BP advantage for the attacker is expected. The attacker is hitting one planet at a time, while the defender needs to garrison all their planets. Similarly, space-efficient attacking forces(even at the cost of more BP per unit of combat power) are entirely expected, because of the cost of building troop transports.
Losses per round go up by about 70%. Everything gets twice as easy to hit, except the HQ, which is only 50% easier.
Of note - the math breaks down a bit here. The attacker is getting credit for 1.3 kills on the HQ per round, but of course there's only one HQ in the force. As a result, the loss cost is slightly overstated. Again, don't take these numbers too literally.
My understanding is that they can be held behind the front lines, and mostly avoid combat that way. You're at risk of breakthroughs, but at that point you're already in trouble.
Changing the infantry defenders from 1 armour to 2 armour means they go from losing 36.83 BP/round to losing 40.19 BP/round. Losses fall substantially(from 87 units to 54 per round), but since the cost of all infantry has just doubled, the net effect is a bit detrimental. You save more forces for future rounds, though, so a more detailed multi-round model might show it being somewhat advantageous.
It'd probably be a good plan if your primary limitation is troop transport and not BP, though. Marines getting power armour looks like a good decision, and maybe also landing forces.
Interesting. This is a good point - my force was originally intended to work in mixed formations alongside armour units, but that means it's not expecting to do its own heavy lifting at anti-tank work. Yours is more balanced in this regard.
And sure enough, its performance improves a lot. Those AT emplacements do amazing work - each one costs 1.2 BP, and kills 6.75 BP per round. The sum total for the unit is that it'd take 22.85 BP per round of damage, and inflict 95.41 BP worth.
I also rather like the front-line HAA because of a quirk in the rules - LAA is as good in the front line as anywhere(since it can only cover its own unit), and HAA is equally good anywhere(since it can shoot at anything), but MAA really wants to be in a supporting position so it can back up several subordinate units at once. HAA also makes a pretty good anti-tank gun on top of that, roughly comparable to MAV(though twice the size). For a real garrison force, I think this would be a reasonable choice. Back it up with some supporting STO weapon emplacements, of course.
Thank you for the info. That makes a bigger difference than you might expect. Instead of killing 37 BP/round, the attacker only kills 19 BP/round instead. The defender's HQ getting blown up was a huge part of the attacker's damage. The attacker's losses also drop, from 54 BP/round to 47 BP/round, but that's much less drastic. Using your garrison force, the updated values are it killing 86.99 BP/round and losing 19.89 BP/round, so roughly comparable ratios.
I'm also much more bullish on infantry logistics than I was previously. Your unit goes from losing 9/round to enemy fire down to 2/round, for example.
Thats actually pretty disappointing, the idea of giant rolling surface to orbit tanks greatly amuses me.always imagined they were one of these bad boys, except with massive railgun on the back instead of a missile
that's an entire structure build around the gun so it can fire repeatedly without the whole thing tipping over.Wrong, unless firing at horizon, orbital targets would require almost vertical elevation of the barrel, the recoil would be directed downwards and on to the soil.
That's... rather much. It can work out that such a level of supply is necessary though, when a planet is very defensible. 130 rounds of combat works out to about a month of fighting (IIRC 1 round is 6 hours, if it's 3 hours is about 2.5 weeks of fighting), and I can see very well defended planets take that long to get the defenders ground down unless you go in with absolutely overwhelming force, and at that point you are basically committing a vast chunk of your GFTF production for an extended period of time.
True, but at the same time the relative cheapness of stationing and keeping troops in secured space is not to be neglected.
(snip)
...you don't have to provide any supply until soldiers are in combat.
While true, it's relevant to note that bombardment and counterbattery fire are just as random as normal ground unit fire, only fighters flying Flak Suppression missions directly target a specific type of enemy formation. Because of this, having PWL infantry in the formation is just as effective at soaking bombardment fire and keeping valuable formations safe as they are at soaking fire from enemy breakthrough units.
Tagging relevant forces as combat avoidant just makes the PWL 500% as effective as they would normally be, because you wouldn't define them as combat avoidant, you want them to get shot at in such circumstances.
Iterative testing would be required here, yes. I would expect that the compounding effect of losing about 1/3rd less units is helpful, because that also means you lose 1/3rd less firepower over time. It's definitely something that will require a bit of thought though, because it also means that you are effectively bringing 1/2 the infantry to the fight on the same production budget. It's one of those 'we could equip everyone with 5 million credits worth of equipment and see them swarmed and torn apart, or we could equip everyone with 500 000 thousand credits worth of equipment and lose half of them and win anyway' cases.
It wouldn't be the first time where the numerically superior side wins on count of being numerically superior and having more guns to shoot, despite the enemy being better protected.
Those AT emplacements do amazing work - each one costs 1.2 BP, and kills 6.75 BP per round. The sum total for the unit is that it'd take 22.85 BP per round of damage, and inflict 95.41 BP worth.
That's a pretty damn good trade.
More like such a formation would be the ground security complement for the STO emplacements. Those HAA units are rather expensive in supplies for an AT weapon, but the question of 'do I deploy them forward and risk them getting shot apart by ground forces early but deter enemy tanks' or 'do I keep them in the back so they can bully enemy airpower but get flattened in an instant in a breakthrough' is an entirely valid one that I expect will depend at least in part on what sort of enemy forces you are facing. I'd move them forward sooner with an enemy assault force with a large armour component.
If you are losing logistics to enemy fire from non-breakthrough units it might be worth reconsidering forward deploying logistics units. Due to how logistics work they are always at risk, and the highest logistics unit in the planetary OOB gets drained first anyway. It might work out better to have a small(ish) vehicular logistics unit attached to the force but separate and kept in the rear, where it's not as likely to get flattened during the fighting unless the battle is lost anyway.
Because in any fight where that garrison force is part of a higher command with vehicle supply units on hand, supply integrated in any formation that is likely to take fire is going to be lost supply. So you wouldn't want to put infantry supply forces forward anyway except when your forces have drained their supply pool and need a top up, which is just a micromanagement hell issue, and you want to keep your logistics vehicles as far back as possible because they are going to supply everything down the chain of command from the HQ they are attached to anyway.
The most efficient use of infantry supply units in a way that doesn't create a micromanagement problem would be to use them to supply to MAA and HAA units away from the frontlines who are likely to be targeted by fighters on Flak Suppression missions, which don't target non-AA unit elements, and nowhere else as no other units would not be fired upon while having a draw on supply.
Wrong, unless firing at horizon, orbital targets would require almost vertical elevation of the barrel, the recoil would be directed downwards and on to the soil.
Oh, it's insane. I thought I needed that to get 13 rounds of resupply, which felt reasonable. But 130 is bonkers. I'd probably cut about 80-90% of that supply force in favour of either construction vehicles/STO forces (if I expect the units to stay as garrison after conquering a planet), or just reducing the total size of the force. Supply was over 20% of the all-in cost of that division, so it's a meaningful difference.
Remember that ground forces require upkeep. The Wealth cost to keep forces even when they're not fighting represents these costs. It's not a BP cost, but it'll still be meaningful.
Remember that avoiding combat also reduces their offensive firepower 80%. So it'll work fine for supply, HQ, and FFD units, but you wouldn't want to use it for artillery, AA, or STO.
Not that expensive - they're comparable to MAV in anti-tank work(3 AP/6 damage/18 supply for HAA, 4 AP/4 damage/16 supply for MAV). They do fire twice a round because of the extra AA phase, and thus use double the supplies, but you'll need to fire the AA from somewhere regardless. The big costs are that it's about twice the size (60 tons vs 32), so you won't want to use AA unless you actually expect enemy air power, and that if you lose the unit you lose both the AV and AA weapons instead of them being broken up.
Yeah, infantry supply for the AA/arty formation behind the front lines sounds like a solid plan to me.
That's far too strong a claim to simply say "wrong". A STO weapon can presumably fire at an entire hemisphere over the horizon. Most of that isn't straight up.
That said, you don't need to be static to open fire at an angle with heavy ordinance. Artillery exists. A 10cm railgun is 150 tons - that's well within the realm where real-world mobile artillery has been built. The biggest gun ever built (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav) was 1350 tons = 27 HS, and that was (barely) mobile. It could also fire at any angle from flat to 48 degrees up, which is to say all the angles where recoil mostly isn't straight down.
I think "STO can only be static" is a reasonable game rule, not least because it means that the installations can't be too insanely fortified. If you could put them on UHVs, the natural way to defend would probably just be to spam all-in-one Ogres, and that would be both boring and stupid. But the better argument here is gameplay, not realism, IMO.
That's... rather much. It can work out that such a level of supply is necessary though, when a planet is very defensible. 130 rounds of combat works out to about a month of fighting (IIRC 1 round is 6 hours, if it's 3 hours is about 2.5 weeks of fighting), and I can see very well defended planets take that long to get the defenders ground down unless you go in with absolutely overwhelming force, and at that point you are basically committing a vast chunk of your GFTF production for an extended period of time.One round of combat is 8 hours, so you get 3 rounds per day. Every unit inherently has supply for 10 rounds of combat so without extra supply units you can go 80 hours at full steam before switching to half unless supplied.
I have noticed that combat seems to be quick and brutal, doesn't matter how big the forces involved are. We say 43 days is a ludicrously long time for a ground invasion to last, but we have to ask what the purpose of ground based defences are?
Since STO's cannot actually force enemies out of the system, the best that planetary defences can do is to delay and hold on until a mobile force can arrive to retake the space. With that in mind... is even 30 days a reasonable time to hold out for the cavalry to arrive? Isn't it a bit short? Especially since 30 days is very much an optimistic estimate.
I guess all I am asking is if combat should perhaps slow down slightly to allow the greater strategic picture more time to evolve while the fight is ongoing.
Is it possible to create templates for real world nations that Aurora uses at game start? Is this something that we as players could help by creating American, British, Russian, Chinese and so on gear and formations using the information you provided? This would help immensely with the multi-faction Earth starts that use real countries.
Definitely possible to have preset templates.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg108838#msg108838Is it possible to create templates for real world nations that Aurora uses at game start? Is this something that we as players could help by creating American, British, Russian, Chinese and so on gear and formations using the information you provided? This would help immensely with the multi-faction Earth starts that use real countries.
Definitely possible to have preset templates.
Which is why I created this thread:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10116.0
so that we could make real 21st-century - and maybe later real 20th-century ground unit and ground formation templates.
Steve hasn't given us any updates since though.
If you make a very heavy PWL infantry formation, won't it be a highly effective bullet sponge? I'm not good at maths so I can't run a simulation like some other people have here, but would the cost in BP from losing PWLs be less than actually putting a more expensive formation on the line? The heavy formation would mean it's likely to be attacked first.
It'll mostly be useful by letting you move around the in game technology costs when developing your formations. You do need to research the units you intend to use, and that application will let you take a look at how large and costly a formation might end up being.
It'll be even better if you make that application capable of responding to technology levels. Armour technology directly influences the unit's protection values and the highest of the weapon technologies directly influences the unit's attack values after all.
If you make a very heavy PWL infantry formation, won't it be a highly effective bullet sponge? I'm not good at maths so I can't run a simulation like some other people have here, but would the cost in BP from losing PWLs be less than actually putting a more expensive formation on the line? The heavy formation would mean it's likely to be attacked first.
PW backed by artillery and/or ground attack fighters would work even better, and lean much less heavily on the collateral damage heavy support formations to do damage.
PWL+arty sounds like a very fitting combination.
Now, artillery formations with PWL security attached to absorb bullets for the moments the enemy breaks through the lines or performs counter battery? That does work.
Now, artillery formations with PWL security attached to absorb bullets for the moments the enemy breaks through the lines or performs counter battery? That does work.
in fact, it doesn't. add five thousand tons of meat shield to your 5000 ton arty formation, sure they sink half the hits the formation takes, but they also make the formation twice the target size. infy in your support and rear formations are protecting your _front line_ formations to the extent they are doing anything, which isn't much.
You're running into the simulationist vs gamist problem, that all strategy games grapple with. What you're asking for is actually a gamist solution. Infantry assigned to artillery don't actually protect it except against other infantry, and they will make it an easier target to hit because you have more "stuff" to destroy. Same with armoured/mechanized infantry - while the grunts and the vehicles can work well together, they are also both vulnerable to enemy fire.
The current system is actually surprisingly simulationist even though it's relatively simple.
Hostile formations are checked for their weighted size. This is based on actual size for front line size, 25% for support and 5% for rear-echelon. Each hostile formation is given a range for potential selection, based on its weighted size.
Each front line friendly formation randomly targets a hostile formation. Friendly units with front line defence can target hostile front line formations. Friendly units with front line attack can target any hostile formation, although support and rear echelon are less likely given their smaller weighted size. In fact, the more formations that are pushed into front line positions, the less likely it is that rear areas will be attacked.
That is sort of how it works in real life, you don't keep all your combat troops at the front for many different reasons.Aurora doesn't model operational level for ground combat. We jump from strategic level straight into tactical level. On tactical level, infantry does not protect artillery in real life. For infantry to have meaningful protection in the current model, you would need to include some sort gamist"special ability" that forces enemy to target your infantry instead of your artillery. Or Steve would need to include operational level into the ground combat model, which I doubt he is interested in.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you Jorgen and misanthropope.
Currently, your artillery unit in the Rear/Support echelon is pretty safe from enemy units until your Front echelon breaks. You can safely put as many infantry with your artillery as you like, it makes little difference. From Steve:QuoteHostile formations are checked for their weighted size. This is based on actual size for front line size, 25% for support and 5% for rear-echelon. Each hostile formation is given a range for potential selection, based on its weighted size.
Each front line friendly formation randomly targets a hostile formation. Friendly units with front line defence can target hostile front line formations. Friendly units with front line attack can target any hostile formation, although support and rear echelon are less likely given their smaller weighted size. In fact, the more formations that are pushed into front line positions, the less likely it is that rear areas will be attacked.
So your Support echelon artillery unit (light and medium) has to be 4x as large as any individual Front echelon unit to be as likely to get targeted by enemy attacker than your Front echelon unit if you're on the defence. And even then, if you have more Front echelon units, their combined chance to get selected will most likely "lure" the enemy away from your artillery. If your artillery unit is Rear echelon (heavy and long), it has be to 20x as large as Front echelon unit! If you're the attacker, then your Support and Rear echelons are completely safe. Except for enemy bombardment units and fighters of course.
Which means that you have lot of space to pack PWL infantry into the artillery unit before you're making that unit significantly likelier to get hit. And if it does get hit, there's then a higher chance that the PWL infantry are struck instead of the cannons.
So if you're the defender and you have a 250 ton Front unit and a 1000 ton Support unit and nothing else on a planet, then it's 50/50 chances of which one gets hit. But if you have four 250 ton Front units and a single 1000 ton Support unit, the odds are 75/25 for Front echelon units. And since tanks will be just as big if not bigger than artillery, your front line units will both be bigger and more numerous than your support/rear units, most likely.
So yeah adding 5000 tons of meat shields to your 5000 ton artillery unit does not make it twice as likely to get hit. It makes it somewhat more likely to get hit but without knowing what your front line echelon units - attack & defence - look like, the actual odds are impossible to calculate. But they aren't as bad as you make them out to be.
Having said that, while that meat shield would be somewhat useful in a breakthrough situation, the problem is that for that to happen, your Front echelon needs to be pretty badly shredded or outnumbered in the first place, meaning that you would probably have been better off in putting that 5000 tons of PWL infantry into the front line unit instead or artillery, where they could have held out longer.QuoteThat is sort of how it works in real life, you don't keep all your combat troops at the front for many different reasons.Aurora doesn't model operational level for ground combat. We jump from strategic level straight into tactical level. On tactical level, infantry does not protect artillery in real life. For infantry to have meaningful protection in the current model, you would need to include some sort gamist"special ability" that forces enemy to target your infantry instead of your artillery. Or Steve would need to include operational level into the ground combat model, which I doubt he is interested in.
Maybe one day TOAW3 will become open-source and someone will integrate it into Aurora ;D
You don't have to just break through to hit support and rear echelon forces. Attacking forces have always a chance to hit the rear and echelon their size just count for lessYes, exactly as I said in my post and the quote from Steve. But both Support echelon and Rear echelon units are counted significantly smaller than their real size. I gave you numbers and all.
That usually means that putting infantry in the support section will increase the chance of them being hit in the first place every roundNot really because the difference is so huge - 25% for Support echelon and 5% for Rear echelon. Sure, going from 100 tons to 125 tons is an increase but if your Front echelon is 15 units each 1200 tons or more, then the odds have not really been changed in any significant manner.
If you put them in the front they actually protect the rear and echelon allot moreYes, this has not been in dispute and it's how it should be.
Even if you can make a formation 1/5 less likely to attack that does not make infantry better in the rear as they still protect better at the front.That's a different argument and different calculation - you're mixing two things together that should not be mixed together.
The only reason for using small garrison platoons in with your artillery formation will be role-play the way I see it...Yes and not much of that either because AFAIK no army puts "garrison platoons" with artillery.
If we instead could put a few platoons of infantry to protect the artillery and make it allot less likely the artillery is hit instead of the protecting platoon, like a 1/10 chance to hit the artillery instead of the infantry platoon, then it would make sense to attach some infantry to defend the artillery.I think you've been carried away by your own argument. There is a reason to attach PWL/PW infantry to artillery, but that reason isn't so overwhelmingly strong that it would be mandatory.
A quick fix might be to allow ground formations to 'guard' other formations in the same battlefield position. A formation assigned to 'protect' another formation will not be able to attack, irrespective of where it is positioned.
Let us say an Infantry Company is assigned to protect an Artillery Battery stationed in the support position. If the artillery is attacked in this situation, the hostile forces will instead first have to engage the infantry and the artillery will be unharmed till the hostiles break through the infantry. The rules for a breakthrough will be the same as the present rules for breaking through the frontlines.
Hummm... I must have been dreaming of all the MG nests that was used to protect artillery positions in WW2?!?! Artillery regiments had allot of machine guns for the sole purpose of defending the formation, sometimes it came from the MG or AA companies. So this was done... I'm pretty sure there are dedicated defence formation in modern armies too, they just work a bit differently.I'm sorry Jorgen but you were indeed dreaming. One of the best sources for WW2 era Orders of Battle is this website:
In Aurora the "protection" might not be MG nests but more of an operational protection, but the troops are NOT at the front line. As far as I'm aware all modern forces have what is called rear area security forces whose job is to make the area behind the front elements secure so front elements have a safe zone to operate within and keep a defence in depth to protect support elements. So obviously they don't use the same tactics today as in WW2 but they serve the same purposes.Ah, I see where the misconception comes from. Security forces are used to contain and hunt insurgents and partisans and special forces. They are not there to protect artillery against enemy conventional forces. Neither is any military confident that their rear areas are actually secure. Due to increased mobility and operations taking place among large civilian populations, all Western militaries tell their soldiers that there is no secure rear zone anymore. Terms like front line and rear area are falling out of use, being replaced by terms such as area of operations and other similar terms that better describe the more fluid concept of modern battle space.
Please correct me if I'm wrong... I might be...You are wrong because you're still confused about how the target selection calculation happens. You would never ever place an nfantry regiment in the Support echelon. You would place a number of PW/PWL equipped infantry INSIDE the artillery regiment(s). That's what the mechanics are encouraging players to do.
A quick fix might be to allow ground formations to 'guard' other formations in the same battlefield position. A formation assigned to 'protect' another formation will not be able to attack, irrespective of where it is positioned.I would not like that. What is this magical 'guard' ability and where does it come from? Why would some units have it but not all? Does it require certain technologies to be researched before it becomes available? Can I research another technology to train my attacking troops to neutralise the enemy's 'guard' ability? I should be able to have my fighters specifically target 'guard' units so that I can neutralise them first. How does the 'guard' ability work with counter-battery fire or orbital bombardment?
Hummm... I must have been dreaming of all the MG nests that was used to protect artillery positions in WW2?!?! Artillery regiments had allot of machine guns for the sole purpose of defending the formation, sometimes it came from the MG or AA companies. So this was done... I'm pretty sure there are dedicated defence formation in modern armies too, they just work a bit differently.I'm sorry Jorgen but you were indeed dreaming. One of the best sources for WW2 era Orders of Battle is this website:
http://www.niehorster.org/000_admin/000oob.htm (http://www.niehorster.org/000_admin/000oob.htm)
Using it you can see that artillery regiments did not have any organic infantry (or machineguns or anything) attached to them. The only things they had were (in some cases) anti-aicraft machineguns. Because the divisional artillery was protected by the infantry regiments at the front line. The artillery was still vulnerable for sneaky enemy attacks as well as breakthroughs, air attack, and counter-battery fire. Front line units held in reserve are used to stop breakthroughs and reinforce either success or weakness, depending on national doctrine. They are not kept behind to specifically protect support units.In Aurora the "protection" might not be MG nests but more of an operational protection, but the troops are NOT at the front line. As far as I'm aware all modern forces have what is called rear area security forces whose job is to make the area behind the front elements secure so front elements have a safe zone to operate within and keep a defence in depth to protect support elements. So obviously they don't use the same tactics today as in WW2 but they serve the same purposes.Ah, I see where the misconception comes from. Security forces are used to contain and hunt insurgents and partisans and special forces. They are not there to protect artillery against enemy conventional forces. Neither is any military confident that their rear areas are actually secure. Due to increased mobility and operations taking place among large civilian populations, all Western militaries tell their soldiers that there is no secure rear zone anymore. Terms like front line and rear area are falling out of use, being replaced by terms such as area of operations and other similar terms that better describe the more fluid concept of modern battle space.
My point is that what you're asking for would not be an increase in realism. Not for WW2 and not for modernity.Please correct me if I'm wrong... I might be...You are wrong because you're still confused about how the target selection calculation happens. You would never ever place an nfantry regiment in the Support echelon. You would place a number of PW/PWL equipped infantry INSIDE the artillery regiment(s). That's what the mechanics are encouraging players to do.
Remember that unit and formation are two distinct categories and that, when determining targets, there are separate calculations for them.A quick fix might be to allow ground formations to 'guard' other formations in the same battlefield position. A formation assigned to 'protect' another formation will not be able to attack, irrespective of where it is positioned.I would not like that. What is this magical 'guard' ability and where does it come from? Why would some units have it but not all? Does it require certain technologies to be researched before it becomes available? Can I research another technology to train my attacking troops to neutralise the enemy's 'guard' ability? I should be able to have my fighters specifically target 'guard' units so that I can neutralise them first. How does the 'guard' ability work with counter-battery fire or orbital bombardment?
We can see that once you open the can of worms that is gamist special abilities, there is no end to them. Just think of games like Final Fantasy Tactics or the modern X-Com remake. The current system is fairly elegant in its simplicity and I'm not convinced that any problem with protecting high-value support units actually exists.
The organization of the divisional artillery regiment, warhttps://sill-www.army.mil/firesbulletin/archives/1941/MAR_1941/MAR_1941_FULL_EDITION.pdf
strength, is generally as shown above:
Notes: 1. The 105-mm. howitzer battalion is organized
similarly to the 75-mm. gun battalion.
2. Combat trains consist of caissons; field trains of twowheeled carts.
3. Regiment contains a total of 105 officers and 2,365
enlisted men.
4. Auxiliary weapons—365 pistols, 152 sabers, 72 LMG's.
I've been considering a Self-Propelled Gun formation w/ Medium and Light Vehicles.
The basic element of the formation would consist of:
- 4x Medium SPG (Crew-Served Anti-Personnel / Medium Bombardment)
- 3x Light Vehicle (Logistics)
- 2x Light Vehicle (AA)
The formation would consist of three elements for a total of:
- 12x Medium SPG
- 9x Light Logisitcs
- 6x Light AA
I think that would be a defensible artillery formation.
Yup. I figure something like the M7 "Priest"; a big gun, a bit o' armor and a HMG to deter infantry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M7_Priest#/media/File:American_tank_M7_105-MM_-_JPG1.jpg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M7_Priest#/media/File:American_tank_M7_105-MM_-_JPG1.jpg)
- AA escort is more of a nice to have than a need in my opinion, as Aerospace superiority is, well... superior. :P Although I do like the idea of an unarmoured Medium Vehicle with a Light Bombardment module and a Logistics module as a cheap, self-contained, and (mostly) self-sufficient SPG.
Using AA weapons in with an artillery formation makes perfect sense to bolster them as those weapons actually can be useful. In WW2 most of the machine guns assigned to them was mainly meant for AA duty even though they often had to serve both in ground and air roles.
Yup. I figure something like the M7 "Priest"; a big gun, a bit o' armor and a HMG to deter infantry.
- AA escort is more of a nice to have than a need in my opinion, as Aerospace superiority is, well... superior. :P Although I do like the idea of an unarmoured Medium Vehicle with a Light Bombardment module and a Logistics module as a cheap, self-contained, and (mostly) self-sufficient SPG.
If I would anything to be added to the game eventually would be formations of mixed types having certain ability or impact which make the whole stronger then the individual part becasue that is how things work in real life. A tank formation are usually way more powerful when you mix them with a functional infantry, artillery and air-force... as a lone formation they are not all that useful.But we can have mixed formations and in fact, the mechanics already encourage mixed formations. Because you cannot select which enemy formations your formations target, nor can you select which of your own formations gets targeted by the enemy. So a pure Anti-Vehicle formation might target Infantry and not do much damage, while a pure Anti-Personnel formation might target Vehicles and do equally poorly. The power of mixed formations is that they can deal decent damage regardless of their opponent. Which is pretty much why we have combined arms formations in reality.
I don't think that would be "gamist", as having fallback lines and reserve units was a tactic widely used in WWII. I am sadly not up to date on modern combat doctrines, but probably defense in depth is not an outdated concept (at least concerning symetrical warfare).Defence in depth is certainly a still valid concept and I'm not arguing that it wasn't used in WW2, nor that fallback lines or reserve units didn't exist. I'm saying that having infantry units held back solely to defend artillery was not a thing in WW2. Before and during WW1 it was a thing because, as you also said, artillery mostly fired directly at the enemy, not indirectly, and ranges were much shorter.
I've been considering a Self-Propelled Gun formation w/ Medium and Light Vehicles.
The basic element of the formation would consist of:
- 4x Medium SPG (Crew-Served Anti-Personnel / Medium Bombardment)
- 3x Light Vehicle (Logistics)
- 2x Light Vehicle (AA)
The formation would consist of three elements for a total of:
- 12x Medium SPG
- 9x Light Logisitcs
- 6x Light AA
I think that would be a defensible artillery formation.
Jorgen, unfortunately your source is wrong. That's not a surprise as it is from "MARCH, 1941", meaning that it is based on American espionage & intelligence data from before the Pacific War started. Historians need to be very careful with OOBs as even today, many are based on faulty sources. Doctor Niehorster's website uses research done after the war and shows that Japanese Artillery regiments did not have such massive numbers of LMGs - in fact, only the headquarters and the supply column had a grand total of 3 LMGs assigned to them for self-defence.
As for the rest of, I wholly disagree with your claim that it was common to assign units to specifically guard artillery in WW2 and I think your belief stems from misunderstanding source material. This is important because this debate started with your claim that it would be more realistic to have to assign infantry formations in the Rear or Support echelons to "guard" artillery formations.
I was going to get into a further debate about the maths of target selection but I realized that it's bit pointless. Because your whole premise is flawed. Yes, in that narrowly defined example that you created, it makes no difference whether you have that infantry regiment in the Front echelon or you split it up inside the two Support echelon artillery formations - but that is a situation that is unlikely to ever happen. Because the odds of one of the two Support formations being picked is measly 2.381% (1 in 42). This whole argument is pointless because that sort of situation is unlikely to ever happen. Even the cheapest artillery is 1.4 BP per cannon whereas cheap infantry is 0.2 BP per grunt.
If your Front line formations are few and small, your Support formations are going to get hit all the time. If your Front line formations are many and large, your Support formations are hardly ever going to get hit.
Going back to your initial statement:QuoteIf I would anything to be added to the game eventually would be formations of mixed types having certain ability or impact which make the whole stronger then the individual part becasue that is how things work in real life. A tank formation are usually way more powerful when you mix them with a functional infantry, artillery and air-force... as a lone formation they are not all that useful.But we can have mixed formations and in fact, the mechanics already encourage mixed formations. Because you cannot select which enemy formations your formations target, nor can you select which of your own formations gets targeted by the enemy. So a pure Anti-Vehicle formation might target Infantry and not do much damage, while a pure Anti-Personnel formation might target Vehicles and do equally poorly. The power of mixed formations is that they can deal decent damage regardless of their opponent. Which is pretty much why we have combined arms formations in reality.I don't think that would be "gamist", as having fallback lines and reserve units was a tactic widely used in WWII. I am sadly not up to date on modern combat doctrines, but probably defense in depth is not an outdated concept (at least concerning symetrical warfare).Defence in depth is certainly a still valid concept and I'm not arguing that it wasn't used in WW2, nor that fallback lines or reserve units didn't exist. I'm saying that having infantry units held back solely to defend artillery was not a thing in WW2. Before and during WW1 it was a thing because, as you also said, artillery mostly fired directly at the enemy, not indirectly, and ranges were much shorter.
What I find "gamist" is putting in special abilities that are outside the normal framework of combat mechanics.
the problem is that most sources don't mention small arms in artillery regiments just the big guns.My source includes all weapons. For the Japanese artillery regiment, that means 3 LMG. For a German artillery regiment, that means 30 LMG (if part of a Panzer division) or 6 (if part of a Infanterie division). For a British artillery regiment, that means 6 LMG and 9 HMG. All meant for anti-aircraft work. Now, it's entirely possible that some artillery unit somewhere at sometime had loads of automated weapons assigned to it. But it certainly was not normal or standard.
There are many records of battles that show elaborate defences round artillery positions... literature is also full of mentioning how they early on learned about the chock of armoured formation overrunning artillery positions, something the Russians learned the hard way during Barbarossa and started to use good anti-tank perimeter defences around artillery in particular as the artillery often was a high valued target by the Germans. The new chock tactics of the panzer formation meant that artillery was no longer safe even at the great distances they were used.Okay you're mixing up things here. Artillery did not receive any special treatment - German mechanized offensive emphasized the importance of disrupting the enemy's ability to command troops, so headquarters, supply, and artillery units in the rear were all valuable targets but the objective was usually to either encircle the enemy or force their dislocation by making their present position useless and untenable. And again, reserve units were not placed solely to defend artillery units but to respond to breakthroughs - these are two different things.
You can read MANY battle after action reports that state this. Obviously most forces was not intrinsic to the artillery regiment but a divisions MG, AT or AA battalions are sort of a support unit that for the most part acted as a defence in depth or supported at long range during attacks.You're mixing things up here too. The pre-war and early-war MG battalion that most countries had, was almost always broken up into MG companies that were dispersed into the rifle battalions. The AT battalion evolved the most during the war as situations changed but naturally its placement was where the risk of enemy armoured attack was the highest - not in the rear. And AA battalion, if it existed, usually protected the divisional supply depot but I agree that it was the one battalion that most often was used in a fire support role.
You might also look at the Vietnam war which was a very elastic war... the US often did have to fortify their artillery regiments as the enemy often managed to infiltrate behind the front line and support elements.Asymmetrical war like Vietnam cannot be modeled by Aurora as it is. In Vietnam, the whole front / rear dichotomy lost all meaning for the most part.
From a math perspective it matter not at all if you mix the formations... more likely that some of them hit an actual vehicle every combat round but over time they will hit the same number of vehicles as putting them all in one formationAgain, your math is correct but irrelevant. Because actual ground campaigns are not going to be rolls of equal values reaching singularity. When combat lasts less than twenty rounds - and some of that is pure mopping up - a combined arms formations that "rely less on the luck of the draw" will win over singular type formations.
You might also look at the Vietnam war which was a very elastic war... the US often did have to fortify their artillery regiments as the enemy often managed to infiltrate behind the front line and support elements.
Asymmetrical war like Vietnam cannot be modeled by Aurora as it is. In Vietnam, the whole front / rear dichotomy lost all meaning for the most part.
it's even easier than that. model vietnam as jungle mountain and have the attacker not abuse the exploit which gives them unlimited time to dig in.
Can the Anti-Air Weapons be used on enemy Ground Forces? I would hope so, since a quad 20mm cannon does tend to hurt when you point it at some hapless infantry...
But can my STO emplacements bombard the planet they're on? And can they do so more effectively than heavy bombardment set to 'indiscriminate nuke' mode?
But can my STO emplacements bombard the planet they're on? And can they do so more effectively than heavy bombardment set to 'indiscriminate nuke' mode?
How long do my landing ships need to unload my forces? Cargo Handling Systems aren't a thing anymore in C#, so how would that be calculated?
I was thinking of cargo shuttles with LOG-S infantry for resupply...
But can my STO emplacements bombard the planet they're on? And can they do so more effectively than heavy bombardment set to 'indiscriminate nuke' mode?
No.
But an STO emplacement on the Moon can hit the Earth for orbital bombardment purposes as long as the weapon has that range.
Wait, so I can actually LAND things now!?
Even my Fighters? I can simulate Airbases now w/o needing a metric f-ton of PDCs!?
AWESOME!
It's better than the Solomon Island campaign, because the "islands" in this case move. Imagine island-hopping when the islands aren't always the same distance apart.But can my STO emplacements bombard the planet they're on? And can they do so more effectively than heavy bombardment set to 'indiscriminate nuke' mode?
No.
But an STO emplacement on the Moon can hit the Earth for orbital bombardment purposes as long as the weapon has that range.
So a hypothetical superjovian moon hopping campaign is going to be a blast. Clearing moons of sto and ground troops and finally getting a foothold to bombard other moons without risking ships. That's ... Brilliant. Space Solomon island campaign with troop transports have to run "the slot".
How the fire director work with coordinating fire support from STOs on other bodies? Or it's the general strategic bombing option instead of the combat support?
Wait, so I can actually LAND things now!?Only fighters - or things less than 500 tons - can land:
Even my Fighters? I can simulate Airbases now w/o needing a metric f-ton of PDCs!?
AWESOME!
Part of the background in C# Aurora will be that large TN ships function only in space and cannot move any closer to planetary bodies than low orbit. Small craft below a limit of 500 tons, such as fighters and shuttles, are capable of landing on planets. Ship are built in orbit and habitats are assembled in orbit. Only fighters can be built on the ground.
As part of this change, Cargo Handling Systems have been replaced by Cargo Shuttle Bays. They function in a similar way, although they are larger (10 HS) and more expensive.
Because large ships cannot land on planets, a freighter or colony ship cannot load / unload unless it has at least one Cargo Shuttle Bay, or the target population has either a Spaceport or a Cargo Shuttle Station (new installation, 1200 BP). Spaceports and Cargo Shuttle Stations can service any number of ships simultaneously but they do not stack. In effect they count as a single Cargo Shuttle Bay for any ship at the population.
You will be able to base fighters at planets using maintenance facilities.
2) Troop Transport Bays - Drop Ship Equipped is a new module which can function as a normal troop transport bay or quickly deliver troops from orbit using abstract drop ships. If the fast orbital delivery is chosen, there will be two options for the drop - Normal and Abandon. A normal drop will include waiting for the drop ships to return to the bays, which will require two minutes without additional research. A new tech line will reduce drop ship return times, starting with 90 seconds for 2000 RP and ending with 20 seconds for 64,000 RP. In an Abandon drop, the drop ships make a one way trip, allowing the ship to leave orbit immediately after the drop. In this case the bay is damaged (to simulate the loss of the drop ships) and can only be repaired at a shipyard. A ship with intact drop ships can also pick up troops from a planet, although this requires double the normal return trip time (as it is faster to unload than load). In all cases, the ship may only carry out landing or recovery operations if it starts the movement phase in the same location as the planet. For example, in an Abandon drop, the troop ship will arrive at the planet, take any fire for that turn, then launch drop ships and move away in the following turn. There are drop ship equivalents for the three normal bays. They have the same capacities but are 20% larger, 150% more expensive and a military system.
Cetaceous class Troop Transport 239,925 tons 1,360 Crew 7,280.2 BP TCS 4,798 TH 7,344 EM 0
1530 km/s Armour 4-341 Shields 0-0 HTK 544 Sensors 6/8/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
MSP 18 Max Repair 200 MSP
Troop Capacity 100,000 tons Drop Capable Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 10
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Commercial Ion Drive (34) Power 7344 Fuel Use 1.41% Signature 216 Explosion 3%
Fuel Capacity 600,000 Litres Range 31.9 billion km (241 days at full power)
Commercial Defence Turret (4x6) Range 1000 km TS: 16,000 km/s ROF 5
MK I Commercial Active Augur Array (1) GPS 1920 Range 31.5m km Resolution 120
MK I Electromagnetic Augur Array (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22.4m km
MK I Thermal Augur Array (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
Delphinus class Troop Transport 31,840 tons 194 Crew 824.9 BP TCS 637 TH 1,296 EM 0
2035 km/s Armour 1-89 Shields 0-0 HTK 78 Sensors 6/8/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
MSP 16 Max Repair 200 MSP
Troop Capacity 10,000 tons Drop Capable Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 1
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Commercial Ion Drive (6) Power 1296 Fuel Use 1.41% Signature 216 Explosion 3%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres Range 100.3 billion km (570 days at full power)
MK I Commercial Active Augur Array (1) GPS 1920 Range 31.5m km Resolution 120
MK I Electromagnetic Augur Array (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22.4m km
MK I Thermal Augur Array (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
Orca class Troop Transport 45,905 tons 230 Crew 939.8 BP TCS 918 TH 2,304 EM 0
2509 km/s Armour 1-114 Shields 0-0 HTK 109 Sensors 6/11/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
MSP 12 Max Repair 80 MSP
Troop Capacity 20,000 tons Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (8) Power 2304 Fuel Use 1.41% Signature 288 Explosion 3%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres Range 69.6 billion km (320 days at full power)
MK II Commercial Active Augur Array (1) GPS 2100 Range 39.8m km Resolution 100
MK II Electromagnetic Augur Array (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 26.2m km
MK I Thermal Augur Array (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
If a target is destroyed, the firing element gains morale and the target element suffers a loss of morale. This morale gain/loss is doubled if the firing unit is in front-line attack mode.
QuoteIf a target is destroyed, the firing element gains morale and the target element suffers a loss of morale. This morale gain/loss is doubled if the firing unit is in front-line attack mode.
Does this mean that, in the case where a front-line attacker fights a front-defender, if say they are evenly matched and inflict equal losses, the attacker will get a net morale gain, and the defender will suffer a net morale loss?
And therefore that the attacker has an advantage in morale loss in ground combat? Or was it meant that morale loss is doubled for losses inflicted on or by a front-line attacker, to reflect the heightened intensity of battle involving a front-line attacker?
Quote from: harpyeagle link=topic=9792. msg120770#msg120770 date=1586586418QuoteIf a target is destroyed, the firing element gains morale and the target element suffers a loss of morale. This morale gain/loss is doubled if the firing unit is in front-line attack mode.
Does this mean that, in the case where a front-line attacker fights a front-defender, if say they are evenly matched and inflict equal losses, the attacker will get a net morale gain, and the defender will suffer a net morale loss?
And therefore that the attacker has an advantage in morale loss in ground combat? Or was it meant that morale loss is doubled for losses inflicted on or by a front-line attacker, to reflect the heightened intensity of battle involving a front-line attacker?
Morale impact is doubled for the front-line attacker only. Double gains and double losses.
So what's the smallest infantry formation this game simulates? Platoon? Company?
If I make "Infantry" HQ, does it count it as Platoon HQ or Company HQ?
Why post if you don't know the answer?So what's the smallest infantry formation this game simulates? Platoon? Company?
If I make "Infantry" HQ, does it count it as Platoon HQ or Company HQ?
One man/person/being/robot/small furry green creature from Proxima Centauri.
Is there a repository for this information that I can look up? I don't know what "Headquarter" capacity means, total size of the formation the HQ unit is in? Number of units?
Militia Battalion
-----------------
10 tons -- 1 INF-HQ (size 1000)
990 tons -- 330 INF-PWL
Alright, thanks.Is there a repository for this information that I can look up? I don't know what "Headquarter" capacity means, total size of the formation the HQ unit is in? Number of units?
Tonnage (a.k.a. Transport Size) of unit.
And yes, the HQ needs to be inside the unit in question.Code: [Select]Militia Battalion
-----------------
10 tons -- 1 INF-HQ (size 1000)
990 tons -- 330 INF-PWL
Alright. Two questions left;
Do geological survey vehicles need supply with them or HQ unit?
And when are supply vehicles with logistics modules needed? How many related to what number? Is it dependent to "Annual maintenance cost" to how many supply units I need?
Alright. Two questions left;
Do geological survey vehicles need supply with them or HQ unit?
And when are supply vehicles with logistics modules needed? How many related to what number? Is it dependent to "Annual maintenance cost" to how many supply units I need?
Can I use Cargo Shuttles to transfer troops to the ground?No, you need Drop Module to perform combat drops.
I don't want to combat drop them, I just want to move my troops onto and off of the transport. Like a ferry.
Do I really need fighters for that?
If so, that's... kinda much as Fighters suffer maintenance failures in Commercial Hangars, thus making commercial ferries kinda effing huge as they also need a maintenance module.
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I was wondering if Light Bombardment units within a front-line unit be able to conduct bombardment attacks, or can this only be done from units in the support position?LB can commit bombardment from the front line position unless that got stealthily changed at some point.
Is there a way to update units using a formation template when that template changes?
Is there a way to update units using a formation template when that template changes?
No, a formation doesn't retain a template. The template represents the formation at the point of creation. After that, you can make whatever changes you like. Add or remove units, add new unit types, etc.
Is there a repository for this information that I can look up? I don't know what "Headquarter" capacity means, total size of the formation the HQ unit is in? Number of units?About the HQ capacity - It's in size and it represents the total size of units the HQ can control in the heirarchy below it (including it's own unit and including ALL units in subordinate HQ's). So when you ask "is it a platoon hq or a company hq" the answer is yes. You can create a hq to represent a platoon HQ and then put it under the command of a company HQ and so on up the heirarchy, just depending on the command limit you give each design. There's no limit to the granularity or grandiosity, though mechanically some approaches may be more effective or have different upsides and downsides than others.
I'm just lately getting back into Aurora after having played back in the pre-C# days, and found a couple of ground combat points I'm not clear on.
1) When a ground weapon has multiple shots, are they all fired at the same unit?
1b) When a ground unit has multiple weapons, are they all fired at the same unit?
2) How much of this do NPRs actually use so far? Presumably certain non-standard NPRs are ground-combat oriented, but do the regular NPRs field armies?
Ah, since targeting is by element, does it follow that a single multi-shot attack can kill multiple units within the targeted element?Quote from: Ulzgoroth link=topic=9792. msg133382#msg133382 date=1589649303I'm just lately getting back into Aurora after having played back in the pre-C# days, and found a couple of ground combat points I'm not clear on.
1) When a ground weapon has multiple shots, are they all fired at the same unit?
1b) When a ground unit has multiple weapons, are they all fired at the same unit?
2) How much of this do NPRs actually use so far? Presumably certain non-standard NPRs are ground-combat oriented, but do the regular NPRs field armies?
1ab) Yes. The target selection happens at the Unit Level, the resolution takes place at the element level. Breakthrough can occur, which then begins another "round" of selection and resolution.
2) Yes, they use it.
And a question 3: is FFD used for supporting ground units with bombardment weapons, or only for air/space support? If it's used with ground support, how is that budgeted?
Ah, since targeting is by element, does it follow that a single multi-shot attack can kill multiple units within the targeted element?
I must be missing something, but how do you apply multiple capabilities to a single unit? I was intending to create a boarding capable infantry with genetic engineering but I can only have one capability on a unit at a time.
I've only brought this up since I've seen other people showing off ground units that have multiple capabilities attached to them.
I must be missing something, but how do you apply multiple capabilities to a single unit? I was intending to create a boarding capable infantry with genetic engineering but I can only have one capability on a unit at a time.
I've only brought this up since I've seen other people showing off ground units that have multiple capabilities attached to them.
It's either shift or control clicking on multiple ones.
Do science Ground Units need logistics at all assuming they don't get into fights?
Nothing I've read says they do, but I have a sneaking suspicion...
It's either shift or control clicking on multiple ones.That was it, not at all intuitive it seems.
So I have a question about ranks when it comes to RP.
According to my (limited) understanding, a platoon is generally commanded by a lieutenant, a company by a captain, a battalion by a lieutenant-colonel and a brigade by a brigadier-general. So as you go up platoon->company->battalion->brigade, you end up skipping some ranks, like major and colonel. I understand that that these are typical ranks and that a major can command a company. Though generally a major would be some sort of XO or operational officer within a battalion.
My issue/question is this: When using automated assignments (and preserving my sanity), commanders get relieved when they go up in rank, meaning in my RP scenario a captain going up to major would lose his company, but wouldn't be able to get a battalion. He's now sitting around trying to accumulate promotion score to get back into a formation.
Could we get either min/max ranks per formation (so I can put major/lieutenant-colonel for a battalion) or better yet, HQ Staff Officer positions? Where they can add some part of their skills to the formation they're in?
So I have a question about ranks when it comes to RP.
According to my (limited) understanding, a platoon is generally commanded by a lieutenant, a company by a captain, a battalion by a lieutenant-colonel and a brigade by a brigadier-general. So as you go up platoon->company->battalion->brigade, you end up skipping some ranks, like major and colonel. I understand that that these are typical ranks and that a major can command a company. Though generally a major would be some sort of XO or operational officer within a battalion.
My issue/question is this: When using automated assignments (and preserving my sanity), commanders get relieved when they go up in rank, meaning in my RP scenario a captain going up to major would lose his company, but wouldn't be able to get a battalion. He's now sitting around trying to accumulate promotion score to get back into a formation.
Could we get either min/max ranks per formation (so I can put major/lieutenant-colonel for a battalion) or better yet, HQ Staff Officer positions? Where they can add some part of their skills to the formation they're in?
The Pl Comd's are typically Lt or Capt, depending on the type of Pl. For example, a Mech Inf Pl is typically commanding by an Lt. Support Pl's, such as Recce, Mortar, Pioneer, Anti-Armour, are typically (though not always) commanded by a Capt.
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 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.
- How the hairy hecc do I assign units to direct support now? The "Support" checkbox is missing it seems...
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.