Change Log for v7.2 Discussion

[iceball3]

No, bombardment is a phase in ground combat and directed only against ground combat units. It isn't the same as bombardment from orbit.

In ground combat against PDCs, the assumption is that the ground units are actually entering the PDC to fight the defenders. Titans will be too large for that.

Hmm, and titans will not be able to damage the armor of PDCs either, I'm guessing? Ah well.

[Aldaris]

Would it be possible to include non-Titan artillery units? Act as very weak Garrison units for the purposes of ground combat, but do add firepower to bombardment?

[alex_brunius]

While Titans have a nice cool factor going for them it's not my first pick for making ground combat fun and engaging, and as others pointed out Titans might even work better as designable "land ships". The most important thing to improve ground combat IMHO is to integrate it well with space combat and with logistics so the game feels connected and you design and plan both tactics and strategy where they can mutually support each other.

Here is what I would like to see if ground combat is the area you want to improve:

• Mechanics allowing all space beam weapons to engage units on the ground on planets with atmospheres, but very inefficiently ( maybe -95% accuracy debuff for earth thickness atmosphere ). Units get some new stuff to shoot back, see points below.
• Barrel life, all beam weapons have a base barrel life of 100 shots after which they are destroyed by combat damage automatically ( needs to be repaired by MSP/Damage control ), and a new technology is added which makes the weapon bigger in exchange for longer barrel life. This is to not make un-opposed beam fleets able to wipe out big ground defences, combined with above a basic beam weapon can only fire 5 hits on average against ground targets before it's destroyed.
• Beam Fire Controls get bombardment targeting technology so you can design them for shooting at stuff on the ground helping them hit a little bit better trading size and cost
• Light AAA/AS battalions - shoots Gauss PD at enemy ships, fighters or stuff within 10kkm range ( no or less accuracy debuff since ships make a nice silhouettes ), automatic final fire defense
• Heavy AAA/AS battalions - shoots Laser at enemy ships in range randomly, fighters or stuff using your biggest designable laser ( no or less accuracy debuff since ships make a nice silhouettes )
• SAM/SSM battalions - Can load and shoot your favorite size 1 AMMs at whatever you got lock on, appears similar to PDCs as a single unit per planet with as many tubes as you got battalions and has your missile reload rate.
• Fighters get a module (starting at 100ton and made smaller by tech) allowing them to fly inside the atmosphere ( fight with all weapons without the accuracy debuff )
• Fighters get a damage buff vs Titans and become a great "Anti titan" weapon
• All ground units hit by fighters fire back in self defense and have 10% chance to inflict 1 point of damage per attack run
• Ammo/Supplies for ground units. All ground units need ammo & supplies produced so you can't fight forever without supply-lines open. If the ammo is not stored in PDC it appears as a valid target for enemy space sensors and can be targeted and destroyed, but ammo carried by units is dispersed so can't be hit.
• Sensible rules for transport of ground units so Light/Garrisons can be transported easily, but heavy assault needs much more space and time to load/unload for their heavy stuff.
• Ability to transport all "light" infantry units on board your warships ( risking overloading their life support unless they have spare berths ) for emergency evacuations or un-opposed invasions.

[Erik L (OP)]

I honestly would like to see something similar to what I did in Astra Imperia. The base unit is an infantry company. From there you add-on capabilities for cost and size to get your armor, assault infantry, etc. This would be more in keeping with the complete customizations in Aurora I think

[QuakeIV]

I agree that weapon wear having maintenance requirements would be interesting, would be difficult to avoid making that excessively tedious though I think.

[Mor]

While Titans have a nice cool factor going for them it's not my first pick for making ground combat fun and engaging, and as others pointed out Titans might even work better as designable "land ships". The most important thing to improve ground combat IMHO is to integrate it well with space combat and with logistics so the game feels connected and you design and plan both tactics and strategy where they can mutually support each other. [...]

I tend to agree. Ground combat is mostly static, either you bombard them to hell or you keep dropping troops until you win. And customize able titans will have no effect on that. Although a lot of work, your suggestion seem interesting, i like that tried to balance all aspects (my first thought after reading #1 was "no way" I'll just park my fleet in orbit and shoot endlessly and then I read #2.. )

[TheDeadlyShoe]

i just hope there's a Titan Barracks so i can have big stompy robots charge out of the underground bunkers into an apocalyptic wasteland

and probably get blown up by missiles but hey TANJ

[Felixg]

i just hope there's a Titan Barracks so i can have big stompy robots charge out of the underground bunkers into an apocalyptic wasteland

and probably get blown up by missiles but hey TANJ

Well a PDC should, I would think, be able to mount a Titan Hangar module or 20 

[alex_brunius]

I agree that weapon wear having maintenance requirements would be interesting, would be difficult to avoid making that excessively tedious though I think.

Might need some TG orders or a button somewhere to "queue repair all" for entire fleet if they don't already exists somewhere.

i like that tried to balance all aspects (my first thought after reading #1 was "no way" I'll just park my fleet in orbit and shoot endlessly and then I read #2.. )

I'm sure there are some other better ways of doing it, but the main way to balance Ground combat units vs Space bombardment should be the same as historical reasons shore emplacement guns and defenses was undesirable to approach by warships.

That means it must be much cheaper to field the same guns/weapons on the ground, and they must be much harder to hit or knock out. You could also add some more details to how minefields work or have some type of extremely cheap fighters that can buzz out from PDC hangars and harass bigger ships attempting bombardment. ( Inspired by historical balance of minefields and torpedo boats used in shore defense ).

Another way to approach the problem is adding some mechanics to make life more difficult for warships, like fires spreading out of control or loss of pressure disabling certain crewed areas temporarily, which won't be as big of a risk in a PDC or ground based gun system that can be more spread out.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

PDCs already have huge advantages over ships, ton for ton.

-4 layers of free armor
-double fire rate missile launchers
-superior beam fire controls

and additionally the advantages of no maintenance, automatic task force training, 'infinite magazines', and atmospheric beam interference.

PDCs are fine  

[Sheb]

But then they're static, which mean if the enemy outrange them, they're as good as useless.

[alex_brunius]

PDCs already have huge advantages over ships, ton for ton.
...
PDCs are fine

Indeed, and thus my suggestions did not include any direct buffs to PDCs either, except adding the ability to use beam defense non-meson PDCs on planets with atmospheres ( but that one goes a bit both ways since they are no longer immune vs ships either ).

[TMaekler]

For storytelling elements it might be interesting to (in SM Mode) be able to delete researched technology. So literally bombarding someone back into stone age :-)

[swarm_sadist]

I tend to agree. Ground combat is mostly static, either you bombard them to hell or you keep dropping troops until you win. And customize able titans will have no effect on that.

I disagree. A customizable titan could be anything from a Commander unit from the Supreme Commander series, to an Experimental Land Battleship/Mobile Factory from the same series, or the UFO from After series or XCOM 2, a Jaeger/BattleMech from any anime or a giant Mech Warrior.

Giving the Titan additional abilities, like being stealthed, more artillery, Surface to Orbit weapons, mobile factories, mobile barracks or being completely amphibious, would give each titan it's own flavour in the battlefield.

[bean]

I'm going to try to sketch my ideas for ground combat revision.  This has been simmering for a couple of years.
There are three bits that I'd like to see.  First, more granularity in ground combat.  At the moment, taking over a planet is binary, either you have it or you don't.  It might be nice if larger planets had multiple sub-sections which you could conquer one at a time.  Some form of terrain system might be a good idea, too.  Divide the planet into 'urban' and 'rural' sections.  The rural section has a specific type, be it 'desert' or 'forest' or 'sea'.  This influences the effects of different unit types.

Second, combined arms.  At the moment, all ground units have two values, attack and defense.  And that's all.  A heavy assault battalion is better than any other battalion, and costs the same to move.  Instead, define a dozen or so different types of 'combat power', and rate each unit on them.  Some suggestions:
Infantry
Mobility
Armor
Artillery
Engineering
Air
Anti-Armor
Anti-Air
Recon
Fortification (granted by being dug in, not inherent)
Naval
Command and Control
Logistics (maybe)
These interact to give bonuses or penalties in combat, depending on situation, with combined arms being required to gain victory.  Some types of units would do better than others in various terrains.  For instance, infantry is more important in urban terrain, unless you just want to destroy everything.  (And avoiding damage to their infrastructure would be a reason for the defender to deploy forces in the Rural part of the planet.)  And infantry is the only thing (except maybe engineers) which can perform boarding actions and the like.

Third, more customization of units, interacting with the combined arms stuff.  Let's say we have a dozen or two different elements which are used to build units.  These are generally platoons or companies, and research improves each of them separately.  (Maybe there'd be level techs to unlock a tier and then individual techs below that, so you can't just blitz one line, while not making thins unduly expensive.)  So you might garrison mining outposts with a battalion made of three infantry companies and a logistics element, while the 1st Armored Brigade would have three mechanized infantry companies, six armored companies, three artillery batteries, three companies of cavalry scouts, and so on.
Obviously, you'd have various types of transport to deal with this.  Maybe 'personnel', 'light' and 'heavy'.  'Heavy' covers things like naval units and titans, while 'light' is anything up to tanks.

I hope that's coherent enough.