A small suggestion for ground forces headquarters units:
Presently, headquarters units are a bit awkward since they do not increase in component size beyond HQ50 (=250 tons). This is fine for pretty much any single formation a player would create (I've yet to see anyone seriously propose a >50,000-ton ground formation on these forums) and for simple formation hierarchies with small-to-medium (5,000 or 10,000 tons) basic formations. However, if the player wants to use larger formations in a hierarchy (e.g., a corps with 4 subordinate brigades of 20,000-ton formation size) or more complex hierarchies with several layers, the hard cap on HQ size seems rather awkward - a headquarters controlling a million tons of ground units (~100k soldiers or so) should have a pretty sizable staff and facilities, probably requiring much more than 250 tons of transportation capacity.
I'd like to suggest that instead, HQ functionality is split into two parts: As now, the HQ## capability would indicate the size of formation which can be controlled, and would work as presently. However, the ability to control subordinate formations would be based on the
number of HQ components included in a superior formation. For example, a corps HQ formation controlling four brigade formations, each of 20k, would require a total of five HQ20 components (one for itself + four for the brigades) instead of a single HQ100 component.
I would note a couple of tricky parts in implementing such an idea:
- Complex formation hierarchies could be handled in a few different ways. The above could simply be extended - e.g., an Army formation controlling four of the above Corps would require 21xHQ20 components. This could become unwieldy and insufficiently abstract/flexible for complex hierarchies, however. Another possibility is to only require enough HQ components to control direct subordinate formations, which isn't completely unrealistic and allows considerable flexibility - an Army with 10xHQ20 could control itself and nine Corps, or itself + 3 Corps + 6 support brigades, and so on. Other possibilities exist but these are the simplest implementations and I think simplicity is desirable here.
- How to handle destruction of a HQ component in a formation with multiple HQ components is also open-ended. Either some kind of ordering of subordinate formations would be needed (ideally not requiring player intervention to set up, which would be tedious), or command capacity could be reduced based on number of attached formations versus actual capability - for example, a Corps which is reduced to 4xHQ20 would be able to control itself and four subordinate brigades with only 80% effectiveness.
While there are some intricacies to work out, I think this could be a much more interesting and engaging way to handle HQs and hierarchies, which offers I think a bit more of a roleplay connection between HQ formation design and reflecting the actual hierarchical structure the player chooses.
E: I almost forgot to mention a huge practical benefit of this - no need to research multiple very expensive HQ types to support a complex hierarchy. Research costs for high-level HQs are obscene and one of my least-favorite parts of the ground forces experience in Aurora, particularly given the irksome contrast between the relative lack of necessity for a complex ground forces hierarchy and the lack of auto-assignment jobs for high-ranking officers
without a multi-layered hierarchy.