Post reply

Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.

Note: this post will not display until it's been approved by a moderator.

Name:
Email:
Subject:
Message icon:

shortcuts: hit alt+s to submit/post or alt+p to preview

Please read the rules before you post!


Topic Summary

Posted by: Iestwyn
« on: November 18, 2020, 05:49:41 PM »

Okay... I think I may be good on ground stuff for now. Thanks again, guys!

Next comes the Infinity, which is turning out to be hilariously massive. The finished product may be between 80-100 thousand tons; still better than the 900 million tons of the real thing, at least.
Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: November 18, 2020, 05:33:38 PM »

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 03:33:19 PM
Okay... makes sense so far.

So another possibility. Your brigade had two infantry battalions, one armored, and one artillery. Would it be better to spread things out to have three mechanized infantry battalions each supported by an artillery company? Is there any advantage to specializing things?

In addition to what db48x said, having a range of specialized formations also makes it easier to deploy modular forces if you want to have that flexibility
Posted by: db48x
« on: November 18, 2020, 04:10:03 PM »

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 03:33:19 PM
Okay... makes sense so far.

So another possibility. Your brigade had two infantry battalions, one armored, and one artillery. Would it be better to spread things out to have three mechanized infantry battalions each supported by an artillery company? Is there any advantage to specializing things?

In my opinion there's no reason not to have both infantry and armor in the same formation except min-maxing. Vehicles add more to the chance of a breakthrough than infantry, so the natural inclination is to make at least some formations entirely out of vehicles.  Also vehicles are a bit more space-efficient, which can matter when you're attacking and have to cart your whole army across the galaxy but it isn't very relevant when you're on the defense. Neither is a large enough factor to make your army useless if you neglect them.
Posted by: Iestwyn
« on: November 18, 2020, 03:33:19 PM »

Okay... makes sense so far.

So another possibility. Your brigade had two infantry battalions, one armored, and one artillery. Would it be better to spread things out to have three mechanized infantry battalions each supported by an artillery company? Is there any advantage to specializing things?
Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: November 18, 2020, 03:19:13 PM »

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 02:14:06 PM
All of this is very sensible. It does bring up the question of how support works. I'm clearly misunderstanding the mechanics here; does this mean that ideally, every frontline formation will have another one behind it? Does it have to be in the support position, or can it be in the rear? Would that be another frontline-like formation (infantry/mech infantry/armor), or something more specialized like artillery? The idea of there being an artillery formation for every frontline one is kinda crazy to me.

Every support-capable formation can be assigned to support exactly one formation as long as both are in the same hierarchy (i.e. same superior HQ, or a superior HQ supporting a front-line subordinate). This has nothing to do with the actual placement on the battlefield - you can actually have a frontline formation assigned to support another frontline formation, it just...won't work super well (you can even set one formation to support a formation in the support or rear echelon - please don't actually do this). Any formation can be assigned to support any other formation, however only support-capable weapons (bombardment components) will actually do anything. However, all support-capable weapons in a formation will fire in support of the specific formation they are assigned to support.

Say, for example, that you have four battalions: three infantry battalions in the front line and an artillery battalion in the support echelon. The enemy has three infantry battalions as well. You assign your artillery to support the First Infantry Battalion. In each combat round, each of your infantry battalions will target one of the enemy formations essentially at random (including the possibility that multiple battalions will shoot at the same enemy battalion). Regardless of the targets, your artillery battalion will always fire at the same target as your First Infantry Battalion in the supporting fire phase of the combat round.

Because of this random element, it doesn't matter too much how you choose to assign your artillery assets - you can use one large formation, or make three smaller batteries and assign each one to support a different battalion. However if you start working with more complex formations it can make sense for example to be more deliberate here. For example, a combined arms brigade with 1x ARM battalion, 2x INF battalions, and 1x ART battalion would probably work best with the artillery supporting the armor in order to focus the major part of your killing power on a single target in each combat round. I believe that this would maximize the probability of a breakthrough, but I'm not 100% sure if breakthroughs can happen after the supporting fire step. Assuming they can, I would argue that this focus-fire approach is better than spreading your artillery evenly between all formations.
Posted by: Iestwyn
« on: November 18, 2020, 02:14:06 PM »

All of this is very sensible. It does bring up the question of how support works. I'm clearly misunderstanding the mechanics here; does this mean that ideally, every frontline formation will have another one behind it? Does it have to be in the support position, or can it be in the rear? Would that be another frontline-like formation (infantry/mech infantry/armor), or something more specialized like artillery? The idea of there being an artillery formation for every frontline one is kinda crazy to me.
Posted by: Garfunkel
« on: November 18, 2020, 01:40:49 PM »

In the real world, most armies use 3:1 ratio between combat units and combat support units. An artillery battalion can fire in support of a huge number of battalions and modern doctrine and equipment allow switching on the fly in minutes - in fact, the Finnish-made world record from 1944 was 21 different artillery battalions firing in support of a single infantry observer/spotter during the course of the Tali-Ihantala battle as the artillery switched their support around as needed.

In Aurora, you're better off with a 1:1 (or 2:2) ratio because a support formation can only support a single combat formation at a time and for longer battles, you might not want to have to shuffle supporting formations every 8 hours. However, as it is likely that your combat formations will suffer significantly more casualties than your support formations, it is possible that eventually, you'll have more support than combat formations.

As for how deep your structure should be - it really doesn't need to be deeper than 2 layers and Aurora doesn't really model all the specialized units higher up the echelon. You can put PWL-INF and call it Military Police but it doesn't do anything except make your HQ formation a bigger target. Construction is pretty much the only "special" thing you want as both survey and xeno are much better to be on their own.

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 09:21:04 AM
Makes sense. How big are we talking? I've heard as low as 5000 and as high as 12,500.
Doesn't matter. What matters is the relative size.
Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: November 18, 2020, 12:31:23 PM »

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 02:16:54 AM
Dude, I want to say how valuable your feedback has been. You always take the time to offer a lot of incredibly in-depth advice, and it really helps a lot.

Any time mate

Quote
I don't know where I got the idea, but I thought it was usually best to keep all infantry and vehicles in one place. Not accurate?

This is understandably confusing since there's a couple different concepts of "place" in Aurora ground combat. On one hand you have the front line (versus support/rear) and this is where you want specific weapons (CAP/AC/AV) which are often most effective when mounted on vehicles, and in this case it often makes a lot of sense to support them with infantry for the meatshield effect - if you put 100 tanks on the front line MAV will eat them alive, but if you put 50 tanks and 500 infantry on the front line a lot of MAV shots will be wasted to kill a single rifleman instead. On the other hand there's the question of formation organization which you can do in many different ways. Some people will mix their vehicles and infantry in a single formation, other people will have separate formations of each and attack with a mix of both formations. As long as you end up with a good mix of weapons on your front line it doesn't matter that much how they're organized.

Quote
Related, but what's a breakthrough formation? I haven't had the chance to actually participate in the new ground combat yet (haven't gotten there in my current run), so it may be something obvious I just haven't experienced yet.

If an attacking formation destroys or routs a defending formation, it can conduct a second attack during the same combat phase, often against a formation in the enemy support or rear echelon. While it's a hazy concept in Aurora as any unit except STA can effect a breakthrough, in general the units most likely to cause a breakthrough are heavy attacking formations with a lot of killing power, think a tank battalion as opposed to a light infantry INF-PWL battalion.

Quote
I was a little fuzzy about the relationship between logistics/construction units helping other formations. From the notes, it looked like formations would only draw on the supplies and construction assets of their superiors, meaning that a battalion wouldn't look for help from another battalion. That restricted me a bit, side it meant I had to put all my CON/LOG in the HQ formation. Was I mistaken?

I somehow had the impression that a LVH-LOG element could resupply any unit in its parent HQ's subordinate hierarchy, which seems to be incorrect - that's my mistake. In that case, just put the supply trucks into your HQ formation and roll with a 2,000-ton HQ formation (I always do this, anyways, to reduce micro). CON is not as restricted as LOG and can fortify any formation which is subordinate to its own parent HQ (I got this confused with LOG here), which allows you to have separate CON formations for non-combat operations that can be attached to a superior HQ for the purpose of fortifying a defensive army. That said, there's no reason you can't or shouldn't put them into your superior HQ for defensive units, but since CON doesn't help you on the offensive it's not needed for an attacking formation/HQ.

Quote
Lastly: were my ideas about what was wrong and how to fix it accurate? Did I understand static units correctly?

Static units like vehicles can be Anything You Want™ as the only real mechanical effects of the STA unit type are inability to break through and potentially having higher armor compared to INF unit types with the same fortification limit. I've seen people argue that a large artillery gun (MB or HB) should be modeled as STA since those are fairly immobile unless they are mounted on a vehicle, for example. In terms of game mechanics, STA are usually better that vehicles to mount heavy weapons in defensive formations since they get a higher fortification bonus, while vehicles are usually better in offensive formations even for artillery (a VEH or HVH with 2x MB can have higher base armor than a STA, which helps in the absence of a fortification bonus).

ADDENDA:

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 12:02:20 PM
Excellent; this is great stuff!

I was wondering, though: you guys have sold me on the usefulness of deep command structures, but I'm not sure how that would work in practice. The problem for me is redundancy vs specialization.

Real command structures get more and more specialized assets the higher you go (rifles, to tanks, to aircraft, etc). I think I can see specialization in a few layers: guns or armor at the bottom, both one layer up, artillery the layer after that, and STOs after that. That makes four layers: infantry/armor battalions, regiments with access to both, brigades with an added artillery battalion, and divisions with an added STO battalion. Maybe corps with xenoarchaeology, construction, and survey battalions added on.

... Actually, now that I've written that out, that seems like a decent idea. Fairly modular, too: you can add, remove, or swap out battalions for others depending on the needs of the situation and the transportation restrictions. For example, a garrison regiment might swap out the armored battalion for a construction one to take advantage of fortifications (assuming that a battalion can fortify another battalion, which I'm not sure about).

How's that sound?

Generally, it helps to define a planned structure for your HQ hierarchy and then build to that specification (which can change over time due to experience, game situation, etc.). For example, a common structure would be to use Battalions (5,000 tons) as the base formation, then Brigade HQs of 25,000 tons which control 5,000 tons of HQ assets (LOG, CON, AA, HQ) and up to four subordinate battalions. Then define Corps HQs of 100,000 ton capability which would control 2 or 3 brigades and several additional battalions which could be more specialized or just used as reserves. Each HQ formation itself has the same 5,000 ton size in this example.

For example, a planetary offensive corps could be built like:
Code: [Select]
Planetary Offensive Corps: HQ100 + LOG, AA
    Armored Brigade: HQ25 + LOG, AA, FFD
        3x Armored Battalion (5,000 tons each)
        1x Mechanized Artillery Battalion (5,000 tons)
    Mechanized Infantry Brigade: HQ25 + LOG, AA, FFD
        3x Mechanized Infantry Battalion (5,000 tons each)
        1x Mechanized Artillery Battalion (5,000 tons)
    Mechanized Infantry Brigade: HQ25 + LOG, AA, FFD
        3x Mechanized Infantry Battalion (5,000 tons each)
        1x Mechanized Artillery Battalion (5,000 tons)
    2x Super-Heavy Armor Battalion (5,000 tons each)
    2x Heavy Artillery Battalion (5,000 tons each)

This isn't a very deep hierarchy but it's modular, flexible, and not very micro-intensive.

You could also do something a little deeper that represents a divisional type of structure. This has the advantage, if you think of it this way, of matching the 3:1 ratio between successive ground commander ranks if you use auto-promotions.
Code: [Select]
Armored Corps: HQ200 + LOG, AA
    Armored Division: HQ65 + LOG, AA, HB, FFD
        Armored Regiment: HQ20 + LOG, AA, MB
            3x Armored Battalion (5,000 tons each)
        Armored Regiment: HQ20 + LOG, AA, MB
            3x Armored Battalion (5,000 tons each)
        Mechanized Infantry Regiment: HQ20 + LOG, AA, MB
            3x Mechanized Infantry Battalion (5,000 tons each)
    Armored Division: HQ65 + LOG, AA, HB, FFD
        Armored Regiment: HQ20 + LOG, AA, MB
            3x Armored Battalion (5,000 tons each)
        Armored Regiment: HQ20 + LOG, AA, MB
            3x Armored Battalion (5,000 tons each)
        Mechanized Infantry Regiment: HQ20 + LOG, AA, MB
            3x Mechanized Infantry Battalion (5,000 tons each)
    Mechanized Infantry Division: HQ65 + LOG, AA, HB, FFD
        Mechanized Infantry Regiment: HQ20 + LOG, AA, MB
            3x Mechanized Infantry Battalion (5,000 tons each)
        Mechanized Infantry Regiment: HQ20 + LOG, AA, MB
            3x Mechanized Infantry Battalion (5,000 tons each)
        Mechanized Infantry Regiment: HQ20 + LOG, AA, MB
            3x Mechanized Infantry Battalion (5,000 tons each)

Lots of possibilities. Point is, if you design a HQ structure first, then design divisions to fit, it's probably easier to get it working. However you can always design for modularity so that it's possible to swap individual battalions or entire subordinate hierarchies in and out to fit a specific mission profile.
Posted by: Iestwyn
« on: November 18, 2020, 12:02:20 PM »

Excellent; this is great stuff!

I was wondering, though: you guys have sold me on the usefulness of deep command structures, but I'm not sure how that would work in practice. The problem for me is redundancy vs specialization.

Real command structures get more and more specialized assets the higher you go (rifles, to tanks, to aircraft, etc). I think I can see specialization in a few layers: guns or armor at the bottom, both one layer up, artillery the layer after that, and STOs after that. That makes four layers: infantry/armor battalions, regiments with access to both, brigades with an added artillery battalion, and divisions with an added STO battalion. Maybe corps with xenoarchaeology, construction, and survey battalions added on.

... Actually, now that I've written that out, that seems like a decent idea. Fairly modular, too: you can add, remove, or swap out battalions for others depending on the needs of the situation and the transportation restrictions. For example, a garrison regiment might swap out the armored battalion for a construction one to take advantage of fortifications (assuming that a battalion can fortify another battalion, which I'm not sure about).

How's that sound?
Posted by: db48x
« on: November 18, 2020, 09:47:27 AM »

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 02:16:54 AM
I don't know where I got the idea, but I thought it was usually best to keep all infantry and vehicles in one place. Not accurate?

I'm not sure what you mean by "in one place" here. Certainly any formation with guns needs to be in the front line attack or front line defence (with the exception that bombardment and AA weapons can go in support or even rear echelon).

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 02:16:54 AM
Related, but what's a breakthrough formation? I haven't had the chance to actually participate in the new ground combat yet (haven't gotten there in my current run), so it may be something obvious I just haven't experienced yet.

A breakthrough is essentially a random event that can happen when a large cohesive formation attacks a smaller less cohesive one, and gains a second opportunity to attack. The details are all in a post here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109786#msg109786

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 02:16:54 AM
I was a little fuzzy about the relationship between logistics/construction units helping other formations. From the notes, it looked like formations would only draw on the supplies and construction assets of their superiors, meaning that a battalion wouldn't look for help from another battalion. That restricted me a bit, side it meant I had to put all my CON/LOG in the HQ formation. Was I mistaken?

I'm not sure about the rules for construction units, but you're right about logistics. Elements that need supplies can draw on vehicular logistics elements from a parent formation, or from infantry logistics elements within their own formation of none of the parents have vehicular logistics elements left.

Quote from: Iestwyn on November 18, 2020, 02:16:54 AM
Lastly: were my ideas about what was wrong and how to fix it accurate? Did I understand static units correctly?

So as far as I can tell, the best way to fix it is to move a lot of the HQ and bombardment to static units. That leaves room for a lot more stuff that's currently underrepresented: there'd be more room for logistical and construction vehicles, as well as stationary artillery platforms. Some STO would also help, but I couldn't find any reference to surface-to-orbital weaponry in the Halo universe.

Don't forget that you can have as many layers of formations as you like. Theater ? Army Group ? Army ? Division ? Brigade ? Battalion ? Company, each of them with a commander that provides bonuses! Ok, seven levels is probably overkill, since the bonuses get smaller for each extra layer, and it's going to add to the micro. On the other hand, you do start with 9 ground force commander ranks…

Still, most of your logistics and construction elements can be in the highest layer, furthest back from the action. I do like the idea of using SHV for construction and HQ elements though; that's very Halo. Perhaps the higher-level HQ elements would be static, but the more mobile units need a more mobile HQ.

As for your STO elements, they mount ordinary ship weapons. Thus, you can mount your big honking spinal lasers or whatever you use for your ships. Do note however that STO weapons are rather more expensive than normal ground units of the same size, so they take ages to build. I would make your batteries half or even one quarter the size of your normal unit size. They also don't need supplies and their attacks aren't aided by supporting artillery, so they don't benefit as much from having superior formations. You'll still want one or two layers for bonuses though.
Posted by: Iestwyn
« on: November 18, 2020, 09:21:04 AM »

Makes sense. How big are we talking? I've heard as low as 5000 and as high as 12,500.
Posted by: Garfunkel
« on: November 18, 2020, 08:56:01 AM »

Few of us did some testing and few big formations work better in combat than lots of small formations because the big ones will constantly get multiple breakthroughs whereas the small ones will only get few if any.

However, even that difference can be solved by commander bonuses not to mention tech or superior numbers.
Posted by: StarshipCactus
« on: November 18, 2020, 07:44:30 AM »

For Halo lore stuff, check out Halopedia. This page might be helpful to you in organising units.
 
https://www.halopedia.org/UNSC_military_organization
Posted by: Iestwyn
« on: November 18, 2020, 02:16:54 AM »

Dude, I want to say how valuable your feedback has been. You always take the time to offer a lot of incredibly in-depth advice, and it really helps a lot.

A few questions:

I don't know where I got the idea, but I thought it was usually best to keep all infantry and vehicles in one place. Not accurate?

Related, but what's a breakthrough formation? I haven't had the chance to actually participate in the new ground combat yet (haven't gotten there in my current run), so it may be something obvious I just haven't experienced yet.

I was a little fuzzy about the relationship between logistics/construction units helping other formations. From the notes, it looked like formations would only draw on the supplies and construction assets of their superiors, meaning that a battalion wouldn't look for help from another battalion. That restricted me a bit, side it meant I had to put all my CON/LOG in the HQ formation. Was I mistaken?

Lastly: were my ideas about what was wrong and how to fix it accurate? Did I understand static units correctly?

Thanks again!
Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: November 18, 2020, 01:52:39 AM »

As a general advice I'd say that you don't have to feel obligated to stick too closely to the lore, especially where it is a bit thin. Even real-world militaries don't always map well into Aurora, so certainly game lore you can expect to fit in even less without some wiggling. Alternatively of course you can play with the rule of making cool lore stuff first, and making it look neat in Aurora second. Based on what you're doing here I'd suggest looking at the initial post of Steve's Imperium of Man fiction, because he uses some fairly simplistic ground formations based on WH40K lore (which is far from realistic to say the least!) that are not exactly optimal but get the job done reasonably enough. It's a good example of how to blend lore and Aurora mechanics if you just want to shoot things and don't want to get super technical about it.  :P

Infantry Battalion: you might try treating the infantry/marine battalion (company? At 1,000 tons and ~140 soldiers this is a company-sized formation in most militaries) as a mechanized infantry unit, which means you have the foot riflemen transported and supported by armored fighting vehicles. In that case you have Marines (INF-PW), Warthogs (LVH-CAP), and I believe there are close air support vehicles in the Halo games (Banshee?) which you could use as LVH-MAV for an anti-armor capability. "Vehicle" can mean whatever you want!

As a general pro-tip, consider having 2x command elements in a formation instead of 1x, so that if one gets killed you can still receive bonuses from higher HQs (although this may be bugged right now).

Armored Battalion: glancing at (Googling) the lore, the Scorpion would be better as MAV/(H)CAP as it has a secondary MG rather than a cannon. Reasonable change and VEH-MAV/CAP is a pretty standard early-game main battle tank in Aurora so it works well.

Putting LOG into a formation like this can work two ways. On one hand, it can give the formation extra staying power particularly on the offensive; on the other hand, LOG is not a combat element and doesn't contribute to killing things directly so could be a hindrance that gets shot up and dies quickly. For a formation this small I probably wouldn't have LOG, but for a 5,000 ton battalion it would be okay to have some. In either case you want a lot of LOG in the rear echelon superior formation to be your main supply source.

HQ Assets: I'd generally avoid mixing HB and MBL and settle on one or the other. The MBL on the Mammoth could probably be some size of AA weapon instead (also matches the lore?). Otherwise, without digging too much into the lore I'd just say that you really want either a bigger formation (5,000 tons or more), or you want to split out the LOG into a separate unit - 1,000 tons of LOG gives you 16 Sandcats and a total of 8,000 GSP which will support a pretty good amount of troops for a good, long offensive. In either case, that will let you figure out how you want to fit your HB/AA/HQ together separately if you stick with 1,000-ton formations. Note that SHV/UHV are extremely heavy, so I'd probably not recommend using them in anything smaller than a 5,000-ton unit just for practical reasons. Generally I'd only use SHV in a front-line breakthrough formation, as the massive weight and armor isn't worth a lot in the rear echelon, but here we have lore to contend with so we will use it and be badass about it.  8)

So keeping it simple and sticking with 1,000-ton formations, one idea would be something like:

Infantry Battalion: treat it as a mechanized formation and the vehicles fit in perfectly
100x Marines (INF-PW)
8x Warthog (LVH-CAP)
6x Banshee (LVH-MAV)
2x Mongoose (LVH-HQ1)

Armored Battalion: The only change I'd make here is MAV/CAP on the Scorpion and move the LOG to a rear formation
10x Scorpion (VEH-MAV/CAP)
5x Cobra (VEH-LAC/LAC)
2x Mongoose (LVH-HQ1)

HQ Assets: Separate the LOG and you have more room for your other things. It's not the neatest-looking loadout, but HQ formations are always ugly and this will get the job done just fine.
1x Mammoth (SHV-MAA/HB/HQ6) - HQ6 to support the above plus a logistics formation
1x Elephant (SHV-CON/LAA/CAP) - change from LAC to CAP since this is again a MG I think?
3x Kodiak (HVH-HB/HB)

Logistics Support Battalion: 16x Sandcat (LVH-LOG), there's not really a need for a commander here so no Mongoose.

If you decide to scale things up to 5,000 tons per battalion, you can mostly just multiply by 5x and be fine (keep only1x or 2x HQ as the HQ element size will increase). Again, this is just one idea for how to get reasonable formations from the units you're working with, by all means don't just do what I've done if you have a better/more fun idea.