Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: June 04, 2022, 12:17:47 PM »
I rarely do it for any practical purpose, usually roleplay is the main driver. I find it difficult in practice to build specialist forces in anticipation of invading a specific terrain type since ground forces take so long to build up until much later in the game when you have enough facilities + tech levels to build an army in, like, a year. I feel like trying to build up specialist forces long in advance is often wasteful, as you end up building specialists for every kind of terrain and then only using 1-2 of those troop types so a lot of BP has been effectively wasted.
xenoscepter's suggestion of building specialized formations to garrison worlds with specific terrain is a good one, since those forces retain usefulness even if you never deploy them against a hostile world with that terrain type. Another idea when you have developed enough is to have training complexes on different colony worlds which train troops specialized to that world - think like WH40K where Imperial Guard Regiments from different worlds take on unique characteristic from that world. This is probably more "wasteful" but good roleplay flavor.
I rarely build the extreme conditions capabilities (temperature, pressure, etc.). Most significant ground forces in my experience tend to be emplaced on 'normal' planets, i.e., habitable or nearly habitable and thus situated for a large colony worth defending, so you don't need to worry too much about displacing a large army fortified on a small asteroid or barren moon (small garrisons maybe but these are easily dealt with). I rarely deploy even small garrisons to such minor mining bases, because there are enough demands on the ground forces as it is without garrisoning every little rock.
The one capability combination always worth it of course is (Heavy) Power Armor + Genetic Enhancement + Boarding Capability INF for boarding assault parties. Your boarding assault units are rarely going to be BP-limited, transport capacity is the key challenge, thus you want them to be maximally effective per ton.