Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: liveware on May 24, 2020, 01:49:40 PM
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I'm working on developing new boarding units to fit in my 250 ton boarding modules. My current unit and formation designs are below:
Boarding Platoon
Transport Size: 250 tons
Build Cost: 1,285.4 BP
1x Light Command Mech
2x Light Supply Mech
2x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
5x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
20x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
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Light Command Mech
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 98.88 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 12.4 Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters: Capacity 1,000
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Non-Combat Class
Vendarite 0.8
Development Cost 4,944
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Light Automatic Rifle Mech
Transport Size (tons) 6 Cost 29.66 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 3.7 Resupply Cost 1.3
Improved Personal Weapons: Shots 1 Penetration 15 Damage 12
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Vendarite 0.24
Development Cost 1,483
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Light Pulse Rifle Mech
Transport Size (tons) 12 Cost 59.33 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 7.4 Resupply Cost 6
Crew-Served Anti-Personnel: Shots 6 Penetration 12 Damage 12
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Vendarite 0.48
Development Cost 2,966
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Light Pulse Cannon Mech
Transport Size (tons) 20 Cost 98.88 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 12.4 Resupply Cost 9
Heavy Crew-Served Anti-Personnel: Shots 6 Penetration 18 Damage 12
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Vendarite 0.8
Development Cost 4,944
#############################
Light Supply Mech
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 49.44 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 6.2 Resupply Cost 0
Logistics Module - Small: Ground Supply Points 100
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Non-Combat Class
Vendarite 0.4
Development Cost 2,472
What I am interested in figuring out is how effective my boarding squad will be when trying to take over a hostile ship. My assumption is that each of the target ship's crew will count as a single infantry (armed with light personnel weapons?) and minimal armor. Based on that, I have worked out that my boarding platoon shown above should be able to kill at most 524 enemy crew per round of combat. This calculation is based on my assumption that all shots fired hit and kill their targets, which is certainly an over estimate. However, I am looking for the maximum number of enemy crew that could reasonably be defeated, and I think this number is accurate.
I am wonder what others think about my boarding platoon setup. Does anyone have any experience with boarding combat that could validate my calculations?
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Relevant info here (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg111751#msg111751).
Crew count as infantry with light personal weapons and substandard armor equaling only half the racial armor modifier.
Which means that unless you're very out-teched, every hit should kill the target. However, the base ground combat chance to hit is 20% and defenders in a boarding action are fortified. So best-case is probably 1 in 10 shots hits.
I think this means CAP is the most destructive per ton, though obviously it has lousy damage absorption. HCAP should almost certainly be overkill unless the enemy has their own marines aboard...as should IPW and arguably even PW. On the other hand, as much armor as you can get is great.
(Also, obviously, you could make much much cheaper units that work just as well in boarding combat by removing all those terrain capabilities that aren't doing anything for you.)
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Good points all around. After playing around with unit designs, ranks, and formations for most of the morning, I have come up with some significantly different units and formations. I'm not quite done yet but will post the revised formations when I'm done.
I do also think you're right about CAP being most 'kills' per ton, though I am thinking that there is a trade-off between having lots of smaller targets to spread around the chances of being hit. For that reason, I will likely be keeping a mix of CAP and IPW.
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Alright, I've re-configured my command structure and slightly modified some of my designs. First, here are the unit designs:
Light Platoon Command Mech
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 4.94 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.62 Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters: Capacity 50
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Non-Combat Class
Vendarite 0.04
Development Cost 247
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Light Squadron Command Mech
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 1.48 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.19 Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters: Capacity 15
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Non-Combat Class
Vendarite 0.01
Development Cost 74
############################
Light Supply Mech
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 49.44 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 6.2 Resupply Cost 0
Logistics Module - Small: Ground Supply Points 100
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Non-Combat Class
Vendarite 0.4
Development Cost 2,472
#############################
Light Automatic Rifle Mech
Transport Size (tons) 6 Cost 29.66 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 3.7 Resupply Cost 1.3
Improved Personal Weapons: Shots 1 Penetration 15 Damage 12
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Vendarite 0.24
Development Cost 1,483
############################
Light Pulse Rifle Mech
Transport Size (tons) 12 Cost 59.33 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 7.4 Resupply Cost 6
Crew-Served Anti-Personnel: Shots 6 Penetration 12 Damage 12
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Vendarite 0.48
Development Cost 2,966
############################
Light Pulse Cannon Mech
Transport Size (tons) 20 Cost 98.88 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 12.4 Resupply Cost 9
Heavy Crew-Served Anti-Personnel: Shots 6 Penetration 18 Damage 12
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Vendarite 0.8
Development Cost 4,944
For the unit formations, I have broken up the platoon command structure into greater detail. Front-line light mech units are now organized into squadrons, and each 3 squadrons are assigned to a platoon command post. A complete platoon can fit inside a small troop transport module (250 tons). Squadrons are differentiated by weapon type which allows for weapon mixing at the platoon command level, which is a balancing point that I like. Squadrons carry no extra supplies and rely on their command post for resupply. I recognize that rear-echelon field positioning is meaningless in boarding combat, but I plan on using a similar command system for my planetary assault troops, so I find it convenient to unify these two command structures. Anyway, here are the final formations:
Light Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 70 tons
Build Cost: 298.1 BP
10x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
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Medium Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 70 tons
Build Cost: 298.1 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
5x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
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Heavy Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 70 tons
Build Cost: 298.1 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
3x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
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Boarding Platoon Command Post
Transport Size: 40 tons
Build Cost: 153.3 BP
1x Light Platoon Command Mech
3x Light Supply Mech
Attached are a couple of screen shots showing the OOB ground combat screen. In the first screenshot I have one platoon with a light, medium, and heavy boarding squadron attached. In the second screenshot the platoon has two light squads and one medium squad which will probably be what I use in most boarding situations. However, the heavy squads may be useful for boarding ships which may be transporting hostile armored forces, such as carriers. I will likely develop more squads of approximately the same size as shown here as I continue to develop my planetary assault forces.
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Oops, forgot to attach screenshots. See attached!
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I might suggest considering whether you could afford to add a second HQ unit. Only costs maybe a couple PW worth of space...
Update: ...I was suggesting more HQ units, but the squadron command units seem like a big sacrifice!
Also, I think you'll find the supply mechs don't work that way. IIRC they have to be in the formation they resupply. Only the bigger-sized resupply unit can work down the hierarchy.
I do also think you're right about CAP being most 'kills' per ton, though I am thinking that there is a trade-off between having lots of smaller targets to spread around the chances of being hit. For that reason, I will likely be keeping a mix of CAP and IPW.
Yeah, CAP gives you the most bang for your ton, but it gives someone shooting you the most return as well.
Also, if the fighting goes on long enough to need resupply, CAP is hungrier than personal weapons.
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I might suggest considering whether you could afford to add a second HQ unit. Only costs maybe a couple PW worth of space...
Update: ...I was suggesting more HQ units, but the squadron command units seem like a big sacrifice!
Also, I think you'll find the supply mechs don't work that way. IIRC they have to be in the formation they resupply. Only the bigger-sized resupply unit can work down the hierarchy.
I'm not sure I follow you on the HQ unit discussion. I am under the impression that the boarding troops need an HQ unit with them on board the ship they are attacking. If this is not the case I will probably re-design my platoon/squad structure to keep the HQ units out of the line of fire entirely.
That is unfortunate about the supply units. However if the HQ unit does not need to accompany the boarding party onto the target ship I can probably come up with a similar set-up that will work almost the same as this set up was intended, but may require a larger troop module on the boarding ship to support the larger supply units.
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This is probably a stupid question, but I will ask anyway.
If I have a supply modules (full size) at my platoon HQ, but order my squadrons to individually board the ship, can the supply modules on the boarding ship provide supply to the attack squadrons on the target ship? If they can provide supply in this way, is there any reason to include small supply modules with the attack squadrons at all?
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I might suggest considering whether you could afford to add a second HQ unit. Only costs maybe a couple PW worth of space...
Update: ...I was suggesting more HQ units, but the squadron command units seem like a big sacrifice!
Also, I think you'll find the supply mechs don't work that way. IIRC they have to be in the formation they resupply. Only the bigger-sized resupply unit can work down the hierarchy.
I'm not sure I follow you on the HQ unit discussion. I am under the impression that the boarding troops need an HQ unit with them on board the ship they are attacking. If this is not the case I will probably re-design my platoon/squad structure to keep the HQ units out of the line of fire entirely.
That is unfortunate about the supply units. However if the HQ unit does not need to accompany the boarding party onto the target ship I can probably come up with a similar set-up that will work almost the same as this set up was intended, but may require a larger troop module on the boarding ship to support the larger supply units.
Strictly speaking I don't think HQs are mandatory at all, but yes, if you want any commander benefits they'll need to be on the scene.
However, you don't have to split your tiny boarding force into multiple formations. I understand why you want to, but the resulting overhead of having 40 tons of HQ units in your 250 ton force is brutal and it makes your command hierarchy more fragile and vulnerable rather than less.
Basically, squad formations are cool but your force would almost certainly be more effective as a single 250 ton formation. It might be worth putting two HQ units rather than one in that formation so you have redundancy in case of a bad boarding roll or an unlucky hit. You can do the hierarchical platoon-and-squadrons thing, I believe it will work (except for the LOGL units in the command formation), just not very well.
And I believe you can transfer units between formations if you need to change the balance of elements in your platoon?
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I wanted to add squads because I have added several ranks to my command hierarchy, such that a corporal-level command would be sensible. However I do think you are right that HQ units aren't always required... I think I had been assuming that officers were only assigned to HQ's but I don't that is actually the case in-game. I'm still muddling around trying to figure out exactly what they are supposed to do. I assume they provide some sort of combat bonus to whatever units are assigned to them. Maybe they are intended to be use in a similar fashion to naval administrative commands. That would make some sense to me.
I've re-read Steve's main posts on boarding combat and logistics. My logistical goal for my boarding platoons is that each platoon be self-sufficient in terms of GSP for at least one complete boarding mission (i.e. one captured ship). To meet this goal, each squad needs to be able to carry enough supplies onto the target ship to be able to be effective in combat, so I probably need to have logistics modules in each squad, not with the platoon HQ. Furthermore, I would need at least a light vehicle sized logistics module to re-supply my squads after combat completes (or during combat if they run dry).
Having thought more about this, I might move the HQ up several command levels so that they are not required to be present on a shipboard detachment at all. Probably better to have HQs stationed on planets. Maybe those will be associated with stationary defensive bunkers or something like that.
More design revisionism is required.
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And I believe you can transfer units between formations if you need to change the balance of elements in your platoon?
You can, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to move a single element at a time. Seems to be all or nothing which isn't quite the level of precision that I want.
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Links for information on HQs and commanders:
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Commander_Boni#Ground_Force_Commander_Boni (http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Commander_Boni#Ground_Force_Commander_Boni)
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Ground_Units#Formations (http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Ground_Units#Formations)
EDIT: This is maybe the most important one: http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-GU_Components#HQ_Component (http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-GU_Components#HQ_Component)
For unit re-arrangement, hit the checkbox "amount popup".
I don't think there's any benefit to having a formation subordinate to an HQ that isn't in the same place. Not 100% sure but everything I've seen suggests that that's pointless if it's even possible.
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According to the wiki link above:
In addition, if the largest HQ in a formation has a rating less than the formation size, the effectiveness of the formation commander's bonuses will be reduced by (HQ rating / formation size). These penalties (command rating and HQ rating) are cumulative.
So that seems to imply that if a formation is built without a HQ then any bonus provided by the formation commander will be reduced to 0, since a formation without an HQ would have HQ rating = 0. Unless it works differently than that.
So it seems that yes, you would need to have either an HQ on each of my squads described above OR a single platoon HQ (redundancy notwithstanding).
Also, thanks for the tip about the amount checkbox.
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According to the wiki link above:
In addition, if the largest HQ in a formation has a rating less than the formation size, the effectiveness of the formation commander's bonuses will be reduced by (HQ rating / formation size). These penalties (command rating and HQ rating) are cumulative.
So that seems to imply that if a formation is built without a HQ then any bonus provided by the formation commander will be reduced to 0, since a formation without an HQ would have HQ rating = 0. Unless it works differently than that.
So it seems that yes, you would need to have either an HQ on each of my squads described above OR a single platoon HQ (redundancy notwithstanding).
"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." (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg111133#msg111133)
You need both, or the platoon-level commander is useless.
Also, thanks for the tip about the amount checkbox.
It took me a bit to find, and I remembered reading about it. Not an obvious UI component that.
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Some day I will unpause the game, so I guess I would have figured out the commander and HQ thing at that point. But it's better to know ahead of time.
After messing around some more, I've gone back to a platoon sized formation.
Boarding Platoon
Transport Size: 250 tons
Build Cost: 1,146.9 BP
2x Light Platoon Command Mech
3x Light Supply Mech
5x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
1x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
20x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
Unit designs are the same as in the previous post. The second command mech is for redundancy only. Resupply will be handled post-combat via a sperate dedicated formation which will be designed later. I think the squad concept I was playing around with would have not worked well because all of the separate weapon systems were isolated in each squad, so a 'combined' arms combat round would not have worked well since some squads would be super effective and others would be much less effective. Now, organized together in platoon, the RNG should spread out amongst the individual units in a better way.
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So, let's see if I can do some maths and figure out a good estimate for how many combat rounds the previously posted platoon can last before running out of GSP.
Each combat round, I assume 64 GSP total are consumed per platoon based on my unit stats. I have 3x 100 GSP units in a platoon. So, first round I have a 64% chance that 1x 100 GSP unit is consumed. If I get through two rounds without having any 100 GSP units consumed, 1x 100 GSP will be consumed and I have a 28% chance that a 2nd 100 GSP unit will be consumed. After 3 rounds of not having any 100 GSP units consumed, 1x 100 GSP will be consumed and I have a 92% chance of a 2nd. After 4 rounds, 2x 100 GSP are consumed and I have a 56% chance of a 3rd. After 5 rounds, all 3x 100 GSP will be consumed.
So, at 60 seconds per combat round, I'm at 5 minutes of game time to deplete a platoon's GSP completely.
In each round of combat, I could shoot 20 + 30 + 6 = 56 times. Assuming 10% accuracy and that each shot that hits is fatal, that's 5 or 6 kills each round on average. After 5 rounds, that's 25 - 30* kills.
Ok, so I'm pretty sure I made a math error in my original post regarding how many kills per round my original platoon could achieve. Having spent some time now digging into this, I think the numbers I just came up with are much more reasonable. It seems that I could expect my new platoon to defeat at most a crew of 25 - 30* before running out of ammo. So I might be able to take out a fighter or a FAC, but a larger ship will require multiple boarding platoons.
That actually makes a lot of sense since my existing boarding ship is a FAC with a single 250 ton boarding module so I would expect it to be effective against something it's own size or smaller. So I think my estimates above are probably accurate.
*Edit: I did my math a little wrong
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Your units don't stop shooting when they run out of supply, 25% keep shooting.
Also your units have inherent supply for 10 rounds of combat.
I don't know how being forced out of front line attack would affect boarding combat, but given you can shoot back from front line defence I imagine you still fight until someone wins.
Each Ground Unit has sufficient inherent supply points to fight ten rounds of combat (currently one round takes place every eight hours). After that point, only one quarter of units in a formation element that is out of supply will fire in each round. In addition, a formation with out of supply elements cannot use a field position of 'Front Line Attack' (more on this when I publish the full ground combat rules). However, if units with logistics modules are available, ground units can draw supply to both fight the current combat round and replenish supplies used in previous combat rounds.
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Your units don't stop shooting when they run out of supply, 25% keep shooting.
Also your units have inherent supply for 10 rounds of combat.
I don't know how being forced out of front line attack would affect boarding combat, but given you can shoot back from front line defence I imagine you still fight until someone wins.
Each Ground Unit has sufficient inherent supply points to fight ten rounds of combat (currently one round takes place every eight hours). After that point, only one quarter of units in a formation element that is out of supply will fire in each round. In addition, a formation with out of supply elements cannot use a field position of 'Front Line Attack' (more on this when I publish the full ground combat rules). However, if units with logistics modules are available, ground units can draw supply to both fight the current combat round and replenish supplies used in previous combat rounds.
I was intentionally trying to make a conservative 'worst-case' estimate, so I used some pessimistic estimation methods. I've heard reports that the 10 rounds of GSP thing doesn't actually work, you really only get one, so I was planning for worst-case here. I also assumed that if my platoon runs out of GSP, they will be overwhelmed and defeated quickly in most situations. If am wrong about either of these, then my troops will perform better than my calculations would suggest, and they will defeat the enemy more rapidly. If I had assumed otherwise, my troops would suffer.
As for the front line thing, my understanding is that in boarding combat, there is no distinction between front line defense or front line attack because there are no lines (or effectively, there is only one line and everyone on the ship is on that line). Any attacking unit can theoretically attack any of the defending crew units, and vice-versa.
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A thought occurred to me while tweaking these platoon templates.
If I board a ship which is transporting a hostile armor formation, will the armored units engage my forces? If so, there is a use-case for anti-tank boarding troops. If this is not possible, AT boarding troops are pointless.
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A thought occurred to me while tweaking these platoon templates.
If I board a ship which is transporting a hostile armor formation, will the armored units engage my forces? If so, there is a use-case for anti-tank boarding troops. If this is not possible, AT boarding troops are pointless.
Only formations that consist entirely of infantry can take part in a boarding attempt
I guess that holds for both sides?
Another factor I found out to be considered is the size of the marine formation needs to be transported by a drop shuttle, ideally a really fast one. The smallest troop bay has a 100ton capacity, so 250 ton is not ideal to use all those space (2 is too small but 3 is too large). Pushing 300 ton worth of drop capable troop bay (330 ton in total) to fast speed probably needs a shuttle around 1k ton.
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A thought occurred to me while tweaking these platoon templates.
If I board a ship which is transporting a hostile armor formation, will the armored units engage my forces? If so, there is a use-case for anti-tank boarding troops. If this is not possible, AT boarding troops are pointless.
Only formations that consist entirely of infantry can take part in a boarding attempt
I guess that holds for both sides?
Another factor I found out to be considered is the size of the marine formation needs to be transported by a drop shuttle, ideally a really fast one. The smallest troop bay has a 100ton capacity, so 250 ton is not ideal to use all those space (2 is too small but 3 is too large). Pushing 300 ton worth of drop capable troop bay (330 ton in total) to fast speed probably needs a shuttle around 1k ton.
I'm not sure it does hold for both sides... I assumed it was for the attacker only.
I haven't fully settled on a particular troop transport design yet, which is one of the variables I am attempting to hammer out in my current design process. I've been trying to optimize my boarding platoons around 250 tons because that is what I have in my existing troop transport design. However, I am planning on revising that design soon. My goal for my boarding troop transport is to have a small (my current design is 1000ish tons) and fast (current design is 10k km/s) ship capable of capturing a ship of it's own size or smaller. My boarding transports are part of a much larger fleet of more conventional combat ships, and are intended to be launched at enemy ships while many other ships are also engaging those same ships.
It is also worth noting that I plan on designing larger landing ships for planetary invasions which will probably utilize formations larger than platoons. However, based on what you said above, it might be worth revisiting the smaller boarding transport modules now that I have more capable infantry to load into them. At my current tech level, it seems I can build transport size 100 boarding modules, which are little less than 1/2 of what I'm currently using.
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Is there anyway to see how many rounds are left in a given unit?
I hope this won't derail the discussion too much, but CAP type of unit seems to be the best bang for buck in 95% of the cases, why not having only that? Sure, they can be killed as easily as another infantry, but they fire thrice when an IPW equipped infantry fires once ...
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Is there anyway to see how many rounds are left in a given unit?
I hope this won't derail the discussion too much, but CAP type of unit seems to be the best bang for buck in 95% of the cases, why not having only that? Sure, they can be killed as easily as another infantry, but they fire thrice when an IPW equipped infantry fires once ...
I am playing around with this balance currently. Below are 3 different 250 ton formations that I have been tweaking with that concept in mind:
Light Boarding Platoon
Transport Size: 250 tons
Build Cost: 1,146.9 BP
2x Light Platoon Command Mech
2x Light Supply Mech
19x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
8x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
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Medium Boarding Platoon
Transport Size: 250 tons
Build Cost: 1,147 BP
2x Light Platoon Command Mech
3x Light Supply Mech
10x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
10x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
1x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
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Heavy Boarding Platoon
Transport Size: 250 tons
Build Cost: 1,191.4 BP
1x Light Platoon Command Mech
3x Light Supply Mech
15x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
6x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
Unit designs are in accordance with whatever unit designs I posted last.
With this round of formation designs, I was looking carefully at the balance between a couple of things. First, I was looking at how many 'kills per round', as I described a few posts back, each platoon was able to achieve. Next, I was looking at how much GSP they each consumed per round. It seems that there is a trade off with CAP vs PWI where CAP consumes much more GSP per round, and thus requires more GSP supply units than an equivalently sized PWI unit requires.
Throughout all of this discussion, I have also been considering the effect of enemy targeting behavior on my own units. If there are, say, 50 enemy units, and I have 50 units in a formation, the enemy attacks will be spread out amongst my 50 units. If I only have 5 units in a formation, it is much more likely that any one of those individual units will be targets in any single round of combat than in a 50 unit formation. So I think there is at least some advantage to having larger formations due to this. I am currently experimenting with this concept by varying the amount of Automatic Rifle Mechs vs Light Pulse Rifle Mechs in my formations as the Light Pulse Rifle Mechs can do more damage per round of combat but by including more Automatic Rifle Mechs I reduce the chance that ANY of my individual mechs will be hit at all.
In the formations above, the Light Boarding Platoon kills about 6.1 targets per round (which I mentally round to '5 to 6' targets per round), the Medium Boarding Platoon kills about 7.6 targets per round (which I round to '6 to 8' targets per round), and the Heavy Boarding Platoon kills about 5.1 targets per round (which I round to '4 to 5' targets per round).
Also, to my knowledge there is no way to know definitively in advance how long a particular formation or unit will last in combat. Targeting of weapons is somewhat random and 'ammunition' is abstracted by the GSP concept which is also somewhat random. With this in mind my design philosophy for my boarding troops and their transports has been as conservative as is consistent with my understanding of boarding combat mechanics in order to maximize my own troops survival rate and also to maximize my chances of successfully capturing enemy ships. For these reasons I developed the methodology I described a few posts back where I made some limiting pessimistic assumptions about how GSP is consumed and damage is dealt.
Some other worthwhile considerations that I have been considering are:
1. I DO plan on using multiple boarding platoons per target ship. This allows me to mix and match the above formations without having to reassign units (though I could reassign if I wanted). It also presents more targets to any hostile point defense I might encounter and might allow at least one boarding team to actually breach the target ship's hull.
2. The Light/Medium/Heavy variants of each squad have somewhat different design optimizations that I have been considering in addition to what I have already discussed. The Light platoon has only 2 Light Support Mechs compared to the 3 in the other two platoon designs, has the most Light Automatic Rifle Mechs of any of the squadrons, and should have the longest combat endurance in terms of GSP efficiency of any of these three platoons. The Medium platoon has the most Light Pulse Rifle Mechs, deals the most killing shots on average out of the 3 platoon designs, and should be the most efficient platoon at defeating lightly armored targets, like hostile crew. The Heavy platoon has the best armor penetration per shot, and MAY be useful in situations involving shipboard combat with hostile armored units and/or hostile infantry equipped with powered armor. If I were to use a Halo analogy, Light platoons are similar to UNSC Marine detachments, Medium platoons are similar to Covenant Elite detachments, and Heavy platoons are similar to Covenant Hunter detachments.
3. I read somewhere that boarding craft which have a speed advantage over their target gain a substantial improvement to the success rate of the boarding action. With this in mind, a smaller, faster boarding craft is probably superior to a larger one unless the larger boarding craft has a speed advantage over the smaller one. My suspicion is that this one of those 'it depends' type of situations so I am going to design a second, smaller boarding craft than my current design and see how the speed problem balances out.*
*Edit: I was able to develop a smaller boarding craft with 100 ton boarding capacity and about 150% better speed than my previous boarding craft, so I will attempt some smaller 100 ton formations next.
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3. I read somewhere that boarding craft which have a speed advantage over their target gain a substantial improvement to the success rate of the boarding action. With this in mind, a smaller, faster boarding craft is probably superior to a larger one unless the larger boarding craft has a speed advantage over the smaller one. My suspicion is that this one of those 'it depends' type of situations so I am going to design a second, smaller boarding craft than my current design and see how the speed problem balances out.
Check out the boarding section here (http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Ship-Combat#Boarding_Combat). If your boarding ship isn't much faster than the target, you could easily lose a majority of your boarding force before the shooting starts.
Boarding against a high-performance military ship that hasn't lost at least some of its engines is likely to be incredibly difficult, and call for assault craft that fly like missiles. Or a very high tolerance for troop losses.
(In most cases, I'd expect the result is that you only board ships that have suffered debilitating damage or just aren't very mobile in the first place. But I'm sure somebody is going to instead opt for fast destroyers that attack by flinging 2000 tons of light infantry at the enemy and losing 70% of them before a shot is fired, and somebody will try to build 25000 km/s boarding shuttles...)
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Hah, I will read through that thread, thanks.
I did in fact just design a 15000 ton destroyer with a small hanger bay capable of launching 15k km/s boarding craft. The boarding craft should have a 2:1 speed advantage against their intended target. That seems significant to me and also significantly better than my previous boarding craft which had a 3:2 speed advantage. Both designs were intended to lag somewhat behind the destroyers and engage their targets after the destroyers had fired their opening beam salvos.
I guess I am an awful person.
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Boarding combat in C# Aurora is similar in principle to VB6 Aurora with some adjustments for the new ground combat mechanics.
The boarding attempt process is as follows:
1. Only a ship with a boarding-equipped troop transport bay can be ordered to make a boarding attempt
2. Only formations that consist entirely of infantry can take part in a boarding attempt
3. Boarding attempts cannot be made against ships that are faster than the ship making the boarding attempt
4. A fleet given the 'Attempt Boarding Action' (for a specified formation) or 'Attempt Boarding Action All Formations' will attempt to end its movement in the same location as the target ship. If that happens, a boarding attempt will be made.
5. The percentage chance of each individual unit (soldier) conducting a successful boarding attempt is equal to 10% x (Boarding Ship Speed / Target Ship Speed). So if the boarding ship is 10x faster than the target ship, success is automatic.
6. Any unit with a 'Boarding Combat' capability has double the normal chance of success. In this case, if the boarding ship is 5x faster than the target ship, success is automatic.
7. Any units that do not make the successful attempt are killed. If an HQ unit is lost, there is a chance the formation commander is killed based on (1/Number of HQ units), which is an automatic kill result if only one HQ exists
Once on the target ships, the surviving attackers will move inside if there is a hole in the armour. If there is no hole, the boarders will use a breaching charge to destroy one armour at the weakest point every thirty seconds until they gain access.
Once inside the target ship, a boarding combat round is conducted every five minutes. This is very similar in principle to ground combat, albeit without support artillery, aircraft, etc. and with no concept of front-live vs rear. There is no 'fortification' in the ground combat sense, but the defenders are given a fortification level of 2 to simulate the advantages of defence within the ship. Each formation on each side randomly selects a target formation on the opposing side, using a weighted random selection based on size. Each unit in each formation selects a random formation element in the opposing formation, again using a weighted random selection based on size, and conducts an attack using the normal ground combat procedure:
The commanders of each formation provide a bonus to hit with their Ground Combat Offence bonus and provide a bonus to fortification (base fortification is 1 on attack and 2 on defence) with their Ground Combat Defence bonus. Any units on either side with 'Boarding Combat' capability have double the normal chance to hit.
For the purposes of boarding combat, the crew is a temporary formation with a single element composed of 'crew' ground units. A crew member is equipped with light personal weapons and has 'armour' equal to half the lowest racial armour for infantry. Casualties in this temporary formation translate into crew losses. Given that the crew is not well equipped for a fight of this type, it would advisable for ships to carry a small marine detachment if there is a chance they may face boarding attacks.
If the target ship is a carrier, formations based on parasite ships will fight to protect the mothership.
If all the defending units are killed, the ship is transferred to the new owners (I may also add some surrender rules so you don't need to kill all the crew).
To simulate the difficulties in making use of a captured ship, especially as the defenders have no doubt locked out the controls and sabotaged whatever they can, the captured ship is treated as if it just abandoned an overhaul and is given an overhaul factor of 0.01.
If a ship is captured, the associated Alien Class is updated with complete information.
Collateral damage can occur during boarding combat using the same rules as for ground-based collateral damage. All the damage is applied to the ship as a single internal hit. Because of the relatively small-scale of shipboard combat, any fractional points of collateral damage have a percentage chance of becoming full points equal to (fractional damage / 1). Damage to transport bays due to collateral damage will not kill defending troops (as they are fighting on the ship and not located in the bay).
Some of this information, at least, is deprecated. According to the C# v1.00 changes thread, in the C# version boarding combat rounds are 60 seconds long. I have NOT tested this yet but I am hoping to test many of my designs soon... it's taken quite a bit of design revision to get to the point of fielding capable designs.
Edit: Or maybe my information from the v1.00 changes thread is deprecated (more likely). Anyways I need to do some actual in-game testing to confirm some things.
Edit 2: This particular nit-pick of mine doesn't change much of what I previously stated about the utility of the most recent platoons I designed because the calculations were based primarily on the number of combat rounds, not the amount of game time that had elapsed. Game time elapsed was a secondary calculation that didn't really impact the 'kills per round' or 'GSP per round' statistics.
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Alright, I have developed new, smaller 100 ton boarding formations for my new faster and smaller boarding transport craft.
Unit designs are as previously posted, except for one new addition:
Light Rocket Mech
Transport Size (tons) 16 Cost 79.1 Armour 20 Hit Points 16.0
Annual Maintenance Cost 9.9 Resupply Cost 6
Light Anti-Vehicle: Shots 1 Penetration 24 Damage 36
Basic Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Desert Warfare
Extreme Pressure Combat
Extreme Temperature Combat
High Gravity Combat
Improved Genetic Enhancement
Jungle Warfare
Low Gravity Combat
Mountain Warfare
Rift Valley Warfare
Vendarite 0.64
Development Cost 3,955
The new formations are squadron sized, led by a Corporal:
Light Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 400.4 BP
2x Light Squadron Command Mech
2x Light Supply Mech
8x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
1x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
############################
Medium Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 400.5 BP
2x Light Squadron Command Mech
2x Light Supply Mech
2x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
4x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
############################
Heavy Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 400.5 BP
2x Light Squadron Command Mech
2x Light Supply Mech
2x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
1x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
1x Light Rocket Mech
Some of my notes about these squadron formations are:
1. The Light squadron features only a single Pulse Rifle Mech armed with a CAP and several Automatic Rifle Mechs armed with IPWs. This provides the maximum possible distribution of targets utilizing 2x Light Command Mechs and 2x Light Supply Mechs, which I consider to be an absolute minimum for a combat squadron for redundancy and combat longevity purposes. The Light squadrons fire 14 shots per combat round and kill approximately 1.4 of their targets, resulting in typically 1 and sometimes 2 kills per round of combat, using my typical pessimistic estimation methods. I will not discuss GSP further until I have combat tested these units.
2. The Medium squadron features as many Pulse Rifle Mechs armed with CAPs as I considered reasonable, with the remaining transport size dedicated to Automatic Rifle Mechs armed with IPWs. I may revise this based on combat performance and increase the number of Automatic Rifle Mechs to reduce Pulse Rifle Mech attrition. I'm not sure what is best here yet. The Medium squadrons fire 26 shots per combat round and kill on average 2.6 targets, resulting typically 3 and sometimes 2 kills per round of combat.
3. The Heavy squadron features a Light Pulse Cannon Mech as well as a Light Rocket Mech in order to neutralize heavily armored targets, such as hostile infantry equipped with powered armor and the possible armored unit in transport in a transport bay. The Heavy squadrons fire 19 shots per combat round and kill on average 1.9 targets, resulting 2 and sometimes 1 kills per round of combat.
These I think are interesting combat statistics. The Light squadron has the worst performance in terms of kill efficiency, but (unconfirmed) has the best GSP efficiency. The Medium squadron has the best kill efficiency, but (unconfirmed) the worst GSP efficiency. The Heavy squadron has intermediate kill and GSP efficiency compared to the Light and Medium squadrons, and has the advantage of improved lethality against armored targets.
With the most recent boarding transport I have designed, 3 of the above squadrons can be deployed simultaneously using 3 separate boarding transports which are in turn deployed form a single carrier. As previously stated, these transports are intended to approach the target hostile ship/fleet following the initial round of bombardment from my destroyers, which are slower than my boarding transports but have considerably greater range and firepower.
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Having 20% of formation tonnage to HQ seems questionable even for surface combat, where commanders seems to outlive their HQ units frequently, and, in addition, they and their reserved HQ units are indispensable to transfer superior commander's bonuses.
For boarding combat with such small one-level forces it's questionable twofold, because boading drop HQ casualty will be fatal for commander, if it was the unit where unlucky commader was deployed, so absolutely no advantage in doubling full-sized HQ units to increase commander's survivability during drop, and, in the same time, there will be no surerior-level commander bonuses transfer, because there is no superior level HQ in your boarding OOB.
I think there will be at all very small percent of juniur commaders, worth their 20%-tons load in boarding squads; they are to have more than 20% of relevant bonuses (Training, Offence and, with ~twice lesser efficiency, Defence and Logistics bonuses are relevant during boarding combat; Training must be used long time before combat to raise squad's moral at max to be truly efficient).
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On the other side, in boarding combat your HQ units are placed at front line attack during first combat phases, and therefore are very vulnerable to enemy hits compared to rear echelon small-sized dug-in detached HQ superior formations, I have tested to verify HQ redundancy efficiency. So, if you will raise boarding troops size to company level - I think it can be noticably effective to have 2-3 HQ units per company, to give commander an ability to proceed with applying their bonuses after surviving their HQ unit destruction. There will be only 2-3% of formation's tonnage, and there will be more able-and-trained officers in this higher rank, so more commander's efficiency to save.
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I have also been questioning the utility of having 20% of each boarding pod dedicated to HQ tonnage. I had included 2 HQ units based on my understanding of the boarding action phase, where if a HQ unit is destroyed, the commander still has a 50% chance of surviving if another HQ unit is present. Additionally, the HQ units will be on the front line once the boarding troops breach the target ship, and some redundancy would seem useful in this situation as well. Larger formations would also reduce the relative amount of tonnage dedicated to HQ's per formation.
I think today I will attempt some company sized formations and boarding transports and see if I can find a better balance there.
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Having 20% of formation tonnage to HQ seems questionable even for surface combat, where commanders seems to outlive their HQ units frequently, and, in addition, they and their reserved HQ units are indispensable to transfer superior commander's bonuses.
For boarding combat with such small one-level forces it's questionable twofold, because boading drop HQ casualty will be fatal for commander, if it was the unit where unlucky commader was deployed, so absolutely no advantage in doubling full-sized HQ units to increase commander's survivability during drop, and, in the same time, there will be no surerior-level commander bonuses transfer, because there is no superior level HQ in your boarding OOB.
I think there will be at all very small percent of juniur commaders, worth their 20%-tons load in boarding squads; they are to have more than 20% of relevant bonuses (Training, Offence and, with ~twice lesser efficiency, Defence and Logistics bonuses are relevant during boarding combat; Training must be used long time before combat to raise squad's moral at max to be truly efficient).
There is never any source that this is a thing. Read the posts for changes, Steve never mentioned this is a thing.
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I had included 2 HQ units based on my understanding of the boarding action phase, where if a HQ unit is destroyed, the commander still has a 50% chance of surviving if another HQ unit is present.
That's counterintuitive, but you'll have no advantage from this chance, because that (empty) HQ's loss and this (commander's one) HQ's loss are independent events. Probability of any HQ unit's loss during boarding drop is set by boarding drop safety multiplier (~ ship velocities ratio). Alloting some size of formation to another HQ unit, you are not changing this probability at all - in that way you just doubling probability, that some HQ unit will be lost during boarding drop. That's not what you want. With current mechanics, as it described by Steve, there is no way to decrease commander's loss during boarding drop besides increasing relative velocity of dropship. You can use 1x10t HQ for 100 tons of drop formation, or 1x10t HQ for 5000 ton battalion, or 10x10t HQs for this 5000 ton battalion - there will be one and the same probability of commander's loss during drop.
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I had included 2 HQ units based on my understanding of the boarding action phase, where if a HQ unit is destroyed, the commander still has a 50% chance of surviving if another HQ unit is present.
That's counterintuitive, but you'll have no advantage from this chance, because that (empty) HQ's loss and this (commander's one) HQ's loss are independent events. Probability of any HQ unit's loss during boarding drop is set by boarding drop safety multiplier (~ ship velocities ratio). Alloting some size of formation to another HQ unit, you are not changing this probability at all - in that way you just doubling probability, that some HQ unit will be lost during boarding drop. That's not what you want. With current mechanics, as it described by Steve, there is no way to decrease commander's loss during boarding drop besides increasing relative velocity of dropship. You can use 1x10t HQ for 100 tons of drop formation, or 1x10t HQ for 5000 ton battalion, or 10x10t HQs for this 5000 ton battalion - there will be one and the same probability of commander's loss during drop.
I'm talking strictly about boarding in this thread. Planetary assault is a separate issue. That said, if what you say above is true and applies for boarding also, then there really is no reason to bring redundant HQs. One HQ per formation should always be sufficient and optimal and instead the commander's survival chance is more closely related to the relative speed difference of the boarding ship and the target ship.
I was under the impression that each HQ in a formation with multiple HQs would get a separate commander. That doesn't seem to be the case.
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I'm talking strictly about boarding in this thread. Planetary assault is a separate issue. That said, if what you say above is true and applies for boarding also
It is for boarding only.
Fire hits are another case - there is a chance of commander's death in case of HQ unit destruction, but this chance's mechanics is not described in Steve posts. In this case HQ redundancy can be useful. My testing battles showed no significent usefullness, but it can be caused by different details of mechanics.
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I was under the impression that each HQ in a formation with multiple HQs would get a separate commander.
No! One formation - one commander. There is no mechanics for reserve commanders in current version.
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Here are my new company sized formations. They will be deployed from a 11k km/s boarding ship, which is slower than my previous 15k km/s squadron sized boarding ships.
Light Boarding Company
Transport Size: 1,000 tons
Build Cost: 4,918.9 BP
1x Light Company Command Mech
9x Light Supply Mech
100x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
25x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
############################
Medium Boarding Company
Transport Size: 1,000 tons
Build Cost: 4,919.2 BP
1x Light Company Command Mech
9x Light Supply Mech
50x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
50x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
############################
Heavy Boarding Company
Transport Size: 1,000 tons
Build Cost: 4,919.2 BP
1x Light Company Command Mech
9x Light Supply Mech
30x Light Rocket Mech
21x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
Some of my notes on these new formations:
1. I have reduced HQ numbers to one HQ per formation for all formations based on the discussions in recent posts and replaced the HQs with more Light Supply Mechs.
2. The Light company focuses on having a relatively large number of Automatic Rifle Mechs relative to Pulse Rifle Mechs, in the interest of reducing Pulse Rifle Mech attrition rates. This formation fires 250 shots per combat round and hits about 25 targets per round. I expect this would normally translate to an average of 20 - 30 kills per round. I believe the formation has enough GSP to support at least 5 rounds of combat (maybe more if troops do actually carry 10 rounds worth of GSP with them). This would result in a minimum of 100 - 150 kills expected before GSP depletion.
3. The Medium company focuses on having a relatively large number of Pulse Rifle Mechs relative to Automatic Rifle Mechs compared to the Light company in the interest of maximizing damage against lightly armored targets. I expect there is room for further optimization of this ratio once I have combat tested these formations. This formation fires 350 shots per combat round and hits about 35 targets per round. I expect this would normally translate to an average of 30 - 40 kills per round. I believe the formation has enough GSP to support at least 3 rounds of combat (maybe more if troops do actually carry 10 rounds worth of GSP with them). This would result in a minimum of 90 - 120 kills expected before GSP depletion.
4. The Heavy company focuses on providing anti armor support. I expect these formations will be used much less frequently than the Light and Medium companies, however I expect them to be useful if hostile power armor troops are present (or if armored forces in transport bays engage boarding parties, still haven't gotten a definitive answer about this). This formation fires 156 shots per combat round and hits about 15.6 targets per round. I expect this would normally translate to an average of 10 - 20 kills per round. I believe the formation has enough GSP to support at least 3 rounds of combat (maybe more if troops do actually carry 10 rounds worth of GSP with them). This would result in a minimum of 30 - 60 kills expected before GSP depletion.
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There is never any source that this is a thing. Read the posts for changes, Steve never mentioned this is a thing.
This phrase implies, that if you have an HQ - you can pass on higher-formation bonuses:
you can't pass on higher-formation bonuses to formations without an HQ.
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So, some more of my amateur maths%u2026
Using my company formations posted above, I would be interested in targeting enemy ships with tonnages of 5k, 10k, 15k, 20k, 25k, and 30k tons, based on my scouting intel. Based on the crew numbers for my own ships, I come up with the following expectations for hostile crew numbers for each hostile ship size:
5k tons: 100-200 crew
10k tons: 300 - 400 crew
15k tons: 400 - 600 crew
20k tons: 600 - 800 crew
25k tons: 800 - 900 crew
30k tons: 900 - 1000 crew
Using my company formations, to be able to capture an enemy ship, I expect to need the following minimum number of each formation to successfully complete a boarding action based on the number of expected crew:
5k tons: 2x Light Companies, 3x Medium Companies, or 4x Heavy Companies
10k tons: 3x Light, 4x Medium, or 10x Heavy
15k tons: 4x Light, 5x Medium, or 14x Heavy
20k tons: 6x Light, 7x Medium, or 20x Heavy
25k tons: 8x Light, 9x Medium, or 27x Heavy
30k tons: 9x Light, 10x Medium, or 30x Heavy
Mixing and matching formation types may lead to improvements in the above estimates. I expect that I will need at least 4 times as many of each formation to ensure enough survive hostile point defense fire to actually breach a hostile hull.
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So, some more of my amateur maths…
Using my company formations posted above, I would be interested in targeting enemy ships with tonnages of 5k, 10k, 15k, 20k, 25k, and 30k tons, based on my scouting intel. Based on the crew numbers for my own ships, I come up with the following expectations for hostile crew numbers for each hostile ship size:
5k tons: 100-200 crew
10k tons: 300 - 400 crew
15k tons: 400 - 600 crew
20k tons: 600 - 800 crew
25k tons: 800 - 900 crew
30k tons: 900 - 1000 crew
Using my company formations, to be able to capture an enemy ship, I expect to need the following minimum number of each formation to successfully complete a boarding action based on the number of expected crew:
5k tons: 2x Light Companies, 3x Medium Companies, or 4x Heavy Companies
10k tons: 3x Light, 4x Medium, or 10x Heavy
15k tons: 4x Light, 5x Medium, or 14x Heavy
20k tons: 6x Light, 7x Medium, or 20x Heavy
25k tons: 8x Light, 9x Medium, or 27x Heavy
30k tons: 9x Light, 10x Medium, or 30x Heavy
Mixing and matching formation types may lead to improvements in the above estimates.
Is this taking into account loses from boarding a moving ship?
Honestly these don't look so bad seeing as you get +1 ship at the end of the day. In my current campaign my bombers fire a volley of missiles at 4 spoiler ships, 3 get destroyed and 1 is slowed. If I had some boarding craft on my carrier fitted with similar to your companies that ship could be mine now instead of it being turned into a wreck (and in turn I lost a railgun fighter) in the ensuring clash.
When commercial hangars get fixed in 1.10 I will definitely take a look at boarding combat more as it seems really cool.
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Using my company formations, to be able to capture an enemy ship, I expect to need the following minimum number of each formation to successfully complete a boarding action based on the number of expected crew:
5k tons: 2x Light Companies, 3x Medium Companies, or 4x Heavy Companies
10k tons: 3x Light, 4x Medium, or 10x Heavy
15k tons: 4x Light, 5x Medium, or 14x Heavy
20k tons: 6x Light, 7x Medium, or 20x Heavy
25k tons: 8x Light, 9x Medium, or 27x Heavy
30k tons: 9x Light, 10x Medium, or 30x Heavy
Is this taking into account loses from boarding a moving ship?
With this round of calculations I am trying to determine how many troops need to survive boarding action in order to successfully capture a ship (i.e. how many troops need to successfully breach an enemy hull to have a chance of successfully capturing the ship). So it does not account for boarding losses, it is my attempt to determine how many troops need to survive boarding action to ensure success.
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FWIW, here are the ships I intend to use to deploy my boarding parties.
First, my microwave destroyer which carry one boarding ship each:
Artemis III class Destroyer 16,000 tons 505 Crew 4,257 BP TCS 320 TH 875 EM 0
7812 km/s Armour 8-56 Shields 0-0 HTK 73 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 20 PPV 24
Maint Life 2.20 Years MSP 6,022 AFR 205% IFR 2.8% 1YR 1,668 5YR 25,019 Max Repair 2187.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 2,500 tons Tractor Beam
Captain Control Rating 3 BRG AUX CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 15 days Flight Crew Berths 80 Morale Check Required
Aegis Ion Drive EP2500.00 (1) Power 2500 Fuel Use 107.33% Signature 875.00 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,001,000 Litres Range 10.5 billion km (15 days at full power)
Aegis R200/C4 High Power Microwave (4) Range 192,000km TS: 7,812 km/s Power 10-4 ROF 15
Aegis CIWS-160 (1x6) Range 1000 km TS: 16,000 km/s ROF 5
Aegis Beam Fire Control R192-TS8000 (50%) (4) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 8,000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Aegis Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor R8-PB30 (2) Total Power Output 16 Exp 15%
Aegis Active Search Sensor AS2-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 3 Range 2.7m km MCR 244k km Resolution 1
ECCM-1 (4) ECM 10
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Artemis is carrier based which allows shorter range, higher speed, and lower MSP than would otherwise be possible.
Each Artemis carries one Jackson V:
Jackson V class Boarding Assault Craft 2,500 tons 63 Crew 621.1 BP TCS 50 TH 197 EM 0
11251 km/s Armour 4-16 Shields 0-0 HTK 7 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 1.22 Years MSP 558 AFR 200% IFR 2.8% 1YR 390 5YR 5,846 Max Repair 492.1875 MSP
Troop Capacity 1,000 tons Boarding Capable
Lieutenant Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days Morale Check Required
Aegis Ion Drive EP562.50 (1) Power 562.5 Fuel Use 441.94% Signature 196.8750 Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 35,000 Litres Range 0.6 billion km (14 hours at full power)
Aegis Active Search Sensor AS2-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 3 Range 2.7m km MCR 244k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Each Jackson V can carry one boarding company as described above. These ships are supported by several other carrier-launched destroyers which provide covering and breaching fire while the Jacksons close on their targets.
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Lets see if I can work out how many extra boarding ships I will need to account for expected boarding action losses.
According to the wiki:
5. The percentage chance of each individual unit (soldier) conducting a successful boarding attempt is equal to 10% x (Boarding Ship Speed / Target Ship Speed). So if the boarding ship is 10x faster than the target ship, success is automatic.
In my situation, I expect worst case speed ratio of boarding ship speed / target ship speed to be approximately 11/7 ~= 1.57. So I expect only about 15 - 16% of my troops to survive a boarding action. For a more common target ship speed of 5k km/s, I get 11/5 ~= 2.2, so in that case I would expect about 20 - 24% of my troops to survive boarding action. So for my company sized formations, I need about 5 - 10 times the number boarding ships compared to my expectations regarding the number of boarding companies required to actually take over a ship.
With this in mind, I think I will attempt to design a larger boarding ship with my destroyer engines to see if I can improve this high casualty rate.
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The largest, fastest, boarding ship capable of fitting inside one of my carriers that I can design with my existing technology maxes out at 19.5k km/s top speed. At this speed, the speed ratio between my boarding ship and the target ship is 19.5/7 = 2.78 so only about 27.8% of my troops will survive boarding action. So I need about 4x the number of troops needed to actually capture the ship to be sent to attempt boarding if I want any chance of success.
I should note at this point that I believe my boarding troops get a 0.2 modifier instead of a 0.1 modifier for boarding action since they are all equipped with the 'boarding combat' modifier, so it is possible that my troops using my new destroyer sized boarding ship would have a boarding action success rate as high as 55.6%, meaning that I only need about twice as many troops to initiate a boarding action as I expect to be needed to capture. That's not quite as hopeless as my previous calculations indicated.
For example, to capture a 5k ton ship moving at 7k km/s, I should need 4x of my 19.5 km/s boarding ships with one Light Boarding Company each to succeed at capturing the target ship. Slower targets would require less boarding ships per target.
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After reviewing the wiki and re-assessing my boarding ship performance, I have designed a new boarding ship capable of transporting squadron sized formations and also redesigned my squadron formations. The new boarding ship has the highest possible success rate for boarding action that I believe is possible with my existing technology, at about 60% success rate against the fastest expected hostile target. This means I need to send about 2x as many boarding ships as I expect are necessary based on enemy crew and my own boarding squad combat statistics would require. Unit designs are unchanged from earlier posts. My new troop boarding transport design is below:
Jackson VII class Boarding Assault Craft 1,000 tons 40 Crew 409.5 BP TCS 20 TH 148 EM 0
21102 km/s Armour 3-8 Shields 0-0 HTK 3 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 1.73 Years MSP 425 AFR 80% IFR 1.1% 1YR 173 5YR 2,593 Max Repair 369.1450 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons Boarding Capable
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days Morale Check Required
Aegis Ion Drive EP421.88 (1) Power 421.9 Fuel Use 510.31% Signature 147.6580 Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 17,000 Litres Range 0.6 billion km (7 hours at full power)
Aegis Active Search Sensor AS2-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 3 Range 2.7m km MCR 244k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
My new boarding squadron formations are below:
Light Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 447.4 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
9x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
3x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
#############################
Medium Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 447.4 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
3x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
6x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
#############################
Heavy Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 447.4 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
1x Light Supply Mech
4x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
My notes on the new formation designs:
1. Light squadrons now carry no GSP capability. I am assuming that the 10 rounds of GSP per unit works as described on the wiki. Light squadrons maintain an Automatic Rifle / Pulse Rifle ratio of 3:1 to minimize Pulse Rifle attrition. They shoot an average of 27 shots per combat round, killing an average of 2.7 targets. I expect average performance of 3 or sometimes 2 kills per round of combat. After 10 rounds of combat, this results in 30 - 20 kills expected.
2. Medium squadrons now carry no GSP capability. I am assuming that the 10 rounds of GSP per unit works as described on the wiki. Medium squadrons maintain an Automatic Rifle / Pulse Rifle ratio of 1:2 as a compromise between offensive damage and Pulse Rifle attrition. They shoot an average of 39 shots per combat round, killing an average of 3.9 targets. I expect average performance of 4 or sometimes 3 kills per round of combat. After 10 rounds of combat, this results in 40 - 30 kills expected.
3. Heavy squadrons are the only squadrons which carry GSP capability. I am assuming that the 10 rounds of GSP per unit works as described on the wiki, however if resupply is required, it can be provided by Heavy squadrons. Heavy squadrons utilize Pulse Cannons exclusively for offensive capability, and are intended for defeating targets equipped with power armor. They shoot an average of 24 shots per combat round, killing an average of 2.4 targets. I expect average performance of 2 or sometimes 3 kills per round of combat. After 10 rounds of combat, this results in 20 - 30 kills expected.
Additionally, the Artemis class has been re-designs to allow for 3x Jackson VII's to be docked in her hanger bays. As a result, she has lost her tractor beam capability which would have been helpful when recovering recently captured ships.
Artemis III class Destroyer 16,000 tons 502 Crew 4,196.5 BP TCS 320 TH 875 EM 0
7812 km/s Armour 8-56 Shields 0-0 HTK 69 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 20 PPV 24
Maint Life 2.29 Years MSP 6,519 AFR 205% IFR 2.8% 1YR 1,679 5YR 25,189 Max Repair 2187.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 3,000 tons
Captain Control Rating 3 BRG AUX CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 15 days Flight Crew Berths 60 Morale Check Required
Aegis Ion Drive EP2500.00 (1) Power 2500 Fuel Use 107.33% Signature 875.00 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,001,000 Litres Range 10.5 billion km (15 days at full power)
Aegis R200/C4 High Power Microwave (4) Range 192,000km TS: 7,812 km/s Power 10-4 ROF 15
Aegis CIWS-160 (1x6) Range 1000 km TS: 16,000 km/s ROF 5
Aegis Beam Fire Control R192-TS8000 (50%) (4) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 8,000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Aegis Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor R8-PB30 (2) Total Power Output 16 Exp 15%
Aegis Active Search Sensor AS2-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 3 Range 2.7m km MCR 244k km Resolution 1
ECCM-1 (4) ECM 10
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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So, some more of my amateur maths:
Using my company formations posted above, I would be interested in targeting enemy ships with tonnages of 5k, 10k, 15k, 20k, 25k, and 30k tons, based on my scouting intel. Based on the crew numbers for my own ships, I come up with the following expectations for hostile crew numbers for each hostile ship size:
5k tons: 100-200 crew
10k tons: 300 - 400 crew
15k tons: 400 - 600 crew
20k tons: 600 - 800 crew
25k tons: 800 - 900 crew
30k tons: 900 - 1000 crew
I will now calculate how many of my boarding squadrons are required to capture ships of the tonnages listed above. These calculations assume the squadrons listed below have already survived boarding action:
5k ton ship: 4x Light Squadrons, 3x Medium Squadrons, or 5x Heavy Squadrons required to capture ship following completion of boarding action
10k ton ship: 10x Light, 8x Medium, or 15x Heavy
15k ton ship: 14x Light, 10x Medium, or 20x Heavy
20k ton ship: 20x Light, 15x Medium, or 30x Heavy
25k ton ship: 27x Light, 20x Medium, or 40x Heavy
30k ton ship: 30x Light, 23x Medium, or 45x Heavy
Finally, I will consider the impact of boarding action. A Jackson VII has a top speed of 21k km/s and the fastest NPR ship I have observed has a top speed of 7k km/s. So, the speed ratio is 21/7 = 3, and 3 * 0.2 = 0.6, so I have a boarding success rate of 60% for each boarding unit. So if I bring 2x as many boarding ships as my calculations above indicate that I need, I should be able to capture a target ship of each of the above sizes, accounting for the effects of boarding action. This is not terribly unreasonable given that each squadron is only 100 tons. I can fit 1x squadron on each Jackson VII and 3x Jackson VIIs on each Artemis. So now I will calculate how many fully loaded Artemis's should be adequate to capture a ship of each of the tonnages listed above:
5k ton ship: 9x Jackson VII on 3x Artemis III
10k ton ship: 21x Jackson VII on 7x Artemis III
15k ton ship: 30x Jackson VII on 10x Artemis III
20k ton ship: 42x Jackson VII on 14x Artemis III
25k ton ship: 54x Jackson VII on 18x Artemis III
30k ton ship: 60x Jackson VII on 20x Artemis III
Considering that each Artemis is accompanied by a compliment of particle beam and plasma carronade destroyers in equal numbers, I think these formations stand a chance at capturing some ships and that my fleet overall may be approaching a final workable configuration for my upcoming encounter with my local hostile NPR.
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I decided to give it a go. I wanted really small boarding craft so I came up with this:
SpaceMarineAssualtShuttle class Troop Transport 250 tons 9 Crew 51.2 BP TCS 5 TH 80 EM 0
16021 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 49% IFR 0.7% 1YR 6 5YR 89 Max Repair 40.00 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons Boarding Capable
Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Morale Check Required
Magneto-plasma Drive EP80.00 (1) Power 80.0 Fuel Use 1104.85% Signature 80.00 Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 12 000 Litres Range 0.8 billion km (13 hours at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
with 16x
SpaceMarine
Transport Size (tons) 5 Cost 1.25 Armour 20 Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.16 Resupply Cost 1
Personal Weapons: Shots 1 Penetration 10 Damage 10
Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
1x
SpaceMarine HQ
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 10 Armour 20 Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 1.3 Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters: Capacity 2 000
Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Non-Combat Class
and
1x
SpaceMarine Logistics
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 2.5 Armour 20 Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.31 Resupply Cost 0
Logistics Module - Small: Ground Supply Points 100
Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Non-Combat Class
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Oh just so you know I am pretty sure it says in the changes that only Infantry work in boarding combat:
Boarding combat in C# Aurora is similar in principle to VB6 Aurora with some adjustments for the new ground combat mechanics. The boarding attempt process is as follows:
Only a ship with a boarding-equipped troop transport bay can be ordered to make a boarding attempt
Only formations that consist entirely of infantry can take part in a boarding attempt
Boarding attempts cannot be made against ships that are faster than the ship making the boarding attempt
A fleet given the 'Attempt Boarding Action' (for a specified formation) or 'Attempt Boarding Action All Formations' will attempt to end its movement in the same location as the target ship. If that happens, a boarding attempt will be made.
The percentage chance of each individual unit (soldier) conducting a successful boarding attempt is equal to 10% x (Boarding Ship Speed / Target Ship Speed). So if the boarding ship is 10x faster than the target ship, success is automatic.
Any unit with a 'Boarding Combat' capability has double the normal chance of success. In this case, if the boarding ship is 5x faster than the target ship, success is automatic.
Any units that do not make the successful attempt are killed. If an HQ unit is lost, there is a chance the formation commander is killed based on (1/Number of HQ units), which is an automatic kill result if only one HQ exists
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg111751#msg111751
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I had included 2 HQ units based on my understanding of the boarding action phase, where if a HQ unit is destroyed, the commander still has a 50% chance of surviving if another HQ unit is present.
That's counterintuitive, but you'll have no advantage from this chance, because that (empty) HQ's loss and this (commander's one) HQ's loss are independent events. Probability of any HQ unit's loss during boarding drop is set by boarding drop safety multiplier (~ ship velocities ratio). Alloting some size of formation to another HQ unit, you are not changing this probability at all - in that way you just doubling probability, that some HQ unit will be lost during boarding drop. That's not what you want. With current mechanics, as it described by Steve, there is no way to decrease commander's loss during boarding drop besides increasing relative velocity of dropship. You can use 1x10t HQ for 100 tons of drop formation, or 1x10t HQ for 5000 ton battalion, or 10x10t HQs for this 5000 ton battalion - there will be one and the same probability of commander's loss during drop.
Math in post below seems to check out.
Any units that do not make the successful attempt are killed. If an HQ unit is lost, there is a chance the formation commander is killed based on (1/Number of HQ units), which is an automatic kill result if only one HQ exists
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Suppose you have 2 HQ units and a 1 in 4 chance of successfully boarding. That gives us the following probability matrix:
1 in 16 chance of both making it and the commander is guaranteed to survive.
6 in 16 chance of 1 HQ making it, with a 50% of the commander dying.
9 in 16 chance of both HQ failing and the commander dying.
That gives us (6/2+1) in 16 chance of success. 6/2+1=4. 4/16=1/4.
Therefore multiple HQs have no effect on the commander surviving the boarding attempt. The only reason to include multiple HQs in a boarding party is to improve commander survival during combat.
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I decided to give it a go. I wanted really small boarding craft so I came up with this:
SpaceMarineAssualtShuttle class Troop Transport 250 tons 9 Crew 51.2 BP TCS 5 TH 80 EM 0
16021 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 49% IFR 0.7% 1YR 6 5YR 89 Max Repair 40.00 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons Boarding Capable
Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Morale Check Required
Magneto-plasma Drive EP80.00 (1) Power 80.0 Fuel Use 1104.85% Signature 80.00 Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 12 000 Litres Range 0.8 billion km (13 hours at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
with 16x
SpaceMarine
Transport Size (tons) 5 Cost 1.25 Armour 20 Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.16 Resupply Cost 1
Personal Weapons: Shots 1 Penetration 10 Damage 10
Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
1x
SpaceMarine HQ
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 10 Armour 20 Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 1.3 Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters: Capacity 2 000
Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Non-Combat Class
and
1x
SpaceMarine Logistics
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 2.5 Armour 20 Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.31 Resupply Cost 0
Logistics Module - Small: Ground Supply Points 100
Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Non-Combat Class
Any reason for avoiding CAP weapons? They seem more efficient in a 'kills per ton per combat round' type of calculation but because they are heavier than PWL, PW, or PWI, they are easier for the enemy to target on a per ton basis.
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I decided to give it a go. I wanted really small boarding craft so I came up with this:
SpaceMarineAssualtShuttle class Troop Transport 250 tons 9 Crew 51.2 BP TCS 5 TH 80 EM 0
16021 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 49% IFR 0.7% 1YR 6 5YR 89 Max Repair 40.00 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons Boarding Capable
Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Morale Check Required
Magneto-plasma Drive EP80.00 (1) Power 80.0 Fuel Use 1104.85% Signature 80.00 Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 12 000 Litres Range 0.8 billion km (13 hours at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
with 16x
SpaceMarine
Transport Size (tons) 5 Cost 1.25 Armour 20 Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.16 Resupply Cost 1
Personal Weapons: Shots 1 Penetration 10 Damage 10
Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
1x
SpaceMarine HQ
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 10 Armour 20 Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 1.3 Resupply Cost 0
Headquarters: Capacity 2 000
Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Non-Combat Class
and
1x
SpaceMarine Logistics
Transport Size (tons) 10 Cost 2.5 Armour 20 Hit Points 20
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.31 Resupply Cost 0
Logistics Module - Small: Ground Supply Points 100
Advanced Genetic Enhancement
Boarding Combat
Non-Combat Class
Any reason for avoiding CAP weapons? They seem more efficient in a 'kills per ton per combat round' type of calculation but because they are heavier than PWL, PW, or PWI, they are easier for the enemy to target on a per ton basis.
I wanted more HP / bodies per formation. With the CAP it would be less than 50 percent of the hp.
Doing some math there is a 0.05 percent (1 in 2000) chance for a crew member of my tech level to kill one of my marines per combat round. My Carrier of 30ktons has 422 crew. On average 0.2 a round.
My guys will kill a crew member every hit at 12 percent chance to hit. With 16 on average: 2 dead a round. With your idea they would kill 4.8 a round each turn which is interesting but then there would only be 6 and early luck on the defenders side could lead to them winning.
Also the longer you live the better if you have GSP supplies cause I am pretty sure the enemy crew does not get it so eventually they will be only firing a quarter of the shots so surviving longer is better.
I think the CAP would be better if you had them on the defenders side for boarding combat.
If it was 1000 enemy crew just 4 shuttles (1k in my hangars is nothing) could take it on pretty well.
This is assuming no losses from boarding. Some math on lets say 5km/s enemy tells me that I would get roughly 2/3 units onboard. 4km/s would be 4/5 units safely on tho.
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I think the CAP would be better if you had them on the defenders side for boarding combat.
The defender has crew for meat-shields and defense bonuses, so maybe.
A boarding force walking into a hundred tons of heavily-armored CAP troopers would probably have a rather unpleasant day.
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Current test against an NPR who I suspect has lower tech than me but not positive:
(https://i.imgur.com/hHdRESH.png)
The ships had 0 movespeed cause they were camping a jumppoint (no boarding losses).
This is our very first combat ever and it's in their home system.
EDIT:
OK captured ships, they had a crew of 161. I lost 1 space marine in total. I do believe the enemy is affected by supply as the shots I was getting hit by were suddenly reduced after about 10 minutes of combat which also means you want your supply on your boarding parties and ships.. I could of probably captured these ships with 1 landing craft each, instead of the two each I used.
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Current test against an NPR who I suspect has lower tech than me but not positive:
(https://i.imgur.com/hHdRESH.png)
The ships had 0 movespeed cause they were camping a jumppoint (no boarding losses).
This is our very first combat ever and it's in their home system.
EDIT:
OK captured ships, they had a crew of 161. I lost 1 space marine in total. I do believe the enemy is affected by supply as the shots I was getting hit by were suddenly reduced after about 10 minutes of combat which also means you want your supply on your boarding parties and ships.. I could of probably captured these ships with 1 landing craft each, instead of the two each I used.
Good data, thanks for sharing!
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I wanted more HP / bodies per formation. With the CAP it would be less than 50 percent of the hp.
Doing some math there is a 0.05 percent (1 in 2000) chance for a crew member of my tech level to kill one of my marines per combat round. My Carrier of 30ktons has 422 crew. On average 0.2 a round.
My guys will kill a crew member every hit at 12 percent chance to hit. With 16 on average: 2 dead a round. With your idea they would kill 4.8 a round each turn which is interesting but then there would only be 6 and early luck on the defenders side could lead to them winning.
Also the longer you live the better if you have GSP supplies cause I am pretty sure the enemy crew does not get it so eventually they will be only firing a quarter of the shots so surviving longer is better.
I think the CAP would be better if you had them on the defenders side for boarding combat.
If it was 1000 enemy crew just 4 shuttles (1k in my hangars is nothing) could take it on pretty well.
This is assuming no losses from boarding. Some math on lets say 5km/s enemy tells me that I would get roughly 2/3 units onboard. 4km/s would be 4/5 units safely on tho.
Interesting points about spreading enemy incoming fire amongst larger number of boarding troops. I have been tweaking my own formation with this in mind but I'm still on the fence about what would be best. Also, the lack of GSP for the defenders is something I had not considered, and I will be adding GSP units back to all of my formations to capitalize on this.
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I wanted more HP / bodies per formation. With the CAP it would be less than 50 percent of the hp.
Doing some math there is a 0.05 percent (1 in 2000) chance for a crew member of my tech level to kill one of my marines per combat round. My Carrier of 30ktons has 422 crew. On average 0.2 a round.
My guys will kill a crew member every hit at 12 percent chance to hit. With 16 on average: 2 dead a round. With your idea they would kill 4.8 a round each turn which is interesting but then there would only be 6 and early luck on the defenders side could lead to them winning.
Also the longer you live the better if you have GSP supplies cause I am pretty sure the enemy crew does not get it so eventually they will be only firing a quarter of the shots so surviving longer is better.
I think the CAP would be better if you had them on the defenders side for boarding combat.
If it was 1000 enemy crew just 4 shuttles (1k in my hangars is nothing) could take it on pretty well.
This is assuming no losses from boarding. Some math on lets say 5km/s enemy tells me that I would get roughly 2/3 units onboard. 4km/s would be 4/5 units safely on tho.
Interesting points about spreading enemy incoming fire amongst larger number of boarding troops. I have been tweaking my own formation with this in mind but I'm still on the fence about what would be best. Also, the lack of GSP for the defenders is something I had not considered, and I will be adding GSP units back to all of my formations to capitalize on this.
I am not so sure the GSP is being taking into account in the boarding combat cause my own units don't seem to be losing any GSP while fighting.
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I think I have tweaked my designs enough. Here are my final formations that I will be sending into battle:
Light Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 98 tons
Build Cost: 437.5 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
1x Light Supply Mech
13x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
#############################
Medium Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 98 tons
Build Cost: 437.5 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
1x Light Supply Mech
11x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
1x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
#############################
Heavy Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 447.4 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
1x Light Supply Mech
10x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
1x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
Based on DFNewb's troop performance, I think my troops will perform adequately and that my boarding shuttle will work reasonably well. I will probably test my boarding troops against some 5k ton targets that my local hostile NPR usually sends to investigate my scout ships. I hope to be able to get some of these units field tested soon.
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I think I have tweaked my designs enough. Here are my final formations that I will be sending into battle:
Light Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 98 tons
Build Cost: 437.5 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
1x Light Supply Mech
13x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
#############################
Medium Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 98 tons
Build Cost: 437.5 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
1x Light Supply Mech
11x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
1x Light Pulse Rifle Mech
#############################
Heavy Boarding Squadron
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 447.4 BP
1x Light Squadron Command Mech
1x Light Supply Mech
10x Light Automatic Rifle Mech
1x Light Pulse Cannon Mech
Based on DFNewb's troop performance, I think my troops will perform adequately and that my boarding shuttle will work reasonably well. I will probably test my boarding troops against some 5k ton targets that my local hostile NPR usually sends to investigate my scout ships. I hope to be able to get some of these units field tested soon.
Again keep in mind: Only Infantry can do boarding. Also the GSP does not seem to be used in boarding combat so it's only needed if these units might fight on the ground with no support.
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Again keep in mind: Only Infantry can do boarding. Also the GSP does not seem to be used in boarding combat so it's only needed if these units might fight on the ground with no support.
Didn't you just report that supply did seem to matter in boarding combat?
Also, all those 'Light ... Mech' units are infantry. Don't be mislead by the name. I assume it's something to do with liveware's race RP concept.
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Again keep in mind: Only Infantry can do boarding. Also the GSP does not seem to be used in boarding combat so it's only needed if these units might fight on the ground with no support.
Didn't you just report that supply did seem to matter in boarding combat?
Also, all those 'Light ... Mech' units are infantry. Don't be mislead by the name. I assume it's something to do with liveware's race RP concept.
Yes but then I tested out boarding parties with just 20 marines in them and they were fine after the tenth round.
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Yes but then I tested out boarding parties with just 20 marines in them and they were fine after the tenth round.
Would have been helpful to mention that...
Any chance you had commanders with Ground Combat Logistics attached?
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Yes but then I tested out boarding parties with just 20 marines in them and they were fine after the tenth round.
Would have been helpful to mention that...
Any chance you had commanders with Ground Combat Logistics attached?
It shouldn't matter as they did not have HQs.
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Yes but then I tested out boarding parties with just 20 marines in them and they were fine after the tenth round.
Would have been helpful to mention that...
Any chance you had commanders with Ground Combat Logistics attached?
It shouldn't matter as they did not have HQs.
That should also make it impossible for them to have any commander assigned, so yeah.
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Again keep in mind: Only Infantry can do boarding. Also the GSP does not seem to be used in boarding combat so it's only needed if these units might fight on the ground with no support.
Didn't you just report that supply did seem to matter in boarding combat?
Also, all those 'Light ... Mech' units are infantry. Don't be mislead by the name. I assume it's something to do with liveware's race RP concept.
All my boarding units are infantry with best available power armor. My RP fiction is 1x biological soldier per 'mech' unit. Not to be confused with IRL mechanized infantry, which is a rather different concept. Channeling Mech Warrior / Starship Troopers / SupCom / Halo concepts in my RP universe.
Sorry for confusion.
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Yes but then I tested out boarding parties with just 20 marines in them and they were fine after the tenth round.
Would have been helpful to mention that...
Any chance you had commanders with Ground Combat Logistics attached?
I still haven't actually built any of my boarding units... I'm still theory crafting while I'm building up my naval forces. Probably will build boarding infantry last.
With that said, I may experiment with the GSP situation myself, with two separate squadron designs both including and excluding front line GSP.
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I have a question regarding the boarding operation. Where do the marines go after you successfully capture the ship? Can you unload them?
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I have a question regarding the boarding operation. Where do the marines go after you successfully capture the ship? Can you unload them?
I'm not sure. This is something I wanted to test. From what I've read elsewhere I think they become the ship's new crew.
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I have a question regarding the boarding operation. Where do the marines go after you successfully capture the ship? Can you unload them?
They are on the ship you captured and then you can take them off with another ship with a troop bay with an order load troops from stationary ship.
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So do you just get automagic new crew after you capture a ship? Or do you have to send it back to a colony for R&R first?
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So do you just get automagic new crew after you capture a ship? Or do you have to send it back to a colony for R&R first?
Well the crew surrenders, you don't need to kill them all. Then the ship has 1 percent of its normal functions that goes up over time over a month. I don't think the crew tracking in Aurora works in general for under-crewed ships as you can always do the load replacement crew but I don't notice anything bad for having less or where it's counted.
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So do you just get automagic new crew after you capture a ship? Or do you have to send it back to a colony for R&R first?
Well the crew surrenders, you don't need to kill them all. Then the ship has 1 percent of its normal functions that goes up over time over a month. I don't think the crew tracking in Aurora works in general for under-crewed ships as you can always do the load replacement crew but I don't notice anything bad for having less or where it's counted.
Good to know, I don't need to be as murderous in my boarding operations as I thought.
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does anyone know the specifics of ship surrender? if "casualties sustained in the current round" is a factor, as it is in morale rolls in many games, that could make a big difference in the "CAP vs PW" decision.. it could also influence the worth of packing a picnic basket when you board.
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If the specifics of the below captured U-505 are realistic, then capturing a WWII era submarine need not be a bloody affair.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-505
In this case, I would argue that ship capture should be based primarily on crew morale rather than (infantry) combat capability. However an outnumbered and outgunned crew should arguably surrender (or scuttle).
Edit: Not to derail this topic too much as Aurora is not exactly a WWII simulacrum.
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https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=halo+reach+trailer&&view=detail&mid=45267D788D01938C230945267D788D01938C2309&&FORM=VRDGAR
Also...
If anyone doubts the utility of boarding troops, consider the above. Sometimes it only takes one spartan to make a difference in the war.
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If the specifics of the below captured U-505 are realistic, then capturing a WWII era submarine need not be a bloody affair.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-505
In this case, I would argue that ship capture should be based primarily on crew morale rather than (infantry) combat capability. However an outnumbered and outgunned crew should arguably surrender (or scuttle).
Edit: Not to derail this topic too much as Aurora is not exactly a WWII simulacrum.
By the 20th century, boarding any warship was something that almost never would happen until after the ship had surrendered. Or been abandoned, in that somewhat unusual case.
Realistically it's hard to imagine that getting any less true in space, but Aurora is hardly bound by 'realistically'.
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Fair point. I have heard of pirates in modern times using small boats to board commercial ships for nefarious pirate reasons. So it's not a completely obsolete practice even today, though I certainly would not want to attempt anything like that myself.
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Fair point. I have heard of pirates in modern times using small boats to board commercial ships for nefarious pirate reasons. So it's not a completely obsolete practice even today, though I certainly would not want to attempt anything like that myself.
You probably could board a slow and unarmed ship that was trying to resist. Though I think the pirate would threaten fire on the ship with small arms and maybe an RPG to make them stop messing about. The boarded ships generally don't have any arms whatsoever, not even small arms.
Trying that kind of thing on a ship with even the smallest of naval weapons would get you converted into finely-divided fish food faster than you could say "Hostis humani generis".
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In the movie, Captain Phillips, and in the real event it's based on, Somali pirate skiffs actually couldn't keep up with the cargo ship on their first attempt. They had to take the motor from one skiff and add it to another for their second attempt, which was successful. So they clearly can successfully board high speed targets.
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I have also heard reports of naval vessels turning pirates into paste... Naval weapons are not toys.
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If the specifics of the below captured U-505 are realistic, then capturing a WWII era submarine need not be a bloody affair.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-505
In this case, I would argue that ship capture should be based primarily on crew morale rather than (infantry) combat capability. However an outnumbered and outgunned crew should arguably surrender (or scuttle).
Edit: Not to derail this topic too much as Aurora is not exactly a WWII simulacrum.
By the 20th century, boarding any warship was something that almost never would happen until after the ship had surrendered. Or been abandoned, in that somewhat unusual case.
Realistically it's hard to imagine that getting any less true in space, but Aurora is hardly bound by 'realistically'.
Boarding a modern warship by force generally requires poking enough holes in it that your boarding party requires scuba gear. Boarding a spaceship the same way requires space suits but the ship itself should remain easily accessible.
I have also heard reports of naval vessels turning pirates into paste... Naval weapons are not toys.
The US Navy has been known to respond with 155mm when their boats get harassed, as the Somalis could tell you, and the Russians tend to get...unpleasant. Any pirate capable of threatening either of those would require the backing of a major government, and actually trying could easily start a war.