Aurora 4x

C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: vorpal+5 on November 08, 2020, 04:10:51 AM

Title: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: vorpal+5 on November 08, 2020, 04:10:51 AM
Hi,

Very basic designs, if you please. I'm totally rusty and I'm at last starting a big campaign.

This is a rather basic, low tech infantry regiment. I don't have any hope of it being very useful, but my campaign is very roleplay oriented. My main question is that I have added 4 regimental HQ, to be sure it can suffer losses while remaining operational, is it a good move? Also the HQ is a static, because I lacked instant research points  ;D

(https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/8271/ltLvrE.png)
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Droll on November 08, 2020, 07:18:15 AM
So it being roleplay heavy dampens all advice but I'll say my piece - A size 5k combat formation although on the large size is perfectly acceptable because it is a convenient size to build a transport for. It also makes sense since this is your first formation and you haven't gotten around to making an actual HQ hierarchy yet.

To this effect it also makes sense that you have supply trucks baked into the formation.
If I were you I would create maybe another formation called "Logistics Regiment" and move the trucks there. Supply units based on vehicles need not be in the same formation as the units that are drawing supply from it in order to work.
Other than that you could maybe add more CAP infantry (machine gunners). Currently in 1.12 AA is not necessary since the NPRs will not use CAS fighters but if you add them in for RP they will act as AT with half penetration. Also consider making an artillery formation that is at least the same HQ size as the infantry so that you can set it as support easily.

As far as HQs go you are probably fine for a frontline combat formation and 4 is probably a good number given your tech. At high armor tech you can probably reduce that number to 2-3. When you develop an HQ hierarchy you will probably find that you only need spare HQs on the actual combat formations and the HQs at the back can deal with not having spares.

Edit: I just realized you were just asking about the HQ and not everything else lol
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: vorpal+5 on November 08, 2020, 10:00:59 AM
Perfect set of advices, very well appreciated!

Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Barkhorn on November 08, 2020, 12:49:02 PM
Static units are not a good idea for any formation that could be put in the front line attack field position.  They can't get a mobility bonus, and lose their fortification bonus.
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: xenoscepter on November 08, 2020, 01:57:13 PM
 - IIRC Static Units cannot be set to attack, whether or not it's that the setting to it fails or they simply fail to attack when set to it is unknown to me. That being said, having more than 1 HQ is always going to be a tossup; with more HQs you're less likely to be gimped by combat losses, but they eat up tonnage that could also be placed into preventing said losses in the first place. Or so the logic goes. I typically have about 1-2 HQs for a formation that has sub-ordinates, while I will also have an additional HQ that, while insufficient for the sub-ordinate formations is still sufficient for the formation it's in:

For Example:

 - So, images aren't working... I'll place it in an attachment. This is one of my RCTs, or Regimental Combat Teams. They are quite expensive, but also are very elite and should not be considered as a "rank and file" force. The idea is to have a the offensive element either attack or defend as the situation calls for, while the defensive unit holds the line. Each has a Fire Support element that supports them. The Defensive Formation is set to Frontline Defense, while the Offensive Formation is set to Front Line Attack or Front Line Defense; the Fire Support Elements are set to the Support Position while the HQ Formation is set to the Rear Position.

 - These elite 10,000 Ton formations serve as my shock troops and expeditionary forces, reinforcing my more commonplace units and helping them hold or breakthrough as needed. Or being used to wholesale destroy small frontier settlements or outposts. They were made to be used with this Assault Ship here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11929.msg141201#msg141201
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Droll on November 08, 2020, 07:30:21 PM
- IIRC Static Units cannot be set to attack, whether or not it's that the setting to it fails or they simply fail to attack when set to it is unknown to me.

This is somewhat false - Static units can be set to formation attack but they have several problems that other units do not:
A - Statics cannot create and take advantage of the breakthrough mechanic
B - They have no evasion and when anything is on attack their fortification doesn't matter
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: the obelisk on November 08, 2020, 07:41:34 PM
Also the HQ is a static, because I lacked instant research points  ;D
Do people normally spend instant research points on ground units and ship components, rather than spending it all on tech and just SM-ing the designs in after?
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: DFNewb on November 08, 2020, 08:13:19 PM
Also the HQ is a static, because I lacked instant research points  ;D
Do people normally spend instant research points on ground units and ship components, rather than spending it all on tech and just SM-ing the designs in after?

I either ONLY use them for units and components or I play a conventional start.
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: vorpal+5 on November 09, 2020, 01:41:38 AM
So the whole formation can't entrench because the HQ is static?  :-[

Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Droll on November 09, 2020, 03:39:25 AM
So the whole formation can't entrench because the HQ is static?  :-[

No the formation can entrench as long as it is not set to frontline attack (FA)

Edit: Infact, one of the advantages of statics is that they have the same massive fortification that infantry has, making them very good on defence.
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: vorpal+5 on November 09, 2020, 05:31:50 AM
But if I make the regiment attacks, what happens? It loses its fortification permanently whereas another attack would just lose it while it attacks?
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: xenoscepter on November 09, 2020, 06:57:15 AM
 - So after unsuccessfully trying to attach files, I went ahead and created a Google Drive link to them. There are four databases within the .7z archive, and another .7z archive containing the versions needed to open them... assuming you can't just open an old DB in a new version, of course. :) These DBs contain most if not all of my dickering around when it comes to ground forces in C#. Including some Pre-TN Ground Forces. In particular, under the v 1.11.0 database, in a file called "The Sidonian Game", there is a massive Space Station with a large garrison force dedicated to it. This force remains un-tested, however, so use it at your own peril. Hell, ALL of these are untested.

  At any rate, cheers! ;D

Linky Linky===> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bBhmVu3ydJbZCd0ScwPWCE3Ey_93TmmM/view?usp=sharing
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Droll on November 09, 2020, 10:06:04 AM
But if I make the regiment attacks, what happens? It loses its fortification permanently whereas another attack would just lose it while it attacks?

When you set a regiment to frontline attack all of the elements in that formation will immediately reset their fortification level to 1 (no fortification), this is why when changing the field position to attack the game will give you a prompt to confirm. A unit on the attack will not fortify.

Once you set the regiment back to defense or any other field position that is not frontline attack, the elements in the regiment will begin refortifying and regain their fortification. For infantry and statics they will self-fortify until fortification lvl 3 and if you have construction vehicles they will fortify up to 6.
Title: My advice and examples
Post by: Garfunkel on November 09, 2020, 12:22:56 PM
Make 2 different HQs and 2 layers of formations to begin with. It's what I'm doing in my 1890-campaign to maintain my sanity with 10 nations.

The basic building block is the battalion and each battalion is built to do one thing out of three:
1. Attack
2. Defence
3. Support

These also match with the positions (FA, -, SP) Aurora allows for ground combat.

Attack (Cavalry) battalion has LVH HQ and a whole bunch of LVHs armed with CAP and LAV.
Defence (Infantry) battalion has STA HQ and a whole bunch of INF armed with PW & CAP & LB plus some STA with MAV.
Support (Artillery) battalion has STA HQ and loads of STA with MB.

Then I make a Regiment that's only a big STA HQ - but eventually, I will put HB or LrB on it as well so it can fire from Rear position.

Now the Regiment will have 4 battalions under its command: 1x Attack, 1x Defence, 2x Support. Once I have HB in the Regiment itself, I'll take the second Support battalion away.

This way each regiment is a self-contained fighting unit and you can just add more regiments as needed for an invasion. Attack battalions are on Frontline Attack, Defence battalions are on Frontline Defence, Support battalions are on Support and the Regiment itself is on Rear. This way all units maximize their usefulness vis-a-vis fortifications, breakthroughs, evasion, and supporting bombardment fire.

Once your empire grows, you could switch from battalions to regiments as your basic building block to avoid micromanagement hell.
Title: Re: My advice and examples
Post by: Droll on November 09, 2020, 12:42:19 PM
Make 2 different HQs and 2 layers of formations to begin with. It's what I'm doing in my 1890-campaign to maintain my sanity with 10 nations.

The basic building block is the battalion and each battalion is built to do one thing out of three:
1. Attack
2. Defence
3. Support

These also match with the positions (FA, -, SP) Aurora allows for ground combat.

Attack (Cavalry) battalion has LVH HQ and a whole bunch of LVHs armed with CAP and LAV.
Defence (Infantry) battalion has STA HQ and a whole bunch of INF armed with PW & CAP & LB plus some STA with MAV.
Support (Artillery) battalion has STA HQ and loads of STA with MB.

Then I make a Regiment that's only a big STA HQ - but eventually, I will put HB or LrB on it as well so it can fire from Rear position.

Now the Regiment will have 4 battalions under its command: 1x Attack, 1x Defence, 2x Support. Once I have HB in the Regiment itself, I'll take the second Support battalion away.

This way each regiment is a self-contained fighting unit and you can just add more regiments as needed for an invasion. Attack battalions are on Frontline Attack, Defence battalions are on Frontline Defence, Support battalions are on Support and the Regiment itself is on Rear. This way all units maximize their usefulness vis-a-vis fortifications, breakthroughs, evasion, and supporting bombardment fire.

Once your empire grows, you could switch from battalions to regiments as your basic building block to avoid micromanagement hell.

On the other hand you can be like me and willfully go insane and build a full command hierarchy down to company level. Commander bonus are supposed (eventually not right now IIRC) to stack and propagate down the hierarchy so I've decided to practice big OOBs.
Or you can go beyond insane and into lunacy by modelling your hierarchy down to individual squads being led by sergeants.

For reference my OOB generalized looks something like this:
Division
   4 - 6 brigades
      3 regiments per brigade
         3 battalions per regiment
            4 companies + 3000 tons of auxiliary formations (I do have some "double" sized companies though)

This is one of the reason why I have supported and made suggestions on the suggestion board in order to allow for the creation of OOB templates in order to make it so that I only have to form a division type once, then I could just train it. As it stands it can take hours to set up a deep hierarchy.
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Garfunkel on November 09, 2020, 01:20:30 PM
Yeah, I was going to go down that rabbit hole myself but since my main campaign is with 10 Earth powers plus a fluctuating number of alien powers, and with the limited support there currently is for complex OOBs, I decided not to go overboard. :-\

But one day I'll go down to fire teams and lance corporals in my ground OOB and up to Field Marshalls commanding Army Groups, and it shall be glorious!  8)
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Droll on November 09, 2020, 02:30:20 PM
But one day I'll go down to fire teams and lance corporals in my ground OOB and up to Field Marshalls commanding Army Groups, and it shall be glorious!  8)

I kinda wish we were allowed to customize officer rank ratios since at this level you are going to have problem with having enough of certain ranks.
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: MotoEverett on November 09, 2020, 02:37:18 PM
That is what sm is for, adding officers, you can just delete excess naval, admin, and scientists
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Ektor on November 09, 2020, 06:55:49 PM
I kinda wish we were allowed to customize officer rank ratios since at this level you are going to have problem with having enough of certain ranks.

What do you mean you don't have 500 military academies?  :D
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Droll on November 09, 2020, 07:22:48 PM
I kinda wish we were allowed to customize officer rank ratios since at this level you are going to have problem with having enough of certain ranks.

What do you mean you don't have 500 military academies?  :D

You know if it weren't for the commandant system that would be a reasonable expectation.

Except the amount of time it takes the commander menu to open when you have a total 3000 officers across all branches
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: Migi on November 13, 2020, 07:57:26 AM
Also the HQ is a static, because I lacked instant research points  ;D
A static HQ will cost slightly more (in research and cost) than an equivalent infantry HQ.
On a light vehicle it will cost about twice as much.
For small HQ's that's probably not a problem but if you want a 500,000 ton HQ as a container for your divisions that's the difference between an HQ and having access to heavy AA twice over.

Mechanically I would say that HQ's should always be built with avoid combat, but if you are RPing things you might not want that for front line HQ's.
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: vorpal+5 on December 27, 2020, 04:53:15 AM
This is a light combattant. Imp Nuclear Technology, should be faster hopefully than most enemy ships of equivalent propulsion level, at worse as it is tasked to be with missile ships, they might have blown an engine or two before contact is made with the enemy.
Low range, guzzle fuel like there is no tomorrow, I know that and I'm ok with that.
Armor seems decent but necessary for the approach phase.
2 carronades, they can only fire alternatively given the reactor, I'm also ok with that.

What do you think? Is it bound to fail because Carronades are too niche? I don't have Spinal lasers, if that's the question!

Code: [Select]
Zhukov class Gunboat      3 000 tons       83 Crew       318.4 BP       TCS 60    TH 224    EM 0
3734 km/s      Armour 5-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 21      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 12
Maint Life 3.28 Years     MSP 146    AFR 72%    IFR 1.0%    1YR 20    5YR 307    Max Repair 56.00 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Morale Check Required   

Improved Nuclear Thermal Engine  EP112.00 (2)    Power 224.0    Fuel Use 324.10%    Signature 112.00    Explosion 17%
Fuel Capacity 170 000 Litres    Range 3.1 billion km (9 days at full power)

20 cm C2 Plasma Carronade (2)    Range 40 000km     TS: 3 734 km/s     Power 10-2     RM 10 000 km    ROF 25       
Beam Fire Control R40-TS4000 (1)     Max Range: 40 000 km   TS: 4 000 km/s     75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Improved Pressurised Water Reactor R10 (1)     Total Power Output 10.2    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


PS: what is the meaning of "2" in 10-2 for the power usage of the carronade?
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: xenoscepter on December 27, 2020, 06:37:42 AM
~snip~

PS: what is the meaning of "2" in 10-2 for the power usage of the carronade?

 - I think that's your Capacitor tech... not 100% on that though, so don't quote me.
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: vorpal+5 on December 27, 2020, 07:14:20 AM
yes it is, but how it is relevant here, as capacitor alters ROF in any case? Just for reference?
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: dr125 on December 27, 2020, 07:16:53 AM

2 carronades, they can only fire alternatively given the reactor, I'm also ok with that.



PS: what is the meaning of "2" in 10-2 for the power usage of the carronade?

As above, that is your capacitor, 10 is the total to power, hence it needs 25 seconds to recharge (2 power recharge each 5 seconds). Speaking of which, you could get away with a P4 reactor, anything more than that is wasted per 5 seconds. Maybe more armor or 2 P4 reactors for redundancy?
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: vorpal+5 on December 27, 2020, 08:34:32 AM
P4? Power 4

I'm not sure I understand and I fear I'm discovering something major. Are you saying that my 10 power reactor only recharge 2 power per 5 sec increment ??
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: xenoscepter on December 27, 2020, 08:43:59 AM
P4? Power 4

I'm not sure I understand and I fear I'm discovering something major. Are you saying that my 10 power reactor only recharge 2 power per 5 sec increment ??

That is exactly what he is saying. The "10" part tells you how much power the each of those weapons need to fire. The "2" part is how much they draw apiece. So anything more than 4 Power output is effectively wasted. The "10" is useful to let you know which weapons have priority, as in C# weapons are charged in order of most power needed to fire to least power needed to fire.
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: clement on December 27, 2020, 09:10:03 AM
Every weapon that uses power has two values, 10-2, which show the amount of power the weapon needs to fire and the maximum amount of power it can draw from the reactors each 5 second tick.

Your carronades each need 10 power to fire, due to their tech level. Each carronade can draw up to 2 units of power power 5 second tick, due to their capacitor level. Your reactor creates 10 power per tick.

As it is right now, your weapons will draw a total of 4 power each Rich, leaving 6 to be wasted. Your weapons will be able to fire every 5 ticks which matches with the ROF 25 of the weapon which is it's Rate of Fire in seconds.

As dr125 pointed out, you could reduce the size of your reactor to output 4 energy and maintain the full fire rate for the weapons. This would increase the ship's speed due to a lower mass. Or, you could give it a second size 4 reactor for redundancy in case one gets knocked out.
Title: Re: VP+5 Basic designs [AAPA campaign)
Post by: vorpal+5 on December 27, 2020, 12:51:12 PM
ok got it, the 2 is now very clear in the weapon specs. Thanks a lot!