Rebalance Fortification - Add some sort of counter to it.

[Father Tim]

While the numbers vary (and thanks to the exponential function, any sort of force multiplier is hugely beneficial / disadvantageous), it seems pretty solidly that defense has a significant advantage right up until the point when attackers bring overwhelming numbers and/or strength to bear and start scoring breakthroughs. . . which seems to me exactly what we want to see.

Now, if it turns out that the defensive advantages of the "average" planet's terrain mean that the attacker needs twelve-to-one instead of three-to-one, I'm okay with that.

[Jorgen_CAB]

In terms of fighter support you can make pretty effective fighters down to about 70-80t in size. Each can have about two auto-cannon with 6 shots, that is not too bad in my opinion.

I have not done allot of tests with support fighters to date and I'm unsure if ground fighters need to have an engine and fuel, if you can skip that you can get them down to below 70t for a decent ground support fighter.

Code: [Select]

Hunter class Ground Fighter      66 tons       0 Crew       20.3 BP       TCS 1    TH 0    EM 0
1 km/s      Armour 2-1       Shields 0-0       HTK 0      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 16
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 13%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 0    5YR 6    Max Repair 8.0 MSP
Magazine 16   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Morale Check Required   


Size 8.00 Fighter Pod Bay (2)     Pod Size: 8.00    Hangar Reload 141 minutes    MF Reload 23 hours
Missile Fire Control FC11-R100 (1)     Range 11.7m km    Resolution 100
Fighter Autocannon Pod (2)    Armour Penetration: 10     Damage: 20     Shots: 3

[Ektor (OP)]

Their speed affects their vulnerability to AA, so I'd guess they need some. I'm seeing a trend with bombardment with about 10% accuracy, so let's say all your shots penetrate and kill, you'd need about 60 of them to kill around 36 infantry a turn. I'm going to just test that.

Also, I've tested a bunch of stuff with bombardment, it seems pretty clearly to me that massed 10cm railguns are by far the best in bombardment.

[Tactical_Torpedo]

I'm agreeing that Fortification needs to have some rebalancing.    Speaking from in game experience here (so it's not as scientific/cut and dry as OP) but based on what I've noted in game:

For context, I'd previously battled over and secured the Orbit of a NPR planet (It was Barren, for future reference).    I suspect they do have slightly better tech than me, so it was expected their troops would be better on a 1:1 basis.   

Since I had secured Orbit of their planet, and being my first time I tried invading, I decided to go Overkill, since around the time, I didn't have much Logistics capability for Troop Transport.    I had my fleet (Around 20 Ships, approximately 75,000T of Military power.    Admittedly, they weren't all beam, and I was low on missiles from securing the planet so I didn't want to waste em) start bombarding the planet (Unguided, there wasn't any FFD) with Massed Railgun fire.   
I had figured that since the main challenge of Orbital Bombardment was going to be actually hitting the Target, rather than not having enough Damage per shot, 15cm Railgun Spam would see me through.   

I bombarded that planet until I drained all the MSP out of my fleet from repairing my Guns.   
I don't have the exact numbers (Wasn't doing this Scientifically), but I think I killed about 500T of Ground Forces.   

Round 2 with NPR Planet (After topping off my MSP & repairing my ships) and I decided to Invade, even though with my limited invasion capacity I probably going to be Equal in tonnage to the NPR Forces (I didn't know how much they had exactly).    I figured that Bombardments previous poor performance was due to my lack of FFD, and so would Invade and have my ships perform Orbital Bombardment Support.   

Long Story Short: It didn't go well.    I kinda deserved that from half-assing it with my Troop numbers.   

Annoyingly though, my Orbital Bombardment didn't perform anywhere as close as to what I was expecting from it.   
I think over that entire invasion, I killed about 1,000T of their forces, for nearly 16,000T of mine.    They started with approximately 15,000T, by the way.   
Orbital Bombardment killed maybe 3-5 Infantry per round, with me throwing easily over 200+ shots from my Railgun spam per Ground Combat turn.    If I hit something, it died, but I just could not hit a goddamn thing.   
I call the invasion off, and started to build more Invasion ships, as planet has officially annoyed me.   

Timeskip until I get more invasion ships, and I start things off by bringing in a second fleet along with my 1st (if a bit smaller than my First fleet) to Bombard the planet before my second invasion.   
Same story as before, kill a handful of Infantry for an entire fleets worth of MSP and associated maintenance costs.   
I then launch another invasion, now outnumbering the NPR's troops nearly 3:1.   
They're (NPR) all Infantry of various levels of equipment, no Artillery support or nothing.    I'd say 70% of them with Personal weapons, the remainder being AA, AT, Logi and Command troops. 
I brought my Heavy armor Formations to counter their Infantry (and hopefully Low penetration) spam, I've also got Artillery support specifically supporting each of my Frontline Formations, and each Frontline formation has FFD Capabilities to let my Fleet hammer them.   

Exact same thing as before happens, all 32,000T of my troops die in exchange for about 2,000T of theirs (Progress, I guess).   
I may have noticed a bug where my FFD could still direct ship fire even after their unfortunate demise, but I'm not on the latest build even as of this post so it's kinda expected.   
Even with all my ships firing (When they probably shouldn't be), I still could kill barely anything.    To my Orbital Bombardment's credit, they did account for a significant portion of my kills in that invasion attempt, but since my entire fleet displaced more than all of the Ground Forces involved (Including both armies from both of my attempts and the NPR's) I really would have expected more.   
Out of spite at this point, I had my fleet blindly bombard until they ran out of MSP again, and killed a small amount of infantry for my trouble.   

TL,DR: Even with 3:1 advantage, on the terrain that gives the least defense to the defender (Barren), with an entire fleet bombarding them both before and during the invasion(s), the Defender got away practically unscathed (aside from the collateral damage).   
I really dread to think about invading a Fortified jungle without 10:1 odds, a perfect counter to their army composition, a fleet of 100+ Railgun Barges and enough MSP that you have to Strip Mine Sol to build enough ships to carry it all to the planet.   

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm agreeing that Fortification needs to have some rebalancing.    Speaking from in game experience here (so it's not as scientific/cut and dry as OP) but based on what I've noted in game:

For context, I'd previously battled over and secured the Orbit of a NPR planet (It was Barren, for future reference).    I suspect they do have slightly better tech than me, so it was expected their troops would be better on a 1:1 basis.   

Since I had secured Orbit of their planet, and being my first time I tried invading, I decided to go Overkill, since around the time, I didn't have much Logistics capability for Troop Transport.    I had my fleet (Around 20 Ships, approximately 75,000T of Military power.    Admittedly, they weren't all beam, and I was low on missiles from securing the planet so I didn't want to waste em) start bombarding the planet (Unguided, there wasn't any FFD) with Massed Railgun fire.   
I had figured that since the main challenge of Orbital Bombardment was going to be actually hitting the Target, rather than not having enough Damage per shot, 15cm Railgun Spam would see me through.   

I bombarded that planet until I drained all the MSP out of my fleet from repairing my Guns.   
I don't have the exact numbers (Wasn't doing this Scientifically), but I think I killed about 500T of Ground Forces.   

Round 2 with NPR Planet (After topping off my MSP & repairing my ships) and I decided to Invade, even though with my limited invasion capacity I probably going to be Equal in tonnage to the NPR Forces (I didn't know how much they had exactly).    I figured that Bombardments previous poor performance was due to my lack of FFD, and so would Invade and have my ships perform Orbital Bombardment Support.   

Long Story Short: It didn't go well.    I kinda deserved that from half-assing it with my Troop numbers.   

Annoyingly though, my Orbital Bombardment didn't perform anywhere as close as to what I was expecting from it.   
I think over that entire invasion, I killed about 1,000T of their forces, for nearly 16,000T of mine.    They started with approximately 15,000T, by the way.   
Orbital Bombardment killed maybe 3-5 Infantry per round, with me throwing easily over 200+ shots from my Railgun spam per Ground Combat turn.    If I hit something, it died, but I just could not hit a goddamn thing.   
I call the invasion off, and started to build more Invasion ships, as planet has officially annoyed me.   

Timeskip until I get more invasion ships, and I start things off by bringing in a second fleet along with my 1st (if a bit smaller than my First fleet) to Bombard the planet before my second invasion.   
Same story as before, kill a handful of Infantry for an entire fleets worth of MSP and associated maintenance costs.   
I then launch another invasion, now outnumbering the NPR's troops nearly 3:1.   
They're (NPR) all Infantry of various levels of equipment, no Artillery support or nothing.    I'd say 70% of them with Personal weapons, the remainder being AA, AT, Logi and Command troops. 
I brought my Heavy armor Formations to counter their Infantry (and hopefully Low penetration) spam, I've also got Artillery support specifically supporting each of my Frontline Formations, and each Frontline formation has FFD Capabilities to let my Fleet hammer them.   

Exact same thing as before happens, all 32,000T of my troops die in exchange for about 2,000T of theirs (Progress, I guess).   
I may have noticed a bug where my FFD could still direct ship fire even after their unfortunate demise, but I'm not on the latest build even as of this post so it's kinda expected.   
Even with all my ships firing (When they probably shouldn't be), I still could kill barely anything.    To my Orbital Bombardment's credit, they did account for a significant portion of my kills in that invasion attempt, but since my entire fleet displaced more than all of the Ground Forces involved (Including both armies from both of my attempts and the NPR's) I really would have expected more.   
Out of spite at this point, I had my fleet blindly bombard until they ran out of MSP again, and killed a small amount of infantry for my trouble.   

TL,DR: Even with 3:1 advantage, on the terrain that gives the least defense to the defender (Barren), with an entire fleet bombarding them both before and during the invasion(s), the Defender got away practically unscathed (aside from the collateral damage).   
I really dread to think about invading a Fortified jungle without 10:1 odds, a perfect counter to their army composition, a fleet of 100+ Railgun Barges and enough MSP that you have to Strip Mine Sol to build enough ships to carry it all to the planet.

In my opinion it sounds as if the enemy actually have a significant technological advantage, enough to make a pretty big difference. The way the mechanic work is that even a slight advantage i technology can make a huge impact on the general strength of your troops in combat. They also could have had better leaders and general Moral then your troops.

Unless you account for all of those things first you can't say that it was too hard.

In my opinion you probably used way too little troops, especially if you knew your technology was a bit behind theirs to begin with.

I think your story is a good example on how effective a defence can be and why it should be effective. Invading a planet should be a huge undertaking perhaps require hundreds of thousands of tons of troops, ships and fighter cover to perform. That in my opinion is epic and fun... you should have to work for it and not just get it handed to you.

[Father Tim]

. . . I think over that entire invasion, I killed about 1,000T of their forces, for nearly 16,000T of mine.    They started with approximately 15,000T, by the way. . .

. . .I then launch another invasion, now outnumbering the NPR's troops nearly 3:1. . .

In my opinion it sounds as if the enemy actually have a significant technological advantage, enough to make a pretty big difference. The way the mechanic work is that even a slight advantage i technology can make a huge impact on the general strength of your troops in combat. They also could have had better leaders and general Moral then your troops.

Unless you account for all of those things first you can't say that it was too hard.

In my opinion you probably used way too little troops, especially if you knew your technology was a bit behind theirs to begin with.

I think your story is a good example on how effective a defence can be and why it should be effective. Invading a planet should be a huge undertaking perhaps require hundreds of thousands of tons of troops, ships and fighter cover to perform. That in my opinion is epic and fun... you should have to work for it and not just get it handed to you.

To me, it sounds like Tactical_Torpedo decided three-to-one was sufficent odds, and found out it wasn't.

Until I hear tales of ten-, or twelve-, or even twenty-to-one invasions I'm not willing to condemn fortifications (though I do still think they need to be reduced by combat -- again down to some lower limit as rubble makes half-decent cover).

[Tactical_Torpedo]

In my opinion it sounds as if the enemy actually have a significant technological advantage, enough to make a pretty big difference.  The way the mechanic work is that even a slight advantage i technology can make a huge impact on the general strength of your troops in combat.  They also could have had better leaders and general Moral then your troops.

Unless you account for all of those things first you can't say that it was too hard.

In my opinion you probably used way too little troops, especially if you knew your technology was a bit behind theirs to begin with.

I think your story is a good example on how effective a defence can be and why it should be effective.  Invading a planet should be a huge undertaking perhaps require hundreds of thousands of tons of troops, ships and fighter cover to perform.  That in my opinion is epic and fun. . .  you should have to work for it and not just get it handed to you.

I get that an invasion is's meant to be a challenge to undertake, and that my experiences certainly weren't scientific, but at what point does it become less of a challenge and more an impracticality?
If an invasion isn't going to be successful when you outnumber the enemy 3:1, with both Preliminary bombardment and full Fleet Support during the invasion itself, how much can you reasonably commit to invading a planet to make it feasible?

I don't suspect the Technological Difference made much of a difference anyway, since I was perfectly able to kill their forces, when one of my troops landed a hit. 
I don't think it's very feasible for an entire Fleet, firing several hundred rounds, to not make an appreciable dent on their forces.  As mentioned, when I hit with Bombardment, I killed them, but the problem was that my ships simply could not land consistent enough hits to affect the greater course of the battle.
Since there isn't any kind of Technology for increasing the CTH of Ground Combat/Bombardment, with said CTH being the limiting factor on any damage I could inflict, the only means I have to further increase my CTH is shear volume of fire, also known as bringing in even more ships.

At that point, you end up comparing about 600BP of Infantry (with about 200BP of Construction vehicles to fortify them) against 10,000+ BP of Naval Might, and turns out that the Naval force can make no appreciable damage to the Infantry.
Hell, if we still had to produce MSP manually, I'd suspect it'd be a close thing if the cost to Bombard (and subsequent maintenance failures/MSP cost) lost against the average cost of the Ground Forces destroyed.



Personally, I'd like for there to be a mechanism where Fortification gets reduced as the Ground Units get attacked, perhaps with Fortifications reducing the higher the Penetration/Damage of the weapon that is attacking.  Have it happen gradually, so the Defender still has a Advantage, and prevent fortification from being reduced below a certain amount (50% their Self Fortification? Spitballing here).

That way, the defender always retains an advantage over the attacker, but the attacker can actually do something to mitigate said advantage, if they have the time/support to do so.  It would mean you don't have to perform Human Wave tactics to beat a fortified defender and take horrific casualties, if you can wear them down first.
It also makes a bit more sense to me, since the prepared fortifications would be getting worn down as the Battle rages on (similar to the Civilian Installations/Population), not remaining impervious to anything the Attacker uses up until the Element dies.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Here is a decent multi-role fighter... it is good as either a dogfighter or to support ground troops.

Code: [Select]

Hunter class Ground Fighter      79 tons       1 Crew       25.9 BP       TCS 2    TH 8    EM 0
4783 km/s      Armour 2-1       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 16
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 15%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 0    5YR 7    Max Repair 8.0 MSP
Magazine 16   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP7.50 (1)    Power 7.5    Fuel Use 7715.89%    Signature 7.50    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 Litres    Range 0 billion km (1 hours at full power)

Size 8.00 Fighter Pod Bay (2)     Pod Size: 8.00    Hangar Reload 141 minutes    MF Reload 23 hours
Missile Fire Control FC11-R100 (1)     Range 11.7m km    Resolution 100

Fighter Autocannon Pod (2)    Armour Penetration: 10     Damage: 20     Shots: 3
OR
Light Fighter Air-to-Air Pod (2)    Armour Penetration: 10.0     Damage: 20.0     Shots: 1
OR
Heavy Fighter Air-to-Air Pod (1)    Armour Penetration: 20.0     Damage: 40.0     Shots: 1

For ground work you might want a slightly bigger variant but not too big so AA are too effective against them.

Code: [Select]

Raven class Ground Fighter      109 tons       1 Crew       35.3 BP       TCS 2    TH 11    EM 0
5193 km/s      Armour 2-2       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 24
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 21%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 1    5YR 13    Max Repair 8.0 MSP
Magazine 24   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP11.25 (1)    Power 11.2    Fuel Use 6300.00%    Signature 11.25    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 Litres    Range 0 billion km (1 hours at full power)

Size 8.00 Fighter Pod Bay (3)     Pod Size: 8.00    Hangar Reload 141 minutes    MF Reload 23 hours
Missile Fire Control FC11-R100 (1)     Range 11.7m km    Resolution 100

Heavy Fighter Autocannon Pod (2)    Armour Penetration: 17     Damage: 20     Shots: 3
OR
Fighter Autocannon Pod (3)    Armour Penetration: 10     Damage: 20     Shots: 3


[Jorgen_CAB]

In my opinion it sounds as if the enemy actually have a significant technological advantage, enough to make a pretty big difference.  The way the mechanic work is that even a slight advantage i technology can make a huge impact on the general strength of your troops in combat.  They also could have had better leaders and general Moral then your troops.

Unless you account for all of those things first you can't say that it was too hard.

In my opinion you probably used way too little troops, especially if you knew your technology was a bit behind theirs to begin with.

I think your story is a good example on how effective a defence can be and why it should be effective.  Invading a planet should be a huge undertaking perhaps require hundreds of thousands of tons of troops, ships and fighter cover to perform.  That in my opinion is epic and fun. . .  you should have to work for it and not just get it handed to you.

I get that an invasion is's meant to be a challenge to undertake, and that my experiences certainly weren't scientific, but at what point does it become less of a challenge and more an impracticality?
If an invasion isn't going to be successful when you outnumber the enemy 3:1, with both Preliminary bombardment and full Fleet Support during the invasion itself, how much can you reasonably commit to invading a planet to make it feasible?

I don't suspect the Technological Difference made much of a difference anyway, since I was perfectly able to kill their forces, when one of my troops landed a hit. 
I don't think it's very feasible for an entire Fleet, firing several hundred rounds, to not make an appreciable dent on their forces.  As mentioned, when I hit with Bombardment, I killed them, but the problem was that my ships simply could not land consistent enough hits to affect the greater course of the battle.
Since there isn't any kind of Technology for increasing the CTH of Ground Combat/Bombardment, with said CTH being the limiting factor on any damage I could inflict, the only means I have to further increase my CTH is shear volume of fire, also known as bringing in even more ships.

At that point, you end up comparing about 600BP of Infantry (with about 200BP of Construction vehicles to fortify them) against 10,000+ BP of Naval Might, and turns out that the Naval force can make no appreciable damage to the Infantry.
Hell, if we still had to produce MSP manually, I'd suspect it'd be a close thing if the cost to Bombard (and subsequent maintenance failures/MSP cost) lost against the average cost of the Ground Forces destroyed.



Personally, I'd like for there to be a mechanism where Fortification gets reduced as the Ground Units get attacked, perhaps with Fortifications reducing the higher the Penetration/Damage of the weapon that is attacking.  Have it happen gradually, so the Defender still has a Advantage, and prevent fortification from being reduced below a certain amount (50% their Self Fortification? Spitballing here).

That way, the defender always retains an advantage over the attacker, but the attacker can actually do something to mitigate said advantage, if they have the time/support to do so.  It would mean you don't have to perform Human Wave tactics to beat a fortified defender and take horrific casualties, if you can wear them down first.
It also makes a bit more sense to me, since the prepared fortifications would be getting worn down as the Battle rages on (similar to the Civilian Installations/Population), not remaining impervious to anything the Attacker uses up until the Element dies.

As things are right now I don't think it should be easier to invade... it really should be that difficult and it should require a huge investment of resources to invade something. I don't think what you experienced seem unreasonable at all.

If we could erode fortification then fortification need to be allot stronger... it would be too easy to just sit and wait for defences to be weakens so you can waltz in a destroy the ground troops with ease.

I would not be against a way to reduce fortification levels but it should not be easier to invade than what it already is... time will tell if it is too easy or hard... but I want it to be difficult because it is almost always the attacker who are the one that benefit in the end and who have the upper hand and can decide how much and where to concentrate their troops and resources.

I see no problem with attacking a planet needing 10-20 times the resources it took to build the defences there, that is reasonable from a strategic balance point of view to expect.

[Droll]

Also, I've tested a bunch of stuff with bombardment, it seems pretty clearly to me that massed 10cm railguns are by far the best in bombardment.

Have you tried gauss cannon spam as a bombardment alternative? There are potentially 8 shots per barrel at max tech level.

[Droll]

In my opinion it sounds as if the enemy actually have a significant technological advantage, enough to make a pretty big difference.  The way the mechanic work is that even a slight advantage i technology can make a huge impact on the general strength of your troops in combat.  They also could have had better leaders and general Moral then your troops.

Unless you account for all of those things first you can't say that it was too hard.

In my opinion you probably used way too little troops, especially if you knew your technology was a bit behind theirs to begin with.

I think your story is a good example on how effective a defence can be and why it should be effective.  Invading a planet should be a huge undertaking perhaps require hundreds of thousands of tons of troops, ships and fighter cover to perform.  That in my opinion is epic and fun. . .  you should have to work for it and not just get it handed to you.

I get that an invasion is's meant to be a challenge to undertake, and that my experiences certainly weren't scientific, but at what point does it become less of a challenge and more an impracticality?
If an invasion isn't going to be successful when you outnumber the enemy 3:1, with both Preliminary bombardment and full Fleet Support during the invasion itself, how much can you reasonably commit to invading a planet to make it feasible?

I don't suspect the Technological Difference made much of a difference anyway, since I was perfectly able to kill their forces, when one of my troops landed a hit. 
I don't think it's very feasible for an entire Fleet, firing several hundred rounds, to not make an appreciable dent on their forces.  As mentioned, when I hit with Bombardment, I killed them, but the problem was that my ships simply could not land consistent enough hits to affect the greater course of the battle.
Since there isn't any kind of Technology for increasing the CTH of Ground Combat/Bombardment, with said CTH being the limiting factor on any damage I could inflict, the only means I have to further increase my CTH is shear volume of fire, also known as bringing in even more ships.

At that point, you end up comparing about 600BP of Infantry (with about 200BP of Construction vehicles to fortify them) against 10,000+ BP of Naval Might, and turns out that the Naval force can make no appreciable damage to the Infantry.
Hell, if we still had to produce MSP manually, I'd suspect it'd be a close thing if the cost to Bombard (and subsequent maintenance failures/MSP cost) lost against the average cost of the Ground Forces destroyed.



Personally, I'd like for there to be a mechanism where Fortification gets reduced as the Ground Units get attacked, perhaps with Fortifications reducing the higher the Penetration/Damage of the weapon that is attacking.  Have it happen gradually, so the Defender still has a Advantage, and prevent fortification from being reduced below a certain amount (50% their Self Fortification? Spitballing here).

That way, the defender always retains an advantage over the attacker, but the attacker can actually do something to mitigate said advantage, if they have the time/support to do so.  It would mean you don't have to perform Human Wave tactics to beat a fortified defender and take horrific casualties, if you can wear them down first.
It also makes a bit more sense to me, since the prepared fortifications would be getting worn down as the Battle rages on (similar to the Civilian Installations/Population), not remaining impervious to anything the Attacker uses up until the Element dies.

As things are right now I don't think it should be easier to invade... it really should be that difficult and it should require a huge investment of resources to invade something. I don't think what you experienced seem unreasonable at all.

If we could erode fortification then fortification need to be allot stronger... it would be too easy to just sit and wait for defences to be weakens so you can waltz in a destroy the ground troops with ease.

I would not be against a way to reduce fortification levels but it should not be easier to invade than what it already is... time will tell if it is too easy or hard... but I want it to be difficult because it is almost always the attacker who are the one that benefit in the end and who have the upper hand and can decide how much and where to concentrate their troops and resources.

I see no problem with attacking a planet needing 10-20 times the resources it took to build the defences there, that is reasonable from a strategic balance point of view to expect.

I think the fear that people are having is that almost everyone will just render planets uninhabitable - its almost as if ground combat is optional given how damn good missiles are at systemwide genocide. Hell if its a long campaign you could wait until the dust settles and radiation dissipates for the planet to become usable.

As I've said before it would be nice to have mechanics that can lead to fortification being reduced while also allowing the defender to somewhat combat it. Maybe some sort of capability that nullifies fortification during a breakthrough. Or combat engineers who don't damage units but fortifications. While construction vehicles (and maybe CON infantry - think engineers vs sappers) are frantically trying to keep fortifications up.

I do not know how fortification degradation should work with respect to orbital bombardment. At worst for the defender it should take years upon years of bombardment to unfortify units - creating scenarios where the planet may be rendered uninhabitable before the garrison breaks.

[Bremen]

. . . I think over that entire invasion, I killed about 1,000T of their forces, for nearly 16,000T of mine.    They started with approximately 15,000T, by the way. . .

. . .I then launch another invasion, now outnumbering the NPR's troops nearly 3:1. . .

In my opinion it sounds as if the enemy actually have a significant technological advantage, enough to make a pretty big difference. The way the mechanic work is that even a slight advantage i technology can make a huge impact on the general strength of your troops in combat. They also could have had better leaders and general Moral then your troops.

Unless you account for all of those things first you can't say that it was too hard.

In my opinion you probably used way too little troops, especially if you knew your technology was a bit behind theirs to begin with.

I think your story is a good example on how effective a defence can be and why it should be effective. Invading a planet should be a huge undertaking perhaps require hundreds of thousands of tons of troops, ships and fighter cover to perform. That in my opinion is epic and fun... you should have to work for it and not just get it handed to you.

To me, it sounds like Tactical_Torpedo decided three-to-one was sufficent odds, and found out it wasn't.

Until I hear tales of ten-, or twelve-, or even twenty-to-one invasions I'm not willing to condemn fortifications (though I do still think they need to be reduced by combat -- again down to some lower limit as rubble makes half-decent cover).

Something else to keep in mind is that, IIRC, fortification also reduces the sensor return of ground forces. So even if Tactical Torpedo thought there were 15,000 tons of units there, there might have actually been 50,000 or more. Also, 1000 tons of basic infantry is not equivalent to, say, 1000 tons of heavy tank.

At the end of the day, I think the question that needs to be asked is this: What advantage in tonnage/cost does everyone think you should need to easily triumph over fortified defenders?

[Jorgen_CAB]

I think the fear that people are having is that almost everyone will just render planets uninhabitable - its almost as if ground combat is optional given how damn good missiles are at systemwide genocide. Hell if its a long campaign you could wait until the dust settles and radiation dissipates for the planet to become usable.

As I've said before it would be nice to have mechanics that can lead to fortification being reduced while also allowing the defender to somewhat combat it. Maybe some sort of capability that nullifies fortification during a breakthrough. Or combat engineers who don't damage units but fortifications. While construction vehicles (and maybe CON infantry - think engineers vs sappers) are frantically trying to keep fortifications up.

I do not know how fortification degradation should work with respect to orbital bombardment. At worst for the defender it should take years upon years of bombardment to unfortify units - creating scenarios where the planet may be rendered uninhabitable before the garrison breaks.

To be honest I really don't see what completely destroying a planet have to do with invading it. If performing total genocide of whatever enemy you are fighting is your thing then by all means do that instead.

Aurora 4x does not care about game balance in that way and you could do that in VB6 as well. But if you want to invade, capture and use a planet then you will need to put down the resources needed to do so.

Aurora 4x is a heavily role-play driven game so the choice between glassing and invading a planet is not important in this context.

[Father Tim]

At the end of the day, I think the question that needs to be asked is this: What advantage in tonnage/cost does everyone think you should need to easily triumph over fortified defenders?

Easily?  At least twenty-to-one.  Probably more like thirty- or fifty-to-one.

[Father Tim]

. . .Personally, I'd like for there to be a mechanism where Fortification gets reduced as the Ground Units get attacked, perhaps with Fortifications reducing the higher the Penetration/Damage of the weapon that is attacking.  Have it happen gradually, so the Defender still has a Advantage, and prevent fortification from being reduced below a certain amount (50% their Self Fortification? Spitballing here).

That way, the defender always retains an advantage over the attacker, but the attacker can actually do something to mitigate said advantage, if they have the time/support to do so.  It would mean you don't have to perform Human Wave tactics to beat a fortified defender and take horrific casualties, if you can wear them down first.
It also makes a bit more sense to me, since the prepared fortifications would be getting worn down as the Battle rages on (similar to the Civilian Installations/Population), not remaining impervious to anything the Attacker uses up until the Element dies.

Given that firing a thousand shots to hit six times isn't particularly fun, perhaps Fortifications should change from a penalty 'to hit' to an increase in the fortified unit's effective Armour rating.