So, I ended up doing a lot of ground combat in my most recent game, and I do mean a LOT of ground combat. And as a result I have learned many things, mostly about how I was wrong about something. But it also gave me a chance to figure out some of the 'rough spots' involved with ground combat currently. I figured I'd share a few observations, and see if any of the rest of you have similar thoughts.
- The first and most obvious thing, which many have already mentioned, is that it would be very helpful to have a 'rebuild to template' build option, so it is not necessary to manually rebuild ground formations after they have been mauled horribly by the enemy. This could be as simple as just calculating the build cost of the current formation, and then the build cost of the formation you have selected, and cost the difference. This would also allow you to 'refit' divisions with new technology, if you so chose.
- Supply...oh my, supply. Right now there is little purpose to have any integrated supply into your troop formations, simply because in any large or long scale battle, those supplies will not be consumed unless everything has gone wrong. And, odds are, those supply elements will be destroyed by enemy action by the point they are needed. Supply is also quite frustrating in general, since it requires the constant building of new formations and the integration of those formations into an existing OoB. Lots of clicking, moving, micromanagement, etc. This can be somewhat justified in the case of an invasion, since that has the players full attention, but in the case of constant border skirmishing...it becomes a bit tiresome quickly.
- Still on supply, perhaps a system where supply elements become 'exhausted' rather then deleted, and then renew themselves with maintenance supplies? Or since that would do weird things to the minerals involved, perhaps just with vendarite? They could use construction factories (or the attached construction units which already count as 0.05 factories) to renew supply elements. It would add a really cool element to extended operations, and makes sense as they are manufacturing their own equipment according to all the rules. A 'exhaust/renew' supply logic also has all the other existing advantages of the system: having things consumed in units, being a little random, etc.
- STO setup: I love STOs, the idea is awesome, the concept is fun, they are great for defending planets. However setting up their targeting is a bit less great, especially when you have a couple hundred of them scattered across a dozen planets. First it's hard to find the proper ones and then you do huge amounts of clicking until your hand dies. It'd be great to have a planet view option, that only had the STOs on the planet. But the really important thing is it would be VERY nice if we could select multiple STOs at once to change their targeting. It would also be great if we could specify a 'default' targeting option for each STO, meaning that we don't have to manually set all the PD to missile interception. Thank god they choose their own targets...
- Also with STOs, there's a minor design problem which means that turrets are a really bad idea for STOs, but logically shouldn't be. Either turrets shouldn't be an option, because they are universally a bad plan, or that should be corrected. Basically, putting a turret on an STO means it costs more then the number of weapons on it, and is just as easily destroyed, so it effectively has less hp. Four single-weapon STOs cost less, and are four times harder to destroy then one Quad-turret STO. They also are just as powerful and accurate. Ideally this could be corrected, since I like turrets.
- Finally...unrest control. There is really no indication of which units are better at controlling unrest, or the 'capacity' each unit has to control a certain amount of population. Might be cool to have displayed somewhere, and equally, to have specialized military police elements for those troublesome rebellious colonies.
In short, I love the detail, the flexibility, and the potential lore implications. There are only a few problems that I found even with extensive use, but those rough patches are pretty rough, and make it very tempting to just nuke everything and move on. That removes a LOT of cool gameplay, but clicking is brutal past a certain point. C# aurora can actually allow massive games, so the UI problems are magnified.
Edit:
Speaking of things I didn't know, I just now discovered that supply formations which are subordinate to an HQ, cannot provide supply to other formations attached to the same HQ. This is not a good idea. Having dedicated supply formations was the only thing keeping me sane...why would having a dedicated supply formation mean it couldn't supply other units, that's what dedicated logistics is like in the real world?