ground forces - what to build and how to organize

[nuclearslurpee]

So, GSP means something like "ground supply points" I gather.  My supply trucks (LVH+LOG) have 1000 GSP.  Does that mean they replenish that amount periodically, or they replenish that amount and then they're all used up?  Do I need to manufacture GSP somehow, to keep my armies fighting?

Those units disappear once used, and their GSP capacity is distributed to resupply other units.

You "manufacture GSP" by building more LOG/LOG-S units. I'll build formations with only LOG units, set them to have no commands using the trick I described earlier, and then use them as Replacements after a battle.

[joeclark77 (OP)]

What effect do the "HQ" units have?  Should I include one with every formation, even STOs and geosurvey teams, or are they best used for combat formations only?

[joeclark77 (OP)]

Another question: what is "forward fire direction"?

[Andrew]

Forward fire directors are a way of giving yourself micromanagment hell for no return.  They allow you to assign warships or fighters to support ground battles, the fighters need huge numbers to matter and will then all be shot down before achieving anything and if they are not shot down will do almost nothing. The warships will just achieve almost nothing and waste your time setting them up

[Barkhorn]

Blows my mind honestly.  Ship-based weapons must have similar destructive power to nuclear weapons, considering they destroy about as much armor.  And yet somehow, they only kill a handful of infantry, if that.  Vehicles often even survive hits.

We should be making our ships out of the same stuff as medium vehicles tbh.

[Garfunkel]

They can achieve something but yeah orbital bombardment accuracy is quite low and that is intentionally so - firstly, planets are big and ground units can hide and evade using terrain relatively easily. Cold War simulations and testing showed that even a complete nuclear exchange between the USA and the USSR would not turn Earth into a parking lot - yeah nukes are destructive but planets are big. Secondly, if orbital bombardment was more accurate, there would be no need for actual planetary invasions and our new ground combat model would be largely useless, because in most cases it would be easier, cheaper, and faster to just use your ships to blast the defenders to pieces. For sure, there are edge cases where the logic falls apart a little, like tiny little asteroids where it is unlikely for defender to avoid incoming fire for long and such but in general the system works well enough.

What effect do the "HQ" units have?  Should I include one with every formation, even STOs and geosurvey teams, or are they best used for combat formations only?

HQ unit allows the commander to apply their bonuses to the formation that they are assigned to. As bonuses stack through the chain of command, as long as it is not broken, it is useful to have multiple levels of HQs. And yes, they can be useful to survey/xeno/construction formations too. For STOs, it's probably not worth it but ground combat officers can have the "Tactical" skill which increases the accuracy of beam weapons.

[Barkhorn]

- firstly, planets are big and ground units can hide and evade using terrain relatively easily.

Well I thought that's what FFD was for?  And yet even with them you kill almost nothing.

[doodle_sm]

- firstly, planets are big and ground units can hide and evade using terrain relatively easily.

Well I thought that's what FFD was for?  And yet even with them you kill almost nothing.

FFD is for being able to shoot in the first place.

[Barkhorn]

- firstly, planets are big and ground units can hide and evade using terrain relatively easily.

Well I thought that's what FFD was for?  And yet even with them you kill almost nothing.

FFD is for being able to shoot in the first place.

I thought you could just indiscriminately bombard the planet and hit enemy troops by chance, but FFD let you add ships as supporting elements to your ground forces, allowing them to work like artillery?

[nuclearslurpee]

- firstly, planets are big and ground units can hide and evade using terrain relatively easily.

Well I thought that's what FFD was for?  And yet even with them you kill almost nothing.

FFD is for being able to shoot in the first place.

I thought you could just indiscriminately bombard the planet and hit enemy troops by chance, but FFD let you add ships as supporting elements to your ground forces, allowing them to work like artillery?

There are two ways for ships to shoot at planetary ground forces. Technically three, since missile fire uses different mechanics, but we'll keep it simple:

• They can just target the planet, fire their guns, and reload. Repeat until something is dead.
• They can fire in support of a friendly ground formation with FFD. The advantage of this is an increase in accuracy (I believe a factor of 3) which implies a decrease in collateral damage and dust production. The disadvantage is that the ships will only fire once per ground combat increment (8 hours) instead of at their usual ROF, which is why this option tends to be underwhelming in practice.

FFD works fine if you use ships with a large number of guns to support, and don't expect a huge contribution from the orbital forces, basically treating them as additional artillery while your ground pounders do most of the work. If your goal is to wipe them out as quickly as possible, you'd just use the first option, indiscriminately bombard the planet into slag, and leave trivial things like "dust", "radiation", and "the planet being completely uninhabitable" for the politicians to argue about.

Note that there is a salient economic difference here as well. Using the ground forces with orbital support means you'll take heavy ground force losses, which cost vendarite to replace. Using indiscriminate naval bombardment costs a lot of MSP, which costs duranium, uridium, and gallicite. Since the latter three minerals are usually more valuable, using ground forces represents a higher cost in human lives in exchange for conserving your more valuable mineral types (the MSP used by orbital supporting fire is considerably less).

[paolot]

What does it decide the level of the commander of a GU?
I have two units of size around 10,000 (one a bit less, the other a bit more; 25 elementary units each one): the game asks for a R6 for the smaller one, and for a R5 for the larger one. Why? Why not the same level?
At the same time, I have a STO unit of size a bit more than 21,000 (made of 21 Units), and the game asks for a R4. Again, why?
Then, maybe I'm missing something but, who is the Commander in Chief of my Army? I can't find the equivalent of the Navy Commander.
Or should I create this position, and then assign the units to it?

[nuclearslurpee]

What does it decide the level of the commander of a GU?

The game sets a default value automatically (using some rather poor logic), but you can change it in the formations or order-of-battle tabs.

I have two units of size around 10,000 (one a bit less, the other a bit more; 25 elementary units each one): the game asks for a R6 for the smaller one, and for a R5 for the larger one. Why? Why not the same level?
At the same time, I have a STO unit of size a bit more than 21,000 (made of 21 Units), and the game asks for a R4. Again, why?

The default behavior is to set commander level based on (1) formation size and (2) HQ size.

Then, maybe I'm missing something but, who is the Commander in Chief of my Army? I can't find the equivalent of the Navy Commander.
Or should I create this position, and then assign the units to it?

No such position exists, since ground forces do not have an admin command hierarchy like naval forces do. The closest would be if you have a single highest-level HQ formation, but there's usually no need for this except for roleplay.

[joeclark77 (OP)]

Do you give your "HQ" unit a level of HQ equal to the size of their subordinates, or to the size of their subordinates plus their own unit?  For example, nuclearslurpee's first post suggested a brigade size of 12500 including a "Brigade HQ" with HQ 12500, and to put those under a "Division HQ" with HQ 50000.  The question is, can that Division HQ supervise four of the brigades (totalling 50,000 tons), or only three, because three brigades plus its own mass is 50,000 tons?

[Garfunkel]

HQ capability has to be equal or larger than its own formation size + all sub-ordinate formations.

[alex_brunius]

Is there a handy list somewhere showing how many tons HQ capacity each commander rank can handle maximum?