Ground Weapons tinkering

[serger (OP)]

Well, that's partly a suggestion, partly a testing request.

There were numerous frustration points across the forum with current ground combat mechanics, so I tried to tinker it with narrow DB edits (DIM_GroundComponentType only, yet no bug reports with it of course) to have more meaningful choices with less disbelieve at the same time.

That's the result I feel the less frustrating I can do with Aurora C# 1.13 executable:

Code: [Select]

Shots Pen. Damage SupUse ComponentName
1 1->0.5 1 1->0.5 Light Personal Weapons
1->2 1 1->0.75 1->2 [Standard] Personal Weapons
1 1.25 1->1.25 1.25->1 [Marksman] Personal Weapons
6->12 1->0.75 1->0.67 6->25 Crew-Served Anti-Personnel
6->9 1.5 1 9->50 Heavy Crew-Served Anti-Personnel
1 2->3 3 6 Light Anti-Vehicle
1 4->6 4 16 Medium Anti-Vehicle
1 6->12 6 36 Heavy Anti-Vehicle
1 9->18 9 81 Super-Heavy Anti-Vehicle
3->12 1 2->1.5 6->150 Light Bombardment
3->12 1.5 4->2 18->250 Medium Bombardment
3->12 1.5 4->2 18->300 Long Range Bombardment
3->12 2 6->3 36->800 Heavy Bombardment
3->12 3 9->4 81->1600 Super-Heavy Bombardment
3->5 1.25->1.5 2 7.5->30 Light Autocannon
2->4 3->2 2->3 18->60 Medium Autocannon
3 5->3 2->4 30->120 Heavy Autocannon
1 1->2 2 2->5 Light Anti-Aircraft
1 2->3 4 8->50 Medium Anti-Aircraft
1 2->4 6 18->100 Heavy Anti-Aircraft

So, what I have done with this.

First of all, currently what is named in Aurora mechanics as Shots - it's shots per ideal average combat turn, not per minute. So, any weapon with more effective range might have much more shots, even if it's technically much less quick-firing. Therefore I have increased Shots parameter for all mostly-anti-infantry heavy weapons to represent that such a weapon will have much more opportunities to shoot during combat length, comparing to any personal or anti-armour weapon. I have decreased Damage parameter for such weapons in the same time, just to contain Collateral Damage per Effective Damage, that is currently making artillery nearly useless strategically (I have largerly sacrificed arty's ability to knock out armoured vehicles yet). I have as well increased Supply Use for the same heavy types of weapons, to adjust their ammo voracity and generally horrible "shots at target per shot fired" ratio, so 10 to 25 times disparity of Shots*Pen*Damage and a Supply Use is now representing that most of such shots are falling on unoccupied locations, doing no effective damage nor collateral one.

With this change Crew Served Weapons and Arty might become tactically very effective... at the cost of terrifying Supply Use and the risk of premature
supply exhaustion correspondingly.

I know that it's the change most players might perceive as too much, yet I think 1/10 of tonnage share (that is now nearly optimal) is too, too low for a supply really, especially when you can produce a supply before even designing combat units, and keep it with no storage cost. So, if I'll have to deliver more supply units comparing to combat ones to maintain major assault effectively - I'll be just content and satisfied. I have to consider now if I want my different formations to try to break / thin out enemy forces within first days of battle - or I want them to hold out making less shots, yet being more consistent and capable of waiting for reinforcements.

Other (much lesser) changes are:

# Slight tinkering of personal weapons - more like aligning flavour and meaninfullness

# An increase of Anti-Armour Weapons penetration - it's quite important for me to make AI forces non-helpless against armour-only avalanches

# More or less flavouring alteration of Autocannons

# Minimal Anti-Aircraft Penetration adjustment - just to make early Light Anti-Aircraft non-futile
(I think it's more for the future, because now Air Support is too much micro for nearly any player, while AI just doesn't use it at all)

Again, I think it's nearly the best I can do as I feel it while looking at numbers, yet it needs massive testing to make sure it really works as intended while causing no bugs, and I just cannot do it now properly, I have tried several cases only. If any of you will feel interested in more broad testing - please write what you get.

[nuclearslurpee]

I will say at the outset, in the interest of full disclosure, that I am not one of the people who thinks ground weapons in Aurora are frustrating or out of balance for the most part. Nevertheless I think this is an interesting experiment worth looking at.

I know that it's the change most players might perceive as too much, yet I think 1/10 of tonnage share (that is now nearly optimal) is too, too low for a supply really, especially when you can produce a supply before even designing combat units, and keep it with no storage cost. So, if I'll have to deliver more supply units comparing to combat ones to maintain major assault effectively - I'll be just content and satisfied. I have to consider now if I want my different formations to try to break / thin out enemy forces within first days of battle - or I want them to hold out making less shots, yet being more consistent and capable of waiting for reinforcements.

Here I have agreement about the principle but disagreement about the approach. It is certainly true that supply requirements are too low compared to IRL formations, however there is one catch with raising these requirements (or more accurately the tonnage of those requirements) which is that making such a large part of the formation of LOG elements tends to get a lot of them shot at while reducing the combat effectiveness of the formation. This is not unrealistic, rather a bit of a limitation in Aurora that we are limited in how well we can simulate the echelon placement of different elements while maintaining useful formation sizes (given that 20,000 tons is really around the necessary formation size for large planetary invasion combat, any veteran player will know this, but this is also regiment or brigade size and thus a lot of granularity is abstracted into a monolithic formation).

Since 1.12 we now have the option to split out a large part of the LOG elements into rear echelon formations which can be set as replenishment formations, and only put ~5 days of LOG in the forward formations. This has two implications for ground unit design. The major implication is that GSP usage can probably be increased by a factor of 5x to 8x, such that 10% to 15% of a front line formation should be integrated LOG elements and this is enough to remain in supply for a five-day construction cycle (when reinforcements are triggered). The minor implication is that LVH+LOG are now almost completely useless aside from flavor; this could be fixed by doubling the GSP capacity of the large LOG element and marking it as LVH only, which I would recommend including in your own changes for testing. In previous discussions this turns out to give both infantry and vehicle logistics their own pros and cons which is a good balance space to be in.

I think this also implies that either GSP requirements need to be raised across the board, or LOG capacity decreased, the effect is the same either way as long as the component tonnage remains the same so I won't argue one way or the other.

Turning to this work I think there is some imbalance mainly in that the AV weapons are now too cheap in terms of supply. While this might be necessary for balance I do not think it is "believable" personally, large AV guns should be firing fairly expensive shots even if the rate of fire is not high, mainly in comparison to the CAP components. A typical early game MBT is VEH+CAP/MAV and I do not think the major supply consumption should be from the CAP component. I am open to being shown wrong by well-sourced figures but intuitively this seems incorrect to me. However the greater expense of artillery I think is a good change.

I would suggest to start a reform of the supply system by staying close to the formula used by Steve, which works fairly well IMO aside from the overall GSP demand being too low, and handling the increase in artillery supply consumption by increasing the number of shots as you have done but staying within the formula - or perhaps multiplying by a small factor of perhaps 2x at most if this seems too low, since you also want to lower damage (though I have a comment about that later). This would push MB from 18 GSP to 72 which is less than you have here but is still markedly more than (current) MAV or HCAP by a large margin and would still make artillery relatively much more supply hungry, but the magnitude of change is not too extreme. Then, tune actual supply tonnage by global adjustments (e.g. reduce the GSP per LOG ton). I would maintain this point for all of the changes made here, so I will not repeat it alongside other comments but I do think that generally sticking to Steve's approach for the most part is the preferable option.

# Slight tinkering of personal weapons - more like aligning flavour and meaninfullness

This one I personally dislike how it has been done as it imposes a bit of restriction on flavor where I prefer open interpretation by the player. Mainly, the shift of PWI to be "marksman" weapons I think it limiting - what if I prefer to use PWI to indicate the SAW or grenade launcher in an infantry rifle squad? The way PWI works now better supports a range of RP potentials, including marksman weapons if desired (and I've also used this convention in some settings).

I also prefer the standard PW to be one shot with 1/1 base stats, this I think is useful flavor wise and for players to conceive of the ground combat mechanics as it sets a baseline which is easy to understand. The change here, other than doubling the GSP (which I think is entirely arbitrary and unnecessary), at least has no real change on the unit performance and I understand why it was done, but I think in this case having an easily understood 1/1/1 baseline is for gameplay benefit worth the perhaps slight quibble in terms of flavor.

# An increase of Anti-Armour Weapons penetration - it's quite important for me to make AI forces non-helpless against armour-only avalanches

It is reasonable, though with the boost in effectiveness I think the GSP of AV weapons is too cheap compared to others. Invincible armor on UHVs is too much for the game, at least against NPRs, but armor should still be useful and making AV weapons more expensive can accomplish this balance-wise.

# More or less flavouring alteration of Autocannons

Probably my favorite change here. I always treat AC as siege guns or bunker busters as their stats really fit this role well, so the change makes them a bit more effective in this role while making HAC more viable.

I have decreased Damage parameter for such weapons in the same time, just to contain Collateral Damage per Effective Damage, that is currently making artillery nearly useless strategically (I have largerly sacrificed arty's ability to knock out armoured vehicles yet)

This was earlier in the OP but I address it last as my comment is fairly minor: I think it is worth not thinking about collateral damage right now until we have 1.14 (2.0?) in our hands, as there is an 80% reduction of collateral damage as one of the changes. This could make artillery worth using strategically but we will need to actually playtest to know for sure. However the lower damage and higher shots are reasonable so I don't think any change is invalidated - other than the a bit extraneous supply consumption as discussed above.

I doubt I can find time to do any playtesting unfortunately but I will be interested to see what results if any come from this. I have plans eventually to do a heavily modded campaign and would not be opposed to adding a ground combat rework into those changes if the results are encouraging.

[serger (OP)]

The minor implication is that LVH+LOG are now almost completely useless aside from flavor; this could be fixed by doubling the GSP capacity of the large LOG element and marking it as LVH only, which I would recommend including in your own changes for testing.

Agree, thnx for the reminder.

Turning to this work I think there is some imbalance mainly in that the AV weapons are now too cheap in terms of supply. While this might be necessary for balance I do not think it is "believable" personally, large AV guns should be firing fairly expensive shots even if the rate of fire is not high, mainly in comparison to the CAP components.

AV shots are more expensive, yet they are still quite compact, so not a load on transport volume, and we have no separate cost of prodaction, so I prefer to lean on transport volume realism.
I have checked through wartime stats - anti-tank munitions is really minor transport&storage problem during those wars I have checked; howitzers and mortars - that's really voracious abyss nearly always, machine guns and auto-cannons less so.

A typical early game MBT is VEH+CAP/MAV and I do not think the major supply consumption should be from the CAP component.

Here is the problem we cannot solve: the real MBT will use AV shells against vehicles, while firing at infantry with MGs and HE-FRAGs (that is able to knock out the whole squad with one hit). The Aurora MBT will stupidly fire with a main gun mostly at infantry units with 1 kill max. So I tend to lower AV shot SupplyUse as the only way to compensate this at least partly.

I would suggest to start a reform of the supply system by staying close to the formula used by Steve, which works fairly well IMO aside from the overall GSP demand being too low, and handling the increase in artillery supply consumption by increasing the number of shots as you have done but staying within the formula - or perhaps multiplying by a small factor of perhaps 2x at most if this seems too low, since you also want to lower damage

That will completely left aside an effect I mentioned above: rear-echelon and quick-firing weapons are way less consistent with hitting targets, comparing to one-shot direct-fire cannons, so the latter have usually at least 5-10 times  (up to several orders of magnitude really) better Shots Hit / Shots Fired rate. That's why I set it this way.

In addition, it's sharpening the meaningful choice, and I'm not sure now even my numbers are large enough for me to be satisfied completely in this aspect.

[nuclearslurpee]

Turning to this work I think there is some imbalance mainly in that the AV weapons are now too cheap in terms of supply. While this might be necessary for balance I do not think it is "believable" personally, large AV guns should be firing fairly expensive shots even if the rate of fire is not high, mainly in comparison to the CAP components.

AV shots are more expensive, yet they are still quite compact, so not a load on transport volume, and we have no separate cost of prodaction, so I prefer to lean on transport volume realism.
I have checked through wartime stats - anti-tank munitions is really minor transport&storage problem during those wars I have checked; howitzers and mortars - that's really voracious abyss nearly always, machine guns and auto-cannons less so.

Good to know, thanks.

A typical early game MBT is VEH+CAP/MAV and I do not think the major supply consumption should be from the CAP component.

Here is the problem we cannot solve: the real MBT will use AV shells against vehicles, while firing at infantry with MGs and HE-FRAGs (that is able to knock out the whole squad with one hit). The Aurora MBT will stupidly fire with a main gun mostly at infantry units with 1 kill max. So I tend to lower AV shot SupplyUse as the only way to compensate this at least partly.

Entirely reasonable. I will note however that the Aurora MBT will also stupidly fire its CAP at the enemy armor, likely making no kills by doing so due to something like 0.4% odds per hit. I do agree AV supply should be rebalanced due to its wastefulness, but I think more in line with CAP/HCAP rather than significantly less. Actually if I think about it, setting MAV and CAP or HCAP to have equal GSP consumption makes some sense since a real-life MBT should be loaded out to get the most use out of its ammo, and not for example running out of MG ammo while having many AT rounds left on a regular basis or vice versa. This suggests that roughly doubling the AV supply use in your paradigm would give a reasonable result.

I would suggest to start a reform of the supply system by staying close to the formula used by Steve, which works fairly well IMO aside from the overall GSP demand being too low, and handling the increase in artillery supply consumption by increasing the number of shots as you have done but staying within the formula - or perhaps multiplying by a small factor of perhaps 2x at most if this seems too low, since you also want to lower damage

That will completely left aside an effect I mentioned above: rear-echelon and quick-firing weapons are way less consistent with hitting targets, comparing to one-shot direct-fire cannons, so the latter have usually at least 5-10 times  (up to several orders of magnitude really) better Shots Hit / Shots Fired rate. That's why I set it this way.

In addition, it's sharpening the meaningful choice, and I'm not sure now even my numbers are large enough for me to be satisfied completely in this aspect.

With such high numbers I would worry that artillery becomes a very niche selection which, in case of realism, it probably should not be. There is a reason why every modern well-equipped army includes artillery elements in every large formation (brigade or division usually), so I would not want to see the case in Aurora shift to "should I include artillery or not?" Rather, how much artillery is a better question.

So I like numbers... pulling out my notes on the US Army BCTs (which are a bit out of date right now, but still fairly modern and representative I think) an artillery battalion in an armored BCT fields 18x Paladin SPGs, which in Aurora would be probably best modeled as LVH+MB, under the current statistics these are 52 tons and 18 GSP apiece for a total of 936 tons and 324 GSP required per ten rounds. A good rule of thumb for logistics would be enough supplies to operate for 30 days (~100 combat rounds) without resupply from higher formations (in Aurora, at least, this is a reasonable expected campaign length if one plans ahead correctly, or at least it is in the right ballpark), so about 3,240 GSP which requires 324 tons of infantry logistics units and a total battalion size of 1,260 tons which is very small. In practice I find that if I try to make 5,000-ton battalions I have around 50-80 guns in the battalion which obviously is too many. We could stick some MAA in there to beef it up but that's not enough.

Under your proposed numbers, MB supply need goes up to 250 per unit, so for this US-modeled battalion a total of 45,000 GSP requirement or 4,500 tons of logistics units and a total formation size of over 5,400 tons - this is before adding any HQ, AA, or other extra elements. I imagine this sounds realistic to those intimately familiar with such things, but for gameplay I think this is a bit much. Particularly, with supply demand so out of line with most other components it reaches a point where the artillery element should likely be left at home in almost any case because the cost of building so many LOG units per combat unit is prohibitive - especially, artillery fire can dominate consumption of LVH+LOG from higher HQs leaving not much for the front line units. So, I think for gameplay purposes something in the middle will work better.

Finally going back to the idea of simply changing the number of shots from 3 to 12 (either preserving the attack stat, or cutting it but also implementing a ~2x multiplier) brings the GSP up to a midrange 72 per gun, requiring 1,300 tons of infantry logistics per 18 guns. Once we add in a battalion HQ and perhaps some defensive AA guns this will give a battalion size of 2,500 to 3,000 tons - or we can bump up the number of guns a little bit more (plenty of reasonable organizations exist after all) and reach 4,000 to 5,000 tons. In more practical experience, I usually place my artillery in a superior HQ (e.g. brigade HQ controlling ~3x front line battalions) so there is a larger HQ and other elements alongside the artillery. Of course in the more useful case of e.g. 20,000-ton front line regiments and divisional troop formations everything scales accordingly. Overall, while it might not be perfectly realistic I think that is a good balance for gameplay within the abstracted system Aurora uses.

[kingflute]

Historically, artillery have been the exception to the 30 days rule. Even relatively light field guns, such as the 25-pounder, would go into the field with enough ammunition to last 1-2 engagements and would expect to be resupplied daily. Later, after the battle of Long Tan - a battle that lasted a single day, 1 ATF's ammunition stock for its 105mm and 155mm guns had to be almost completely restocked. by the 90's a British mortar team on foot would expect to carry no more than 8 rounds.

[nuclearslurpee]

Historically, artillery have been the exception to the 30 days rule. Even relatively light field guns, such as the 25-pounder, would go into the field with enough ammunition to last 1-2 engagements and would expect to be resupplied daily. Later, after the battle of Long Tan - a battle that lasted a single day, 1 ATF's ammunition stock for its 105mm and 155mm guns had to be almost completely restocked. by the 90's a British mortar team on foot would expect to carry no more than 8 rounds.

While true, this doesn't work out very well in Aurora since every formation fires (if possible) every 8 hours - so I think some concession to the game mechanics has to be made. If the LOG units are not in the artillery battalion, they must be higher in the hierarchy (on LVH) or delivered via the replenishment mechanic, so either way the same very large supply demand is applied and needs to be balanced out against all of the other combat units in Aurora ground formations.

[serger (OP)]

Entirely reasonable. I will note however that the Aurora MBT will also stupidly fire its CAP at the enemy armor, likely making no kills by doing so due to something like 0.4% odds per hit.

Yep. It's rather realistic yet: while you likely will not shoot a lone ordinary infantryman with a main gun, you'll still readily fire on enemy armoured vehicle with your MG to have a chance of knocking out optics or, however unlikely, lay some golden bullet (IDK if there were such cases with MBTs, yet with APCs there were multiple cases of killed driver with a loss of rolled over or stuck vehicle in consequence of). In addition, you likely will not shoot some unclear movement in the bushes with a main gun, yet you'll readily fire on such a movement with an MG, resulting sometimes in MG bullets at armoured vehicle unintended, that's completely ordinary case too. That's why I set more SupplyUse for CSAPs and Autocannons comparing to AV guns.  Those AV guns can have more wearable ammo volume, still having much less used ammo. And in Aurora SupplyUse/GSP in used ammo, not wearable (in-hull).

a real-life MBT should be loaded out to get the most use out of its ammo, and not for example running out of MG ammo while having many AT rounds left on a regular basis or vice versa.

There were such cases, multiple and ordinary, when earlier tanks (British ones during early WWII, as a common example) have no HE-FRAG shells. They sometimes used MG cartridge loadings in sequence every day, while their armour-piercing shells were intact for weeks, until they meet some enemy tanks.

This suggests that roughly doubling the AV supply use in your paradigm would give a reasonable result.

Well, I think it's quite reasonable to make it so even if the only reason is to put away an instant disbelieve of average player.

With such high numbers I would worry that artillery becomes a very niche selection which, in case of realism, it probably should not be.

With a x4 firepower boost (nearly without a nerf as an anti-infantry weapon) my main concern now is that it's, on the contrary, may became absolute weapon. Yep, you have to bring much more LOGs to use this firepower consistently, yet it looks like effective per ton of arty+LOG comparing to what it is in vanilla, presuming less then month-long decisive part of battle. Yet it's mostly intended: I want arty as a main damage dealer, as it is in real wartime stats. The problem is to not make it the most efficient for the frontline too. I hope it is not now (with my stats set), because of high volume and so high vulnerability if unarmoured, yet it needs massive testing of different playing styles. CSAPs are still more efficient at a short run with my x2 firepower boost, yet CSAPs are more vulnerable if unarmoured because of obligate frontline, and more expensive if armoured (versus unarmoured rear arty). So I hope we still need a shield of Personal Weapons Meat or frontline vehicles with direct-fire weapons to defend rear arty from counteroffensive breakthroughs.

[serger (OP)]

So, currently I see those problems:

1. Really my set is unable to represent smth like SAW or rifle-with-UBGL weapon systems or just heavier-caliber rifles. There are only 3 slots there for PW(x)s and I'm inclined to not add any slots nor tinker slot sizes to not break any possible AI presets or algorithms. The only case I can suggest for those who want lighter and heavier standard PWs - it's to lore PWL as simple carbines like M4 (both army and colonial police versions), while PW(S) - as full-set brutal assault rifles of larger caliber, longer barrel, better optics and UBGL, or SAWs. The downside is no more pistol-like weapons, yet it's ok for me, because we have no ordinary cops anyway, and it's ok for me if any crew will have smth like M4, not a pistol.

2. It looks like CSAPs are now absolute weapons for boarding actions. It is not as intended. Now I'm thinking about setting their tac stats back at 6-1-1 or close, with PWs at 3-0.x-0.x, because we have to represent Shots as bursts really, so more stable heavy crew-served weapon really may have more chances to hit and penetrate some vulnerable point of personal armour for every target it will fire a burst at. It will however sacrifice CSAP's effectiveness as heavy-armoured vehicle's main anti-meat weapon, so no more nearly-effective classical MBT again, and it's a pain for me. The possible - yet questionable - solution is to set HCSAPs Shots higher, Damage slightly lower.

3. Has anyone tested Light Bombardment Infantry at boarding combat? I feel such a disgust of an idea, so just cannot force myself to do it! If it's really usable during boarding action - I have to lower their Shots, maybe, just to not corrupt other players with this rotten unholy heresy, if abruptly Steve will find this tinkering attractive and take it to vanilla.

4. The question of average player's instant disbelieve and LOG-flooding anxiety about arty. I'm now inclined to slightly lower it's Shots (12 -> 9 or 8) and SupplyUse (x20 -> ~x10), maybe increase Damage slightly back too, to make arty more dangerous for LV LOGs and unarmored mobile HQs.

5. Looks like lighter Autocannons are now too much efficient in my set. I'm inclined to level all Autocannon Shots at 4.

6. Not a burning question bearing in mind Air Support helplessness, still it looks for me that Anti-Air Weapons have to use even more Supply if they have an ability to shoot at surface targets (and so they are more like flac cannons and not MPADs/AAMLs, especially with starting size at 20 - the same as HCSAP and LB).

[nuclearslurpee]

With a x4 firepower boost (nearly without a nerf as an anti-infantry weapon) my main concern now is that it's, on the contrary, may became absolute weapon.

It's worth noting that in nearly all cases right now between artillery and autocannons (vanilla states) the artillery tends to be superior, so it is in some sense already close to being an absolute weapon - lighter and with less GSP demand than AC. It is not a strict superiority but nearly so.

I think the stats as you have them right now are probably close to realistic, damage could be tuned a bit more but AP is where I would have it also. The trouble is that the number of shots and GSP requirements are confusing as they aren't lined up with the usual player expectation of Aurora, which you noted in the following post.

1. Really my set is unable to represent smth like SAW or rifle-with-UBGL weapon systems or just heavier-caliber rifles.

For a general-public release I would probably use the names of Light, Standard, and Heavy PW (PWL/PW/PWH) to fit into a range of roleplay scenarios. Personally I usually consider PWL as light carbines rather than pistols, but PWH I may have as sniper rifles, heavy rifles, or grenadier/SAW/LMG types of weapons in different cases. Of course for testing and personal use the flavor can be however you like.

3. Has anyone tested Light Bombardment Infantry at boarding combat? I feel such a disgust of an idea, so just cannot force myself to do it! If it's really usable during boarding action - I have to lower their Shots, maybe, just to not corrupt other players with this rotten unholy heresy, if abruptly Steve will find this tinkering attractive and take it to vanilla.

With vanilla stats it is nearly always strictly inferior to CAP which has lower tonnage and 2x as many shots. In nearly all cases, one hit (10% chance per shot, IIRC) is one kill so LB is useless. Only CAP, PWL, and PW in very niche cases are actually optimal.

With your stats, and since GSP do not matter for boarding combat, LB has the potential to become more useful than CAP but only against an enemy with a large enough tech advantage that the low damage/AP of your CAP actually hinders kill rate. At any tech level this requires a 2-level difference so it is an unusual case except against certain spoilers, and even then the 67% greater size of LB means that CAP is probably still optimal.

The bigger issue as you've found is that increasing the shots makes PWL clearly inferior to CAP.

----

Thinking about it more, I wonder if a simple solution that would accomplish most of the desired accuracy would involve scaling GSP by the square of #shots instead of directly proportional. This makes AV and PW cheap, CAP somewhat expensive, and AC/artillery quite expensive. Couple this with an increase in tonnage and GSP for artillery only due to indirect fire ability which right now is not quantified and I think the resulting logistics demands become quite interesting. On the low end of the scale there would be infantry garrisons with MG + anti-tank but little support so the difference in supplying light infantry or garrison versus heavy combined arms forces is more pronounced. I won't litter this thread with further analysis of this approach but given its simplicity (i.e. much less rebalancing work needed) while addressing the main weakness of the current GU mechanics I may try this in a modded campaign in the future.

[serger (OP)]

It's worth noting that in nearly all cases right now between artillery and autocannons (vanilla states) the artillery tends to be superior, so it is in some sense already close to being an absolute weapon - lighter and with less GSP demand than AC. It is not a strict superiority but nearly so.

It's a superiority above ACs, yet that's why nearly nobody uses ACs - and therefore arty is only a second from the bottom. That's not what called absolute weapon.
My concern that with my current set, we can just land arty-only force and it will be so much firepower, that we can use no LOG at all - 10 rounds of devastating fire and then you'll already have enough advantage to finish defenders with LOG-depleted 1/4 firepower.
That's not what I want as a mechanical optimum. So p.4 from my previous post is the most likely update I'll do for my next test.

For a general-public release I would probably use the names of Light, Standard, and Heavy PW (PWL/PW/PWH) to fit into a range of roleplay scenarios.

I have considered this naming too (with a corresponding stats), yet marksmen rifle (with lowered SupplyUse) is a thing I just cannot sacrifice easily.
Though it's really hard to model without independent cost multipliers, and I have no desire to see whole armies of AI marksmen, so likely I will concede at this point even with my strictly personal modding.

With your stats, and since GSP do not matter for boarding combat, LB has the potential to become more useful than CAP but only against an enemy with a large enough tech advantage that the low damage/AP of your CAP actually hinders kill rate. At any tech level this requires a 2-level difference so it is an unusual case except against certain spoilers, and even then the 67% greater size of LB means that CAP is probably still optimal.

Which is not good too, so if I'll nerf CSAP - it will bring unholy LBs at front. So even more weight to p.4.

The bigger issue as you've found is that increasing the shots makes PWL clearly inferior to CAP.

Yep.
And we just cannot increase Shots for all PWs, because it will shorten average battle so 10-rounds of LOG-free combat will become even more decisive.
So the only way I see is to drop pen and dam stats considerably.

Thinking about it more, I wonder if a simple solution that would accomplish most of the desired accuracy would involve scaling GSP by the square of #shots instead of directly proportional.

I think you're right, that's quite good rule of thumb at least.

[nuclearslurpee]

It's a superiority above ACs, yet that's why nearly nobody uses ACs - and therefore arty is only a second from the bottom. That's not what called absolute weapon.

I actually don't believe that ACs are bad, which I understand most disagree with. They are I admit too expensive as an anti-personnel weapon and not as reliable as an anti-armor weapon as AV, but they are serviceable in both roles while being very effective against light vehicles and static units. Of course there is the issue of high GSP consumption and tonnage but they are not ineffective IMO.

This is however I admit a digression of the main point and in any case the changes you have made to AC I think emphasize this role very well.

[Droll]

It's a superiority above ACs, yet that's why nearly nobody uses ACs - and therefore arty is only a second from the bottom. That's not what called absolute weapon.

I actually don't believe that ACs are bad, which I understand most disagree with. They are I admit too expensive as an anti-personnel weapon and not as reliable as an anti-armor weapon as AV, but they are serviceable in both roles while being very effective against light vehicles and static units. Of course there is the issue of high GSP consumption and tonnage but they are not ineffective IMO.

This is however I admit a digression of the main point and in any case the changes you have made to AC I think emphasize this role very well.

To me AC is a "win more" weapon that is very powerful when your weapon tech outpaces enemy armor tech, at which point you have a multi-role weapon that can handle both infantry and armor decently/amazingly.

[Blogaugis]

I assume You didn't bother with Vendarite resource calculations, these should be the deciding factor in Aurora.
Now, if there WERE weapons that cost only wealth, but are extremely weak, space-inefficient, and generally not worth bothering with, except when defending and times of desperation - this kind of tinkering I'd agree with...
I guess creating more types of weapons would be a good idea - Having at least 5 Personal weapon types would be more role-play friendly experience, but may be balance-issue source.
Still, I suppose I'll give my thoughts on this as well, even without space and resource requirement calculations:

Code: [Select]

PWC - Conventional Personal Weapons: these should represent militia and below weapon types, remnants of old wars, which are unsuitable in Trans-Newtonian conflicts, except as a desperate measure.
Shots; Pen; Dam; GSPU; (I consider PWC weapons' penetration and damage capabilities to be debatable)
1; 0.2-0.5; 0.2-0.5; 0.
I'm not certain if we need a Conventional Ground Supply components, that can't be transported...
Perhaps these conventional weapons can't be transported on a TN vessel, and can only be built and used on a planet?
Now, I guess Improved PWs could be renamed to heavy - like handheld anti-vehicle weapons, with improved penetration. The PWL and PW remain the same.
And, I think there should also be a Light machine-gun type weapon:

Code: [Select]

PWA - Personal Automatic Weapons.
Shots; Pen; Dam; GSPU;
3; 0.5; 1; 1.5.
Basically, a very anti-soft (infantry) target weapon. It could have the same cost as 3 PWLs, while taking a bit less space.
But, eh, maybe tripling the PWL amount is just the typical stuff...
And, we already have CAP and HCAP, so at this point it's... excessive, perhaps.

I think that anything better than conventional weapons should be locked behind TN technology.
Conventional Ground Construction components should also be a thing, less effective, but - doesn't it feel odd, that suddenly civilization just forgot that it had engineer battalions and other formations in the past? I hope advancing to TN does not mean that You'll forget your past memories/experiences...

[serger (OP)]

As I sayd above, my self-restrictions in this tinkering were "this table only", "these columns only" and "no record adding", because I'm not a developer and so have to do all that I can to avoid creating new bugs.

[nuclearslurpee]

I assume You didn't bother with Vendarite resource calculations, these should be the deciding factor in Aurora.
more words

I really don't get what the purpose of any of this is... I'm frankly not sure vendarite has ever in the history of Aurora been a limiting resource, save the rare cases when someone places a GFTC on a world without mines or vendarite and then mineral shipments are interrupted. Maybe someone in the late game has experienced such a shortage but certainly for the early and mid game it is an afterthought at most.

Serger has it right that the key balancing factor should be logistics. GU cost in Aurora is already coded to be related to the tonnage, armor, and HQ capacity for HQ units, this is unlikely to change and generally works well. Presently it is logistics that unbalance the ground combat in a few ways, that is what is addressed.

Also...as far as "conventional troops", these are already in the game. All you have to do is design ground units without TN techs, which is easiest to do in a conventional start but you can also do this with SM mode in a TN start by temporarily un-researching the TN armor and weapons techs, then design all the ground units you want before re-enabling the techs. The only thing this doesn't do is make the units cost wealth only, which as already stated is really unimportant.

Conventional Ground Construction components should also be a thing, less effective, but - doesn't it feel odd, that suddenly civilization just forgot that it had engineer battalions and other formations in the past? I hope advancing to TN does not mean that You'll forget your past memories/experiences...

In my view it is erroneous to think of the CON component as combat engineering units, it is specialized as TN heavy construction equipment and really does not work in the way that battlefield engineers do, this much is apparent from their actual game mechanics (fortification, ruins recovery, and factory production - all very much heavy construction tasks, not battlefield engineering). Much like recon or signals assets (aside from FFD) engineers are not really modeled in Aurora which is an unfortunate limitation of the GC system.

It is worth noting though that the CON elements, and in fact I believe all of the ground unit techs except for troop transports (why?!) and power armor can be developed without researching TN tech. I think of it therefore as developing the tech for developing TNE-enabled construction units (even in conventional starts, a race still uses TNEs for its conventional industry after all) which are able to carry out spaceborne operations. It's not like the race has forgotten how to build bulldozers and dump trucks, but in the new interstellar era some new technology is required nevertheless.