Panpiper's ground forces

[Panpiper (OP)]

I've adopted what I think is a fairly elegant, standard structure for my ground forces for this game.

16 Troop Transports each carrying 50,000 tons, drop capable.

Mech Assault Corps: 50,000ton
1  HQ/FOB medium chassis, med armor 800,000 command
6  Flak Guns medium chassis, med armor 2 x medium anti-aircraft
792 supply trucks = 396000 GSP  Core uses 231,204 GSP per 10 rounds.

3x Supply Depot: 50,000 ton (designated replacements)
1 HQ, static light armor 50,000 command
802 supply trucks

3x Mech Assault Division: 5000ton
1  HQ/FOB medium chassis, med armor 200,000 command
6  Flak Guns medium chassis, med armor 2 x medium anti-aircraft
35 Longtom Artilery medium chassis, med armor, 2 x long range bombardment

9x Mech Assault Regiment: 5000ton
1  HQ/FOB medium chassis, med armor 65,000 command
6  Flak Guns medium chassis, med armor 2 x medium anti-aircraft
35 Longtom Artillery medium chassis, med armor, 2 x long range bombardment

27x Mech Assault Battalion: 5000ton
1  HQ/FOB medium chassis, med armor 20,000 command
6  Flak Guns medium chassis, med armor 2 x medium anti-aircraft
43 Field Artillery medium chassis, med armor, 2 x medium bombardment

81x Mech Assault Company: 5000ton
1  HQ/FOB heavy chassis, heavy armor 5000 command
12 Ogre APC, medium chassis, med armor, heavy anti-vehicle, medium autocannon.
12 Battlemechs, medium chassis, med armor, 2 x medium autocannon.
178 Power Armor Gatling Marines, crew AP

*

Garrison Corps
4-8 STO
6   static medium armor, medium AA
1   static heavy armor, HQ
~200 supply trucks

3x Garrison Division
6   static medium armor, medium AA
152  static medium armor, long range bombarment
1   static heavy armor, HQ

9x Garrison Regiment
6   static medium armor, medium AA
40  static medium armor, medium bombardment
1   static heavy armor, HQ

27x Garrison Battalion
372 light infantry fodder
12  static medium armor, crew served AP
6   static medium armor, medium anti-vehicle
1   static heavy armor, HQ
1   heavy powered armor FOB

*

Colonial Marines Expedition
1 Colonial Marines HQ, HQ & CAP, 5000 Command
220 Power Armor Gatling Marines, crew AP
18 Battlemechs, medium chassis, med armor, 2 x medium autocannon
4 Supply Trucks

[Panpiper (OP)]

Thank you to whoever gave this post its own thread.

I like this structure, not only because it covers all bases nicely, it is simple to build once laid out and just happens to closely very much mirror the standard, conventional force structure doctrine used by a great many militaries in the last 150 years. Numbers of course, among conventional militaries, vary.

[nuclearslurpee]

Looks nice. One of my perpetual issues with ground forces in C# is the 3:1 commander ratio which doesn't well reflect real force structures which are better modeled by 2:1 or 4:1. Superficially, you can build the 3x line formations and place support forces (artillery, AA, etc.) in a superior HQ and reasonably approximate a real-world OOB which is what you've done here. However a real-world formation usually has the supporting elements as a distinct command unit e.g. artillery regiment, AT battalion, etc. along with a number of smaller formations which are under direct HQ control. With Aurora, we can either model this and suffer from lacking enough low-rank commanders (or turn off auto-promote...), or stick with 3:1 which works okay but does tend to deprive commanders of their best placements.

As for your formations: I see you have five levels including an 800,000 ton corps HQ. This will be very expensive to research (unless you SM it in of course - which no one could fault you for as HQ components are obscenely overpriced in RP terms).

I don't see a lot of utility in the regiment / division split, they both are the same formation aside from the command ability. You may get a tighter formation by eliminating the high corps HQ and increasing the divisional HQ to 250,000 or 300,000 command which will let you attach a supply depot or two.

By the way, logistics modules do not benefit from any commander skills so placing a HQ in those formations is wasted, and additionally the way resupply mechanics work I don't believe LOG modules in a sub-formation can resupply formations in a different branch of the hierarchy. It is probably best to put 50,000 tons of LOG at the divisional HQ level directly because of this.

[Panpiper (OP)]

...the way resupply mechanics work I don't believe LOG modules in a sub-formation can resupply formations in a different branch of the hierarchy. It is probably best to put 50,000 tons of LOG at the divisional HQ level directly because of this.

I reasoned that by flagging these units as 'replacements', the game would replace the supplies used 'within' the command structure with the 'replacements' that just happen to be subordinate to it. The problem with including them all within the top-level unit is that that would make the unit 200,000 tons which is four times what any of my troop carriers can carry.

I suppose I could have put 45,000 tons of supplies in each Division template instead, but I was trying to minimize the micromanagement that might wind up being entailed with replacing used units later. I reasoned that if replacements were being siphoned off of the replacement 'supply' units, I would just wait till there was room in the formation to add another 50K supply unit and just add it in as necessary. No muss.

The reason for the redundant structure with Division and Regiment was to deliberately create for more commanders, for the purpose of bonus stacking. I will manually assign commanders down to at least regiment level for offensive formations to ensure they are all adding good bonuses.

I do SM in unit/template/equipment designs.

How do you turn off auto-promote?

[Droll]

...the way resupply mechanics work I don't believe LOG modules in a sub-formation can resupply formations in a different branch of the hierarchy. It is probably best to put 50,000 tons of LOG at the divisional HQ level directly because of this.

I reasoned that by flagging these units as 'replacements', the game would replace the supplies used 'within' the command structure with the 'replacements' that just happen to be subordinate to it. The problem with including them all within the top-level unit is that that would make the unit 200,000 tons which is four times what any of my troop carriers can carry.

I suppose I could have put 45,000 tons of supplies in each Division template instead, but I was trying to minimize the micromanagement that might wind up being entailed with replacing used units later. I reasoned that if replacements were being siphoned off of the replacement 'supply' units, I would just wait till there was room in the formation to add another 50K supply unit and just add it in as necessary. No muss.

The reason for the redundant structure with Division and Regiment was to deliberately create for more commanders, for the purpose of bonus stacking. I will manually assign commanders down to at least regiment level for offensive formations to ensure they are all adding good bonuses.

I do SM in unit/template/equipment designs.

How do you turn off auto-promote?

This is a sound idea but I think replacement happens every production increment. So make sure that your combat hierarchy has at least 5 days of supplies for fighting. Then you should have no problems with getting their used supplies replenished.

Auto-promote must be turned off for each commander unfortunately, you can block everyone at once.

[nuclearslurpee]

This is a sound idea but I think replacement happens every production increment. So make sure that your combat hierarchy has at least 5 days of supplies for fighting. Then you should have no problems with getting their used supplies replenished.

Resupply must happen on the combat increment which is 8 hours. Otherwise since a formation carried GSP for 10 rounds of combat, a formation would be guaranteed to run out after 3 days and 8 hours, spending 1/3 of the time out of ammo if you have a construction increment of 5 days. Steve is usually pretty good about making sure the construction increment has no mechanical effects aside from some exploitable edge cases e.g. maintenance failures.

[captainwolfer]

This is a sound idea but I think replacement happens every production increment. So make sure that your combat hierarchy has at least 5 days of supplies for fighting. Then you should have no problems with getting their used supplies replenished.

Resupply must happen on the combat increment which is 8 hours. Otherwise since a formation carried GSP for 10 rounds of combat, a formation would be guaranteed to run out after 3 days and 8 hours, spending 1/3 of the time out of ammo if you have a construction increment of 5 days. Steve is usually pretty good about making sure the construction increment has no mechanical effects aside from some exploitable edge cases e.g. maintenance failures.

Droll's point was that if the HQs and formations don't have enough supply trucks to keep all the units supplied for 5 days, then having logistic formations set to use as replacements wouldn't prevent units from running out of supply

[TheTalkingMeowth]

This is a sound idea but I think replacement happens every production increment. So make sure that your combat hierarchy has at least 5 days of supplies for fighting. Then you should have no problems with getting their used supplies replenished.

Resupply must happen on the combat increment which is 8 hours. Otherwise since a formation carried GSP for 10 rounds of combat, a formation would be guaranteed to run out after 3 days and 8 hours, spending 1/3 of the time out of ammo if you have a construction increment of 5 days. Steve is usually pretty good about making sure the construction increment has no mechanical effects aside from some exploitable edge cases e.g. maintenance failures.

This is not necessarily correct. There are two different mechanics in play and I think you are conflating them.

The first is supply consumption. During a combat round, a GU looks for supply in its hierarchy per the rules in the GU logistics post. If it doesn't find any, it uses internal supply. As you point out, this clearly needs to happen on every combat increment.

The second is REPLACEMENT. OP has logistics vehicles that are not in the hierarchy, so won't be seen by the supply search during combat. He wants them to swap in as the logistics vehicles that are in the hierarchy get consumed. It is not clear if this happens in 8 hours, 5 days, or 5 seconds. I actually think it's 5 seconds from when I last messed with it.

[nuclearslurpee]

I see, I had this mixed up then, thanks folks.