Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Suggestions => Topic started by: Azuraal on June 18, 2021, 11:19:06 AM
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The Situation: Currently formation construction is conducted by a single construction complex, with additional complexes allowing you to construct more formations in parallel.
I presume the aim is to reflect the fact that no matter how much resources you throw at the problem, a recruit needs to undergo their training.
The Problem: Unfortunately the current system is not only very inaccurate in that (A formation with a single infantryman will be trained in a single construction cycle, talk about express training), it punishes the player for making large formations, despite the fact that after construction those formations can be merged without any penalties into a larger formation identical to one that would have been constructed by just a single construction complex.
So the optimal play is to create very small construction formations that you then merge into formations of normal size, and the only cost is your own frustration, time, and hand pain.
Solution idea #1: Add "training time" to designed units, as a function of the unit's cost and base type. With infantry having the most variable training time (elite genetically enhanced boarding combat specialists vs foot soldier with a gun) and vehicles not deviating much above some baseline.
When player designs a formation template the game will calculate optimal number of construction complexes used for construction based on a rule that the formation can't finish constructing sooner than longest of training times. Then the player can manually set that number down as formations comprised of formations with very short training time would always take all available complexes.
When player orders a construction a number of free construction complexes up to the number set on the template will be dedicated to constructing that one formation, with their construction rate simply adding up together.
Pros: Minimal departure from current system
Cons: Not very elegant solution imo.
Solution idea #2: Redefine ground force construction complex as training complex, which similarly to military academies adds to a empire wide pool of soldiers. Every ground unit requires a certain number of soldiers to produce based on the base type.
The actual construction of formations is done by fighter factories which would be renamed arms factories or something along those lines. (fighters would still be be produced there)
Pros: Gives purpose to fighter factories and fighter production rate tech for races which don't use fighters.
Cons: Reworking ground construction from the ground up.
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The Situation: Currently formation construction is conducted by a single construction complex, with additional complexes allowing you to construct more formations in parallel.
I presume the aim is to reflect the fact that no matter how much resources you throw at the problem, a recruit needs to undergo their training.
The Problem: Unfortunately the current system is not only very inaccurate in that (A formation with a single infantryman will be trained in a single construction cycle, talk about express training), it punishes the player for making large formations, despite the fact that after construction those formations can be merged without any penalties into a larger formation identical to one that would have been constructed by just a single construction complex.
So the optimal play is to create very small construction formations that you then merge into formations of normal size, and the only cost is your own frustration, time, and hand pain.
Solution idea #1: Add "training time" to designed units, as a function of the unit's cost and base type. With infantry having the most variable training time (elite genetically enhanced boarding combat specialists vs foot soldier with a gun) and vehicles not deviating much above some baseline.
When player designs a formation template the game will calculate optimal number of construction complexes used for construction based on a rule that the formation can't finish constructing sooner than longest of training times. Then the player can manually set that number down as formations comprised of formations with very short training time would always take all available complexes.
When player orders a construction a number of free construction complexes up to the number set on the template will be dedicated to constructing that one formation, with their construction rate simply adding up together.
Pros: Minimal departure from current system
Cons: Not very elegant solution imo.
Solution idea #2: Redefine ground force construction complex as training complex, which similarly to military academies adds to a empire wide pool of soldiers. Every ground unit requires a certain number of soldiers to produce based on the base type.
The actual construction of formations is done by fighter factories which would be renamed arms factories or something along those lines. (fighters would still be be produced there)
Pros: Gives purpose to fighter factories and fighter production rate tech for races which don't use fighters.
Cons: Reworking ground construction from the ground up.
I think these are both good ideas gameplay wise, I know that solution 2 wont be adopted on the grounds that I think Steve wants the number of people in a unit to remain ambiguous for RP. So under solution 2 would go against this as now an infantry unit is forced to have a defined number of soldiers in it.
I think having a baseline training time also causes problems because now you cant RP an automated droid army that does not require training.
Honestly all I want is for:
a - Ground force facilities to be aggregate like every other factory, or
b - Allow STOs to be trained using relevant ground components available in the stock pile, subtracting the consumed components cost from the training BP cost.
Because with the way I play at least, the only place where I encounter an unfair problem is when building STOs.
My shipyards can construct a heavy cruiser with 10 of its main battery guns in less than a year but for some reason building just one of those guns takes multiple years on the ground, and I don't but the idea that the ground STO is somehow more complex than a whole starship.
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I think it will be nearly ideal to have 3 stages:
1. Equipment production (with Ground Armament Factories instead of GFTF)
2. Recruiting (relatively quick process with some cost)
3. Training (without facilities, just morale/readiness buildup)
Equipment can be produced on other planet.
And I just cannot beleave in training facilities.
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The Problem: [...] it punishes the player for making large formations, despite the fact that after construction those formations can be merged without any penalties into a larger formation identical to one that would have been constructed by just a single construction complex.
So the optimal play is to create very small construction formations that you then merge into formations of normal size, and the only cost is your own frustration, time, and hand pain.
I want to push back on this point, because it really is not true at all. The time it takes to build any ground formation is directly proportional to the build points cost of the formation, which in turn is the sum of the BP cost of the individual units in the formation. To a very close approximation (basically only HQ units are exceptional), it costs the same total BP to build one 20,000-ton formation than it does to build four 5,000-ton formations of the same fractional unit composition. The only difference is that the single formation takes 4x longer to actually appear "on the map" but unless you are in a big rush for emergency forces this doesn't make any difference assuming you're using all of your available facilities, which you absolutely should be if you intend to invade any alien homeworlds.
I don't disagree that the current restrictions on how ground forces are trained/built are overly restrictive, I only want to point out that the current system in no way punishes building larger formations, they simply take longer to complete.
As for the proposed solutions, I don't really think either one is an approach that works well with Aurora's design philosophy. Both add additional complexity to the GU training/building process without really adding anything in terms of gameplay - there's not really any interesting decisions added by requiring an additional "training time" factor for GU construction, it just makes building the formations more confusing and opaque. Realistic perhaps but not a very "Aurora" approach.
Honestly all I want is for:
a - Ground force facilities to be aggregate like every other factory,
I think this is a better solution. Allow GU training facilities to work as aggregate factories just like every other production facility in the game - I think we can abstract the "boot camp" part of training as something happening in the background to maintain a pool of recruits/conscripts, so let's treat the GU training as a construction process.
or
b - Allow STOs to be trained using relevant ground components available in the stock pile, subtracting the consumed components cost from the training BP cost.
Allowing STOs to be built in a more sensible manner is a good idea, but we do have to be careful as mass-producing STOs could get very overpowered very quickly given how powerful they are as defensive weapons. I think change (a) would be sufficient here, since it doesn't change the actual game balance at all.
I think it will be nearly ideal to have 3 stages:
1. Equipment production (with Ground Armament Factories instead of GFTF)
2. Recruiting (relatively quick process with some cost)
3. Training (without facilities, just morale/readiness buildup)
Equipment can be produced on other planet.
And I just cannot beleave in training facilities.
I think combining 2+3 similar to how we can set academy crew training level for naval crews makes sense, but first we would need a training aspect added to ground forces. Currently we only have morale which isn't related to training mechanically.
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- Having GFTFs be aggregate would be awesome and would go a long way to reducing micro as well, if we could set up a preferred hierarchy and then have a "Build To Hierarchy" button.
- Having STOs use ship weapons from stockpiles to cut some of the cost would be nice, and balanced out a bit by the need to use Construction Factories to build said bits first. The FCS, ECCM, Power Plants are to the best of my knowledge specific to the STOs and probably shouldn't be able to be derived from ship board equivalents. In the STO creation process, you use ship-based weapons, so whether they are being converted to a "Ground-spec" if you will, or used as is, this seems a reasonable thing to do. Plus, you could recycle the beam weapons of old ships into STOs for 2nd Rate defense forces.
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The Problem: Unfortunately the current system is not only very inaccurate in that (A formation with a single infantryman will be trained in a single construction cycle, talk about express training), it punishes the player for making large formations, despite the fact that after construction those formations can be merged without any penalties into a larger formation identical to one that would have been constructed by just a single construction complex.
So the optimal play is to create very small construction formations that you then merge into formations of normal size, and the only cost is your own frustration, time, and hand pain.
The argument that it shouldn't be possible to train a 1 man formation in a day, makes sense, is totally realistic, and I feel it is completely irrelevant to a game like Aurora. Yeah, it's silly to be tossing out 1 man formations that fast, but it also doesn't matter, and I don't see the point to moving to a more complicated model just to add realism.
Similarly, I don't really agree that larger formations punish the player, at least short of a very specific situation like an ongoing war in a multi-faction start where the difference between getting 1/5th your forces out in a month verse all your forces in 5 months actually matters. And to the extent that it does matter, I think the best solution is found in the followup post:
Honestly all I want is for:
a - Ground force facilities to be aggregate like every other factory, or
b - Allow STOs to be trained using relevant ground components available in the stock pile, subtracting the consumed components cost from the training BP cost.
These, on the other hand, I both really like. While it's not true that all other factories are aggregated (Shipyards being the obvious other exception), I can definitely get behind aggregating ground force training centers. They don't need tooling, after all, and while it does contribute to the unrealism of training formations in a single week as noted above I don't really have an issue with that in Aurora. I don't think this is a super important change but I do like it as a nice simplification that reduces micro for minimal loss.
I also really love the idea of using available components for STOs, not necessarily because of training time, but because it opens new strategies. Historically gun batteries to defend ports were often built using outdated weapons off warships when they were scrapped, because it was cheap and you cared less about your stationary defenses being top of the line. STO units with old guns from warships you no longer care about wouldn't be that useful, but they'd be cheap, and the reduced maintenance of ground units in Aurora makes that an actually tempting option for colony defense.
I'll add a third idea I'd really like to see: Some sort of tool for planning multiple formation hierarchies and building them at once. This is admittedly less of an issue with the removal of ground command rating on officers, but I'd still really like the ability to, say, decide that a Planetary Defense Force Division has 3 Planetary Defense Brigades (each with 4 Infantry Regiments and a Towed Gun Regiment) and 1 Orbital Artillery Brigade, and so on, and then say "Build a PDF Division" and have it queue up all the formations and set them up in the appropriate hierarchy when they're done, so I don't have to drag them around.
I think it will be nearly ideal to have 3 stages:
1. Equipment production (with Ground Armament Factories instead of GFTF)
2. Recruiting (relatively quick process with some cost)
3. Training (without facilities, just morale/readiness buildup)
Equipment can be produced on other planet.
And I just cannot beleave in training facilities.
Let's please not turn this into adding complexity for no real gain. Aurora isn't Hearts of Iron and a detailed process for creating ground units just isn't needed.
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I like the idea of ground unit training being a pool like factories and such. I have a 25kt infantry unit right now and at my current rate it takes 4ish years to build one. If I could put say, 10 working towards one, I'd get one done it a little under half a year. That sounds nice to me and fits with the rest of the game.
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Let's please not turn this into adding complexity for no real gain. Aurora isn't Hearts of Iron and a detailed process for creating ground units just isn't needed.
Well, I agree completely that Aurora needs no complexity for no real gain, but:
1. "Manning" mechanics will add no much complexity: it might be just 1 field in DB added (boolean "formation is manned" to discrete equipmental carcass that can be treated as cargo - and manned formation, that can be transported in troop transports only). I'd say that equipment might be 1/2 of tonnage for infantry and 9/10 for all other types of elements, it's rather simple and realistic enough.
2. Renaming GFTF to armament factories is no adding complexity at all, it's just reducing disbelieve burden.
3. Changing morale buildup is no adding complexity too, it's just adjusting existing mechanics in realistic way to reduce disbelieve burden.
What a gain aside of reducing disbelieve?
Well, now we have no option to build even local police squads or minuteman companies if there is no specialized GF facilities infrastructure with minerals here. With discrete equipment there is even option to make minimal equipment be zero-cost (non-armored local police with sidearms can be just manned and trained - for money only, without dedicated facilities or military cargo unloaded). Adding this option will reduce (aside of disbelieve burden) micromanagement burden too.
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The argument that it shouldn't be possible to train a 1 man formation in a day, makes sense, is totally realistic, and I feel it is completely irrelevant to a game like Aurora. Yeah, it's silly to be tossing out 1 man formations that fast, but it also doesn't matter, and I don't see the point to moving to a more complicated model just to add realism.
It is my assumption that the reason construction complexes don't aggregate is because Steve wants that element of realism. Letting construction complexes aggregate would be my preferred solution over adding complexity, but if it didn't work that way from the beginning I'm assuming there is a reason for that.
Similarly, I don't really agree that larger formations punish the player, at least short of a very specific situation like an ongoing war in a multi-faction start where the difference between getting 1/5th your forces out in a month verse all your forces in 5 months actually matters. And to the extent that it does matter, I think the best solution is found in the followup post:
I don't know about your formations, but for me the difference wouldn't be a 5'th every month, vs all in 5 months, but rather all in 10 years with a bunch of ground complexes idle vs actually using the capacity of a interstellar empire's home-world and getting it done in a year.
And especially when it comes to STOs, multiple times I ran into a situation where I order them to be built normally with no rush, but long before the construction is complete I run into an NPR and my outlying colonies are left STO-less.
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In my current game, I am splitting a Space Marine combat formation into 2 so I can build it faster, which is micro rather than a meaningful decision, so I don't have any major objection to some form of aggregation of training facilities, either by assigning multiple facilities to a single task (probably easier to implement from current situation) or changing ground construction to be similar to construction, ordnance and fighter factories and operate as a single pool. I intended for GFTF to be similar to shipyards, but you can't combine ships after construction so the analogy doesn't really work.
I wouldn't be keen on pre-built STO components as I think that might be overpowered.
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3. Changing morale buildup is no adding complexity too, it's just adjusting existing mechanics in realistic way to reduce disbelieve burden.
It is a bit more than an adjustment, presently there is no mechanic in place which a training level for ground units can be implemented by. The current morale system is not suitable for interacting with a troop training mechanic which functions similarly to crew training, as morale is not a reflection of troop quality or statistics but rather the current state of a formation in terms of combat readiness. This means a training level would have to be an additional and separate ground unit variable - not prohibitive, but more than an adjustment.
Well, now we have no option to build even local police squads or minuteman companies if there is no specialized GF facilities infrastructure with minerals here. With discrete equipment there is even option to make minimal equipment be zero-cost (non-armored local police with sidearms can be just manned and trained - for money only, without dedicated facilities or military cargo unloaded). Adding this option will reduce (aside of disbelieve burden) micromanagement burden too.
While I'm not opposed to "zero-cost" units I do want to note that this would require either reworking the ground units system or adding an exception, as currently ground unit costs are directly related to their statistics. The former would be a lot of work, and the latter goes against the stated design aims of Aurora C#.
In my current game, I am splitting a Space Marine combat formation into 2 so I can build it faster, which is micro rather than a meaningful decision, so I don't have any major objection to some form of aggregation of training facilities, either by assigning multiple facilities to a single task (probably easier to implement from current situation) or changing ground construction to be similar to construction, ordnance and fighter factories and operate as a single pool. I intended for GFTF to be similar to shipyards, but you can't combine ships after construction so the analogy doesn't really work.
I wouldn't be keen on pre-built STO components as I think that might be overpowered.
I agree on all points here.
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We can have the bootcamp period and the aggregate GFTFs by just having a minimum time required, possibly varying based on what the unit is. So, 1 GFTF might build a formation in a year, 2 GFTF's would take 6 months, but 10,000 GFTF's will still take the minimum 3 months or whatever.
I would think the minimum time would be shortest for infantry, longer for vehicles, longest for ultraheavies.
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In my current game, I am splitting a Space Marine combat formation into 2 so I can build it faster, which is micro rather than a meaningful decision, so I don't have any major objection to some form of aggregation of training facilities, either by assigning multiple facilities to a single task (probably easier to implement from current situation) or changing ground construction to be similar to construction, ordnance and fighter factories and operate as a single pool. I intended for GFTF to be similar to shipyards, but you can't combine ships after construction so the analogy doesn't really work.
Speaking of micro, it would also be nice to be able to specify the number of formations of a type to be built, exactly like the SM mode "instant build" button works. Right now you have to spam click and also count to the correct number of formations that you want which can be annoying and prone to mistakes.
A more major thing which I have suggested before is "OOB templates", which allows one to save the hierarchy of formation types so that they don't have to reform their division every time a new one is trained.
As an example, think of a division that you normally put 3 brigades under with more formations subordinate to those brigades. You want to train maybe a dozen of these otherwise identical divisions and instead of having to form the same OOB 12 times, you save the hierarchy to an OOB template that automatically creates the needed formation training tasks so that each division is now a one-click exercise. Such a template would only be used to create the training tasks and initial hierarchy and would not be saved beyond that.
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3. Changing morale buildup is no adding complexity too, it's just adjusting existing mechanics in realistic way to reduce disbelieve burden.
It is a bit more than an adjustment, presently there is no mechanic in place which a training level for ground units can be implemented by. The current morale system is not suitable for interacting with a troop training mechanic which functions similarly to crew training, as morale is not a reflection of troop quality or statistics but rather the current state of a formation in terms of combat readiness.
I don't understand your point. Training is a buildup of combat readiness. Rename morale to readiness and it will be simple and believable thing.
While I'm not opposed to "zero-cost" units I do want to note that this would require either reworking the ground units system or adding an exception, as currently ground unit costs are directly related to their statistics. The former would be a lot of work, and the latter goes against the stated design aims of Aurora C#.
All are tradeoffs.
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I don't understand your point. Training is a buildup of combat readiness. Rename morale to readiness and it will be simple and believable thing.
"Morale" as it currently exists mechanically is used to calculate breakthrough chances only, unlike crew training grade which influences several aspect of ship operations. It really only represents the disorganization of a formation which has taken combat losses and needs to be withdrawn from the front lines to reorganize. Frankly the commander bonus that affects this, which is called "Ground Combat Training" or similar, is misnamed but that is a different topic.
Note for example that if we tie morale, as it currently exists, to a hypothetical soldier training mechanic, training is basically useless for any element or formation type which is not a front-line combatant, for example artillery or rear logistics formations do not really need morale. This is frankly silly, no modern military would rely on untrained artillerists or logisticians to support their front-line troops. Not to mention, it also makes very little sense for breakthrough chance/resistance to be the only effect of troop training - granted, unit cohesion is a critical and underappreciated part of modern military science but it makes no sense that minimally trained troops handed a gun can shoot just as accurately and use cover just as effectively as well-trained professional soldiers.
In order for a training mechanic to make logical sense it really needs to be a completely new mechanic which operates more similarly to ship crew training. Again, this is a perfectly fine idea, but it requires more than a small adjustment of renaming one statistic.
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"Morale" as it currently exists mechanically is used to calculate breakthrough chances only, unlike crew training grade which influences several aspect of ship operations.
Morale is also used for ground combat to-hit chances, occupation strength, AA fire and STO fire.
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"Morale" as it currently exists mechanically is used to calculate breakthrough chances only, unlike crew training grade which influences several aspect of ship operations.
Morale is also used for ground combat to-hit chances, occupation strength, AA fire and STO fire.
Somehow I never saw this despite how often I check that wiki page. Thanks for the correction.
In that case I suppose it would make sense as serger has proposed.
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Well, now we have no option to build even local police squads or minuteman companies if there is no specialized GF facilities infrastructure with minerals here. With discrete equipment there is even option to make minimal equipment be zero-cost (non-armored local police with sidearms can be just manned and trained - for money only, without dedicated facilities or military cargo unloaded). Adding this option will reduce (aside of disbelieve burden) micromanagement burden too.
While I'm not opposed to "zero-cost" units I do want to note that this would require either reworking the ground units system or adding an exception, as currently ground unit costs are directly related to their statistics. The former would be a lot of work, and the latter goes against the stated design aims of Aurora C#.
If ground force training is being aggregated anyways, one option might be to also reduce the size/cost/production rates of ground force training facilities to be more in line with things like construction factories; IE fairly cheap, 25,000 tons to transport, and you need a whole lot of them (on the order of hundreds) for a large scale ground unit production planet. That would mean if a small colony had even a few they could slowly produce police/militia style units.
Also as someone who ends up constantly checking reference sites for how much cargo space facilities take I like the idea of as many using the 25,000 ton standard as possible.
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As some folks pointed out - a freshly established colony basically has no way to create it's own militia, meaning that it has to either import ground force construction facilities or build them.
I think that it would be better if infantry-based units (no power armor and genetic enhancements... maybe.) can be built locally, while the ground force construction facilities (if we do want to retain them, I personally would prefer to dump them and make fighter factories into arms factories for all the ground forces) can be more 'advanced' facilities - creation of specialized, advanced and armored units, with various special capabilities.
This basically turns them into special facilities, designed to create the finest ground-based formations that your civilization has technology and capability for.
While the remote colonies with some population - they can create basic infantry formations, with little special capabilities (like, if it is a mountainous world, your troops get a 'mountain fighting' capability when trained there).
Back to the original topic:
So the optimal play is to create very small construction formations that you then merge into formations of normal size, and the only cost is your own frustration, time, and hand pain.
Frankly, I'm going to say that the game actually encourages you to create large formations - to get those officers a proper job...
Ever tried dealing with 100 - 500 ton size formations?
They are built fast, yes, but I have only so many officers at start... And considering that the game auto-promotes officers to make a ratio of 1:3, well... You're likely going to not have enough officers, unless you turn on "do not promote".
Again, it is a question of what kind of ground force are you creating - for invasions? Defense of planets? Just as police?
I guess it is valid if you don't plan to get those tiny formations an officer and serve as a reserve or just garrison, but for efficient fighting force - a larger formation is a better option.
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In my current game, I am splitting a Space Marine combat formation into 2 so I can build it faster, which is micro rather than a meaningful decision, so I don't have any major objection to some form of aggregation of training facilities, either by assigning multiple facilities to a single task (probably easier to implement from current situation) or changing ground construction to be similar to construction, ordnance and fighter factories and operate as a single pool. I intended for GFTF to be similar to shipyards, but you can't combine ships after construction so the analogy doesn't really work.
I wouldn't be keen on pre-built STO components as I think that might be overpowered.
My vote would go for changing ground unit construction to a single pool the way CF, OF and FF operate. It's probably the best way forward - we can queue up big OOBs in a single go and then just let the GFTF do their thing. It doesn't break my immersion as ground forces are by their nature entirely different beast than ships (naval or space) whether it's construction/training or operations.
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In my current game, I am splitting a Space Marine combat formation into 2 so I can build it faster, which is micro rather than a meaningful decision, so I don't have any major objection to some form of aggregation of training facilities, either by assigning multiple facilities to a single task (probably easier to implement from current situation) or changing ground construction to be similar to construction, ordnance and fighter factories and operate as a single pool. I intended for GFTF to be similar to shipyards, but you can't combine ships after construction so the analogy doesn't really work.
I wouldn't be keen on pre-built STO components as I think that might be overpowered.
I'm in favour of making the ground unit construction queue the same as other construction queues, and I suspect you are right about the pre-built components.
Have you ever considered adding a small 'installation cost' for using pre-built components in ships?
Maybe you could rename 'Ground Force Training Facilities' to 'Ground Force Production & Training Facilities' to help people understand that the facility builds all the kit, as well training all the jarheads brave soldiers?
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Back to the original topic:
So the optimal play is to create very small construction formations that you then merge into formations of normal size, and the only cost is your own frustration, time, and hand pain.
Frankly, I'm going to say that the game actually encourages you to create large formations - to get those officers a proper job...
Ever tried dealing with 100 - 500 ton size formations?
They are built fast, yes, but I have only so many officers at start... And considering that the game auto-promotes officers to make a ratio of 1:3, well... You're likely going to not have enough officers, unless you turn on "do not promote".
Again, it is a question of what kind of ground force are you creating - for invasions? Defense of planets? Just as police?
I guess it is valid if you don't plan to get those tiny formations an officer and serve as a reserve or just garrison, but for efficient fighting force - a larger formation is a better option.
You've misinterpreted what the OP is saying here. Which is easier to see with a more complete quote (additional boldness added):
The Problem: Unfortunately the current system is not only very inaccurate in that (A formation with a single infantryman will be trained in a single construction cycle, talk about express training), it punishes the player for making large formations, despite the fact that after construction those formations can be merged without any penalties into a larger formation identical to one that would have been constructed by just a single construction complex.
So the optimal play is to create very small construction formations that you then merge into formations of normal size, and the only cost is your own frustration, time, and hand pain.
The OP did not say it's optimal to use small formations, but that it is optimal to build small formations which are then used to make large formation.
For example, lets say you have 4 GFCF (a default pop start) and want to build formations of 20k each. Instead of building 20k formations, you could break them up into 5k chunks and get each formation done in (roughly) 1/4th the time. Then you manually move all the elements into one formation, lead by one commander.
For another example:
In my current game, I am splitting a Space Marine combat formation into 2 so I can build it faster [...]
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You've misinterpreted what the OP is saying here. Which is easier to see with a more complete quote (additional boldness added):
The OP did not say it's optimal to use small formations, but that it is optimal to build small formations which are then used to make large formation.
For example, lets say you have 4 GFCF (a default pop start) and want to build formations of 20k each. Instead of building 20k formations, you could break them up into 5k chunks and get each formation done in (roughly) 1/4th the time. Then you manually move all the elements into one formation, lead by one commander.
Okay...
I suppose if time is not on your side and you need forces now, you can design several smaller formations...
But, how do you merge them into 1? Via replacement mechanics? You are using more than 1 officer otherwise.
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Okay...
I suppose if time is not on your side and you need forces now, you can design several smaller formations...
But, how do you merge them into 1? Via replacement mechanics? You are using more than 1 officer otherwise.
In the Ground Forces window, on the (default) Order of Battle tab, click the "Show Elements" box. You can then expand the formations in the oob tree to show elements. These can be click-dragged to other formations. If you don't want to move an entire stack (for whatever reason), you can click the "Amount Popup" box and when moving elements it will prompt you for the amount moved.
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In the Ground Forces window, on the (default) Order of Battle tab, click the "Show Elements" box. You can then expand the formations in the oob tree to show elements. These can be click-dragged to other formations. If you don't want to move an entire stack (for whatever reason), you can click the "Amount Popup" box and when moving elements it will prompt you for the amount moved.
Huh. Wow, thanks. This means I can even fix a problem with my ground forces with minimal issue.
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In the Ground Forces window, on the (default) Order of Battle tab, click the "Show Elements" box. You can then expand the formations in the oob tree to show elements. These can be click-dragged to other formations. If you don't want to move an entire stack (for whatever reason), you can click the "Amount Popup" box and when moving elements it will prompt you for the amount moved.
Huh. Wow, thanks. This means I can even fix a problem with my ground forces with minimal issue.
Yep. It’s not the most discoverable of features though.
I really like the idea of building just the materiel of a formation and shipping it as cargo. The colony on the other end can do the rest of the work, especially if the cargo is just a dozens of TEU of rifles, sidearms, body armor, BDUs, etc. Ship in a few officers, recruit from the local population, etc. It would require some extra complexity though, because there needs to actually be a population to draw people from, and probably there should be some maximum number of people that a small population can supply, and so on. Nevertheless, I like the idea.
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I also vote in favor of GFTF facilities operating like FF/OF/CF.
Additionally being able to build a formation made of subformations (a regiment made up of two battalions of ten companies) would be phenomenal
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Hi guys, new member here.
+1 to this rework, gives me nerdgasm thinking of this. i stopped using ground units at the moment because of this.
at the moment 100 units of 300ton super heavy tank (30,000tons total) takes 100 years to materialize!! (including training 1year max?). that's a pretty shiny tank that takes 1 year to build. pretty imbalance i think.
while a brand new 250,000 ton battleship from scratch takes 2 years to complete. imho.
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Hi guys, new member here.
+1 to this rework, gives me nerdgasm thinking of this. i stopped using ground units at the moment because of this.
at the moment 100 units of 300ton super heavy tank (30,000tons total) takes 100 years to materialize!! (including training 1year max?). that's a pretty shiny tank that takes 1 year to build. pretty imbalance i think.
while a brand new 250,000 ton battleship from scratch takes 2 years to complete. imho.
First, just as a quick note as I'm sure you were exaggerating for emphasis, but 30,000 tons of SHV with SH armor require "only" 5,400 BP to construct (unless you have put some strange combination of capabilities on them to greatly multiply the cost...), which with a GFTF at base tech level (250 BP/year) will take "only" 22 years to build. Of course if you are building SHVs you also have researched the techs to improve ground unit training speed...right? So probably less than 20 years in practice.
Anyways... I don't think "imbalanced" is the right word here, "inconvenient" is more accurate. You can build those SHVs in one year by building five each in 20 different training facilities, and then mash them into a single big formation later. However, this is micro-intensive and annoying.
To be clear, I wholeheartedly support the idea of making GFTFs function like most other construction facilities, because "micro-intensive and annoying" is a Bad Thing™. I just don't think talking about it in terms of "balance" is the right approach.
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Hi guys, new member here.
+1 to this rework, gives me nerdgasm thinking of this. i stopped using ground units at the moment because of this.
at the moment 100 units of 300ton super heavy tank (30,000tons total) takes 100 years to materialize!! (including training 1year max?). that's a pretty shiny tank that takes 1 year to build. pretty imbalance i think.
while a brand new 250,000 ton battleship from scratch takes 2 years to complete. imho.
First, just as a quick note as I'm sure you were exaggerating for emphasis, but 30,000 tons of SHV with SH armor require "only" 5,400 BP to construct (unless you have put some strange combination of capabilities on them to greatly multiply the cost. . . ), which with a GFTF at base tech level (250 BP/year) will take "only" 22 years to build. Of course if you are building SHVs you also have researched the techs to improve ground unit training speed. . . right? So probably less than 20 years in practice.
Anyways. . . I don't think "imbalanced" is the right word here, "inconvenient" is more accurate. You can build those SHVs in one year by building five each in 20 different training facilities, and then mash them into a single big formation later. However, this is micro-intensive and annoying.
To be clear, I wholeheartedly support the idea of making GFTFs function like most other construction facilities, because "micro-intensive and annoying" is a Bad Thing™. I just don't think talking about it in terms of "balance" is the right approach.
ahh yes i put all outworld fighting capabilities. all the bells and whistles. plus a 3 anti vehicle cannon turret i think.
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ahh yes i put all outworld fighting capabilities. all the bells and whistles. plus a 3 anti vehicle cannon turret i think.
I usually consider myself a firm believer that there is no such thing as overkill, but this puts my beliefs to the test. Still, this is one way to ensure that you will not lose any fights you pick...
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ahh yes i put all outworld fighting capabilities. all the bells and whistles. plus a 3 anti vehicle cannon turret i think.
I usually consider myself a firm believer that there is no such thing as overkill, but this puts my beliefs to the test. Still, this is one way to ensure that you will not lose any fights you pick. . .
Then you wont believe that a colony of barbarian rakhas (on the defensive) can still manage to destroy that behemoth of mine 4 to 1. and they have 2k battlewagons units left. i can only imagine what the battlewagon of theirs look like. i love it!. i love the scale of things!. its space after all nothing should be limited by size. what i dont love is thinking of micro managing 8k units of SHV at 10 per facility. yikes.
Edit:10k infantry 2k wagons.
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ahh yes i put all outworld fighting capabilities. all the bells and whistles. plus a 3 anti vehicle cannon turret i think.
I usually consider myself a firm believer that there is no such thing as overkill, but this puts my beliefs to the test. Still, this is one way to ensure that you will not lose any fights you pick. . .
Then you wont believe that a colony of barbarian rakhas (on the defensive) can still manage to destroy that behemoth of mine 4 to 1. and they have 2k battlewagons units left. i can only imagine what the battlewagon of theirs look like. i love it!. i love the scale of things!. its space after all nothing should be limited by size. what i dont love is thinking of micro managing 8k units of SHV at 10 per facility. yikes.
Edit:10k infantry 2k wagons.
Actually its quite believable since those 10k infantry are shielding the 2k wagons from the triple heavy anti-tank that your superheavies have. Idk what else your sending but you should remember that each AT gun can at most kill 1 soldier per combat round, and that assumes a successful hit.
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ahh yes i put all outworld fighting capabilities. all the bells and whistles. plus a 3 anti vehicle cannon turret i think.
I usually consider myself a firm believer that there is no such thing as overkill, but this puts my beliefs to the test. Still, this is one way to ensure that you will not lose any fights you pick. . .
Then you wont believe that a colony of barbarian rakhas (on the defensive) can still manage to destroy that behemoth of mine 4 to 1. and they have 2k battlewagons units left. i can only imagine what the battlewagon of theirs look like. i love it!. i love the scale of things!. its space after all nothing should be limited by size. what i dont love is thinking of micro managing 8k units of SHV at 10 per facility. yikes.
Edit:10k infantry 2k wagons.
Actually its quite believable since those 10 infantry are shielding the 2k wagons from the triple heavy anti-tank that your superheavies have. Idk what else your sending but you should remember that each AT gun can at most kill 1 soldier per combat round, and that assumes a successful hit.
yes i got 100 marines per SHV. their conventional warfare technology is just so advance for a non trans newtonian race.
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ahh yes i put all outworld fighting capabilities. all the bells and whistles. plus a 3 anti vehicle cannon turret i think.
I usually consider myself a firm believer that there is no such thing as overkill, but this puts my beliefs to the test. Still, this is one way to ensure that you will not lose any fights you pick. . .
Then you wont believe that a colony of barbarian rakhas (on the defensive) can still manage to destroy that behemoth of mine 4 to 1. and they have 2k battlewagons units left. i can only imagine what the battlewagon of theirs look like. i love it!. i love the scale of things!. its space after all nothing should be limited by size. what i dont love is thinking of micro managing 8k units of SHV at 10 per facility. yikes.
Edit:10k infantry 2k wagons.
Actually its quite believable since those 10 infantry are shielding the 2k wagons from the triple heavy anti-tank that your superheavies have. Idk what else your sending but you should remember that each AT gun can at most kill 1 soldier per combat round, and that assumes a successful hit.
yes i got 100 marines per SHV. their conventional warfare technology is just so advance for a non trans newtonian race.
The fact that you are in a position to fight spoilers at all as a non-TN race is the most impressive part about this. I think focus on tech first lol (unless this is a weird conventional only game).
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ahh yes i put all outworld fighting capabilities. all the bells and whistles. plus a 3 anti vehicle cannon turret i think.
I usually consider myself a firm believer that there is no such thing as overkill, but this puts my beliefs to the test. Still, this is one way to ensure that you will not lose any fights you pick. . .
Then you wont believe that a colony of barbarian rakhas (on the defensive) can still manage to destroy that behemoth of mine 4 to 1. and they have 2k battlewagons units left. i can only imagine what the battlewagon of theirs look like. i love it!. i love the scale of things!. its space after all nothing should be limited by size. what i dont love is thinking of micro managing 8k units of SHV at 10 per facility. yikes.
Edit:10k infantry 2k wagons.
Actually its quite believable since those 10 infantry are shielding the 2k wagons from the triple heavy anti-tank that your superheavies have. Idk what else your sending but you should remember that each AT gun can at most kill 1 soldier per combat round, and that assumes a successful hit.
yes i got 100 marines per SHV. their conventional warfare technology is just so advance for a non trans newtonian race.
The fact that you are in a position to fight spoilers at all as a non-TN race is the most impressive part about this. I think focus on tech first lol (unless this is a weird conventional only game).
Oh i think my last reply was misleading. Anyway i hope ground training rework would be pushed. i mean i play very long campaigns (close to a thousand years) i dont know if that's even long compared to other players.
i believe scale is the most important thing in this kind of game. although i think its unique on itself.
in my experience things that doesn't scale for now.
1. Ground units. (Dreaming of a world wide million marines vs spoilers? nope not happening, i mean even China right now have 2 million active military personel)
2. Technology (open ended would be awsome)
3. Gallicite (i got whole moon worth of Duranium, but no more gallicite and the only real reason to expand)
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i mean i play very long campaigns (close to a thousand years)
Close to a thousand years is probably incredibly long (most importantly Steve's), I think a lot of people here would say I play long campaigns at 100-200 years.
In b4 a bunch of people come out of the woodworks who have been playing for 5000 in game years.
How big does you empire even get after 1000 years?
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i mean i play very long campaigns (close to a thousand years)
Close to a thousand years is probably incredibly long (most importantly Steve's), I think a lot of people here would say I play long campaigns at 100-200 years.
In b4 a bunch of people come out of the woodworks who have been playing for 5000 in game years.
How big does you empire even get after 1000 years?
Oh boy long game is very immersive. slow and very RPG'ish (is that a word?) 20 system, around 20bil pop scattered on different worlds. i tend to not expand unless needed. and prepare huge armada before exploring a new system. its the only game where theoretically you can create a moon size ship & nerds tend to aim for that kind of thing i guess.
Wow and i cannot imagine playing a 200 year campaign and reset. That's like the early game.
and doing the tech tree all over again i mean that's tedious. tech move so fast you don't need most in between. i even play at 5% research speed.
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I have a suggestion about ground force construction...
I suppose we already got over this - make ground forces build-able with standard construction factories or make GFCFs function similarly to construction and/or fighter factories.
I think we essentially need 2 types of factories - construction factories, the ones that build structures and static installations;
and unit factories - they construct ground units/fighters/ship components and space-sta-... hm... I'm not sure about shipyards and space-stations though. But I guess you get the point.
Now about ground forces - I suggest using a system similar to the one in Pacific Storm game:
your unit factories produce land units, which are unassigned to any formation and put into a planet's stockpile. You open a ground force window, create an empty formation, and assign your created ground units to the newly created formation.
It may of course could clutter your troop transport order window with unassigned land units, but it shouldn't be a problem if you assign them to formations.
Other suggestions/reminders - it would be a good option for ground HQ units to have range selection when designing them, at which they could provide bonuses to units in different solar system, just different planet, or only the planet they are stationed on.
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In my games I make heavy use of mobile construction vehicles. They allow me to build massive habitats above fairly distant worlds or just concentrate more PP on Earth and reduce micro around that.
Problem is, Im using 32kt sized formations. They build 4 years each with 1 tech in ground unit production, which is kind of sizable as they are production facilities and you want them out as fast as possible, so I can't just combine them into 320kt formation and build that 40 years...
Micro involved in building and then moving these is kind of heavy, especially as I build 40 at once past 40-year mark, 120 years in I can build up to 300 at once in some games.
I would heavily welcome either order that would load ground unit formation type, not specific formation, or change that would allow me to make massive formations faster...
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Solution idea #2: Redefine ground force construction complex as training complex, which similarly to military academies adds to a empire wide pool of soldiers. Every ground unit requires a certain number of soldiers to produce based on the base type.
The actual construction of formations is done by fighter factories which would be renamed arms factories or something along those lines. (fighters would still be be produced there)
I am heavily in favour of this, throw in conscription and enlistment policies and you've got another way to ensure that the player doesn't have to "forget" about wealth after certain point that tends to happen. For example; Mandatory military service. Massive pool of trained military personnel to relatively quickly draw troops, pilots and ship crews from. Good for small nations, very expensive for larger ones (see; USSR).
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Solution idea #2: Redefine ground force construction complex as training complex, which similarly to military academies adds to a empire wide pool of soldiers. Every ground unit requires a certain number of soldiers to produce based on the base type.
The actual construction of formations is done by fighter factories which would be renamed arms factories or something along those lines. (fighters would still be be produced there)
I am heavily in favour of this, throw in conscription and enlistment policies and you've got another way to ensure that the player doesn't have to "forget" about wealth after certain point that tends to happen. For example; Mandatory military service. Massive pool of trained military personnel to relatively quickly draw troops, pilots and ship crews from. Good for small nations, very expensive for larger ones (see; USSR).
This++ (Drool)