So, the first and most important issue you're going to run into - your base formations (3,125 tons) are way too small. You will need millions of tons of ground units to invade an NPR home world, possibly even tens of millions. This is a problem of micromanagement - imagine trying to manage over a thousand of these companies to transport, organize, etc. - and also a problem of commanders as you will struggle to generate enough ground force commanders to effectively command your forces. Do you
need a commander for every formation? Well, no... but if you could just build fewer, larger formations and then you would have enough leaders, why wouldn't you do so to get the most benefit from your commanders than you can? Generally in 1.13 and earlier versions you should design your ground unit hierarchy based on your commanders (i.e., 3:1 ratio of ranks if you use auto-promotions). In 2.0 and future versions we will have on-demand promotions and you can do whatever you want.
I generally recommend formations in the 10,000-25,000 ton range depending on your roleplay and other factors. 15,000 and 20,000 ton breakpoints both work well as long as you adjust your transport capacities accordingly, and I personally like 12,500 tons as you can fit two units into 25,000 tons of transport space and it matches the size of old VB6 brigades which is fun.
About the actual ground units:
Artillery Company
Transport Size: 3,121 tons
Build Cost: 189.9 BP
2x HQ Emplacment Company
40x Artillery Emplacement Defender Class
2x AA Emplacement Cerub Class
8x Resupply Infantry
1x Supply Truck
2x Anti Vehicle Emplacement Fortress Class
34x Space Marine
Using 2x HQs is not really worth doing. It does
not confer any net bonus for commander survivability (if you math it out, commander survivability
decreases albeit very slightly).
There is no mechanical benefit to using front-line weapons (PW, MAV, etc.) in a support or rear echelon formation, as they will be unable to fire. No, they do not fire in defense if the formation is attacked, there is no provision in the ground combat rules for such return fire. If you want them for RP reasons that's fine, just be aware that they contribute nothing.
If you are playing a single-player campaign, note that NPRs do not use ground support fighters, so AA weapons are unnecessary except for RP reasons. Personally, I use them anyways, but only for RP reasons.
There isn't any good reason to use both INF and LVH supply units in the same formation. I will make more notes about the supply mechanics below but I would pick one or the other. If your artillery formations are also used for mid-level HQs then having both types could be okay (but still see below).
Boarding Space MarinesThese look fine, although you only need one type of formation. Note that there's not really any reason to organize boarding marines into a command hierarchy, so you don't need separate HQ and line platoons for instance.
Catalan CompaniesThese look fine, just undersized and with the same issues I mentioned under the artillery company about the HQ and supply elements. I don't see any purpose in having two different formations here so I would recommend just picking one to simplify logistics/micromanagement.
Command BrigadeSame comments as for the artillery company.
A word about supply logistics: There are two ways to do it, and both work differently and have different pros/cons (with one pretty clearly superior at present):
- INF Logistics: These do not automatically resupply subordinate formations in a hierarchy. However, if you include INF+LOG units in every formation, they can reinforce from rear area supply dumps using the Unit Series/Replacement functionality added in 1.12 as units are lost or consumed during combat. This is significantly more BP-efficient than LVH logistics, at a cost of 1.0 BP per 500 GSP, so the only real downside is that some amount of your front line formations (5-10% usually) will be composed of these noncombat units, which isn't much of a problem.
- LVH Logistics: These will automatically resupply subordinate formations in a hierarchy, and take priority over organic resupply (i.e., if a formation can draw supply from a HQ formation with LVH+LOG, it will do so even if it has its own logistics units as well). However, due to the size and armor of the LVH type, the cost is 2.48 BP per 500 GSP so it is hugely inefficient to use LVH logistics. Prior to 1.12, LVH were necessary for large forces just due to the micromanagement of INF logistics; however, since Unit Series/Replacement was added in 1.12 INF logistics are equally easy to use, so there is no upside to LVH logistics.
Because of this, in my own DB I modify the ground unit components so that LVH logistics provide 1000 GSP per unit rather than 500, which is a much better balance. However, for the purposes of this thread my point is (1) to recommend using only INF or LVH logistics, not both, or to use INF logistics in combat formations and LVH in rear areas formations but not to mix both types for frontline formations; and (2) to recommend the use of INF logistics if you care about the optimal method.
So the overall strategy here is when invading planets I go with the Titan group as the front line attackers, they outgun everything and armored up the ass so their mission is simply to go the front line and frakk smeg up and be a pain in the ass for the enemy. The space marines are the front line defense there to make sure nothing escape the marauding titans and gets to the supporters and rear echelon.
This is a nice headcanon, but not really how the actual ground combat mechanics work in Aurora. Aurora has no real concept of units escaping, flanking, etc. aside from changing the echelon/position (front/support/rear) of a formation which cannot be affected by combat (it is just choosing from the drop-down menu and happens instantly). There are breakthroughs in some cases, but these represent basically an additional attack role by some formations, not a tactical flanking attack (hence, no defensive fire if an artillery company is attacked).
In general, it is best to think of Aurora ground combat as operational rather than tactical. You can of course imagine whatever you like tactically, but the mechanics are purely operational - Formation A fires at Formation B and does damage, combat phase over. I emphasize this mainly because I often see players design their forces based on what they
imagine could happen, rather than what actually can or will happen.
Then I got a smegload of artillery in support, they are actually the main movers and shakers, well not movers since they are static, but certainly static. The titans are actually just a distraction, the artillery is actually what will do most of the damage safely in the back.
This is...true, but a huge waste of the Titans. Artillery are, frankly, underpowered in Aurora due to the mechanics as you don't have a WWI situation where the infantry hide behind fortifications while the artillery bombs them, in Aurora all the formations engage every round if they are able which means front line formations deal a lot of damage. The advantage of artillery is that you can hide its heavy firepower behind the front line so it will not be targeted, so artillery is strong not because it is deadly but because it is hard to target/kill and can therefore last for a long time while the infantry and tanks die. Point being, it is beneficial for you to make your front line units strong as well and not rely on artillery to do all the work.
The Titans themselves are...really bad. UHV+4xSHAV is bad. The SHAV will rarely be necessary, as NPR armies tend to be infantry-heavy, and even if the enemy does deploy super-heavy armor you have no way to control what your Titans shoot at - a lot of those very expensive SHAV shots will be used to massively overkill a basic unarmored rifleman instead of an enemy super-heavy tank. And SHAV is expensive, not only in size (which limits how many Titans you can bring per ton or BP) but also in supply usage (81 GSP per ten shots!!!). It would be much, much, much, much better to use CAP, HCAP, or some flavor of autocannon as the main weapon and use these to mow down infantry. Then you can have artillery and a limited number of anti-tank weapons which can eliminate enemy heavy armor which is left over.
As an aside, "Static" doesn't mean fixed fortifications, it just means something heavier and not mechanized. For example, STA+MB can represent a towed artillery piece. This is a common misconception.
Have I set it up correctly in order of battle? Everything supporting the Titan group, even the Command Battalion? What should I do with the Command brigade? I cant set it to support two groups. Is it actually necessary?
I think it looks fine. It's more common to see the artillery included in the command formation with 3x subordinate line formations but that's certainly not a requirement.
One formation can only support one other formation. This is not a problem, either way the full weight of fire will be thrown downrange, it only affects targeting which is at large scale unimportant. Usually I would have my artillery support the most powerful offensive unit in the formation, to maximize the chance of a breakthrough.
Now, some things I have been thinking of, part of me wanted to go with Titan based HQ for the titan squad for RP but then I would either have them risk combat or be non combat but waste 3 slots on them with CAP or something. I was considering going with a space marine infantery HQ but the whole image of a single dude running around on the ground ordering giant titans around seemed a bit funny and silly so I went with static HQ. Any recommendations? I also went with AA and artillery in support and rear echelon only cause it seemed a waste to have in in the front line defense and attack where its likely to see and be destroyed by combat.
For the Titan HQ, either is fine.
I usually use Static HQ rather than Infantry, because for +12 tons you gain 3x HP which means 9x improvement in surviving any hits from smaller arms fire. Note that armor is rarely useful for Static HQs as it's not very cost-effective on the grand scale of things, since HQs are so much more expensive than regular units especially above HQ50.
The Catalan groups are for planetary defense, they are my garrisons. I like to terraform planets I need to defend into jungle planets, and prefer Jungle Mountain which is what they specialize in. The idea is that they should be basically untouchable as infantry on jungle mountain planets and will frakk invaders due to their specialization. I went with infantry since I can specialize them for jungle mountains, but are vehicles better for defense of non jungle mountains? I might have to design something else for earth that will work better without jungle mountains. You will note that my catalan Front line defenders have some AA and artillery, figured because of how unlikely enemies are to hit anything they would work just fine. Tough, I am wondering if having a battle group is wise? There is something about them loosing their fortification of the front line, so maybe they loose the benefit of being on a jungle planet? Maybe I should go with either two artillery groups in support of the front line defence? Or go with two front line defense Catalans and split the artillery in two halves and have each half supporting each front line defense? And maybe I should design a specialized Catalan headquarters for the rear echelon or does it not matter?
In general, INF/STA are the best for defense and vehicles are the best for offense (infantry is okay for offense as well). This is because INF/STA can fortify to the maximum level which is critical for the defender's advantage in combat. For offense, you will not have fortification in
most cases, so vehicles are optimal for their evasion, heavy armor, and breakthrough ability. Note that Front Line Attack position gives up any fortification benefit in exchange for the ability to cause breakthroughs, while Front Line Defense position allows fortification but not breakthrough (this is the only difference - units in either Front Line position will fire at enemy units equally well otherwise).
And of course my boarding squads of some CAP cause it have the highest shot per ton ratio. Should I add some logistics to them? I hear combat does not last long enough for that.
No, because boarding combat has special rules and supply is not consumed at all.
