Re Ground Unit STO's
I have designed a basic static 20cm Plasma Carronade ground unit and also another STO unit with the PDW box ticked.
Please could someone advise :-
a) what Damage 10/1 represents in the detail box.
b) an example of how I should incorporate the STO 's into my Ground Units . Do they remain on their own as independent units or have they to be incorporated into a unit with HQ's etc ?
How do others use them - if at all ?
David R
I try to organize my STOs into "battalions" of around 25,000 tons (since I tend to make my first few utility transports, bought with BP, that size, that I also use to move around geosurvey and xenosurvey teams.) I typically mix the guns up a bit; 1/3rd to 1/2 particle beams, so I can ensure standoff performance against enemies that might try to out-range me during bombardment, 1/4th or less lasers, since they gain incredible armor-piercing power as enemies close in (ideal for dropping troop-ships quickly) and sometimes some railguns if I'm using them that playthrough, as they also gain power quickly as range closes and beefs up the PD. I usually include at least two quad-turret gauss CIWS units, an HQ, and I pad out the tonnage count with a few construction vehicles. Even though the construction speed from that is minuscule at best, it's more than enough to eventually fortify every unit over the course of a few years. The idea is that I can move this battalion with just one troopship to a new high value colony and have their STO defenses set up properly just like that, then forget about it ever after.
In practice this doesn't work so well as a formation, because of build time. In my current game I threw together a proper formation template for an STO battalion and found it takes
ten years to build! So I usually end up making small formation templates with small numbers of various guns, some bulldozers and an HQ, etc, and keep some or all of my ground build slots full when I have nothing better for them to do so a constant stream of STO guns is being churned out. Then I'll organize them into rough battalions using whatever I have on hand, as I need it, then ship them out to the frontier. HQ's are effectively mandatory for me so I can attach smaller STO units/shift elements to them ad-hoc as I just described, but also so I can attach a construction battalion to them to quickly fortify them (which I do if I'm sending them to deal with a priority situation, such as an aggressive NPR contesting a system with me.) Commander bonuses don't hurt either, though I can never remember how the bonuses work for STOs, exactly, for the life of me.
I really need to come up with better doctrine for it; esp. as I often want to provide some STO cover for smaller colonies, civilian mining colonies, etc. So I'm also interested to see what replies you get.
