Combined Arms bonus?

[Aloriel (OP)]

In other war games, there is a bonus for making units of multiple types (ARM, INF, AA, ART). I was wondering if the same applies to here?

Also, has anyone figured out some optimal formation builds?

[Garfunkel]

There is no hardcoded / built-in Combined Arms bonus.

There are two reasons why you still want to build combined arms, whether infantry+static+vehicles and/or variety of components:

1. You don't usually know the exact composition of your enemy nor their tech level
2. You want to spread out the incoming damage your enemy does

If your weapons tech is higher than their armor tech, then your "light" weapons will kill them easily and "heavy" weapons are waste of BP and tonnage.
If your weapons tech is lower than their armor tech, then your "light" weapons are waste of supply and "heavy" weapons are mandatory.

If your enemy lacks multi-shot weaponry, they might kill your vehicles but they probably don't have time to kill off your infantry before you wipe them out.
If your enemy lacks hard-hitting weaponry, they might kill your infantry but they probably can't punch out your vehicles before you kill them.

You can look at the big Ground Combat thread in Development sub-forum, a bunch of people did a bunch of math to calculate optimal loadouts but those only work when tech levels are equal and you know the composition of enemy forces. We did a bunch of theorycrafting and the above principles kinda emerged as rule-of-thumb things.

Obviously, if you can afford the BP cost, the wealth maintenance and the tonnage of transportation, the most effective force is to have a million Ultra-Heavy Vehicles with 2x Heavy Crew-Served Anti-Personnel and 2xSuper-Heavy Anti-Vehicle components with maximum armor as it will survive almost anything and will shred absolutely everything. But since nobody can afford that, you have to mix N match cheaper and smaller stuff.

Until we know what spoilers and NPRs build, there is no optimal "meta" composition for your ground units. Build for basic competency and then for RP and flavour.

[Father Tim]

In other war games, there is a bonus for making units of multiple types (ARM, INF, AA, ART). I was wondering if the same applies to here?

Also, has anyone figured out some optimal formation builds?

Nope.

1 INF-HQ (1000 tons)
330 INF-PWL

Optimal for:  Reducing planetary unrest and/or occupying enemy colonies.

[Doren]

In other war games, there is a bonus for making units of multiple types (ARM, INF, AA, ART). I was wondering if the same applies to here?

Also, has anyone figured out some optimal formation builds?

Nope.

1 INF-HQ (1000 tons)
330 INF-PWL

Optimal for:  Reducing planetary unrest and/or occupying enemy colonies.

Pretty much this. Only clear optimal thing is to use light personal weapons for police forcing other than that it is a balance of damage vs shots vs pen vs tonnage of troops you can deliver

Maybe once things get more settled people will figure out things that stand out more but right now there's too many variables to get very deep into ground combat

[Aloriel (OP)]

Thanks for the replies, especially your thorough response Garfunkel.

What I have been building are company sized formations of a type (INF/ARM/ART). These companies are mixed between AP, AT, and AA, with the exception of ART, which is almost all ART. I then build HQs that are literally 1 guy in a truck at the battalion (800), brigade (5500), and division levels (25k). In addition to these, I have been building supply convoys of 5000 supplies (10 trucks), and forward observer squads of 10 FOs.

My battalions are composed of this:
2 INF (300 soldiers total: 50 AA, 50 AT, 200 AP)
1 ARM (150 tanks total: 50 AT, 50 AP, 25 AA, 25 AC)
1 ART (150 soldiers total: 75 INF/ART, 25 INF, 25 INF/AA, 25 INF/AT)
1 LOG convoy (10 light armor vehicles, 500 supply each)
1 forward observer squad (10 FFD)

Does this all make sense?

Should my HQs include more than just an HQ truck?

How does field positioning affect things? Also, is rear or support more appropriate for your non-combat units like LOG and HQ? And similar for ART?


EDIT: Ohhh, good point Doren. MPs don't need fancy equip so you can churn them out!

[Doren]

More than one HQ in a formation is just a safe guard that the one currently in it gets blown up.
If you want that safety add more HQ to same formation but large HQs are rather expensive and large in size.
I think setting the supply units in HQ works but I've yet to have much testing how much fire are supply units that are tagged non-combat receive.

For larger HQ I guess putting some units there to soak some random hits might be good

For Artillery formation I think having AT that much might not make much sense as artillery should be positioned in the Support Position where they are a lot less likely to face combat but that's just me.

There's more detailed description of positioning at http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109786#msg109786
But in a nut shell front gets most of the attacks. Support gets few attacks and rear gets almost no attacks. Medium arty, Heavy arty can support from Support position. Heavy arty can support from rear position. I think AA can support from any position.

[Aloriel (OP)]

My thought on the AT weaponry in the ART company was just in case of a breakthrough. Not even sure if such a mechanic is in the game, but it happens in *sooo* many other games it only made sense.

EDIT: Yep. Breakthroughs are a thing here too. Just got to that part of the GU combat rules. Darn my eyes for not noticing this whole section in the C# changes list. They skipped right over it in the table of contents.

[Jorgen_CAB]

For defence then a good mix of infantry and static units with a good mix of weapons probably are an overall good choice.

For attack then light, medium and heavy vehicles in a good mix are probably a safe bet as well... infantry can also be decent on attack but it entirely depend on the enemies troops and weapon types anyway. Light vehicles have the best attacking chance in terms of avoiding hits... so, they are probably one of the better choices for engaging regular enemy infantry armed with CAP or HCAP weapons.

I don't think there is a best or optimum as it depends allot on the enemies capabilities.

In general when you look at the pure math then infantry and static units are really effective when you also count in their cost. Sure heavier vehicles seem powerful but unless they are armed entirely with CAP weapons they are too expensive... but in terms of space efficiency they pack a much heavier punch than infantry... this is important for many different reasons. This also means there are no great one single answer to the optimum question.

I would say that super heavy vehicles are not that great as you can always counter them with much cheaper Anti-Vehicle weapons... even a medium vehicle with two heavy anti-vehicle guns will be way more efficient at killing super heavy vehicles for their cost than the reverse. But a force that don't have such vehicles can be a bit vulnerable.... so it is all relative.

In terms of technology then Armour are the most efficient and important technology if you are more advanced than the opponent and weapon technology are the most important if you are less advanced.