Rework to Ground Unit Construction

[Steve Walmsley]

"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.

[nuclearslurpee]

"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.

[Bremen]

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.

[Blogaugis]

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.

[Garfunkel]

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.

[Migi]

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?

[Density]

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 [...]

[Blogaugis]

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.

[Density]

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.

[Blogaugis]

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.

[db48x]

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.

[papent]

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

[minaev_lukav3]

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. 

[nuclearslurpee]

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.

[minaev_lukav3]

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.