Order construction of missing ground unit elements

[Destragon (OP)]

Version 1.12 added the replacement template feature for ground formations, but it seems to be missing a functionality that I personally would want it to be used for.

What I would like to have in particular would be a button I could press to order the construction of only the unit elements that the formation is missing compared to its selected replacement template. So for example, if you have a formation with 500 soldiers, 50 tanks, and an HQ, and it's missing 100 soldiers and 10 tanks (compared to the replacement template), then I would want to specifically only construct these 100 soldiers and 10 tanks that are missing (instead of ordering the construction of a new full formation, which would make me end up with a superfluous HQ and more units).

In my current game I have a formation where I later decided to make a couple changes to it by adding additional unit elements to it. I was hoping I could use the replacement template feature to order the construction of these newly added elements, but that doesn't seem to be possible. The alternative would be to build an entirely new formation and to mark that one as a replacement formation for the original one, but that wouldn't really make sense, because I would still end up with one formation that is missing the units anyway.
My only options seem to be to either very micro intensively create a new formation type which contains only the missing units and then to use that as a replacement formation or to just build a new formation and to delete the old one, both of which don't sound like satisfying options.

If anyone knows better ways to handle this kinda thing, let me know.

[nuclearslurpee]

Something like this would be much appreciated.

In practice probably the best way to handle this is to build large formations of the most commonly-lost unit types and ship them to conquered planets to replenish losses. This I think covers the intended use case as Steve envisioned for the unit series, although it doesn't do as much as many players want. I suspect that a rework is planned "sometime"...

[Droll]

The problem with the current system is that it works well when trying to replace losses on formations but does not work well when trying to upgrade/modify existing formations. It runs under the assumption that you'll be constantly fighting ground wars, with old units dying out and being replenished with more modern ones but that often isn't the case and the player will be forced to replace whole formations with next gen units, especially since transport tonnage is at a premium.

I think a good start is to be able to have an additional option on replacement formations called "use for upgrades" which as well as replacing losses, using the unit series system will automatically replace outdated units where relevant. The old unit gets thrown into the replacement formation in question whereas the modern unit gets moved from the replacement formation to the target formation, in effect swapping places.

Beyond that there really just needs to be a system where we can "complete to template" for a formation, automatically creating a build task with a temporary one-off formation with all the new units needed and moving all redundant/removed units into some reserve formation that the player can decide what to do with and maybe even the ability to designate a formation as reserve to automatically move such old units into. You can use a similar system with ship construction and fleets, where you aren't allowed to move/interact with the ground unit while there is an associated build task active or in the queue.

[nuclearslurpee]

Beyond that there really just needs to be a system where we can "complete to template" for a formation, automatically creating a build task with a temporary one-off formation with all the new units needed and moving all redundant/removed units into some reserve formation that the player can decide what to do with and maybe even the ability to designate a formation as reserve to automatically move such old units into. You can use a similar system with ship construction and fleets, where you aren't allowed to move/interact with the ground unit while there is an associated build task active or in the queue.

My dream ground forces rework would be to have the "Series" system be the basis of all ground forces, rather than designed units, which I think would provide the necessary framework to implement all of these QoL changes we desperately want. This starts with automation of series so that every current combination of base type + components + capabilities is automatically its own series. Researching the next tech upgrade variant in a series automatically upgrades formation templates since they use the series instead of the unit. Build/Rebuild orders can then be given which are "smart" and automatically replace units with the most modern version of that series - even without cost adjustments this would make everyone's lives much easier.

Right now it seems like the limiting factor "under the hood" is that the game cannot tell that Mk I Rifleman and Mk II Rifleman are the "same unit", and the series system as it stands is almost too flexible since there's no guarantee that the Mk I, II, ... in a series are identical. The pieces are there, which is encouraging, but they still need to be put together.

[Froggiest1982]

I like the replacement function and I think along with series it's a nice little neat feauture once you understand how to use it.

In saying that, as long as the above can stay in place, I agree with many here and wish a few "extra" options to be added.

At today I still would like the pods to disappear though and get proper AA working. All it needs is an extra layer such as Air unit within the ground unit elements that interacts only with AA or other Air units.

I maybe be wrong but I doubt any of us will miss pods, or not?

[nuclearslurpee]

I maybe be wrong but I doubt any of us will miss pods, or not?

I would not mind keeping pods as you can make some decent A2G fighters in the 60-80 ton range which are fairly efficient in terms of hangar space, so it adds a fun dimension both RP-wise and tactically. However the micro really needs to be eliminated.

IMO this could be done by getting rid of the profoundly unhelpful way of assigning ground support fighters via the ground forces window, and doing it entirely in the naval organization window. Two orders are needed: (1) "Support Ground Unit at Population" which allows to select a specific formation to support, and (2) "Support Any Ground Unit at Population" which allows automation of large forces at the cost of precise control. No need to click around in the very limited ground forces view, and all the same rules can continue to apply with no changes.

Aside from this, AA needs a rework. It has many problems but IMO the one that best characterizes how poorly the system functions right now is that AA units are useless unless they have a minimum racial attack stat - 5 for MAA and a ridiculous 10 for LAA. Below this, they simply do nothing in their intended role, and above this as others have noted they are extremely powerful.

[Droll]

and above this as others have noted they are extremely powerful.

Obviously shock damage is a big oof for ground support fighters, especially the 60-80 ton ones you mentioned in your post. But I think the main reason why AA seems so powerful is primarily because of numbers. Because of how micro intensive it is to have even 60 CAS fighters, you won't have people building and using 100s of them, but the NPRs and spoilers you fight will have 1000s of AA units, which now only need focus their firepower on a few dozen fighters. If the micro problem is solve we'll start seeing people using multiple hundreds of these fighters which I think will dampen much of the problems we have right now with CAS balance.