Standard Military Hierarchy and Formations.

Showd be already, but the whole ship structure is an authentic chaos.
Where I think it should be eliminated from the game all the naval fleet.

I really think it is a bad idea and a little disrespect for the fans to have an element so important as the naval in this TA SCFA world , and run so bad in this kind of planets.

It is just my opinion but I am sure 100% that naval will never worked here.

I love all maps on SC forged aliance where there is sea to fight, im using that game as an example only! and always have wonderful and epic battles by sea.

I do not see it how in planets, may we have epic battles by the sea!

I know they want the game just adapt to the style, and its good but not at sea ....

Sea battles are limited by the size of planets right now, and I have never seen a modern RTS that handles aircraft like actual aircraft, which is why I did not address those things in the OP.

the look of the ships is still first pass and i entirely disaggree with your opinion on removing them
it rather would be disrespectfull to remove them as fans WANTED naval ... it´s just that naval needs more work ...
but then again uber has its prioritylist .... don´t force a devteam to do your wishes like that
naval while clunky is funktional and does its work there is no need to remove it ...

i can´t help but looking at this picture and seeing those tightly packed up units in their nice beatifuly formations eventualy moving slowly forward .... god nuking that must hurt soo much .... or carped bombing/artillerybombing

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Yea, artillery kills close formations like nobodies business, which Is why I called for a close formation/skirmish formation toggle in the OP. Managing when your units should be close together to attack and when they should be far apart should just be a toggle button away. Something, I might add, you can't do now. Go ahead, try and get a blob to spread out quickly in response to enemy ordinance.

In real war, well war of ye old times. Did those formations actually serve a purpose ? or was it like the 1800's selfie kinda of expression, just to show off ?.

Why is the advantage of a formation that is a square with empty space in the middle?

Yea, the primary purpose of close in formations was that masses of infantry rule the ancient battlefield, and the firearms of the time were REALLY inaccurate. So to compensate, everyone would stand shoulder-to-shoulder so that the massed volley would actually hit something, usually another mass of infantry down field. Note that this turned ugly at the start of World War 1, with repeated mass infantry charges straight into massed artillery and interlocking lines of machine gun nests. These attacks succeeded in killing most of the young men of Europe, and not much else. Indeed, it was this state of affairs that prompted the invention of the tank alongside new fire and maneuver tactics (aka Blitzkrieg) Note that the formations I'm advocating are not quite shoulder to shoulder for the close in toggle. Also note that in PA there is no real equivalent to machine guns, and PA tanks aren't really like RL tanks. So whats left is the effect of air power and artillery, and the latter was always present during the Musket and Cannon era of combat. Thusly without any sort of impenetrable defense capability vs massed infantry that lead to the abandonment of these tactics there is no reason not to base our combat models on the era of warfare they actually resemble most closely.

The advantage of the square formation is that it cannot be flanked while making sure that the firing lines that form it are not so deep as to block the fire of the units near the center. Its also a great way to protect an artillery battery.

Of course, this is not very relevant because Uber has not implemented any sort of flanking damage bonus that would make an attack do more damage if the attack strikes the side or rear of a unit. Honestly, they should though.

even that isn't properly working. my infernos have an insane tendency to be at the back.

This should be a mod, it would probably be too complicated for the casual user to spend time forming units into the most efficient formation possible. And, the game isn't even finished yet, so i hope they do add this anyway

Mainly because units don't prioritize going into formation over moving in the first place, if there was a "reform" button or something, it'd be nice. Or if units went into formation as they were moving as apposed to when they meet their destination.

You dont need the most efficient formation possible. You just need a generic, highly effective, and easy to use formation that works for most cases. Edge cases in combat can be micro'ed. An interface for quickly setting century unit composition would be a must as well.

I suspect it's because we might have a similar taste in games...

While I do enjoy the idea of selecting multiple units based on which level of command you select, I have the hunch that a game such as PA might be too fast paced for this feature.

The set-up (and let's be honest, maintenance) of such a detailed hierarchy would, in the heat of the battle, probably be glossed over in favour of bandboxing the nearest couple of squads.

Like I said before, this is a feature aimed at huge planets, and epically long games, where management of a large number of units becomes cumbersome enough to necessitate such features. Uber has said they want to scale up PA to epic scales, and if that is true, they will eventually need to lay this groundwork to make it manageable.

Additionally, the structure described in the OP would be implicit in the UI, making set up as easy as building unit composition templates (which can be done outside of any game) before the battle starts and then once the battle starts ordering your factories to build X number of bots necessary to staff X numbers of units. Once a unit has the necessary staffing on the ground, it would auto-form up and be ready to command like any other unit. After that you just issue a move order for where you want it to go and in which direction you want it to face.

Note that selecting the commander unit will also bring up a "Replacements" button in its Button tower, that when activated will order up any needed replacements for that unit, if it has suffered casualties. It will also issue move orders to bring it to wherever the unit is currently located.

So you could Have Century Template A, lets say all Dox, with Century Template B, all grenadiers. You set up and save these templates beforehand, and can use them in any battle afterward. Since its a template, you only have to set it up once. Indeed, a set of stock unit composition templates could be provided.

I will talk about UI ideas for quickly and easily setting up higher order CoC later in a following post.

Awesome thanks dude.

Yeah i guess i often forget, that weapons wasnt always as accurate as they are today or fast to reload.

I love the idea of tactical formations of units. I dug up US Army manual FM 17-15 for Tank Platoons that give good descriptions of tank formations that I think would be well suited for PA. I don't think it would be too difficult to implement selectable options since I've seen games that have had a few basic formations before, but rarely to have I seen a game (outside of a simulation) allow most if not all of the different types. Some of these apply to aircraft as well. Aircraft have other types of formations but wouldn't necessarily be practical for PA (offset formations, high or low, for example)

I would caveat that in PA, a tank platoon of 3 or 4 deep is way more of an exception than a rule, of course, but I think marching formations that OP posted combined with tank formations would work pretty well. The trick would be good path finding so units could smoothly and rapidly move from one formation to the other the instant the option was needed.

Column:
o The column provides excellent control and fire to the flanks, but permits
less fire to the front. It is used when speed is critical, when the platoon is
moving through restrictive terrain on a specific route, and/or when enemy
contact is not likely.

Staggered Column:
o The staggered column is a modified column formation with one section
leading and one section trailing behind to pro vide overwatch. The
staggered column permits good fire to the front and flanks. It is used when
speed is critical, when there is a limited area for lateral dispersion, and/or
when enemy contact is possible.

Wedge:
o The wedge permits excellent firepower to the front and good firepower to
the flanks. It is employed when the platoon is provided with overwatch by
another element and is moving in open or rolling terrain. Depending on
the platoon location within the company formation, the platoon leader and
PSG (with wingmen) can switch sides of the formation. When the platoon
leader's tank is slightly forward, one flank has more firepower.

Echelon (Right or Left):
o The echelon formation permits excellent firepower to the front and to one
flank. It is used to screen an exposed flank of the platoon or of a larger
moving force.

Vee:
o The vee formation provides excellent protection and con-trol, but limits
fires to the front. This formation is used when terrain restricts movement
or when overwatch within the platoon is required.

Line:
o The line formation provides maximum firepower forward. It is used when
the platoon crosses danger areas and is provided with overwatch by
another element or when the platoon assaults en-emy positions.

Coil and Herringbone:
o These formations are employed when the platoon is stationary and 360-
degree security is essential.
Coil: When it is operating independently, the platoon uses the coil
formation to establish a perimeter defense during extended halts or lulls in
combat. The lead vehicle, normally the platoon leader, will halt his vehicle
in the direction of travel (12 o'clock) while the other vehicles position
themselves to form a circular formation covering all suspected enemy
avenues of approach.
Herringbone: The herringbone formation is used when the platoon must
assume a hasty defense with 360-degree security while remaining postured
to resume movement in the direction of travel. It is normally employed
during scheduled or unscheduled halts in a road march. If terrain permits,
vehicles should move off the road and stop at a 45-degree angle, allowing
passage of vehicles through the center of the formation.

You can read the manual here: http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/US-Field-Manuals/FM-17-15-Tank-Platoon.pdf

The formation figures begin on page 61

i think Uber is in fact doing work on naturaly-forming formations. but it isn't quite up to snuff yet. in the mean time, i find that using a quick attack-move command rectifies any misalignments in formation very quickly.

Ug, quick-attack and all of the older RTS standby's for unit commands are terrible substitutes for actual rational self-preservation behavior, and reliable formation movement.

Mindless automatons of destruction aren't fussed about self-preservation. They don't know about the Third Law of Robotics.

Self preservation makes sense for all life forms, fleshy or otherwise. Robotic life forms with some level of self preservation would be more fit evolutionarily.

-"Generals have a tendency to fight the last war"

To me the wars of the future and how we fight them try to fit themselves in a mold of what is conventual. Star Trek is tall ships on the sea, BattlestarGalactica is a WWII aircraft carrier. Star Wars, Firefly, and Star Gate are 18th century line battles with ships replacing men. Halo and Mass Effect are 21st century warfare reimagend in space.

I feel that trying to make PA fit into some grand idea of military doctrine would not improve it greatly over what we now have. I mean columns, lines, and wedges sound good but how effective are they? All the units are ranged and have comparable levels of power. A lot of the strategy comes form unit compositions. Bot to Tank ratios and Air support v Anti Air. Formations are just a better looking blob.

Also the idea of command ranks in a robot army seems odd to me. I have imagined that the commanders are a perfect Ai that can oversee and direct the entire war effort form one spot. To add to that trying to manage different groups of units what is the difference of having a "Centurion" cheering forward form the rear while the front rank dies and having to worry about him dieing. Than just ctrl+1 a group and tell them where you want them to go. If the Ai could lend a hand and auto arrange your group based on what types of units are present would be more use full than setting battle groups.

When I play, All that I do is grab one blob of units and tell them to kill everything in this circle. and move to the next group and tell them to do the same in another part of the map. I do not want to have to spend preshies seconds telling them to form a column and wait for them to get to the front then tell them to make a line and advance. I am trying to scale my production and keep my economy matching passe.

But that is enough of me dogging on the idea To contribute instead of all that what if your army's would automatically fight base on the current situation? What if you could have your units individually prioritize their targets?

I am more in favor to let the Ai do the quick maneuvering while I have my mind trying to keep up with fighting 5 fronts on 3 planets.