Air-Support on ground invasions

[Zoroastra]

Introducing a 'air support' count during ground invasion that represents the availability of strike craft on both sides.

Aerial Superiority: Every turn, air support will attack the enemy air support as well as dealing minor damage to all enemy armies. When one side has no air support left, all their armies will deal decreased damage while taking significantly increased incoming damage from air support.

Defensive buildings on the planet can cause direct damage to invading air support every combat turn.

Health and damage of the air support increases with the number of hangar ships in orbit vs the number of defensive buildings on the planet.
Damage should be capped depending on planetary deployment limits - the fewer troops can deploy at once the fewer planes can bombard them.

 

[Der4ndere]

With how simplified the armies are representet, it feels to me, like they represent all types of military (marine, land and airforce) in each army.
Otherwise it would be hard for them to conquer the different planettypes with the same efficency (like tundra and ocean)

Spaceships / fightercraft cant help much inside the atmosphere, because they are designed for zero-g enviroment.
it would make sense, for them to fire at least some rockets onto the planet, but even the earliest rockets are nuclear weapons, which you normaly dont want to use near your troops.
Similar situation with other weapons: once you take a look at how large they actually are, each physical weapon shot would be similar to a highspeed meteor and lasers might be very inefficient due to the magnetic field and refraction inside the athmosphere.

 

[Cordane]

It's not at all clear just how big Strike Craft are relative to purely atmospheric fighters and such. They can't be too far smaller than stellar warships if they plan on being at all effective versus them in their day jobs, and if warships are beyond a given size, then even a proportionally much smaller SC is going to be massive and unwieldy in an atmosphere.

If warships can use bombardment weapons geared for anti-surface attacks, instead of falling back on anti-warship weapons that wouldn't be efficient, then setting up Hangars (or similar slots) with aerospace fighters (much closer to atmospheric fighters in size, although probably less effective ton-for-ton in performance due to greater requirements) would be a great option.

 

[Cordane]

The other part of this is that the defensive forces are going to be split into two groups: those that are able to deal with the landing and then those that are only capable of defeating landed assault armies. The defense armies are probably going to boast both atmospheric fighters and mobile/mechanized artillery capable of firing into certainly the entire stratosphere (up to 50 km or 164,000 feet on an Earth-like planet), MAYBE into the mesosphere (up to 80 km or 262,000 feet). Beyond that altitude, you'd be relying on your own aerospace fighters (along with surface-launched Strike Craft, though these will probably all be spent during bombardment) and then fixed artillery (all the way out to anti-orbital artillery) - these assets would probably be based around planetary buildings (whether using the same slots as production/management buildings or separate defensive building slots) and vulnerable to bombardment in the same way as other (defensive) buildings.

The problem with having very high proportion of investment in anti-insertion defenses is that they don't do you as much good when the troops are on the ground (definitely not the artillery, and see my previous comment regarding efficiencies of aerospace versus atmospheric fighters). There may be technologies or whatever that can improve the ability of defense armies to contribute to anti-insertion efforts (above and beyond general improvements in lethality), but they're going to be limited in the window where they're at all effective. But defense armies are still useful after planetfall.

 

[Zoroastra]

It's not at all clear just how big Strike Craft are relative to purely atmospheric fighters and such. They can't be too far smaller than stellar warships if they plan on being at all effective versus them in their day jobs, and if warships are beyond a given size, then even a proportionally much smaller SC is going to be massive and unwieldy in an atmosphere.

If warships can use bombardment weapons geared for anti-surface attacks, instead of falling back on anti-warship weapons that wouldn't be efficient, then setting up Hangars (or similar slots) with aerospace fighters (much closer to atmospheric fighters in size, although probably less effective ton-for-ton in performance due to greater requirements) would be a great option.

They don't have to be space strike craft. Hangars that can produce and house larger space strike craft, should be easy enough to repurpose for building and housing smaller aerial strike craft that can be dropped in from orbit with something like an expendable capsule to protect them during atmospheric descent.

This would reflect in the invaders starting without air support and getting air support craft dropped in from orbiting hangar ships as they get produced. providing the initial advantage for the ground defenders which they tend to sorely need. (since attacking armies tend to outnumber them by quite a bit..)

This also means sending air support would likely need to be an optional thing, cost alloys to do and any strike craft sent down will stay on planet even if the fleet leaves since those aerial fighters were never intended to get back up into space - they just won't produce more. Potentially refund some of the cost for surviving air support after the invasion is over (Though not at 100%, giving the attacker a good reason to stop producing more air support when the battle seems to be won.)

 

[Cordane]

They don't have to be space strike craft. Hangars that can produce and house larger space strike craft, should be easy enough to repurpose for building and housing smaller aerial strike craft that can be dropped in from orbit with something like an expendable capsule to protect them during atmospheric descent.

This would reflect in the invaders starting without air support and getting air support craft dropped in from orbiting hangar ships as they get produced. providing the initial advantage for the ground defenders which they tend to sorely need. (since attacking armies tend to outnumber them by quite a bit..)

This also means sending air support would likely need to be an optional thing, cost alloys to do and any strike craft sent down will stay on planet even if the fleet leaves since those aerial fighters were never intended to get back up into space - they just won't produce more. Potentially refund some of the cost for surviving air support after the invasion is over (Though not at 100%, giving the attacker a good reason to stop producing more air support when the battle seems to be won.)

I'm more of the opinion that any quasi-Hangar-based craft that a bombarding warship uses during an invasion are part of the warship and not part of the deployed assault army (which will have their own atmospheric fighters as part of their forces). This goes back to questions of whether an invading force is going to have permanently in-space ships (e.g., the attack fleet sticking around to bombard planet, transport escorts without significant bombard capability, or pure bombardment ships) and what might "land" with the disgorged armies (e.g., pure transports). If an assault army is going to be carried by an ship that doesn't just land (i.e., stay with the army), then rules would have to be in place that determines how that army persists without its transport. If a separate quasi-Hangar/invasion support module is going to be "landing" as well, then those same rules would probably apply.

 

[Zoroastra]

This could also be impacted by defensive fire - if they have to do a 'hot' landing for example they may crash land or be unable to make it back out into orbit before neutralizing those defensive batteries. Or take massive damage on retreating.

Bringing aircraft along with an army is tactically questionable at best, they need an airbase after all. You'd basically need to have your invasion army build airbases on a hostile planet.. which is feasible only if they are there for a prolonged military campaign and wouldn't come cheaply. Providing an improvised landing and refuelling area for imported spacecraft may still work out but... Well, I'm not a military strategist so I'll leave it at 'probably difficult and expensive to do'.

 

[Cordane]

This could also be impacted by defensive fire - if they have to do a 'hot' landing for example they may crash land or be unable to make it back out into orbit before neutralizing those defensive batteries. Or take massive damage on retreating.

Bringing aircraft along with an army is tactically questionable at best, they need an airbase after all. You'd basically need to have your invasion army build airbases on a hostile planet.. which is feasible only if they are there for a prolonged military campaign and wouldn't come cheaply. Providing an improvised landing and refuelling area for imported spacecraft may still work out but... Well, I'm not a military strategist so I'll leave it at 'probably difficult and expensive to do'.

There are multiple ways to deal with a lack of "permanent" take-off and landing facilities:

1. Have all space-, aerospace-, and atmospheric craft capable of VTOL/VSTOL (vertical/very-short take-off and landing) on unprepared surfaces (e.g., dirt). This isn't really a good path to take for all craft involved in operations (as compromises will have to be made to have this capability included), but your "spearhead" units need to have this to ensure they can operate during the initial landing phase.
2. Have rapid-assembly air/aerospace fields (e.g., landing strips, launch pads) in the immediate second wave of unit deliveries, to accommodate those craft that require some minimal preparation for take-off and/or landing. RW "Seabees" (US Naval Construction Battalions, CBs) and combat engineers are capable of quickly clearing terrain and assembling pre-fab elements to provide for critical facilities once a site is "secured" (and often are capable of doing the same even under a level of enemy fire). This capability is probably common in invasion forces in Stellaris. These facilities might not be capable of handling the most intense activity, but will be quite sufficient for forward operations.
3. Have combat engineers build more permanent facilities. This will take more time, both to construct but also to deliver the materials required, and those transports may require the Tier-2 facilities before they can get started. These larger, sturdier bases will be necessary for later non-combat military freighters and their shuttles to drop off more supplies, ammunition, spares, and relief.
4. Assuming they're available: Capture existing infrastructure from defenders. If this is possible, it may remove some of the need for #3, but considering my estimates that any given assault/defense army is going to be hundreds of thousands of human-analogues, multiple installations will be required for even a single army, never mind for an entire invasion force, so some from column A, some from column B...

Due to the exceptional power requirements to exit a gravity well (i.e., take off from (near) a planet's surface), I'm thinking the percentage of craft that would drop from orbit, perform their missions, and return to orbit WITHOUT landing for refueling at least, would be quite minimal, although in-flight refueling might be possible.

 

[Der4ndere]

Bringing aircraft along with an army is tactically questionable at best, they need an airbase after all. You'd basically need to have your invasion army build airbases on a hostile planet.. which is feasible only if they are there for a prolonged military campaign and wouldn't come cheaply. Providing an improvised landing and refuelling area for imported spacecraft may still work out but... Well, I'm not a military strategist so I'll leave it at 'probably difficult and expensive to do'.

Why would it be a problem to include some aircraft (and a launch-system) into the landing ships?
From how I interpret the army transports and how they disapear from the galaxy uppon invasion, these ships are like a mobile military base that can be adjustet for all enviroments and can also provide the eqipment to its troops for those variing enviroments.

With more advanced tech, aircraft should become easier to use than those, that we know in our "primitive" pre-space zivilication on earth (all the preset-earth empires start of with 2200 as the startyear, so still much time to develope better military tech for humanity to wage war against itself).

 

[Cordane]

Why would it be a problem to include some aircraft (and a launch-system) into the landing ships?
From how I interpret the army transports and how they disapear from the galaxy uppon invasion, these ships are like a mobile military base that can be adjustet for all enviroments and can also provide the eqipment to its troops for those variing enviroments.

With more advanced tech, aircraft should become easier to use than those, that we know in our "primitive" pre-space zivilication on earth (all the preset-earth empires start of with 2200 as the startyear, so still much time to develope better military tech for humanity to wage war against itself).

I've brought this up in other threads, but based on the number of army units that are supported by Pops and the sizes of RW modern militaries, my estimates put the number of human-analogues in any given army in the 800,000 to 900,000 range. As someone pointed out, there could easily be a number of roles that are instead taken up by non-combatant robot workers, droids, or synthetics, but whether organic or mechanical, that many personnel and their equipment, supplies, planetary transportation, facilities, etc., would need massive transportation, in size and/or quantity (I feel an army's "transport" should actually be a small fleet or flotilla instead, better able to maneuver, make planetfall, and return to orbit, but it could still be represented on the map as a single-ship icon).

I would think only the very largest of landed transports would have the external deck space for an effective airfield on its own, but that would probably be insufficient for the entirety of its embarked atmospheric craft.

 

[GhostDanny]

It's not at all clear just how big Strike Craft are relative to purely atmospheric fighters and such. They can't be too far smaller than stellar warships if they plan on being at all effective versus them in their day jobs, and if warships are beyond a given size, then even a proportionally much smaller SC is going to be massive and unwieldy in an atmosphere.

 

[Cordane]

That video is definitely quite pretty, but it is by no means even close to the game mechanics for ship ratios (definitely materials used, construction time, weapon/utility slots, etc. - possibly mass and volume, too). I once put out a thought experiment on what would happen if you changed the ratios from 1:2:4:8 to 1:8:64:512, and the video above isn't too far from that wider ratio, at least between the Corvette and the Cruiser (the jump from Corvette to Destroyer is too small, though). But the Battleship is way bigger than the Cruiser, and the Titan laughs at the previous jump in size. (My own estimates on even the 1:8:64:512 ratios were 200m Corvette, 400m Destroyer, 800m Cruiser, and 1600m Battleship, versus 400m Corvette and 800m Battleship on the 1:2:4:8 ratios.)

The point I made in the comment you quoted was that a Strike Craft below a given size would have no chance of damaging a warship, certainly when compared to the ability of any given warship to damage another one of the same size. At just the 1:2:4:8 ratio between Corvettes and Battleships, Strike Craft couldn't be more than 1:8 or maybe 1:64 below the Corvette (1:64 or 1:512 below the Battleship) and have any hope of damaging them. A1:8:64 ratio of SC to Corvette to Battleship is hard to justify having SC fit into hangars, and a 1:64:512 ratio pushes to the edge of plausibility. (Unless you also account for realistic weapon accuracy for kinetics and energy weapons over ranges in multiples of 100,000 or 1,000,000 km, compared to SC firing from at most a few 1,000 km - even then it's dodgy.)

Regardless of any of the above, the Strike Craft in the video is actually smaller than an American F-15 or F-22 fighter (19m each) and those only have to operate in the lowest portion of Earth's atmosphere (i.e., can use the readily-available oxygen to mix with on-board fuel for combustion, rather than have to carry all of it themselves, including enough to get to orbit again).

 

[WoodenP]

If you read the localisation text from early versions of stellaris you can see the in the old attachment systems a bunch of references to atmospheric/ aerial / as well as ground assaults. I think they were going with an expanded "landing" phase. They clearly like the idea. The old UI also had space for three "lanes" too. I'm hoping they return to that with an army rework expansion for sure.

I'll paste the information below, this text is from actual Stellaris techs.

"Air Defense Artillery" - "A large collection of weapon systems designed to track and engage fast-moving objects as they enter a planet's atmosphere."

"Orbital Drop Pods" - "Single use drop pods that are launched onto a planet's surface from a ship in orbit. While heavier equipment still needs to be brought in with assault landers, these pods significantly decrease the time spent between orbit and planetfall during planetary invasions."

"Raptor Flocks" - "Large flying predators capable of reaching supersonic speeds for limited periods. They attack in flocks, firing streams of hardened spines that are capable of penetrating most armor. Any aircraft venturing into the atmosphere above a nest of these creatures is at risk of attack."

Bonus (just one of my favorites), a xenomorph attachment
"Brood Coordinator" - "This massive, slug-like creature is kept behind the front lines to improve the coordination of the ravenous creatures in a xenomorph army. It uses low-level psionic signals to communicate with the horde, and a complaint unrelated to its odor is that its handlers often suffer from severe headaches."

There is tonnes of this stuff. All extremely flavourful, all extremely badass.