Infantry

[TheTrooper]

Hi everyone, a bit for roleplay reasons a bit because to me it fits the enviroment, i thought this: does it make sense to have different infantry types? Now i always start with carbine armed soldiers. Of course as soon as i get assault rifles i create a new model, though the majority of the soldiers still use carbines. Same for gauss rifles, as i get them, the majority of the soldiers get issued with assault and elite units that i train more and bla bla get gauss or lasers. Same goes for armor, everyone can get his/her hands on padded suits, but combat armor stays for few. Of course you can imagine the progression. SPOILER ALERT: everyone still gets padded suits even in late game, just because 40k has a bad influence on me.
But aside from roleplay reasons, are the resources you're sparing worth it? I found that on resource scarce worlds like the one i'm playing, can't remember maybe it's a Siwa, no water and so far little metal, it may have sense, especially when you field advanced battledresses. Just wanna hear you guys out!

best

[FMBluecher]

In one game, where I knew that to win a war with a particular major power, I would need to assault across a mountain range, I created a couple of elite brigades with battledress while leaving the rest of my infantry with heavy combat armor. Saved on machines for the regular infantry while keeping the infantry that I actually used on the attack better-protected. That's the only time I deliberately had two different "standards" of normal infantry.

[Clux]

Unless you get a poor STR roll on your first model (below 90) I would stick with only a infantry line, as its the unit that gets the most field testing and quickly improves. If possible I always give my infantry the best armor and gun available, but if I'm in mid-late game (using HCA and lasers) I usually use old models with AR and combat armor (significantly cheaper) to protect the borders against minors or tackle down unrest.

[zgrssd]

does it make sense to have different infantry types?

You only can make a designpass from the last model of a Series. If you modify the soldier model, you modify all soldiers.
Some upgrades are no brainers to install (lasers, armor up to combat armor).

While stuff like Battledress relies on rather rare resources (machines), meaning you can not realy afford to deploy them across the entire Army.

Of course from a certain point of View, "Walkers" are the final version of Infantry. They try to combine the best of Infantry (terrain combat bonus) with the best of vehicles (speed, armor).

[AgentFransis]

It could be cool to roleplay but practically upgrading infantry is cheap enough that there's no reason not to keep all your infantry at the latest standard. And manpower is generally your most precious resource so you want to preserve it as best as possible.

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

While stuff like Battledress relies on rather rare resources (machines), meaning you can not realy afford to deploy them across the entire Army.

Of course from a certain point of View, "Walkers" are the final version of Infantry. They try to combine the best of Infantry (terrain combat bonus) with the best of vehicles (speed, armor).

Machines aren't really rare though. A heavy industry II with industrial robotization can output enough machines every turn to equip two whole brigades of infantry with battledress, something you can have up and running by the time you have battledress researched. My late game armies are in full battledress, besides some random independent battalions on garrison or border duty.

Walkers are a great substitute for tanks in certain roles of course (fighting in rough terrain, killing other tanks, decimating blobs of infantry) but their main problem is that they're slow. Even in forests they can barely up keep with a mechanized infantry offensive and in flat terrain they usually straggle far behind my tanks and APCs. In that sense they don't fill the primary role of infantry in mobile warfare: filling the gaps behind your tanks and sealing pockets.

[yutowap33]

i thought this: does it make sense to have different infantry types?

I always play with design quality designation and OHQ troop setting to differentiate between low quality support units like city garrisons and frontline combat units.

[TheTrooper]

I did a run yesterday and i felt this though, switching between weaponry and armors is too cheap. I mean equipping large quantitative of advanced weaponry such as lasers requires too little resources for a post-apocalyptic. I understand you're not starting from zero, but if you recall ww2 countries like Italy for example could not produce smg en masse because of the high production cost. I feel that if civilization has been wiped out in a terrible war and you start with some slughthrowers that the manual calls bolt actions, going to assault rifles or gauss should be more impacting on your production cost, therefore making crack units with assault rifles and lasers and a masse of slugthrowers and carbines more suitable. I mean you're in the future, i get that at a certain level you must be able to field pew pew shooting rifles, but also think of North Korea, their infantry still fields old uniforms and i feel like body armor is a bit neglected, this because even body armor en masse can be quite a feat for some countries. Btw in my yesterday run i equipped most of the forces with padded and carbines and against assault and combat armor they still were able to repel and win.

[TheTrooper]

Btw i never used walkers, do you fielding them? I always go with fast tanks or medium tanks. I rarely used anything that doesn't have tracks, aside from sentinels.

[AgentFransis]

Yeah I get at least a few battalions when I can. They're good at clearing out rough spots like mountains and forests. They're also very good at chewing through armor. On heavily forested and/or mountainous maps I don't get tanks at all and instead attach walkers to most of my infantry brigades.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: TheTrooper

Btw i never used walkers, do you fielding them? I always go with fast tanks or medium tanks. I rarely used anything that doesn't have tracks, aside from sentinels.

Walkers are a step between Infantry and Vehicles. When looking at terrain:
- If infantry can entrench there, Walkers get half the Automatic and Maximum Entrenchment. Wich puts them way ahead of vehicle entrenchment.
- If vehicles have a worse combat modifier then infantry, Walkers tend to use the Infantry one or at least closer.
The sole exception is marshes, in wich Walkers are worse then any other vehicle.
- They can still carry vehicle size weapon and armor

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
- They can still carry vehicle size weapon and armor

The amount of armor they can carry is 1-2 steps lower than a tracked vehicle of the same size category.

But between being able to Entrench and having an extra optimization, Battlemechs are generally superior in Shadow Empire.

[Uemon]

This is a complicated topic.

Are old infantry units worth upgrading resources?

Well...

When you start a new game, you should start spamming infantry battalions, as many as you humanly can, as your first objective is to secure 2 hexes at the very least around your city (if there are hostiles closer than 2 hexes city gets big unrest penalties, and this is unsustainable later on, your people will get unhappy and simply leave your city). This means that first 20 or 30 turns you should have about between 15 and 30 infantry battalions (you want to make as least as possible depending on planet and hostiles). Early on, infantry is adequate against soft targets (other humans and/or small alien life). And by adequate i dont mean frontal 1 to 1 assault, no i mean position warfare, where you surround them, and attack from all possible directions at the same time to maximize all the bonuses.

But this is where infantry's usefulness (mostly) ends (where mostly is an exception if youre playing mountainous planet).

When you start running into hostile majors, they will simply mop the floor with your infantry (unless you out tech them which is very unlikely early to mid game). If they dont outright stomp you with better equipment, they will stomp you with maneuvering units, either inflicting unsustainable casualties or outright annihilating you. Infantry is slow and (mostly) unreliable.

So...

If you wanna play the game smart, no, you should not upgrade old infantry, UNLESS youre swimming in extra resources, and you can.

Why?

Because instead of wasting those resources upgrading a unit type that has limited use in major vs major warfare, you should use those resources building and maintaining units that will actually allow you to win reliably - tanks and walkers.

Both tanks and walkers (if properly designed) can absolutely ROFLSTOMP infantry. A walker battalion of 6 walkers will brutalize an infantry brigade and beat even an infantry division. A tank battalion will also probably win, but without inflicting as many casualties. Thats how powerful tanks and walkers are. And both are maneuver units (walkers being far superior).

[Maerchen]

Mind that walkers are a later tech and (light) tanks are available early on. And tanks have severe terrain penalties or outright are unable to scale mountains, while walkers are real all-terrain units.

[Pratapon51]

Walkers (somewhat unrealistically) dominate. [:D]

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Pratapon51

Walkers (somewhat unrealistically) dominate. [:D]

Their ability to dominate hard terrain is entirely realistic. It is the one big reason to consider them as options:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legged_robot

Mountains, Forrests, Ruins and Cities have always been the realm of Bipedal motion first. Tracked and Wheeled vehicles last.

If Walkers dominate warfare on a alien planet, it is because there is a lot of hard terrain for them to move and fight in.

[Pratapon51]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Pratapon51

Walkers (somewhat unrealistically) dominate. [:D]

Their ability to dominate hard terrain is entirely realistic. It is the one big reason to consider them as options:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legged_robot

Mountains, Forrests, Ruins and Cities have always been the realm of Bipedal motion first. Tracked and Wheeled vehicles last.

If Walkers dominate warfare on a alien planet, it is because there is a lot of hard terrain for them to move and fight in.

I'm fine with the niche of walkers in SE. What I mean is, it's easy to handwave away the myriad issues of creating, maintaining, mobilizing, and armoring a large walker that occupies a niche between Medium and Heavy Tanks in a video game or any work of fiction. For example, the game doesn't take into account how fragile a Walker's legs must be to a scrape by a laser cannon or infantry RPGs, as they'd be difficult to armor comparably to a conventional vehicle.

(I am slightly mad they do get their own optimization, though!)

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Pratapon51

Walkers (somewhat unrealistically) dominate. [:D]

Their ability to dominate hard terrain is entirely realistic. It is the one big reason to consider them as options:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legged_robot

Mountains, Forrests, Ruins and Cities have always been the realm of Bipedal motion first. Tracked and Wheeled vehicles last.

If Walkers dominate warfare on a alien planet, it is because there is a lot of hard terrain for them to move and fight in.

Realistically, that doesn't offset the lower stability (decreasing ability to use high recoil weapons, especially on the move), absurdly enlarged cross section, dramatically increased ground pressure, massively bloated surface area that needs armor.

That's not to mention the problems with maintaining a vastly more complex machine, nor the difficulty of piloting it.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: newageofpower

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Pratapon51

Walkers (somewhat unrealistically) dominate. [:D]

Their ability to dominate hard terrain is entirely realistic. It is the one big reason to consider them as options:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legged_robot

Mountains, Forrests, Ruins and Cities have always been the realm of Bipedal motion first. Tracked and Wheeled vehicles last.

If Walkers dominate warfare on a alien planet, it is because there is a lot of hard terrain for them to move and fight in.

Realistically, that doesn't offset the lower stability (decreasing ability to use high recoil weapons, especially on the move), absurdly enlarged cross section, dramatically increased ground pressure, massively bloated surface area that needs armor.

That's not to mention the problems with maintaining a vastly more complex machine, nor the difficulty of piloting it.

It only needs to be better then the alternative for that situation.
The alternative is a tank.
Tank have sucked in all those terrains since the day they were invented. Walkers suck a whole lot less.

[KarisFraMauro]

I absolutely agree walkers would be preferable to tanks in those situations, if only because tanks wouldn't even be able to enter a lot of unfavourable terrain. But are you sure tanks are the only alternative? Realistically I have to think one grunt with an rpg, or possibly even less, could ruin a gazillion dollar mechs day very quickly. And I say that as someone who grew up watching giant robot anime... Speaking of which the most realistic (and to be fair still extremely unrealistic) mecha anime I watched was Patlabor, which featured the U.N. employing quadrapedal robots in a jungle environment.

[Uemon]

ORIGINAL: KarisFraMauro

I absolutely agree walkers would be preferable to tanks in those situations, if only because tanks wouldn't even be able to enter a lot of unfavourable terrain. But are you sure tanks are the only alternative? Realistically I have to think one grunt with an rpg, or possibly even less, could ruin a gazillion dollar mechs day very quickly. And I say that as someone who grew up watching giant robot anime... Speaking of which the most realistic (and to be fair still extremely unrealistic) mecha anime I watched was Patlabor, which featured the U.N. employing quadrapedal robots in a jungle environment.

Thats if mechs dont come with active protection systems, and they most definitely would. We have APS now today that can intercept APFSDS tank shells, imagine what they would have in a thousand years.