OOBs

[Dukie]

How about allowing user-created OOBs? You have, I believe, virtually every mix of unit type in a single subunit. That's awesome, but not the way I play. My experience with the mixed subunits is they are sort of a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none. I prefer keeping my combined arms teams a little more discrete. Keep the 7 slot limitation per HQ but allow the player to select what goes in. For example, 3 infantry regiments, 2 assault gun battalions, an artillery regiment and a recon element. Maybe make this a technology that has to be learned and then operationalized. This would significantly improve my playing experience.

[beyondwudge]

I'm not against a Decision for creating a custom OOB that follows certain construction rules. I also don't think that the current implementation is random. It can be a lot of effort to hand-code and maintain all those choices so, since you already roll your Planets and create Models using a procedure, it sounds like it was a deliberate choice.

From a gameplay perspective, it would make sense to create an OOB out of seven choices. However, how do you then model all the real world reasons that OOB's exist? A real army has a lot of administration, planning and training involved that makes it work.

There are a lot of compromises and very real world issues that just aren't going to be covered in a game at this scale. It also is the case that militaries develop doctrines, strategies and tactics which proscribe how soldiers should be organised. These organisations have to deal with people-centric issues like the IQ distribution of the recruits, the amount of time and money devoted to training, the strength and experience of the officers and non-commisioned officers who must made it all work as well as problems of class and social status (I remember a particular issue of certain modern day tank crews refusing to maintain their tanks because that is 'beneath' their social class).

I think the current system allows the developer, who knows all about these real world issues, to take care of it for the player. I say again, I am not against having customised OOBs. It doesn't bother me as a player of a 4X game. I just see that all the military sims have the idea of relatively fixed organisations for military forces and it is likely that there would be good reason for it.

[zgrssd]

The game already has Battle Groups/Task Forces:
"5.10.2.4. battle GrouPs
These are Regular Units, but of an improvised nature. Comparable with Kampfgruppen or Task Forces. They allow flexibility in their TOE (Table of Organisation and Equipment) but they have several downsides.Galactic Republic equipment Units (GR) also enter your service as Battle Groups.Battle Groups can be disbanded for their Troops to return to SHQ and be redistributed to other Units as Replacement Troops.Battle Groups tend to break when they suffer a panic retreat during defense.Battle Groups (but not GR equipment) suffer a small penalty on attack values (due to reduced organisation and to not give the incentive to put too many units in BGs)"
I think the penalty was like -15% attack, as they are not properly coordinated. This can deal with most special cases.

Maybe Vic could add "Custom OOB's" with a similar penalty?

[Soar_Slitherine]

A more model-design-like approach to OOB creation, where you get to pick the composition of the OOB you're going to develop (but with a decent UI instead of the model design one which is awful for anything more complex than the current ground unit models), would be great in my opinion. The current OOB system relies excessively on randomness and has too many arbitary restrictions (having to luck into being able to integrate RPGs with the other weapons in your infantry formations when tanks are the dominant form of land unit, missing OOBs like walker OHQ formations or infantry with integrated anti-tank guns, not being able to upgrade unmotorized artillery formations into motorized, etc).

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Soar_Slitherine

A more model-design-like approach to OOB creation, where you get to pick the composition of the OOB you're going to develop (but with a decent UI instead of the model design one which is awful for anything more complex than the current ground unit models), would be great in my opinion. The current OOB system relies excessively on randomness and has too many arbitary restrictions (having to luck into being able to integrate RPGs with the other weapons in your infantry formations when tanks are the dominant form of land unit, missing OOBs like walker OHQ formations or infantry with integrated anti-tank guns, not being able to upgrade unmotorized artillery formations into motorized, etc).

I think the whole OOB system needs a pass/complete replacement:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4838731

The current one is way to much work for Vic to maintain, way to annoying for the players and has to be kept entirely inside the savegame to top it all off.