Mechasaurian wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 12:14 am
A bunch of people in the Discord server has mentioned that their troops are starving to death, not because the logistics are insufficient, but because ammunition is prioritized before food.
Now, I know SE is not quite that granular, but if I was the logistician I'd prioritize it the other way around. Troops can fight with half their bullet allotment, if not as effectively, but if they starve to death they can't fight at all.
For example, let's say a frontline has 4 brigades of infantry (22000 soldiers, or 220 food consumption) and each has a battalion of 105mm howitzer medium tanks attached (20 subunits, or 20 food consumption). The total food consumption is 240 units. Let's say the tank battalions all launch an attack that takes 10 combat rounds. Their howitzers use 34,5 ammo per combat round, so 34,5 * 10 * 20 for a total of 6900 ammo consumption.
That's a total logistics need of 7140 logistics points. Now let's say there's only 2000 logistics points available. Currently, the logistics system seems to simply cut the deliveries of each item by the proportion of logistics points missing. 2000 / 7140 = ~0.28, so the logistics system delivers 68 food and 1932 ammo.
The front now has a deficit of 5140 logistics points, so even assuming no further fighting occurs, it will take 3 turns for the front receive adequate food supply again. Even though the food needs are only a tiny proportion of the total logistics needs or the total logistics points available, in order to prevent mass starvation, the offensive has to be immediately cancelled, even if the enemy has no ability to harm the tanks at all and is only able to slow them down by throwing bodies under their treads.
Since the ammo rebalance, all heavy weapons in the game expend ammo at rates orders of magnitude greater than their food requirements. Because of this fact, in a large majority of cases, delivering all needed food before ammo would have minimal negative impact on combat capability, whereas the way the system currently works can easily lead to a major disaster any time ammunition use strains logistics for an extended period of time.