Alright, I've read the feedback and come up with a more simplified combat model, one that requires (in my opinion) little input from the player and still allows the combat to look fancy, and parallel space combat. And credit to Krikkitone for reminding me about intensity and collateral damage.
ZABER'S GROUND COMBAT PROPOSAL, Mk II
For a more simplified explanation, scroll down to the summary at the bottom of the post.
Presentation
GUI
This is what the battle screen looks like when you double click on a planet in the space combat view, although it can also be managed by clicking on the planet once, which will display all the relevant information in a summary on a tooltip also shown below.
I noticed after making my elaborate "concept sketch" that there are far too few troops on the screen to represent how many are fighting. And the black box things are supposed to look like buildings.
Controlling the Fight
The only settings controlled by the user are which units take part in the battle (By being there, their fighting, units you want in reserve must be left in transports) and the Intensity and Collateral Damage sliders, explained under Modifiers. Mousing over a unit would give you it's A/D/S/H/M, double clicking it would order it to retreat onto a nearby transport.
Details
Units
Its clear we don't need an overly complicated roster of units, so I've narrowed all the different types to four, plus militia. All units have five attributes, which determine their effectiveness and order in combat, and the effect they have on the planet. A single unit, represents a whole regiment of troops in the fluff, and they can be named, but they are represented in battle by a single icon, showing one soldier/tank/etc. These are all summed up below (All values assume there have been no research improvements, and the troops are fighting without any modifiers):
__________________________Example Stats Table, (to be reviewed)________________|
UNITS___________|Attack(A)|Defense(D)|Speed(S)|Health(H)|Morale?(M)|Cost(PP/T)|
________________|________|__________|________|_______|_________|__________|
Militia____________|___2___|____2_____|____5___|___2___|____0_____|___N/A*__|
Mobile Infantry____|___3____|___3______|___5____|___3___|___3_____|____3/3___|
Heavy Infantry____|___4____|___4______|___3____|___4___|___4_____|____5/5___|
Armor____________|___6____|___7_____|____2____|___7___|___5_____|___20/5___|
Walkers^_________|___7____|___7_____|____3____|___7___|___8_____|___25/10__|
*Militia are not trained. Instead, when a planet is attacked, it automatically receives militia units equal to its infrastructure, these are not replaced until there are no hostile forces present on the planet)
^Come on, we gotta have a Mech equivalent! It ain't sci-fi without them!
Air Support
Any Fighters (interceptors or bombers) attacking the planet in space combat, confer an Attack bonus to your ground troops. Ship's bombarding the planet simply cause outright damage to enemy units one at a time if there are enough bombs onboard. However, if your troops control enough regions, there is a chance the bombardments will hit allied troops instead.
Unit Stats
A (Attack) - A unit's Attack value, at the moment I think its safe to keep them as solid numbers, if this is too solid, then we can say each unit gets a random _-1 to +2_ modifier every turn.
D (Defense) - The amount of A a unit can sustain over the course of the entire turn before the excess A is applied to its health.
S (Speed) - Used to determine attack order, highest S goes first. All units with the same S are resolved at the same time.
H (Health) - Self explanatory, a measure of the unit's integrity, the amount of damage sustained has little to/no effect on the unit's other stats
M (Morale) - A more abstract concept, "Morale" doesn't actually represent the unit's mental condition, and it is never modified except by buildings or techs. Basically, the total M of your forces on the planet contributes to that planet's Social Allegiance Meter (or whichever equivalent is introduced in v0.5) with respect to your empire. Thus having an indirect impact on all your units as explained in Modifiers.
Battle Math
All units attack once per combat turn, in Speed order, highest first (unless their retreating back onto their transport, which they do at the end of the turn, without attacking). At each "Speed Step" every unit with that speed applies it's Attack value to a random enemy unit. Each unit has a total damage for that combat turn, which starts out as the negative of the unit's defense value. Once the damage is positive, it is subtracted from the unit's health. Damage is applied at the end of each speed step.
Once all damage has been worked out, the total attack used that turn is added together for each player, modified by their collateral damage slider, divided by some suitably large number and the final result is deducted from the planet's population and infrastructure meters.
Neutral Forces on the planet are treated as enemies.
Modifiers
There are four main modifiers for ground combat units. First of all, the two sliders; Intensity is your troop's level of aggression, a high intensity increases attack but decreases defense, a low intensity does the opposite; Collateral Damage is how destrucive your troops are to the planet's infrastructure, high C.D. decreases attack but substantially increases Collateral Damage, the reverse does the opposite.
Your troop's Environmental Preference affects their Speed and Morale, which in turn affects the planet's Social Allegiance with respect to your troops. And finally, the planet's Allegiance meter with w.r.t. you affects your troops Defense and Speed.
Regions
Regions are just for administrative purposes, they have no direct effect on the battle calculations. Their only real purpose is to keep track of how much of the planet each side controls. Every planet has 3-10 regions depending on it's size, plus an additional region for each building. An empire must control at least one region to deploy Armor and Walkers, and an Empire must control 2/3 of the regions to actually "own" the planet and make use of its Orbital Defenses, Buildings etc.
SUMMARY
Basically, there are five unit types, each successively more powerful but slower than the last. Each unit rerpresents a significantly larger group of troops
The planet's environment and its social acceptance of your empire affect your troops capabilites as do your sliders for Battle Intensity and Collateral Damage.
Ships and Fighters attacking the planet itself cause additional damage to enemy ground troops.
Your progress is tracked in terms of regions. You need 1 region to land vehicular units, you need 66% of the regions to "control" the planet. Regions have no other effect.
Faster units attack first, slower units in general have more firepower. All units attack every combat turn, provided their not destroyed by faster units..
You manage the battle simply by offloading troops from transports, setting your conditions for intensity and collateral damage, then sitting back and watching the fireworks.
_________________________
I think I've covered everything, apologies for the long post, the assumptions about unfinalized design decisions and my poor graphics sense, but I hope this system appeals to some of you a little more than my last concept.
P.S.
If five stats are too much, technically Speed can be dropped and simply have all damage resolved at once for the whole combat turn
EDIT: Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention, doubleclicking the system star takes you back to the space combat view.
EDIT: See Above in response to Air Support and the Summary,