Blitzkrieg Mod Forum

Personally, i agree. More than that, I think all inf's durability should be the same. BUT, in the case of BK where units are obviously tiered and each of the units sort of represent their power/veterancy/training through stats and such engineers seem like they were meant to depict non-combat units who build while rifles are soldiers who've seen fights already. Meanwhile, airborne and rangers who were hyper trained get some extra shield to represent their training. I've fallen into that brain of thought when i play BK. When I make decisions on who should and shouldnt fight, i think oh of course my combat units (who are rewarded with durability) and not my non-combat engineers (not rewarded). If the opponent sends non-combat units at my combat units, I expect my combat units to win with ease. If non-combat units on the field suddenly receive combat training somehow so that theyre on par with the other units, it'd feel strange.

In my mod, all infantry have the same base stats in terms of durability. The only difference in "durability" between units is their morale.

mofetagalactica wrote:
"Breaking the feel of the game" ? What do you think engineers and pioners are thought? Civilians? Almost everyone in the army goes throught combat training, they should be as durable and good as riflemen if we go for something more immersive lol.

Well, that way we can start a debatte on why a Pio has like 45 HP and other infantry units (eg rangers, grens) have 80 (or even more with storms having 95 at default). And why have infantry units different "armor types" with different advantages (less damage from damage source x, less received accuracy etc.)

So Kwok answered that question:

kwok wrote:Personally, i agree. More than that, I think all inf's durability should be the same. BUT, in the case of BK where units are obviously tiered and each of the units sort of represent their power/veterancy/training through stats and such engineers seem like they were meant to depict non-combat units who build while rifles are soldiers who've seen fights already. Meanwhile, airborne and rangers who were hyper trained get some extra shield to represent their training. I've fallen into that brain of thought when i play BK. When I make decisions on who should and shouldnt fight, i think oh of course my combat units (who are rewarded with durability) and not my non-combat engineers (not rewarded). If the opponent sends non-combat units at my combat units, I expect my combat units to win with ease. If non-combat units on the field suddenly receive combat training somehow so that theyre on par with the other units, it'd feel strange.

In my mod, all infantry have the same base stats in terms of durability. The only difference in "durability" between units is their morale.

kwok wrote:engineers seem like they were meant to depict non-combat units who build while rifles are soldiers who've seen fights already.
(...)
I've fallen into that brain of thought when i play BK. When I make decisions on who should and shouldnt fight, i think oh of course my combat units (who are rewarded with durability) and not my non-combat engineers (not rewarded). If the opponent sends non-combat units at my combat units, I expect my combat units to win with ease. If non-combat units on the field suddenly receive combat training somehow so that theyre on par with the other units, it'd feel strange.

That's why I said this:

MarKr wrote:So if pios/engies are meant to be builders/utility units and the upgrade turns them into combat unit, then they could lose some of the utility as a tradeoff. They could even lose the repair ability in exchange for the buffs that would come with the weapon.

Sure, riflemen are combat unit and so they should easily defeat Pioneers who are, as you said, a builder (non-combat) unit. They are a builder/repair unit so they provide utility at cost of very limited combat efficiency. If you give them the upgrade and they lose the builder/repair ability and in return gain some combat efficiency, then they are a combat unit and as such they should be able to defeat other combat units.
They might get a bit more HP (nobody is talking about giving them 90HP, they could be at 55 or 60), and might be a bit harder to hit when they move (so no extra bonus when they just stand still in cover), with this they might not even need the damage reduction. And they still wouldn't be rambo units - one flamethrower that (on its own) deals limited damage and 5x basic rifle - these have worse stats that Volks' Kar98 or Riflemen's Garands (Engineers did not get the faster shooting, they are still as they have been for ages). Also flamethrowers have lower range so you need to get closer which exposes you to enemy fire and even with the buffs they would most likely still lose some soldiers before they get in range which again lowers their overall damage output.

And as for "people might ask why they act differently". This is just a matter of a line in the upgrade describtion...something like "Engineers will gain a flamethrower and additional assault training which will make them more efficient in combat situations. This will turn them into a combat unit so they will no longer be able to perform some of their former engineering duties."

As I said - I'm not for or against it, if you have other ideas that you consider more suitable, we can try them too.

Ok, so with flamethrowers all pios and engis become combat pios and engis. Why do we then have combat engis and assault pios as purchasable unit then? Can they do repair and use flamethrowers? I mean RE combat engis get them after cp upgrade for example.
And why would PE pay hundreds of MP + ammo for a flamer when for example choosing def doc could spam pios which with flamers become just as good + can get this def training and upgradable with mp40 as well....

OMG man, you're just looking for reasons why this should not be implemented and trying to backup those reasons by saying "if we do it, then THIS doesn't make sense". I can do that too...why do we have SMG upgrades in game when we have squads that come equiped with SMGs right away (same logic as yours "why should we turn "normal pios" to "assault pios" when there already are assault pios in the game")? Why do we have tanks that are built with skirts but some need to buy skirts? Also someone said here that giving a survivability bonus with a weapon upgrade is weird, yet we already have that in the game...never heard anyone complain about that but here it is a problem?

Combat engineers are available only in Infantry doctrine so its not like everyone has access to them. Assault pioneers are available to all PE docs, true, I am not sure now, but isn't flamethrower upgrade available only in SE? If yes, then again, not everyone would have access to them. These two and RE sappers could keep their building and repairing abilities even with flamethrowers because they are specilized combat engies/pios/sappers (not "normal upgraded to combat") and they would not get so strong bonuses from the flamethrower upgrade - maybe just a bit of rec.accuracy.

Warhawks97 wrote:And why would PE pay hundreds of MP + ammo for a flamer when for example choosing def doc could spam pios which with flamers become just as good + can get this def training and upgradable with mp40 as well....

Are you telling me that (if this was implemented) you would completely stop playing PE and always play WM Def doc just because you could get better Pioneers there?

I get it, you don't like the idea. But what I said still stands:

MarKr wrote:I'm not for or against it, if you have other ideas that you consider more suitable, we can try them too.

I'm with Warhawks on this one... I don't really like the idea of giving extra bonuses to Engineers or Pioneers based on the flamethrower upgrade.
Other ideas were mentioned already, for example.. the DemoStorm squad used to be useful with flamethrowers when it was usable in crawl mode.
Suddenly flamethrowers were made equal to PanzerShrecks in one patch.. being impossible to use in crawl mode anymore, no idea why!

So, how about allowing the DemoStorm squad to use flamethrowers while crawling again.. while also making it an upgrade to other units for other factions too? Marine Commandos, PE Sabotage squad, and some US unit. Also, increasing the range a bit for flamethrowers seems like a good idea...

Tiger1996 wrote:I'm with Warhawks on this one... I don't really like the idea of giving extra bonuses to Engineers or Pioneers based on the flamethrower upgrade.
Other ideas were mentioned already, for example.. the DemoStorm squad used to be useful with flamethrowers when it was usable in crawl mode.
Suddenly flamethrowers were made equal to PanzerShrecks in one patch.. being impossible to use in crawl mode anymore, no idea why!

So, how about allowing the DemoStorm squad to use flamethrowers while crawling again.. while also making it an upgrade to other units for other factions too? Marine Commandos, PE Sabotage squad, and some US unit. Also, increasing the range a bit for flamethrowers seems like a good idea...

One of the ideas that you could have give for storm could have been to give them panzerfaust hability like girggs so it will still fit as a "sneaky at weapon" instead of crawling with a gigant 'zooka.

Regarding demostorms it will be way to weird to crawl with a flamethrower since they already have a job to do planting c4's while still being in camo, im not againts it but man that would look weird. Marine commandos would also look too weird with a flamethrower it dosn't even fit with the style of the unit.

Having cheap units like pio and enginners suddently become usefull when you have unexpended ammo stored, would make the game more interesting giving new options to be available, so maybe if you stored a lot of ammo, and you're in urge need to have INF protection for your tanks while not having much MP stored would be usefull to make some nice comebacks making risky moves like expending almost all of your mp on a tank that will maybe save you from a loss.

Enabling Storm pios to crawl with flamethrowers will surely solve the overall problem of flamethrowers being generally useless. Btw: when Infiltration rangers got the ability to crawl with bazookas I kept hearing over and over and over and over again that Storm cannot crawl with Schrecks and if Rangers can, then Storms should too. By following the same logic I assume that when you say "Marine Commandos, PE Sabotage squad, and some US unit" - part of the idea is to make these able to crawl too, right?

My hands are tied now. If we move flamethrowers from engineers/pionners to some regular combat infantry, we run into this:

Kr0noZ wrote:Flamethrowers were used primarily by pioneer / combat engineer units as they were supposed to open blocked routes and clear enemy fortifications.
Upgrading these on combat troops would therefore be weird.

So if we move them to regular combat infantry, some people will cry like crazy, if we keep them on the current units with some buff some other people will cry like crazy and if we do nothing they remain useless (and some people will cry that the flamethrowers are useless). Dev's daily bread

Sorry for the frustration. We are trying to think it through though, which is better than most balance topics, no?

Was anyone against the idea of buffing their anti-emplacement/building capability? Also maybe combined with a range buff? This turns them into high skill-high reward units. Maybe we try that?

MarKr wrote:Btw: when Infiltration rangers got the ability to crawl with bazookas I kept hearing over and over and over and over again that Storm cannot crawl with Schrecks and if Rangers can, then Storms should too. By following the same logic I assume that when you say "Marine Commandos, PE Sabotage squad, and some US unit" - part of the idea is to make these able to crawl too, right?

According to the suggestion, all crawling units would be able to use evasive manuevers with flamethrowers for sure. I also still can't see why crawling with PanzerShreck is forbidden... I always believed that absolutely no weapon should disable the crawl ability, for any unit.

Also, about the statement by Kr0noZ;
Pios and Engineers don't have to lose flamethrowers, I know I said previously that they should lose it.. but that's not so necessary after all.

My whole point is, flamethrowers are actually useful when used from ambush.. specifically when combined with STGs or other SMGs at close range.
Crawling allows the unit that carries the flamethrower to be sneaky and actually reach their target and start burning it.

@tiger: So you would give the flamethrowers to all those units, on top of that add them crawling ability. But keep the flamethrowers to engineers and in current state...yeah, technically the historicaly accurate units would have flamethrowers but they would remain never used because (if someone needed flames) everyone would go for the crawling ones. So that doesn't really solve the problem of useless flamethrowers. This would keep some useless while turning others OP.

@kwok: nah, it's fine...I just thought that this is the part of being dev that people don't see. Whatever you do (or not do), someone is always pissed .
As for the proposed change. Adding range and efficiency vs emplacements...range was suggested to increase to 30 iirc, what about the efficiency vs emplacements, bunkers and such? From what people said the problem is that they die too fast so the range could help but they still take long to burn out garrisoned soldiers. It seems that in their current state if they don't burn out the soldiers within a second, the flamers die. But making them the way that they touch a building/bunker with the flame and everyone inside dies instantly is a bit extreme too. Also if the flames clear the buildings very quickly (which seems to be needed here) then the flamethrowers will overshadow grenades because when you see a grenade being throwm you can order them to exit the building which is something that would be hardly possible with such flamethrower settings (even more so with added range).
So what is the idea about the damage here?

Lol basically the idea is to make so if they touch a building the occupants die and making grenades obsolete. I think that wouldn’t be too ridiculous for some players because that’s the case in other games: coh2, wikingr, spearhead, sd44. People see the purpose and accept it. But it’s not like that unit isn’t too OP because their easily killable. In sd44, flames are crazy strong, but they require really close range. So a lot of times they get pinned or die in the process. But once they get close they make a building completely unusable and sometimes squad wipe in a second. Can’t say for sure how well most people will take this though.

If the instant damage is something that people don’t like, then maybe buffing just it’s damage over time piece?

Well, this suggestion is the easiest one to implement so it might as well be tried first.

But it still sounds quite strong to me - insta-kill of garrisoned soldiers, apply nerfs to non-garrisoned soldiers, fast critting when used against vehicles and now also bigger range. The only disadvantage is the vulnerability of the soldiers which might be enough for engineers and Pios but then we also have the Storms, RE Sappers assault pios with possible upgrades and unlocks... Also the option to load them to transporters which can drive them in range and they can then from relative safety burn the soldiers...well, we'll see.

We never said to remove flamers from pios and engis. They still should be able to get them. They can go in the second line behind combat units and flaming emplacments, bunkers and stuff. You can drop smoke on these quite easily, distract the gunners and use the flamers. I dont want pios and engis suddenly rushing frontally on enemies just like that.

Boost the flamethrower in terms of damage against fortified units and range buff, thats it. For more aggressive usage use units supposed to do that: Combat engis/sappers, assault pios etc.


I like the idea of flamers on sabotage squad and demo stormtrooper actually. And why not being sneaky with it? You can crawl to an enemie, ignit the flamer and shoot.

Perhaps SE assault pios could get a buff (HP, idk) somehow in this certain doctrine. Perhaps with Kampfgruppekompanie upgrade which is a special SE one it could boost the assault pios a bit instead of only unlocking the heavy mortar. Perhaps there can be an unlock in the building that has all the other upgrades or simply via CP upgrade when unlocking something (bunker.... idk).

Marine commandos shouldnt have it. It doesnt fit the commando style and tactics which was to be sneaky and invisible, creating chaos and escape. Demo squad is a different thing since flamethrowers do "demolish" something and clearing paths.

The sabotage squad could lose the standard stgs bc it turns this unit into a combat unit capable of defeating rangers and SAS. Give them 4 Mp40 and the ability to upgrade flamethrowers.

As for US: If we could remove that "mass production" thing (i mean US inf became a lot better in the qualitiativ aspects and is not longer just a russian conscript doc) and replace it with a "better training" thing which perhaps increases HP of basic units like rifles engis and combat engis or makes them harder to hit/taking less damage or whatever that increases the survivability then flamers can become an option here as well when those units would be able to survive longer in combat.

That way all factions would have a doc that makes special usage of flamers (and flame weapons in general) on infantry+ doctrines having flamers on vehicles (that would all get a range of 30-35) instead making flamers suddenly common among all factions just bc their pios/engis/sappers become battlehardened by getting a flamer into their hands.


Edit: Perhaps units caught by flamethrowers might get pinned as well. Guess thats the first reaction people would do when a wall of fire flys towards them. Shortly after they start burning and die. So two natural reactions in a row.
Regarding the range, well perhaps we can add that at the end if necessary. But as for vehicles a range of 30 seems to be the minimum as they are usually less rambo as infantry.

Perhaps they dont need to insta whipe inf, but once the flames are shot against the house the unit inside wouldnt be able to fire back and takes damage. There would perhaps be a short time to clear the house and run away. Simply Flamers deny actions by the enemie unit (no matter what action) and they take decent damage but not insta whipe. So he either stays and burns to death or quickly runs away. Garriosned units take more damage.

Smoke + flames + loaded car combo... will be pretty fuckin brutal true. How to successfully kill 88 emplacements with just some basic units. But that combo at least costs 800mp and 75 mu. Unless you get a wasp... maybe the wasp should be a reward unit with the Bren carrier instead of the dingo? I hate needing to swap out cw’s only camo recon for a been carried that only power spikes early to mid game.

Players better learn to use mines to defend against smoke rushes.