5.1.8 Beta: WM Tank Hunters

[kwok]

Wehrmacht Tank Hunter Changes
In addition to doctrine reworks, we are also reexamining the general structure of base factions without doctrines. This tank hunter unlock is meant to make the faction itself more well rounded while doctrine unlocks are used to add a strategic boost to specific capabilities. So now the formidable anti-tank role StuG will be behind a doctrine unlock while the more well-rounded base Panzer IV will be available without an unlock. When the testing phase comes around, please let us know the impact of these changes.

PIV F2 changes:
- now available in BK and Propaganda docs without unlock
- cost lowered to 390MP 40F (with Mass Produdction 360MP 35F)
- StuG require unlock (in BK doctrine replacement for AP ammo)

[Walderschmidt]

Right now the PIV F2 feels almost useless once the opponent gets anything better than a vanilla 75mm Sherman. Will need to play more, but my initial impression.

Wald

[Black Panther]

It's like the cost of it was dropped, gun damage was buffed, I think it's finally found his place, I'm statisfied
But yeah, need to play more.
About Tiger's comment on re-hide time, I think it's ok, since you know what the pain in the ass it was, trying to attack camouflaged vehicles, that was always going for invisible

[Warhawks97]

is there any chance to get a whole rework of tank IV target tables? There are so many tanks now using tank IV armor types back and forth, with some units having modifiers, others not... And sometimes overrated as fuck.

Just to mention a few:
Why 75 mm shermans have such big issues penetrating even 50 mm armor from early 0 CP Tank IV´s?
Why is even the 76 gun bouncing very often on these early Tank IV´s?
Why Tank III N has i think an armor no better than that of 50 mm Tank IV´s while it had actually a better armor protection?

I like the idea of Tank IV F2 being 0 CP tank. But its going to outclass all the 0 CP shermans. Meanwhile it requires 76 mm gun to effectively counter them but the M10´s afterall cost CP in two US docs. So you can now rush and spam these F2 version forcing your enemie to get any sort of 76 guns asap and thus either forcing them defensive with sluggish 76 mm AT guns or spending CP´s for M10. And even the 76 guns have good chances to bounce off.

I think the 75 mm shermans and F2 version with its 50 mm armor should meet in 1 vs 1 at equal terms. Sherman got better armor but worse gun pen, Tank IV F2 slightly worse armor but better gun.
76 shermans and up-armored Tank IV´s would cost CP whenever available and would again meet under relatively equal terms, with slight edge to 76 sherman since its the top tier tank in most US docs und more expensive than Tank IV´s while Tank IV H/J is just another stop gap tank.

There simply needs to be a better target_table system for Tank IV´s.

[MarKr]

I'm not a big fan of adding new target types. You point at target types mixed with modifiers but unless we add a specific target type for each PIV variant, we won't avoid mixing tts with modifiers. Adding specific TTs means editing every weapon file in the game (all small arms, MGs, tank guns, explosives, everything) and adding specific entries for each new Target type and how many new target types would it be? There are PIII, PIV D, E,F1,F2, H, J, Beobachtungs, Command + most of them have variants with and without skrts. Iirc there are over 200 weapon files and you cannot use macros to add the entries because they need to be set specifically per each new TT for most weapons. All of this just to get what exactly? A better control over "gun X should have 5% better penetration than gun Y against this PIV type"? It just sounds like a lot of work for not enough gain, not to mention that it wouldn't be significantly more noticeable for players in the game. You woukd see it when you poke through the game files but for people in the game it doesn't matter if they have 40ish% chance to penetrate target because of the unit having its own TT or 40ish% because of generic TT+modifier.

[Warhawks97]

Yes, i am aware of this problem. But we could overcome it.

The "Panzer IV_D" TT isnt used anymore since the removal of D version with its 30 mm armor.

I would simply use the P IV D TT for the E, F1, F2 versions with their 50 mm armor.

The current "PIV" TT that is used by current E,F and unskirted J version would be used only by the P IV J and Tank III N version before they get skirts (idk, does the P III comes out with skirts at default?). Their armor was similiar in front aspect, both having 50-80 mm of armor. The P III N had the weaker hull however. But generally this TT would reflect tank IV and III with up to 80 mm frontal armor.

The "PIV_skirts" TT would be used for P IV and III types with up to 80 mm frontal armor and skirts.

That would solve most issues without any need of unit based modifier which affect all weapons.
There is no need to create whole new TT´s bc i know what a shitload of work it is. But use those that are avaialble better. I cant think of any tank using tank IV D armor currently so we can use it for other purposes.

[MarKr]

It could be changed but it would still require adjusting all relevant weapon files to set up some appropriate penetration values against those target types, so there is still this:

You woukd see it when you poke through the game files but for people in the game it doesn't matter if they have 40ish% chance to penetrate target because of the unit having its own TT or 40ish% because of generic TT+modifier.

What real benefit would there be? People really don't care how they get those 40ish% (or whatever value). It kinda sounds like the change is suggested just for "realism" reasons even though from the gameplay perspective, the current settup works.

[Warhawks97]

It kinda sounds like the change is suggested just for "realism" reasons even though from the gameplay perspective, the current settup works.

Except that there is a demand for reworked Tank IV armor values for years now and from several players. The first problem alone is that different tanks with totally different armor thickness sharing the same TT. The early Tank IV models and the J. The J has its own modifier but the problem remains. The 75 and 76 mm guns require a massive buff against early models Tank IV´s with even the 76 guns bouncing off too frequently from them. Its like having a regular sherman that bounces every second shot from a long barreld tank IV. But doing so would make the J more vulnerable, too. We ramp up its received pen modifier but that would again affect all weapons. And when it gets skirts the J gets the armor of the H model and the ramped up received pen modifier would turn it into a Tiger tank.

The 75 and 76 mm guns need a buff vs early Tank IV versions, but against the later Tank IV versions only the 76 gun needs a buff. And as long as one Tank IV jumps between 50 mm armor Tank IV and the 80 mm version once it gets skirts up, every change in the tt or unit modifier would mess up things elsewhere.

We got 3 different available target tables for Tank IV and three different types of Tank IV´s (50 mm, 50-80 mm and 50-80 mm with skirts). Just make a good use of it.

A Tank IV that is avaialble for 0 CP and cheaper than a regular sherman but with a 40% chance to bounce even 76 mm guns can cause real problems.

[kwok]

What Markr is trying to say is that the task is not in priority because it marginally benefits the community with a butt ton of work. Meanwhile other things are being complained about louder and harder. Have the "several players" come to the forum, don't speak for them.

The truth is the majority of players don't even know how target tables work, they see most things as flat modifiers anyways. Most people don't know that there's rare accidental cases where a 37mm penetrates better than a 76mm and are absolutely confused why the 37mm performs better, whereas we would know immediately it's a target table problem. One example during testing is the 37mm kept one shotting snipers because the TT was messed up with high acc against snipers only. But the complain was the entire 37mm was too accurate.

As of now, doctrine and faction reworks are a bigger impact and equal if not more workload than fixing target tables for panzer IVs. We are not going to try to balance a constantly shifting and moving landscape. Such a fix would require a LOT of testing because it would touch so many moving parts. The beta environment is already so volatile, why add more potential bugs and make people test the beta even less being frustrated with the amount of bugs?

[CGarr]

At this point I've pretty much settled with just treating the pzIII like a pzIVH and planning accordingly. If I see someone play blitz, rushing some sort of 76mm armed vehicle or field gun to either cloak or use AP shot with becomes top priority since it only takes one bounce/miss on the pzIII (in the state it was in pre-propaganda doc, haven't been on to see the propaganda doc implementation).

@Walder
The F2 being useless against anything with a 76 kind of makes sense, although it'd be nice to see it perform better against infantry even without using the HE squadwipe button. Think like having AoE on default shots, but only enough to consistently knock out about 2 riflemen models per shot (using riflemen as a reference point, effectiveness against other inf units would scale accordingly) to make up for it's lacking AT capabilities after the initial window of no 76+ tanks being fielded. It'd become a well rounded support unit capable of scaring off armor and anything equal to or weaker than a 75mm sherman. They would also trade pretty well with jacksons/achilles if they manage to close the gap and shoot, and would be somewhat deterring to m10/m18 pushes.

edit: changed terror to propaganda