Demo charges vs bunkers

[sgtToni95]

Hi all,
I was recently playing as RAF and, when i placed demo charges on a heavy mortar bunker (at 90/95% of its HPs) with commandos, i was very surprised to see it blowing up immediately.
My surprise is due to the fact that it always requires 2/3 demo charges to take down a normal bunker (usually from DEF doc), way cheaper than the heavy one from SE doctrine which goes down for 50 ammo.

What i'd like to know is: are they meant to work this way? Do "standard" bunkers have more hps than the heavy ones? Does the number of demo charges actually placed around the structure (not always possible to place 4 of them) influence the damage caused when they detonate?

Thanks in advance

[MarKr]

I am not really sure what happens when you use demolitions on a building and engineers plant several of them...I would guess it counts each of placed demilition charges separately but I am not sure. The HP is not the problem here - "normal" bunkers have 600HP while the defensive from PE has 7500HP the problem is in its "critical type" - it is set wrong and because of that democharges "oneshot" it.

I will put it on my list to change it for the next patch.

[sgtToni95]

Why don't i learn to shut my mouth..................... Jk

Would be nice if you could check or get some more precise infos about how demo charges work if you have some time, not very necessary tho.
I'm curious cause sometimes they do very little damage to map buildings as well, and knowing how much damage demos do (in hps), if the damage stacks when more charges are placed and what influences the number of charges placed.

Thanks in advance

Edit: how many charges would it require to take down a 7500 HPs bunker once the oneshot crit will be removed?

[drivebyhobo]

Demolitions not destroying non base buildings in one hit is a realism issue.

These are supposed to be units trained in demolition. All demolition teams are trained to destroy structures in one attempt not trial and error. Failing to destroy a structure in one attempt is viewed IRL as a grievous error because it threatens the safety of teams assigned to further attempts at demolishing a now unstable structure.

With that in mind, even the 2-3 demolition attempts needed to destroy a regular bunker seems pretty cheesy,

[Panzerblitz1]

even the 2-3 demolition attempts needed to destroy a regular bunker seems pretty cheesy,

Well it is not, and will stay like that for pvp balance issue.

[drivebyhobo]

even the 2-3 demolition attempts needed to destroy a regular bunker seems pretty cheesy,

Well it is not, and will stay like that for pvp balance issue.

And pvp balance is not altered by removing the heavy mortar bunker's vulnerability to demolitions? It is a radical change to increase the number of demo charges needed to destroy a heavy bunker from one to several. How many demo charges should it take to destroy a heavy bunker? 5? 6? 7? 10? More? I struggle to see how it is good gameplay to repeatedly place demolitions over and over again. Heavy bunkers potentially requiring so many demolition placements shows that demolitions is a broken feature.

Outside of bridges (bridge maps are usually rare in pvp anyway), it is a laborious process to destroy anything with demolitions. What is wrong with consolidating repeated demolition placements with an appropriate adjustment in variables such as placement time and resource cost?

[Panzerblitz1]

3 charges is needed to destroy a bunker, not 20, if you need more than 3 charges it means that we need to fix it.

[drivebyhobo]

3 charges is needed to destroy a bunker, not 20, if you need more than 3 charges it means that we need to fix it.

I am saying in context, globally it takes a large number of uses of the demolition placement ability to destroy anything that isn't a bridge which are mostly irrelevant to pvp anyway

I am asking you, why is it good that it takes multiple uses of the demolition placement ability to destroy a full health structure? Why do you think that it is bad to have a stronger demolition placement ability at a higher cost?

As it is now, using the ability, moving the troops to a safe distance, then detonating and repeating as necessary is a significant amount of micromanagement for little benefit.

[Panzerblitz1]

Destroying emplacements requires micro anyway, and loosing a bunker if people build bunkers is a big deal and a great waste of resources, thats why demo charge will never blow them up in 1 time, iirc only the bunkers are strong to take out, all fortified emplacement can be quickly destroyed and decrewed, so i don't see anything really vital for pvp games to raise the damage of demo charges and raise the demo squads prices.

[speeddemon02]

Realistically engineers would take the time to do the job right in 1 shot to destroy or damage enough to render the object too costly to repair or salvage. In combat this may not be possible and so they would have to improvise. The bunkers were built like nothing else back then. Surface explosions would do something, but not destroy in one shot. It really depends on the design of the bunker. I have seen German bunkers hit by naval guns and they are still functionally intact.

[drivebyhobo]

Destroying emplacements requires micro anyway,

all fortified emplacement can be quickly destroyed and decrewed, so i don't see anything really vital for pvp games

I agree, demolitions are poor choices to use on emplacements that can be decrewed thus aren't particularly relevant.

This leaves them only viable for attacking the following:
-Forward HQs
-Wehr Defensive structures
-PE Mortar Bunker
-Base structures

All of these require multiple uses of the demolition ability (assuming the mortar bunker change). For the sake of eliminating very tedious clicking, what about changing the ability to do 50% more damage with a 50% higher munition cost. This would not change the total cost, thus the balance impact would be minimal and when the change to the PE Mortar Bunker change is made as mentioned by MarKr earlier in the thread, it would not require an annoying amount of uses of the demolition ability.

Realistically engineers would take the time to do the job right in 1 shot to destroy or damage enough to render the object too costly to repair or salvage. In combat this may not be possible and so they would have to improvise. The bunkers were built like nothing else back then.

US Engineers and Wehr Pioneers when used for demolitions are rarely sent into an ongoing battle. US Engineers usually are sent once the bunker is cleared of occupants and the line has advanced.

Surface explosions would do something, but not destroy in one shot. It really depends on the design of the bunker. I have seen German bunkers hit by naval guns and they are still functionally intact.

The demolition ability doesn't represent a surface attack though. The animations used for the demolition ability clearly show a planned demolition. It's a limitation of the game that it cannot show the engineers planting their demolitions on structural supports of the bunker

[kwok]

Gameplay-wise I think removing the crit will make the satchel charges overly a better choice than demolitions giving no real reason to have demolitions. The accessibility of other bunker busting options and their risk-reward ratios will make demos obsolete.

I agree with drivebyhobo in that the excessive micro and risk to deal with bunkers should be rewarded with absolute destruction. To be honest, I barely see demos used as of now. For this reason I disagree that demos shouldn't be used in combat. Demo layers are too fragile to deal with bunkers during an assault against a defense. I think this is a shame gameplay wise because it encourages an artillery meta since the risk to take on an emplacement with direct contact has such a small chance of success. Before someone saying "artillery is made for that purpose", yes that's true but that isn't a reason why another higher risk/reward tactic shouldn't be made available as a gameplay option. I guess my point is more so "why not?" Bunkers are high cost, true, but they're pretty easy to defend... they're literally made to defend themselves. Cheap options for killing expensive things is scattered all around BK, why can't it exist here as well?

[Krieger Blitzer]

I agree that Demo charges shouldn't be able to blow up bunkers in 1 hit, at least 2 should be needed.

Nonetheless, on a different note... I noticed that the AB bombing run airstrike actually does really few damage against all kind of bunkers.. hardly 5% damage. As it only kills infantry inside, but no further damage to the bunker itself whatsoever.
I would say that they shouldn't be able to completely blow up bunkers either, but definitely more damage should be dealt.
More like 50% damage would be more legit!

[Redgaarden]

3 charges is needed to destroy a bunker, not 20, if you need more than 3 charges it means that we need to fix it.

*raises hands* King tiger needs more than 3 charges. And satchels are wayyyyyy better than demo, the animation is alot shorter so you dont actually die while using the ability.

[speeddemon02]

US engineers and WH pioneers are not the only ones with the demo ability. The attack does represent a surface attack from the original intent of vcoh to destroy bridges which would also be surface based. The material used is reminiscent of comp b, very similar to TNT. Proper planning would require more than well placed explosives, like drilling first.

Arty wasnt made to take bunkers out, bunkers were made in response to indirect fire, but not saying that it isnt effective against it.

[sgtToni95]

I can speak for brits howitzers, dunno about US ones, they do very little damage against bunkers, and i agree with the fact that satchels are more effective than demo charges in game to take down defences: one satchel charge just needs to be thrown as a grenade, even if with shorter range it can be still used from distance, and i think 2 of them are enough to take down a bunker.

Demo charges, i'm speaking about those placed by commandos which i know little better, need your squad to group up around the bunker/defence (and you already may have path problems which make your squad move around the target for a few seconds before starting to place the explosives), then you have the "planting" time, which is around 4 seconds (?), and then you need to run away in order not to lose your squad. for normal bunkers you need at least 3 charges, 4-5 if the bunker has been upgraded into a heavy mg one (or maybe that comes from tech tree defences upgrade).

SUGGESTION - Gameplay/realistically wise i'd say that demo charges (usually more than one) placed with some method and risk(and not just thrown as satchels) should deal some more damage to bunkers, maybe even the chance of oneshot when you place all 4 of them around the structure (they very rarelly manage to do so since 1-2 squad members usually get killed while they're planting or while getting close to the emplacement), and requiring just 2 of them to take one down before the tech tree upgrade.

That would even help reproducing the more sneaky/sabotage oriented combat style of commandos while, as they are now, RE engies with flamethrower and satchels are way better to clean/take down bunkers. Maybe switching satchels/demos between them would make more sense since engies were more specialized in demo operations, and i know not everything is meant to be the same, but US paras and commandos probably had similar combat use/style so i wouldn't see satchels into the hands of both airborne doctrines as illogical. One thing that i would not like, on the other hand, is losing the possibility of placing charges as traps to blow up at need.

I'd like to hear what you guys think about this suggestion.

Edit- my biggest worry is still: if for a 600 HPs bunker you need 3 charges, how many would you need for a 7500 HPs one without the crit chance? Math would say at least 20/25, which is not very balanced imo, unless there are other more effective ways to take it down.