5.1.5 beta v2

[maousaki]

I personally like the idea of realistic movement of vehicles and tanks, especially if you manage to change the ballerina vehicles. However as many stated already this brings up two problems.

-First is the unrealistic movement of infantry across muddy terrain.
-The second is that slow movement of vehicles and tanks brings up more elitism of units. If your tanks will be slow then they need that armor, so why build panzer IVs? Just go for that Panther, Tiger whatever.

So in my opinion Tiger's idea about reducing view range of tanks isn't bad. Yes i read your statements about commanders and special spotting equipment. However a commander stays inside while under under fire and the spotting equipment is mostly used to spot and shoot tanks which again is a very narrow view angle (see Men Of War).

As the engine doesn't allow for view angles something else should be done. Some ideas would be:
-The commander gets into the tank while under fire even from small arms reducing view range. Like in one of the campaigns in Tales of Valor. I don't know if he should retreat back in automatically or by giving a command.
-The spotting scopes spot only tanks further from their view range while infantry remain unspotted. Maybe like Tank awareness works or spot them entirely in the fog of war. This brings the problem of what will then tank awareness do. Honestly i don't know, but these are big changes that will take time. Maybe when the doctrine trees get revamped.

After realistic movement and reduced view range i think that tanks will need a buff in their mgs to compensate for their new weaknesses.

Also i would like to ask if it possible for satchel charges to deal more damage to tanks. Imagine throwing a satchel charge under the hull of the tank. The reason i am asking for that is that there are many times that you get super axis tanks de-tracked, you eliminate infantry support around it and then you can't kill it with bazookas even from rear and tanks need to do a huge circle in order to not get shot which is not always possible.

[Warhawks97]

-First is the unrealistic movement of infantry across muddy terrain.
-The second is that slow movement of vehicles and tanks brings up more elitism of units. If your tanks will be slow then they need that armor, so why build panzer IVs? Just go for that Panther, Tiger whatever.

I dont think that the smaller tanks will vanish like that. More tanks offer more firepower as well (not talking about the penetration but ammount of shots you can effectively make and the ammount of targets you can engage in the same time). So a Tiger may has better armor but two tank IV´s have more firepower against inf, can engage more targets in a given ammount of time and can protect each other better against flankers. Also risk sharing remains.

So in my opinion Tiger's idea about reducing view range of tanks isn't bad. Yes i read your statements about commanders and special spotting equipment. However a commander stays inside while under under fire and the spotting equipment is mostly used to spot and shoot tanks which again is a very narrow view angle (see Men Of War).

I know. I would also like to test it a bit. Sight range should be as high as shooting range though. Being unable to see as far as you can aim a target directly with your gunsight (that means you see it with your eyes) wouldnt make much sense. But reductions can be made though.
These spotting scopes can perhaps also get tweaked. Either boosting sight as tank do not move or, what i would favour more, remove it is purchasable upgrade altogether. Only TH doc could upgrade these via CP which gives the TH´s more spotting range in ambush. Like the commander is constantly searching for targets.

-The commander gets into the tank while under fire even from small arms reducing view range. Like in one of the campaigns in Tales of Valor. I don't know if he should retreat back in automatically or by giving a command.
-The spotting scopes spot only tanks further from their view range while infantry remain unspotted. Maybe like Tank awareness works or spot them entirely in the fog of war. This brings the problem of what will then tank awareness do. Honestly i don't know, but these are big changes that will take time. Maybe when the doctrine trees get revamped.

You mean the commander you put in a tank manually?
And idk if engine allows that. In COh2 mods you can spot tanks further than inf. Tank awareness does just show tanks and vehicles on the minimap, but you cant see them.

After realistic movement and reduced view range i think that tanks will need a buff in their mgs to compensate for their new weaknesses.

Ive tested arround for like a year with hull and coaxial MG´s. Its possible without making tanks somehow OP inf shredding machines.

Also i would like to ask if it possible for satchel charges to deal more damage to tanks. Imagine throwing a satchel charge under the hull of the tank. The reason i am asking for that is that there are many times that you get super axis tanks de-tracked, you eliminate infantry support around it and then you can't kill it with bazookas even from rear and tanks need to do a huge circle in order to not get shot which is not always possible.

Perhaps. But it should now be possible to get pen shots with zooks in their rear more easily. But i am not against it to finish off immobilized stuff.

[maousaki]

In tank vs inf i do agree that medium tanks won't fall back. I was talking more about tank vs tank. Outmaneuvering a bigger but heavier tank with 2-3 medium tanks won't be that easy, if you ain't fast enough and he spots you and shoots you from afar. So for tank vs tank we are left with "ok let me bring the heavier stuff" or arty/bomb it.

But again more testing will answer the questions.

[MarKr]

In the beta the rear penetration chances of medium tank guns vs heavy tanks have been increased. Keep in mind this:

However the rear penetration changes should help with this, I think. Keep in mind that in CoH engine as a "rear hit" counts any shot that lands anywhere on ther rear half of a tank/vehicle which means that you can score a "rear hit" even from front. In the past many vehicles had very low chances of penetrating rear armor of heavier tanks, now the chances are better.

So you don't really need to get behind an enemy tank to get a chance to for "rear" penetration. The heavy tanks have higher ranges now so they should have the benefit of first shot, which usualy vs a medium tank means a kill but your other medium tanks should then be able to approach and take out the heavy...or at least more easily than before.

[Jalis]

Being unable to see as far as you can aim a target directly with your gunsight (that means you see it with your eyes) wouldnt make much sense.

Just because you want tank acting in total independence and without infantry support (who could be tank eyes). A tank able to act alone without support dont make much more sense from a realistic point of view. However in a game it is the easy way.

[MarKr]

"Total independence"...tanks still lose some sight when they are moving which means that if you lower their sight (when they stand still) to the same value as their gun range is, then when they move they would see much shorter range.

[Jalis]

Yes, and like a Russian tank officer said ; When we enter the tank we become blind and deaf. From a realistic point of view, it is a good thing, especially tank never opened fire while moving during the WWII. It was even forbidden for germans. If you see a tank firing while moving on WW2 archive movie, you can be sure it is a propaganda one.

for sure, especially in end game, scout car will be useless if there is nothing to scout

Now BK is an other matter. It is a game, not a simulation, and Tiger1996 was right saying your players are tank lovers (especially axis players). For compstomp at BK it is very simple ; most people play axis and infantry is limited to a couple of squad for repair and capture duty.

[Warhawks97]

I think its not as easy as you say. Tanks in BK can be powerfull (there are also quite "useless one") but the only doc i can think of that can fight more or less with tanks and vehicles alone is the armor doc.
Terror or BK doc need either own inf (despite the fact that Panthers are powerfull) or often using infantry from friendly players as a screen. Typicall late game scenario is elite inf going either as screen for panthers or both fight in a line.
Compstom works perfectly with tanks, true, but thats bc there are so many ai tanks that would shred your inf while ai inf will never be as strong as a player controlled veteran infantry squad.

There are a few reasons why certain tanks can be very self depending. But the sight range is not the only and not even the most important factor. It just helps to get away early enough. That doesnt mean we have to make tanks blind right away with like 20 sight range or so. I mean take a look at panther G. It has 85 sight range and the scopes boost sight by iirc 35. Thats 120 sight range. Thats perhaps a problem, but something like 70 sight range wouldnt be an issue at all.
And there are less tanks self depending as you might think. I would say that a group of 3 Armor doc sandbagged 76 or e8 can be quite self depending (bc of their HP, armor, Top mount and HE shots) as a battlegroup and Panthers with top mount MG. Tank IV´s perhaps till the end of mid stage. But the huge other part of tanks in BK do need support of infantry and arty and vehicles.

[Jalis]

You are probably right, but except tanks who can act about alone ? Planes perhaps

What I want to say is ; dont be surprise if people love tanks so much. However everybody seems happy like that.

[maousaki]

I still think that buffing satchel charges damage against tanks will help in many situations and cant be abused cause it has 5 seconds until it blows up. You can easily move away if not detracked. Also i am not talking for an insta kill, or big amounts of damage.

[Shanks]

As i was afraid, the speed changes were applied, and one of the most affected units was the hetzer, because apart from being very slow with "flanking speed", it is easily destroyed by the cromwell, if these changes continue, bk will be dead, or maybe there will only be skirmish.But what I am sure, is that I will not play this mod ... apparently the developers did not listen to the old players, I do not know if steam automatically updates the game or no idea .. .. I was playing pvp, and the hetzer is extremely slow with "flanking speed" now

[MarKr]

The specific speed changes from the first beta are gone now, in the 2nd beta they were brought down for all vehicles by 25%, this means that the relative speed between vehicles is still the same, that means that if Hetzer was faster than Cromwell, then Hetzer is still faster than Cromwell.

[Walderschmidt]

I think v2 of the patch is way closer to the mark.

Wald

[Walderschmidt]

Also - suggestion:

1) Give vehicle suppression ability to Wehrmacht Suppression Stormtrooper
2) Give ability to Wehrmacht grenadiers?

Wald

[Mr. FeministDonut]

My suggestion:
Make something with AT early US gameplay, since on bigger maps, enemy halftracks coming faster, than any mobile/inf AT could be available. Making it sucks even more.
So here is what I though. Make riflemen more universal role, allow to tech for the bazookas, equip them with them, so it will help to support your AT guns. Other units like paratroopers and ranger would be more shock troops role, being more specific role unit, instead of usual-boring all around. So it will be better for all factions, than a stupid mirror factions like that.
Volk - riflemen
Grens - Rangers

[MarKr]

1) Give vehicle suppression ability to Wehrmacht Suppression Stormtrooper
2) Give ability to Wehrmacht grenadiers?

We wanted to keep the ability PE/CW unique. Once we give it to WM, people will start demanding it for Rangers too and suddenly it will be everywhere. Though I was thinking about adding such ability to HMG squads - tanks would not shred them then so easily - top MG gunner would not attack + the ability lowers the accuracy of tank's main gun too, so the tank would more likely miss an HE shot fired against HMG team.

My suggestion:
Make something with AT early US gameplay, since on bigger maps, enemy halftracks coming faster, than any mobile/inf AT could be available. Making it sucks even more.
So here is what I though. Make riflemen more universal role, allow to tech for the bazookas, equip them with them, so it will help to support your AT guns. Other units like paratroopers and ranger would be more shock troops role, being more specific role unit, instead of usual-boring all around. So it will be better for all factions, than a stupid mirror factions like that.
Volk - riflemen
Grens - Rangers

We added the Riflegrenade upgrade to all doctrines to increase early game AT capacity of US. The HEAT grenade deals a good damage to Halftracks and Armored cars. It can miss (the hit-chance at max range should be around 75%) but the damage potential should keep the light vehicles at bay.

[Mr. FeministDonut]

1) Give vehicle suppression ability to Wehrmacht Suppression Stormtrooper
2) Give ability to Wehrmacht grenadiers?

We wanted to keep the ability PE/CW unique. Once we give it to WM, people will start demanding it for Rangers too and suddenly it will be everywhere. Though I was thinking about adding such ability to HMG squads - tanks would not shred them then so easily - top MG gunner would not attack + the ability lowers the accuracy of tank's main gun too, so the tank would more likely miss an HE shot fired against HMG team.

My suggestion:
Make something with AT early US gameplay, since on bigger maps, enemy halftracks coming faster, than any mobile/inf AT could be available. Making it sucks even more.
So here is what I though. Make riflemen more universal role, allow to tech for the bazookas, equip them with them, so it will help to support your AT guns. Other units like paratroopers and ranger would be more shock troops role, being more specific role unit, instead of usual-boring all around. So it will be better for all factions, than a stupid mirror factions like that.
Volk - riflemen
Grens - Rangers

We added the Riflegrenade upgrade to all doctrines to increase early game AT capacity of US. The HEAT grenade deals a good damage to Halftracks and Armored cars. It can miss (the hit-chance at max range should be around 75%) but the damage potential should keep the light vehicles at bay.

And what about other points? This beta is basically playground so I hope for a change

[MarKr]

What other points? You said that there is a problem: US early game lacks AT capacity. And you suggested a solution: give to Riflemen an option to upgrade bazookas and as consequence of Rifles being more universal, Paratroopers/Rangers could be more specilized.

US has the HEAT grenades as early game AT capacity, so it is not like US has 37mm gun and nothing else. If the problem you talked about is covered with the HEAT grenades, why should any other solutions be applied?

Beta is a playground in the sense that we get the feedback on changes we made and what is too strong or too weak will be further adjusted according to the feedback. But beta is not a playground in the sense that we will implement everything that anyone asks for and see how that works. It is not possible - people have tons of ideas and implementing all of them would be incredibly time-consuming on our side, not to mention that often the ideas from different people are contradictory to each other.

[Mr. FeministDonut]

What other points? You said that there is a problem: US early game lacks AT capacity. And you suggested a solution: give to Riflemen an option to upgrade bazookas and as consequence of Rifles being more universal, Paratroopers/Rangers could be more specilized.

US has the HEAT grenades as early game AT capacity, so it is not like US has 37mm gun and nothing else. If the problem you talked about is covered with the HEAT grenades, why should any other solutions be applied?

Beta is a playground in the sense that we get the feedback on changes we made and what is too strong or too weak will be further adjusted according to the feedback. But beta is not a playground in the sense that we will implement everything that anyone asks for and see how that works. It is not possible - people have tons of ideas and implementing all of them would be incredibly time-consuming on our side, not to mention that often the ideas from different people are contradictory to each other.

But this is possible in future reconsidering faction design?

[MarKr]

Yes, in the future it would be possible. But when you speak about faction design - it is not as easy as "make Riflemen more universal and Rangers more specilized". You need to consider what impact would such change have on the entire game. If you give Bazooka upgrade to Riflemen, you need to consider when the upgrade will be available, how much it will cost etc.. If they get it from the start, then they will quickly kill any light vehicle that Axis in the early game have, while Axis don't have such tool on their side - Panzerfausts are pay-per-shot, AT grenades too while bazooka upgrade would be one-time investment. There is a reason why bazookas and panzerschrecks are usually available with some sort of "advanced infantry" - this infantry is more expensive and so you know they will not be spammed in large numbers. If you consider how cheap Riflemen are, in late game (if you keep spamming them) you might have a large number of them, all equipped with bazookas which would have serious impact on Axis tanks and vehicles in late game.
So as I said - it is not that easy.

[Warhawks97]

I think we have got some valid points here regarhding that too many things are too mirrored. In this matter vcoh was actually not bad.

In both coh, coh and coh2, rifles are the backbone of any US doctrine but also basically the only inf US has while all others are doc specific. That was actually a nice basis. Sure, they had no zook in coh but sticky bombs have been to most important AT capability.

We also have this idea arround in BK that we make rangers a doctrine specific unit instead simply a mirror to Grens. PE is sadly also in many aspects quite mirrored to WH with the difference of not having schrecks on their inf and instead more support abilities.

So i have basically two ideas arround for rifles-
1. After picking inf doc the rifle grenade would be a default upgrade to all rifles while the free upgrade slot would be given to Bazookas. Thing is Inf doc has Rangers as well and thus the basic issue remains.
2. Rifle grenades become a WSC upgrade for al docs or only inf or inf and ab or inf and armor or whatever. After that all rifle squads would have the rifle nade at default (except the call in squad). The free slot would be given to bazookas. Thus rifles would be a real basic backbone inf during the entire game while also being the only combat inf available to all US docs. Rangers become doctrine specific and limited. Like 2-3 basic squads producable, cqc, 2-3 infiltration squads and the HMG squad. The Bazooka would become available with WSC being build.
Perhaps the rifles would have slightly less basic accuracy with zooks than Rangers.
3. And for the "spam of rifles" i say it doesnt actually exist in later stages. They arent so cheap anymore, esspecially the higher reinforce cost have an impact and the call in squad wouldnt have zooks. Also if you would remove this "cheaper infantry" for inf doc and replacing it with some sort of improved combat efficiency for rifles there wouldnt be any spam at all anymore. + The zombie squads are far less common since it needs 18 wounded to be collected. You get perhaps 1-2 squads in long games instead of 6.

And i dont think this would be some sort of overkill in terms of AT capability in early game. The Rifle grenade is everything but an early help vs vehicles. You usually dont have the ammo to use it at the time PE is crushing you with vehicles. 35 ammo for upgrade and 25 per shot or more. You just dont have it early on unless you cap points arround the base (and upgrade them) which is a bad idea in pvp bc you leave important points to your enemie right away.

As counter balance the Faust for volks would become cheaper in upgrade and default upgrade for def doc after switching into skirmish phase (T2).


As for the idea of HMG´s suppressing tanks.... pls, no. Tanks are supposed to help killing these kind of defenses and thus helping friendly inf. The simple HMG/medium AT would become again a standard defensive spam at this point while tanks wont be able to kill any of these.


And after we would have "de-mirrored" US/WH units it would be nice to have something similiar to happen with PE faction. Its docs are unique but their gameplay if basic units still too similiar to WH.

[Walderschmidt]

1) Give vehicle suppression ability to Wehrmacht Suppression Stormtrooper
2) Give ability to Wehrmacht grenadiers?

We wanted to keep the ability PE/CW unique. Once we give it to WM, people will start demanding it for Rangers too and suddenly it will be everywhere. Though I was thinking about adding such ability to HMG squads - tanks would not shred them then so easily - top MG gunner would not attack + the ability lowers the accuracy of tank's main gun too, so the tank would more likely miss an HE shot fired against HMG team.

Would you consider giving it to Wehrmacht Suppression Stormtroopers?

It would give a little extra flavor to BK, help it a little bit against armor doc but not be too wide-spread amongst wehr to make it commonplace.

Wald