BK mod Is awesome ! One small error about realism (Axis have nukes?)

[Henny]

I believe that the events that unfold in COH 1 take place during the allied invasion of France, so about Mid-1944 to VE day. Soon after that, the Americans dropped nukes for the first time in Japan.

My question is, why did the developers give the Axis in COH BK mod tactical nukes? The Germans weren't even the ones to first use tactical nukes, plus it's 1944 !

If you pick TH doctrine in PE faction, there is a tank called the "Hotchkiss" that can be upgraded with 4 tactical nukes. Tactical nukes are quite devastating to use, they can wipe out entire cities as seen in Hiroshima.

I believe that the developers are wrong in giving the axis side tactical nukes as they weren't even invented yet, and the Germans didn't even invent them. Maybe the developers should equip the "calliope" with 60 tactical nukes instead of the usual 114mm rockets to balance the current meta game, as German tactical nukes are quite powerful.

BK mod is fun game! Just need to fix this small historical discrepancy and we can start finally enjoying the mod for it's awesome historical realism.



Proposal to fix strategic nuke:

-Increase the munition cost to match that of the 210mm Nebel ( 100-110 Munition I forget)
-Reduce AOE splash damage
-Reduce damage overall
-Give allies nukes too

- revert to pre-nuke hotchkiss ( literally the simplest and easiest solution but will never happen because developers are skirmish pros and are always right , and the PvPers are all stupid and don't know how Bk mod works )

OK, I admit you're right, I've just found something in crits that makes infantry die almost every time - this has been around for years so it is not something that the patch would bring in but it is harsh in the AoE to infantry. Will be changed for Hotchkiss and Stuka HT both.

In general perspective higher scatter should help to some extend because if the rocket lands somewhere and does not catch infantry in its AoE, the crits don't affect anyting but the crits will be changed so that the kill-rate is not so high. In combination with the rest of the changes it should put the Hotchkiss to a bit better position.

[Jalis]

Nuke still exist, you re a bit late.

I had info that game take place between march and may 1945. Info cames from game itself. Volksgrenadiers to be exact. Speaking about USA GI, Volks said me ; we will push them back out of Germany.

[The New BK Champion]

Henny, the master of topic titles!

[MarKr]

I believe that the developers are wrong in giving the axis side tactical nukes as they weren't even invented yet, and the Germans didn't even invent them.

I believe poster is wrongly informed about the effects of an actual nuclear warhead, especially when he brings up the "realism" argument - one such bomb would realistically destroy everything on even the biggest maps (because of the scale of the maps). I have never seen Hotchkiss evaporate entire Goodwood map with a single barrage
(sarcasm intended)

[Henny]

I believe that the developers are wrong in giving the axis side tactical nukes as they weren't even invented yet, and the Germans didn't even invent them.

I believe poster is wrongly informed about the effects of an actual nuclear warhead, especially when he brings up the "realism" argument - one such bomb would realistically destroy everything on even the biggest maps (because of the scale of the maps). I have never seen Hotchkiss evaporate entire Goodwood map with a single barrage
(sarcasm intended)

You ever play a very close PVP (NOT COMP STOMP) 3v3 on a map such as La fiere? Axis player brings out 1 davy crockett hotchkiss tactical nuke carrier and wipes out 3 whole enemy squads, 3 tanks, and their mothers. You're right that it shouldn't be called tactical nuke. Strategic nuke or Tsar Bomba would be a more appropriate name

At this point, don't nerf hotchkiss. Just make calliope, rocket jeep, and tulip shoot tactical nukes, even out the battlefield. Drive away the remaining 20 PVP players who still play this mod

[MarKr]

What is your problem? You make a post with obvious sarcasm and exageration and when you receive a reply in the same way, you get triggered?

Anyway, have you played any games in the beta where Hotchkiss received changes? It is nice to keep complaining about something but more constructive would be to actually be part of the solution.

[mofetagalactica]

So far only changes to tactical nuke hotchkiss in the beta (when the main problem was the stupid AOE, and the unit being hard to hit with any at for uknown reasons)
- Changed the base speed of Hotchkiss to 3.6 (from 5.5)
- "Stuka Rockets" upgrade now reduces speed of Hotchkiss to 2.8 (from 4.4)
- "Stuka Rockets" upgrade now requires "Panzer-support" building

[The New BK Champion]

I agree that changes from beta don't fix the problem. The problem still is the broken aoe.

[Henny]

What is your problem? You make a post with obvious sarcasm and exageration and when you receive a reply in the same way, you get triggered?

Anyway, have you played any games in the beta where Hotchkiss received changes? It is nice to keep complaining about something but more constructive would be to actually be part of the solution.

I agree that changes from beat don't fix the problem. The problem still is the broken aoe.

So far only changes to tactical nuke hotchkiss in the beta (when the main problem was the stupid AOE, and the unit being hard to hit with any at for uknown reasons)
- Changed the base speed of Hotchkiss to 3.6 (from 5.5)
- "Stuka Rockets" upgrade now reduces speed of Hotchkiss to 2.8 (from 4.4)
- "Stuka Rockets" upgrade now requires "Panzer-support" building

That's my problem.

I've already tried the beta. If it was fixed in the beta, do you think I would be complaining? Come play some PvP with me, lets play allies. Feel the wrath of the tsar bomba before you think everything is fine and dandy. There's a huge difference between comp stomping with AI that sends out shermans and Pvp players that have vetted Infantry squads that get wiped out from an ability that costs FIFTY FIVE FUKING MUNITION and wipes out an entire company with no unit limit. What's reducing the speed of this thing going to do? It's still going to shoot nukes

Proposal to fix strategic nuke:

-Increase the munition cost to match that of the 210mm Nebel ( 100-110 Munition I forget)
-Reduce AOE splash damage
-Reduce damage overall
-Give allies nukes too

[Warhawks97]

How does the Waling stuka perform in terror doc? It has same weapon stats.
Just asking and why this unit feels ok then? Is it bc it costs cp and a lot more MP to be build?

The ammo cost for a barrage could probably really go up to match similiar effective weapons like the 210. The hotchkiss fires 4 missiles the 210 fires 5 but hotchkiss is cheap and more mobile.


I would also limit the number of hotchkiss that can be upgraded to two at a time. So you can have many hotckiss but only two with missile launcher.
I think that should fix the problem hopefully.

[MarKr]

If it was fixed in the beta, do you think I would be complaining?

There are tons of people who keep complaining about stuff that is solved in beta but they don't know because they never played it, how am I suposse to know you are not one of them?

when the main problem was the stupid AOE, and the unit being hard to hit with any at for uknown reasons

The "stupid AoE" which is (except for direct hits) the same as it has been for past 10 years when nobody had problems with it. Don't know if anyone reported that Hotchkiss is hard to hit by arty.
What people reported was that Hotchkiss was too fast and so hard to hunt down, also that the rockets were available so soon that you had very little things to actually hunt the tank down with and what was discovered as the main "problem" was not the rocket AoE but the fact that with shorter maximum range the rockets have actually smaller space where they land - basically they land closer to each other and so one unit can easier get caught in the AoE of several rockets and because of that they die so easily.

As I was interested in the way people actually approach to testing, I did not list one change in the beta changelog sofar - the spread of the rockets is now bigger (25 from "10") so the rockets hit in bigger area and the chance that several rockets hit the same target is now a lot smaller. However people are still complaining that the Hotchkiss is still a problem because the only changes are

- Changed the base speed of Hotchkiss to 3.6 (from 5.5)
- "Stuka Rockets" upgrade now reduces speed of Hotchkiss to 2.8 (from 4.4)
- "Stuka Rockets" upgrade now requires "Panzer-support" building

This suggests that people just read the changelog and don't bother actually trying it in action and keep saying that stuff is bad untill they get the damage nerf which is not really needed. Because if people were actually trying to play with Hotchkiss, someone would sure notice the slight diffence between this scatter:

(current 5.1.5 at max range)
and this scatter:

(5.1.6 scatter since the first beta)

And that consequently suggests that

If it was fixed in the beta, do you think I would be complaining?

you are complaining about something that WAS fixed in the beta...

[Viper]

Proposal to fix strategic nuke:

-Increase the munition cost to match that of the 210mm Nebel ( 100-110 Munition I forget)
-Reduce AOE splash damage
-Reduce damage overall
-Give allies nukes too

too much nerf in my opinion. i agree with mark. hotchkiss is fine on the beta. maybe barrage price can be more. for example 65 ammo. but even not necessary. hotchkiss rockets have high caliber. so the damage should not be weak.

[Warhawks97]

Proposal to fix strategic nuke:

-Increase the munition cost to match that of the 210mm Nebel ( 100-110 Munition I forget)
-Reduce AOE splash damage
-Reduce damage overall
-Give allies nukes too

too much nerf in my opinion. i agree with mark. hotchkiss is fine on the beta. maybe barrage price can be more. for example 65 ammo. but even not necessary. hotchkiss rockets have high caliber. so the damage should not be weak.

high calibre and high damage means expensive. You cant have it cheap and deadly at the same time.

65 is nothing compared to 100 for the 210 nebler (5 rockets) and up to 120 for the 6 of the terror walking stuka that costs 5 CP to get.

[Viper]

ok. if we assume 1 rocket costs 20 ammo. then hotchkiss 4 rockets barrage should cost 80 ammo maximum. with current damage of course.

[The New BK Champion]

As I was interested in the way people actually approach to testing, I did not list one change in the beta changelog sofar - the spread of the rockets is now bigger (25 from "10") so the rockets hit in bigger area and the chance that several rockets hit the same target is now a lot smaller. However people are still complaining that the Hotchkiss is still a problem because the only changes are

- Changed the base speed of Hotchkiss to 3.6 (from 5.5)
- "Stuka Rockets" upgrade now reduces speed of Hotchkiss to 2.8 (from 4.4)
- "Stuka Rockets" upgrade now requires "Panzer-support" building

This suggests that people just read the changelog and don't bother actually trying it in action and keep saying that stuff is bad untill they get the damage nerf which is not really needed. Because if people were actually trying to play with Hotchkiss, someone would sure notice the slight diffence between this scatter:

You are missing the point. Increasing scatter actually is making in even worse. Those rockets don't need to be accurate, because they wipe out any inf squad in ridiculously big radius. This is not spray and pay rocket arty cuz u will "always" kill something, no matter what are you aiming at, even if u dont hit what you are aiming at.

I wonder why are you so defensive about this. You may have not touched aoe in 10 years, but you have touched damage. And current damage is literally game breaking to be honest. And in the beta you have changed what you still think is the problem. But we keep saying that the problem is elsewhere. Even if it comes later and slower, it still has insanely high cost efficiency.

[mofetagalactica]

How does the Waling stuka perform in terror doc? It has same weapon stats.
Just asking and why this unit feels ok then? Is it bc it costs cp and a lot more MP to be build?

The ammo cost for a barrage could probably really go up to match similiar effective weapons like the 210. The hotchkiss fires 4 missiles the 210 fires 5 but hotchkiss is cheap and more mobile.


I would also limit the number of hotchkiss that can be upgraded to two at a time. So you can have many hotckiss but only two with missile launcher.
I think that should fix the problem hopefully.

For some reason all other missile barrages from axis are slower and kinda less indirect more easily to avoid once you see the first missile falling down, but the hotchkiss shoots so directly so fast so destructive wich make its really hard to retreat when you ear it, bigger scatter will just blow up a bigger zone off of assaulting infantry making tank hunter a beast againts infantry and tanks, so if things are going to be leaved like that we can always move this hotchkiss to another doc like SE wich uses more ammo than tank hunter doc and replace this unit for a 88 manned at gun.

At least the terror one cost like 110 to use so....

[MarKr]

Over and over again. Yes, damage has been touched, now it deals more damage if the rocket lands on the HEAD of a soldier (which would have killed them with the old damage anyway) or directly on a tank, everywhere else it deals SAME or LESS damage. So explain to me how it is possible that the problem is in damage? It is because of the scatter. Look at this illustrative picture:

Barrage center is at Pershing

The lines show (approximately) the area where the rockets can land in 5.1.5 and the circles show (again approximately) the AoE for each rocket. You probably noticed how they overlap. If the green dots represent a squad of 6 soldiers, you can see that most of them take damage from at least two rockets, some even three. As I have said before (in another topic where the Hotchkiss was discussed) - if the rocket lands not directly on a soldier or very close to him, it deals not enough damage to kill them, even less so if the soldiers have some cover. However when they take damage from 3 rockets, it is enough to kill them.

Now have a look at this picture:

Barrage center again at Pershing

Same meaning for the lines, circles and dots. You can see that the rockets, with same AoE and same damage simply don't cover so much from the possible hit zone, also about 2 soldiers from the squad would get caught in an AoE of a rocket...ONE rocket...near the edge of the AoE where the damage even without cover isn't enough to kill anything better than Engineers/Pios.

And now, when you know the damage distribution issue of Hotchkiss, tell me how the bigger scatter doesn't solve the problem while your damage reduction does.

So maybe I am defensive but it is only because you guys keep telling me that the problem is something and it simply isn't the truth, I keep telling it over and over and the reaction I hear is pretty much "no, it is the damage" and as it has been shown in the first picture, lower damage will not solve the problem because the soldiers will still keep getting caught in the AoE of 2-3 rockets and that will still be enough to kill any squad in the game, unless you want to lower the damage to such a low level that it won't even destroy a small bush on a direct hit.

EDIT: Btw: the picture number 2 is pretty much how big the hit zone was with the old Hotchkiss barrage range - back then most people fired the Hotchkiss at that range and nobody had a problem with the Hotchkiss performance.

[Mr. FeministDonut]

Less damage for infantry, more supression for victims! There is still tactical advantage, but less MP bleed just by 50muni barrage

[mofetagalactica]

So what kind of tactic would you use that isnt counter arty to destroy an enemy specializated in killing tanks,assaulting infantry and emplacements once he has 2 hotchkiss? Please someone iluminate me because just sending suicidal m10's rushing for a cheap unit that is hard to hit is not that usefull.

What about moving the hotchkiss to SE and replacing this arty unit for another one like maultier or nebel wich is more forgiving at assaulting infantry so we dont nullify arty capabilities out of TH ?

[Warhawks97]

Just a carefull suggestion:

The main reason why the 210 mm nebler and missiles like the 280 and 300 mm missiles carried 28 kg of explosives was in order to increase the AoE effect of shrapnels over that of the 150 mm nebler with its 2,4 KG.

The game currently handles this differently: Bigger and more HE means only more damage.
To get a picture: The Damage for the stuka/hotchkiss/210 is three times higher than that of an 150 mm nebler while in fact the AoE would have to be the main difference. The damage is 100-150 for 150 mm nebler and 350 for stuka/hotchkiss/210. The AoE and damage brackets are exactly the same.

So what about lowering the core damage from the stuka/hotchkiss/210 from 350 to 250-300 damage. It would have a bigger scatter than the 150 and also greater AoE and bit different damage brackets.
For example currently the damage at the very edge of the explosion is 70 which is enough to insta kill a riflemen. Up to an AoE of 9 the damage is enough to kill every solider even in light cover.
Lowering the core damage to 250 would at least slove the issue that soldiers die at the very edge of the explosion from 9-15 range arround the explosion.
The damage in the center of the hit would afterall be as high as 450 damage.


I cant give exact values of how big AoE should be for 150 and the 210/300 mm or the exact damage modifier in each range bracket or or how big the scatter shall be, just saying that the main difference should be in the total AoE and scatter, and not simply bigger damage or not in such a scale.
I think a lot of experiments would be required to get the desired results.

[kwok]

can confirm tweaking aoe damage, range, values, etc is a bitch of a balance effort.

[Henny]

I don't get why its so hard to change hotchkiss values to pre-nuke values ?

Or are the developers just trying to push their skirmish mode comp stomp agenda ?

[MarKr]

I don't get why its so hard to change hotchkiss values to pre-nuke values ?

Because it makes no sense to have Hotchkiss as the only unit with pre-5.1.5 stats while every other unit keeps the new stuff, especially when it would mean that Hotchkiss would have range of 175 again (which is almost the same as the Hummel now) while every othe arty unit in Hotchkiss category would remain at 135 range.

With that explained I have to say that I don't get why you ignore everything I wrote in my previous post.

Like seriously, when I explained the role and the impact of the scatter (presuming that you've actually read it and you're not just claiming you've read it as with your "I wouldn't make a post if I didn't play beta" statement), tell me where I am wrong.
Logical argumentation, please, not "I just think it will not work" or "I play PvP so I must know".

[The New BK Champion]

You are the one ignoring the practical dimension over the theory. Although it works for u in corsix or in your test games where u put one static unit in the middle of the field and then fire at it, it looks different in the real game. The question is, do you balance and change the mod for yourself, or for the players?

[DankMan]

For me the problem is not the damage of the hotchkiss itself. It is a 210mm so it should have a punch. The problem are other factors:
1. No CP. If you rush it you can field it within 10 minutes into the game.
2. With unlocks TH does not need to spend ammo into their tanks. Maybe give your inf some weapons and that's it. You buy them once and if you don't loose them (see below) you can spend all your ammo on hotchkiss salvos.
3. Not sure about this one but I think there is no limit. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
4. Hotchkiss is kind of mobile so it is almost impossible to kill them with arty especially if your own arty has no veterancy yet since it got fielded way after the first hotchkiss.
5. Personally I feel this unit has no drawbacks. It is quite cheap (for it's performance) and can defend itself against infantry and light tanks. The last might sound ridiculous but I have seen it more than once that zooks or rushing m18 missed and got killed instead.
6. The cooldown is affected by veterancy. Lvl1 has a cooldown of arounf 70s while max vet is only 40s. I don't know the numbers of other artillery units but this seems to be quite low.
7. Ammo cost. Currently it costs 55 ammo which sounds fair to be honest for 4 rockets. But again once the TH player unlocked the ammo upgrades he can spend alll his ammo on salvos only. Suddenly 55 ammo is not that much anymore.

8. The way it is played currently (Have a look at viewtopic.php?f=16&p=28189#p28189).
It just needs a few steps:
1. Advance as further as you can and lock down
2. Do not attack but instead build packs, mgs to prevent any incoming attack
3. Build mortar halftrack to harass enemy (don't forget do NOT attack with other units since you could loose them)
4. Repeat step 2 - 3 until hotchkiss is available
--- Until this point if the enemy did not manage to push through it is very hard if not impossible to do this at some later point ---
5. Start bombing everything that moves -> enemy can't attack because of packs (later Tankhunters), mgs everywhere, so he has to build his own defence
6. Gain XP, repeat step 2 - 5 until your mate has heavis or you get bored.
7. Move in with your mate into the into the ground bombed areas to kill every surviving troop. Note: Shooting pioneers with hotchkiss is totally reasonable since at this point of the game you should have a huge ammo reserve and you are bored anyway so better shoot those bastards
8. If any resistance is found start over at step 5.
10. Profit. Congratulations you won the game!

Like seriously almost every single game I played in the last few days started and ended like this. And people know what they are doing. Some even admitted that they know they are abusing the shit out of this unit. Maybe it's just a learn to play issue idk.
But how can it be that one side has to do nothing besides of bombing the other side without even having to attack with infantry or tanks?
How can it be that the other side is unable to attack and thus stuck at defending/waiting for units to attack which is the perfect condition for bombing the hell out of said side?

I have been playing BK since 2012 and I have seen the a similiar playstyle back when KCH where a thing but never in allied side.

Sorry for my little rant. I'm just trying to give some constructive arguments to find a solution for this broken unit.


Edit:
Forgot to mention one point.
9. This unit is a really good infantry and emplacement killer. Combining this with a doctrine which weaknesses should be infantry and emplacements (compare it to armor doc which can do nothing on its own if the enemy locked down) makes it hard to counter. Everything that is left after a barrage might be vehicles and tanks which are easily countered by own tankhunters. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to remove this unit from the TH doctrine.