P47 Rocket Strike uses incorrect penetration effect

I've always wondered if something was off about the USF Airborne P47 rocket strike loiter. Once upon a time this was a very, very powerful ability, and was nerfed pretty hard at some point. Actually looking at the weapon info, it seems to me that the huge drop in effectiveness for this ability was linked to an incorrect target requirement for the penetration effect in the damage profile.

As you know, the rocket loiter only attacks vehicles, but one issue this ability had previously was the massive damage caused by its 120+120 damage rockets could be deadly to other units as well if they managed to be hit by an errant rocket, as it retains the area effect profile of call-in artillery. For this purpose it seems that the damage profile was changed to something like the infantry AT weapons in this game, where there is a base damage and then a penetration effect that delivers more damage to specific target types.

Here is what I am now thinking: the 120 flat damage per rocket was changed to 65 damage plus 40 on penetration if the target meets unit type requirements. This helps prevent wiping random squads or somesuch with it. However, when this was added, it seems the target type requirement was given incorrectly, as instead of dealing this extra 40 damage to vehicles or even specifically to tanks, the extra damage is only given to "commonwealth_emplacements".

This is an INCREDIBLY odd choice as this target type applies to very few if any axis units, and absolutely none that would actually be targeted by this loiter. For reference, I was not able to find a single axis unit or structure with this unit type whatsoever. It is not found with the OKW sws trucks, it is not found with the OKW flak emplacement, it is not found with the OST bunkers...

This has to be a bug; I can see absolutely no reason whatsoever why there would be a penetration damage bonus and ONLY ever applied to errant hits on somehow axis-captured UKF emplacements.

This would also explain the, quite frankly, currently gross underperformance of this ability in my opinion, particularly given its price and in comparison with similar loiter abilities.

very interesting find and kudos for going through all the detective work identifying the probable cause. if this holds true it should definitly make it on the list of known bugs, i'd gladly see the ability get some adjustment to justify its current pricetag.

Bonus damage to your own side's units and nothing else? Yeah, that's absolutely a bug. Reminds me of CoH1 where the Wehrmacht Mortar had the friendly fire tables backwards and did reduced damage to Americans and full damage to Wehrmacht.

This bug would explain so much regarding the relative strength of the P47 run. It will be interesting to see how the rocket strafe performs as it should have always performed with a bugfix.

...
Here is what I am now thinking: the 120 flat damage per rocket was changed to 65 damage plus 40 on penetration if the target meets unit type requirements...

That does not seem to be the case, I tested in cheat mode and it seemed that rocket did more the 65 damage in more than one occasion. They seemed to do even more than 130 that would be the max if the unit was double hit. Think max damage I saw was close to 200.

I'm not an expert in the AE, but are you sure you're not looking at the wrong weapon?

"p47_rockets" is the one that deals 65 base damage, but there are also "pm_p47_rockets_left" and "pm_p47_rockets_right", which have 120 base damage and 0.5 deflection damage.

I'm not an expert in the AE, but are you sure you're not looking at the wrong weapon?

"p47_rockets" is the one that deals 65 base damage, but there are also "pm_p47_rockets_left" and "pm_p47_rockets_right", which have 120 base damage and 0.5 deflection damage.

rip

P47 under-performance? What?

I'm not an expert in the AE, but are you sure you're not looking at the wrong weapon?

"p47_rockets" is the one that deals 65 base damage, but there are also "pm_p47_rockets_left" and "pm_p47_rockets_right", which have 120 base damage and 0.5 deflection damage.

Nope. The loiter uses p47_rockets. You can check this by going to the ability, the air_strike section, the sbps called, the ebps of the P47s in the airstrike, and their combat hardpoints. The left and right rocket profiles are old and seem to be unused. They might be used by the campaign or something still, but they are not in live MP. I will check references for them sometime tomorrow.

This has nothing to do with deflection damage either; it is an on penetrated effect.

That does not seem to be the case, I tested in cheat mode and it seemed that rocket did more the 65 damage in more than one occasion. They seemed to do even more than 130 that would be the max if the unit was double hit. Think max damage I saw was close to 200.

I cannot test this myself today, but if you choose to do so again, try turning on HP monitors with cheat mode.

....
I cannot test this myself today, but if you choose to do so again, try turning on HP monitors with cheat mode.

I had damage monitor ON, but some times it provides total damage and not damage by each hit. From what I have seen rockets seem to be able to more than 65 damage so they seem to be working as intended simply many times they miss the target and do AOE damage which is lower.

As a wehrmacht player I don't remember evet thinking the P47 strafes are underpowered, this aside from the possible bug.

Retreating your tanks when the first strafe hits is the only way to keep your panthers alive .

I'm not an expert in the AE, but are you sure you're not looking at the wrong weapon?

"p47_rockets" is the one that deals 65 base damage, but there are also "pm_p47_rockets_left" and "pm_p47_rockets_right", which have 120 base damage and 0.5 deflection damage.

I did some modding of the rocket strike with the following stats:


I figured this would prove that this effect does not work (and also that this is indeed the correct weapon type).

The result:


Pretty well confirmed what I thought.

As a wehrmacht player I don't remember evet thinking the P47 strafes are underpowered, this aside from the possible bug.

Retreating your tanks when the first strafe hits is the only way to keep your panthers alive .

I'm not sure how many rockets can actually be fired in the total duration of this loiter, but I think 15 direct hits (the number currently required to kill a Panther, 8 salvos) is probably on the high end if possible at all.

Any chance of a fix for this making it into the patch?

There's nothing to fix, really. Even though it's weird that there's a target table and that it refers to emplacements, the 65 damage is intended:

Update: 17th of May 2018

P47 Rocket Loiter
The P47 rocket attack was causing too much damage for its cost, particularly against larger vehicles where rockets had a low chance of missing.
• Damage from 80 to 65

https://community.companyofheroes.com/discussion/67/coh-2-changelog/p5

*Looks at ruined wreckage of what was 20s ago the deadliest Tank Killer in the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht*

I want to agree with you but field experience says otherwise about its incredible lethality....

Does the AA HT even do anything against P-47s?!

Can you guys also fix the carpet bombing from Soviet Tank Hunter Tactics? It's been bugged to cause much less damage and you've known it since last year yet haven't bothered.

Does the AA HT even do anything against P-47s?!

Yes, but you're supposed to build it first for full effect.

There's nothing to fix, really

I've seen them miss every single rocket numerous times, even on tanks with a dead engine. I used this ability on stadschutt last week and every single rocket collided with the large structure right outside the north base

It's not worth 240 Muni. Especially in team games where if you miss your first salvo that's it because it will probably be getting shot down before the next one like most loiters in teams