That would render the squad useless vs infantry and a single point of failure because a single squad can get pushed away quite easily. The problem is still that you can get one ptrs volley out before having to retreat vs the flame HT. unless you take out a chunk of health of the HT it's of no use. Also PGrens will have a a good time because of the reduction of anti infantry capabilities.
A combination of increasing the lethality of PTRS (e.g. damage) and reducing Flame HT range would help alot. For their current cost they perform poorly. This would also help other units such as guards and tank hunter cons, not just penals.
I agree it's tricky. I'm personally thinking about:
- Penals from 300 to ~280 manpower
- move some DPS from vet 0 to vet 1 accordingly
- possibly revert T1 build time change
- either lower aim time for PTRS (should be easier to get a second or third volley off before having to retreat) or 3x PTRS for higher alpha damage, and with lower unit cost it would be less harsh to turn one of your squads into an AT one
- possibly T4 could give -2 reinforcement cost bonus (either passive or as a squad based upgrade similar to Mobilize Reserves for Cons) to reduce late game bleed due to lack of upgrade
The range on the flame 251 is already only 30, I don't think we can make it any lower than that without butchering it. Increasing damage per PTRS would probably make PTRS Cons too good.