Infantry, mortars and MGs: relationship and scaling.

....

Its ironic that you think others don't know what they are talking about when you say things like "damage lost from the mg on par with damage lost from the crew." The entire crew even on a soviet weapons team does less damage then the mg by itself. At range 35, x5 maxim crew does about 1.2 dps while the gun does 11 and stays at a roughly 10-1 ratio all the way through close range where it gets even worse.
This relationship is even worse with other factions.

I also don't know why you used the 120mm mortar since its damage output compared to other mortars is actually hampered by its rate of fire. In both cases(standard and 120) I hope you used the barrage.

Id also recommend retesting using 1.0 RA units instead of a unit with 1.09 that inherently favors mg accuracy over mortar aoe.

How are you all so consistently wrong about things?




Time to kill 1 conscript squad at 60 range. Barrage followed by autofire.

________

Pak howie: 20 seconds

Mortar emplacement: 30 seconds

120mm: 44 seconds

lieg: 1:29

GrW 34: 1:35

SOV 82mm 1:55

USF 81mm 1:57

How are you all so consistently wrong about things?




Time to kill 1 conscript squad at 60 range. Barrage followed by autofire.

________

Pak howie: 20 seconds

Mortar emplacement: 30 seconds

120mm: 44 seconds

lieg: 1:29

GrW 34: 1:35

SOV 82mm 1:55

USF 81mm 1:57

i congratulate the effort to get some actual numbers into the discussion for once, but i'm not sure if you realize that running a test twice in cheatmod will give you anything else than consistent results. especially for sth like indirect fire which has a huge variation in damage output due to scatter.

i congratulate the effort to get some actual numbers into the discussion for once, but i'm not sure if you realize that running a test twice in cheatmod will give you anything else than consistent results. especially for sth like indirect fire which has a huge variation in damage output due to scatter.

If it helps, I've also sunk 1,000+ hours into automatch games.

If it helps, I've also sunk 1,000+ hours into automatch games.

well i guess that means no.

anyway, what i mean to say is that accusing other people to have no clue about what they are talking about when, at the same time, posting some more or less random numbers you seem to have no clue about how accurate and meaningful they are... is walking on pretty thin ice.

well i guess that means no.

anyway, what i mean to say is that accusing other people to have no clue about what they are talking about when, at the same time, posting some more or less random numbers you seem to have no clue about how accurate and meaningful they are... is walking on pretty thin ice.

Oh. Were you at least going to clarify something about mortar DPS, or are you just throwing mud?

Oh. Were you at least going to clarify something about mortar DPS, or are you just throwing mud?

i actually made a post on mortar dps quite a while ago and you can find data on most indirect fire pieces there if you're so inclined.

bottom line: mortars have a huge variance in dmg per shell (some (like the HM38) more; others (e.g. leIG) have less). that means in order to see a clear trend you need to do a lot of repetitions of a specific test condition to get reliable numbers. definitely more than two at least.

edit: double post

How are you all so consistently wrong about things?

Time to kill 1 conscript squad at 60 range. Barrage followed by autofire.

I ran tests as well. I tested ONLY the mortar teams. I tested once with barrage only, once with autofire only and once with a single barrage then autofire.

Time to kill a full hp penal squad at 60 range, Barrage/Autofire/Barrage+Autofire

120mm: 0:32/1:52/1:24
GrW34: 0:47/2:04/2:14
PM41: 0:57/1:02/1:04
M1: 1:03/1:22/1:41



Some things to take away. Both the AOE and range characteristics of the GrW34 are superior to the M1 as well as the barrage scatter. Yet the M1 Outperformed the GrW34 in 2 of the 3 tests.

The 120mm was really lucky in the barrage only and landed 2 immediate direct hits, the second one killing 5 models. It failed to repeat this feat.

The PM41 appears very consistent here, perhaps due to its superior scatter characteristics despite a lower overall rate of fire allowing it to more easily single out straggler models.



As MMX put, you cannot just take a single test and say "Yes, this is representative of the relative performance of these units."
Look at how my results different from yours, and how they differed from each other even within my own testing.




Edit:
Just to show I was actually running the tests and not just making numbers up.

i actually made a post on mortar dps quite a while ago and you can find data on most indirect fire pieces there if you're so inclined.

bottom line: mortars have a huge variance in dmg per shell (some (like the HM38) more; others (e.g. leIG) have less). that means in order to see a clear trend you need to do a lot of repetitions of a specific test condition to get reliable numbers. definitely more than two at least.

I appreciate the detail that you put into your post, but it shows the exact same trends as my own data-set.

Shells do land randomly, but they'll ultimately follow a normal distribution which guarantees a rather high amount of mean accuracy with only a few trials.

If I flip a coin 8 times I have a 27% chance of getting 4-4, but only a .39% chance of getting 0-8.

just as an aside from my own experience:

these in-game tests are clearly the gold standard when it comes to analyzing unit performance and such. at the same time, they're also tedious to set up and repeat in a consistent manner, and on top of that take literal ages to conduct if you aim for a reasonably large sample size.

a trick i've used to 'speed up' this in-game data collection for dps calculation involves only a bit of knowledge of the modding tools.
just create a target squad with a huge hp pool (e.g. 10k per entity), then mod the attacking weapon (the PM41 mortar for example) to fire a set amount of rounds (say 1,000 for simplicity's sake) per reload cycle. now set all firing delays (cooldown, aim time etc) to zero and reload to sth like 10 to 20 s, et voila, you now have a test setup to record the damage of 1k rounds fired at the target that can be used for dps estimation and takes no more than a couple of seconds to complete.

the same can be done for direct fire projectiles as well, but the key to getting repeatable outcomes here is to disable terrain deformation for the projectile used (otw 1k rounds will dig a deep crater around the target that messes up the scatter pattern due to terrain collision).

As MMX put, you cannot just take a single test and say "Yes, this is representative of the relative performance of these units."

Nah the results are pretty clear. 120mm is best mortar.

Nah the results are pretty clear. 120mm is best mortar.

Not in my tests.

Statistical analysis and basic math knowledge on this post. Not even once.

I'm starting to think someone is being a little disingenuous in their argumentation.

Nah the results are pretty clear. 120mm is best mortar.

As long as you ignore every other single stat on the 120mm. Mortars were nerfed so much that now the 120mm offensive perfomance is fine comparatively while it still ridden with other values which makes it bad compared to the normal stock mortar. The only way you can justify it is either you have a perfect position to afk behind a hedge and still hit an OKW Flak HT/BHQ or you somehow went T1.

As long as you ignore every other single stat on the 120mm. Mortars were nerfed so much that now the 120mm offensive perfomance is fine comparatively while it still ridden with other values which makes it bad compared to the normal stock mortar. The only way you can justify it is either you have a perfect position to afk behind a hedge and still hit an OKW Flak HT/BHQ or you somehow went T1.

120mm as a whole might not be the best mortar as a whole; however, the starting point of this derail was people criticizing me for using it as the best DPS mortar to compare against a maxim.

See:

I also don't know why you used the 120mm mortar since its damage output compared to other mortars is actually hampered by its rate of fire. In both cases(standard and 120) I hope you used the barrage.

The 120 is considered worse than other mortars.

120mm is the highest DPS mortar. Even then two maxims are better than a maxim and 120mm in the ideal "combined arms" scenario where mortars are supposed to shine.

This shouldn't have been controversial at all, but people are consistently allowed to derail threads with completely baseless and ignorant goal-post shifting that a whole thread page is wasted proving that even the best DPS mortar has anemic damage.

...

The problem is the scenarios which are compared. I'll say i do not fully agree with the point you are against it, but the whole derailments makes little sense as well.

Basically the only post making anything reasonable is MMX one.


I agree with some of your initial points about AOE-mortar-blobs but it's such a hard situation to fine tune due to unit volume/saturation.

Let's hypothetically double the radius of mortars while only affecting the far range profile for that extended range. Say the damage is as low as 10. How many mortars do you need to achieve wiping capabilities? This things would only apply to 2v2 or 3v3+ as it's easier to form static frontlines.

I don't agree with Viper that MG + Mortar goes hand in hand because they suppress squads and THEN they do dmg on those squads. MGs + mortar work together because they create frontlines and slow down the pacing of the game. A suppressed squad will more than likely retreat before getting hit unless it can achieve any sort of role for been in that position or another unit can bail them out by taking the MG.

This doesn't mean what Vipper said about MG dps is incorrect nor what he stated about suppression. It's that inconsequential towards what he tried to justify.


Going back to original topic, i think you are confusing design with balance and trying to replicate what IRL does vs what the game tries to achieve.

I think MGs are mostly fine as they are early game but drop the ball late game.
I think mortars are just fine as how they perform but not necessarily the cost effectiveness nor the risks regarding their usage in terms of what they accomplish compared to another infantry squad.

Just chiming in, I agree with the mortar cost reduction, maybe just for US though. The Ostheer mortar still has a longer range and is eminently more useful given how Ostheer is played. The Sov mortar sucks too but at least it doesn't get wiped as often. The US mortar is not built because its range sucks, so it's the unit you're most likely to lose. It loses a little health from a flank and then the Ostheer mortar has a very easy time wiping it. It's just never worth it.

Vs Ostheer in particular I feel like every game where I go rifle, rifle, captain/lt, I'm floating too much, but 3 rifles + officer is too much of manpower drain. I think if the mortar was cheaper it would ne worth the risk, open up the game and give US something to do with that extra MP early on if playing R-R-officer. Right now vs Ostheer you either go nades to have a chance against a well-microed MG or you try to stall for the flak truck/pak howies, a mortar just means a loss of map control.

MG suppression help is probably not necessary, if you want to buff, buff veterancy. That will also help late game. Don't forget the patch is giving us MG reload which will partially fix the problem of blobs sniping the gunner over and over.

I agree with some of your initial points about AOE-mortar-blobs but it's such a hard situation to fine tune due to unit volume/saturation.

It's not particularly hard to fine tune though. This can all be worked out mathematically. I'd do so exactly if I fully understood how the game calculates AOE damage.

Here's a sample of what I would do with the USF 81mm

Range
65 to 90

Reason: Mortars are not a 'micro' unit, but a strategic investment. There is little reward in repositioning your mortar, so there's no reason for a huge micro tax. Decisions on mortar positioning should be "I want it to influence this 1/3rd of the map" not "I have to constantly reposition my mortar to affect 1/10th of the map."

Reload
10.6 to 5

Reason: You tend to have vision of a blob for a very short time period before needing to retreat your spotting unit. Current mortars simply do not have the ROF to seriously influence a fight against a blob. Before anyone loses their mind over this: damage is being reduced also.

Shell AOE

Radius from 4 to 6
Near distance from .75 to 1
Mid distance from 1.5 to 2
Far distance from 3 to 4.5

Shell damage

Near 68 to 20
Mid 40 to 12.5
Far 20 to 10


Not entirely sure how the scatter values work, but I'd increase them by about 10% to start. This is to help spread the damage in blobs, and offset extra damage vs single squads.