Making M-42's canister shot more player friendly

When you install and load COH2 you might discovery that canister shots are not an AI ability but switchable shells.

Now if in your opinion there a valid reason why an AI shells should be set to fire only on vehicles feel free to provide it.

Well if we're going for consistency, every other entity in the game that has a shell switch and not a timed ability doesn't mess with your target prioritization settings. ISU and Sherman for example.

Looks like a very minor issue, however automatically setting the engagement mode to all targets would probably be benefitial.
Not sure how well it turns out with other shell switch abilities where the target is not as clearly defined as here. The most important thing is probably to keep it consistent.

No to making it a single shot ability though. That would make it somewhat similar to the ZiS barrage in terms of functionality.

Regarding the cannister shot in general, I think there could be some range regained with vet, so that spamming them is not oppressive since they need to stay in range of small arms themselves at vet. At vet 1-2, when medium tanks arrive and the usability of the M42 diminishes both regarding tanks as well as against better infantry squads and upcoming elites, it could maybe get a small range buff of +5-10 to reinforce the AI role and make it less vulnerable.

Looks like a very minor issue, however automatically setting the engagement mode to all targets would probably be benefitial.
Not sure how well it turns out with other shell switch abilities where the target is not as clearly defined as here. The most important thing is probably to keep it consistent.

No to making it a single shot ability though. That would make it somewhat similar to the ZiS barrage in terms of functionality.

Regarding the cannister shot in general, I think there could be some range regained with vet, so that spamming them is not oppressive since they need to stay in range of small arms themselves at vet. At vet 1-2, when medium tanks arrive and the usability of the M42 diminishes both regarding tanks as well as against better infantry squads and upcoming elites, it could maybe get a small range buff of +5-10 to reinforce the AI role and make it less vulnerable.

I thought this whole board's warcry was "consistency!". Target tables are a no go because interaction between squads becomes inconsistent, faction asymmetry is ok but only when everyone has consistent access to the same tools, and so on.

Tell me how consistent it would be for a shell switch changing the target priority on your selected unit? Sure, the M42 won't be doing any damage against tanks with its AI rounds, but neither does the Sherman, and it keeps its prioritization settings anyways.

And if you do make those consistent between each other, then the ISU is the odd man out because its AI shells CAN do damage to tanks (at least as far as I remember, unless I'm mixing it up with the KV-2).

Hell, though, if I am wrong about the ISU then screw it, disable vehicle prioritization while in AI shells mode for all of them. I don't really see the downside.

I thought this whole board's warcry was "consistency!". Target tables are a no go because interaction between squads becomes inconsistent, faction asymmetry is ok but only when everyone has consistent access to the same tools, and so on.

Tell me how consistent it would be for a shell switch changing the target priority on your selected unit? Sure, the M42 won't be doing any damage against tanks with its AI rounds, but neither does the Sherman, and it keeps its prioritization settings anyways.

And if you do make those consistent between each other, then the ISU is the odd man out because its AI shells CAN do damage to tanks (at least as far as I remember, unless I'm mixing it up with the KV-2).

Hell, though, if I am wrong about the ISU then screw it, disable vehicle prioritization while in AI shells mode for all of them. I don't really see the downside.

The first point you make is not about consistency, but putting basic gameplay mechanics into place.

To your point though: it's about putting 'consistency' above everything else and never has been. Consistency helps an awful lot though if there is no intuitive reason that things should be different. A bundle nade being stronger than a normal one? Makes an awful lot of sense intuitively. Elite infantry being better than mainline? A P4H being stronger than a M4A3? Same.
The same weapon doing a different amount of damage against similar units (=target tables)? Oof, in my eyes a far stretch in 95% of cases and there must be good balance reasons to do it like that. It is not intuitive that e.g. a 222 is more accurate vs a sniper than vs a normal model. This is pure balance.

Anyway, regarding the canister shot: As I tried to say in my first paragraph, it should be considered if an automatic firing mode switch ends up to be more confusing or not. It makes sense though that a shell that is primarily targetet vs infantry also targets infantry, or at least has the chance to do so.
We shouldn't forget though that there is no 'target infantry only' button in the games. The canister shot will target tanks if necessary. This is about saving a click for the player. We actually already have a somewhat comparable example: TDs entering the field with and prioritizing vehicles from the start, while all other tanks don't have to. It makes sense intuitively, and saves a click for the plaEr as well. Yet, there are no huge discussions about it apart from some people complaining that they need to get their muscle memory changed.

The first point you make is not about consistency, but putting basic gameplay mechanics into place.

To your point though: it's about putting 'consistency' above everything else and never has been. Consistency helps an awful lot though if there is no intuitive reason that things should be different. A bundle nade being stronger than a normal one? Makes an awful lot of sense intuitively. Elite infantry being better than mainline? A P4H being stronger than a M4A3? Same.
The same weapon doing a different amount of damage against similar units (=target tables)? Oof, in my eyes a far stretch in 95% of cases and there must be good balance reasons to do it like that. It is not intuitive that e.g. a 222 is more accurate vs a sniper than vs a normal model. This is pure balance.

Anyway, regarding the canister shot: As I tried to say in my first paragraph, it should be considered if an automatic firing mode switch ends up to be more confusing or not. It makes sense though that a shell that is primarily targetet vs infantry also targets infantry, or at least has the chance to do so.
We shouldn't forget though that there is no 'target infantry only' button in the games. The canister shot will target tanks if necessary. This is about saving a click for the player. We actually already have a somewhat comparable example: TDs entering the field with and prioritizing vehicles from the start, while all other tanks don't have to. It makes sense intuitively, and saves a click for the plaEr as well. Yet, there are no huge discussions about it apart from some people complaining that they need to get their muscle memory changed.

I'm not arguing here over either of the two things that I mentioned as examples for consistency, so there's no need to get defensive about it.

But again, you mentioning consistency in your reply, all of the TDs enter the field with vehicle prioritization turned on. Cool. It's consistent and intuitive.

Disabling vehicle prioritization when switching to AI shells on the M-42 and the M-42 only? It might be intuitive, but it's not consistent.

Someone switches their M-42 to AI rounds and forgets to turn target vehicles off the first time they use it. Big deal. They won't make that mistake again. In fact, if they play USF, they might even be familiar with how the game already treats shells and not even have this issue.

Or lets say you turn off vehicle prioritization when you enable AI shells on the M-42 and someone gets used to it (I'm assuming this is a change for new players because most people just learn to press the button that switches prioritization by muscle memory). How about that new player switches to playing USF and gets confused why the Sherman doesnt automatically turn off vehicle prioritization? Literally the same problem just in reverse lmao.

Or you change both of them but not the ISU because it can actually damage tanks too. And then inconsistency. OR you just change all of them and I guess the problem goes away at that point...

Point is; if you want to mess with this, do it to all of them if you value your intuitiveness and consistency.

There is main differences between canister shot and other shells.

Vehicles have two options free fire/ignore soft targets and the Canister shot does no damage to armor (contrary to some AI shell that have deflection damage).

This quite a simple suggestion so I am not sure why it has receive so much debate.

There is main differences between canister shot and other shells.

Vehicles have two options free fire/ignore soft targets and the Canister shot does no damage to armor (contrary to some AI shell that have deflection damage).

This quite a simple suggestion so I am not sure why it has receive so much debate.

I fail to see how the M-42 shell switch is any different from Sherman shell switch, because like I said multiple times before the Sherman doesn't do deflection damage on its HE shells. If that's the case, you had ought to advocate for this change to both of them. But really it should be all-or-nothing, because changing those two and not the ISU is neither consistent nor intuitive.

EDIT: Also I've no idea why you mention that "Vehicles have two options free fire/ignore soft targets", because AT guns have the exact same options.

I fail to see how the M-42 shell switch is any different from Sherman shell switch, because like I said multiple times before the Sherman doesn't do deflection damage on its HE shells. If that's the case, you had ought to advocate for this change to both of them. But really it should be all-or-nothing, because changing those two and not the ISU is neither consistent nor intuitive.

EDIT: Also I've no idea why you mention that "Vehicles have two options free fire/ignore soft targets", because AT guns have the exact same options.

It is quite simple.

Canister shot will not fire on it intended target unless one change to free fire.

The Sherman HE will fire on intended target unless one set the weapon to fire on vehicles.

It is quite simple.

Canister shot will not fire on it intended target unless one change to free fire.

The Sherman HE will fire on intended target unless one set the weapon to fire on vehicles.

Doesn't make sense. Your argument is effectively: "well the Sherman comes with vehicle prioritization already turned off so it's fine" as if the USF player can't just turn on vehicle prioritization after the fact.

Clearly, if we extrapolate your argument here, the solution is to have M-42 enter the field with vehicle prioritization turned off. That way, M-42 AI shot will "fire on intended target unless one set the weapon to fire on vehicles".

If that doesn't make sense to you, that's because it doesn't make sense.

The fact is there is no huge difference between the two. If you're advocating for this change to the M-42, you might as well advocate for it to be done to the Sherman as well.

...

There is difference imo and I would had no issue with Sherman HE coming with ignore vehicles option, you are entitled to have another opinion.

There is difference imo...

I'm just not seeing what that difference is.

...I would had no issue with Sherman HE coming with ignore vehicles option...

Neither would I, but if you want it to be consistent it should also be applied to the ISU in addition to those two.

I feel like this is an issue of:

1. QOL fix as suggested is logical and acts as a functional indirect buff to a bad ability (M42 frag rounds)
2. But applying QOL fix to currently strong units (AP/HE sherman) for the sake of consistency (itself a good thing) might result in its own balance issues.

M-42 come with canister shot mode and in that mode it fire AI rounds as reduced range.

The current implementation has an issue where the when in canister shot mode the weapon will retain the engage vehicles mode and will not fire on soft targets.

Possible solutions:
make free engage the default mode for canister shot
remove the option for this mode
or
Since the mode is not that great replace with single AI shot.

As a QOL, toggling it to cannister should take off vehicle priority and toggling back to AP should resume vehicle priority.

That said, the unit is really bad. Canister shot doesn't do much damage or suppression so anything can walk right up to it and decrew it easily. It's too expensive for its current state. The pop cap is only 6, but even at 6 it will later prevent you from having another unit that actually does something.

If the unit is going to stay at it's current cost, it should get a little bit of suppression added to it. Maybe enough so that two rounds would suppress a unit. It would act a little bit like a MG. That would still give players about 4 seconds to react to keep from getting their units suppressed. It doesn't rotate very fast so would still be easy to flank. It would then be useful, but only with screening infantry.