Flames vs British Emplacement Reworked

I just had a thought come to mind that should probably be considered.

British Players all know how incredibly expensive a loss it is to have their Mortar Pits and 17 Pounders get wiped out very quickly from incendiary attacks. This brings them to a state of liability in a competitive match. Expensive to build, fragile, immobile and a very big target.

Now I'm in no way implying that flames shouldn't counter emplacements. It only makes sense that they do. So I think we should rework what exactly flames do. Instead of burning the emplacement down very quickly, how about we make it have a higher chance of decrewing the emplacement instead? It works rather well against things like ML-20s, Pak43s and similar weapons, does it not? Those weapons don't get incinerated like British Emplacements do.

This way, you can still knock out the emplacement quickly but not have it be such an insufferable loss for the British Player, who can recrew it once the fighting clears and repair it while saving a lot of Manpower in the process. Or if the Germans win the fight, they have something to take and turn against the Allies.

What do you guys think? A fair compromise?

EDIT: Of course, if this is still too much, we could always have the emplacements resist being decrewed until it hits 50% Health.

It would be better than the current situation - but it's unlikely to change because it benenfits the AXIS. Kidding!

Relic is probably looking to do something like this (at least I hope so) and it would make more sense in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKlnjwzT1IruAZFb0EA-5pQ

Indeed. It really does make more sense, especially from a gameplay point of view. I even would go as far as saying that in their current state, Pak 43's, Howitzers and even flak guns are more durable in the long run.

Yes, they can be sniped. Yes, they can be decrewed from small arms and raging fire. But at least those weapons have a far higher chance of being salvaged afterwards, saving a lot of resources. You don't have to drop another 450 Manpower to get your Pak 43 back most of the time.

The British for the most part cannot do this. Their emplacements are more likely to be destroyed than decrewed. When your army is starved of Manpower for most of the match, it's insanely difficult to get those support weapons back up and running. Particularly Mortars, which I like to steal from the Wehrmacht any chance I get, since I can get more use out of them. Having access to Mortar Smoke is so essential in an assault when your infantry are lackluster out of cover.

Indeed. It really does make more sense, especially from a gameplay point of view. I even would go as far as saying that in their current state, Pak 43's, Howitzers and even flak guns are more durable in the long run.

Yes, they can be sniped. Yes, they can be decrewed from small arms and raging fire. But at least those weapons have a far higher chance of being salvaged afterwards, saving a lot of resources. You don't have to drop another 450 Manpower to get your Pak 43 back most of the time.

And pak 43 will be dead cause of bomb air strike, heavy artillery ability, with brit you have to click brace to ignore that

We can say a lot of things of Brit emplacement VS Pak 43, but not that pak 43 is more MP friendly

If I should create 3 17 pounders it would be more mp friendly to have a pak43 Kappa

And pak 43 will be dead cause of bomb air strike, heavy artillery ability, with brit you have to click brace to ignore that

We can say a lot of things of Brit emplacement VS Pak 43, but not that pak 43 is more MP friendly

Actually, it still is when bombs of that scale aren't involved. Bombing abilities are abilities that are expensive and should work to destroy the weapon. It's what they are designed to do. I can absolutely live with that myself. I have no complaints about Stuka Bombs doing that to British Emplacements too and YES it can be done if you wait for brace to go into cooldown before using it.

However, this topic isn't about their fragility in general, but rather the extremely cost effective incendiary attacks quickly destroying the emplacement rather than decrewing it. Flames do not destroy support weapons almost instantly like they do British Emplacements.

I'd like to see flames (Mainly DOT) almost have the same effect they do on other armies heavy support weapons. Destroy the crew and leave the weapon salvageable. A weapon you should use when you want to take the emplacements out of commission quickly and cheaply, without quickly obliterating massive Manpower investment at the same time.

Of course, I'd still like to see flamethrowers (Non-DOT) damage still deal good damage to the emplacement itself. These changes to flame weapons at least makes them more consistent with other armies.

If I should create 3 17 pounders it would be more mp friendly to have a pak43 Kappa

If you created three 17 Pounders, your armies would be laughably easy to crush due to staggering Pop costs.

What's with this obsession of making UKF emplacements easily decrewed? The only thing worse then emplacements being destroyed, is them being easily taken by the enemy.

Even worse UKF doesn't have easily available flame weapons or indirect, so it would end up even more durable in the enemies hand then the ones who built it.

I would much rather risk the Germans taking the emplacement than pay another 400 Manpower for another Mortar Pit because of an extremely cost effective Incendiary Mortar Round or a quick drive by from a Flame Halftrack (Lingering DOT). No other army suffers so greatly from those weapons than the British. Americans and Russians have an opportunity take their weapons back (If they can get them before the Germans) after such an attack. The British cannot.

It also helps lower the MP Bleed when trying to maintain combined arms and helps support their high reinforcement costs.

As for counters to the Germans taking them. There's the Wasp Carrier, with a more powerful, long range flamethrower that can attack ground past shot blockers and smoke. It also leaves DOT; unlike infantry flamethrowers, which under my suggestion, decrews the emplacement rather than burn it down. Direct flamethrower attacks would still maintain it's damage to the emplacement itself.

PIATs can also be fired over shot blockers when using attack ground at a whopping 45 range.

Of course, there's also the Royal Engineer Commander's Anti-Building Mortar, that could be made to target captured emplacements too.

Of course - as a British Player, I would prefer to have emplacements resist Flame DOT in general. However, that would be biased and doesn't take into consideration that it might bring back the "Sim-City" days of CoH1.

But at the same time, the current system makes having Mortars as part of your combined arms hard to sustain in the face of incendiary attacks that obliterate them outright.

Being interested in keeping the British more accepted by the community (Compared to CoH1), I thought the decrewing mechanic would be the effective middle ground for reasons already explained. I am thinking of both sides when I support this idea. It can get fine tuning here or there, but in my opinion it's a step forward.