Vet3 Tommy squads dropping weapons (bug & fixes)

Tommy squads have a chance to drop their upgraded weapons (Bren, PIAT), even if there are enough men to pick up the dropped weapon.

This bug has a very noticeable knock-on effect on balance. Please fix

Reproduction steps

In order to prepare for the bug to manifest
- Take a Tommy squad
- Give the Tommy squad 1 PIAT from a weapon rack
- Attain vet3 with that squad
- Kill off a few models, until the Tommy squad has 3 models left

You will notice that: 2 Tommies carry scoped Enfield rifles (the vet3 bonus), and 1 Tommy squad carries a PIAT.

Now, this is how you trigger the bug
- Take a sniper and kill the Tommy that carries the PIAT (e.g., approach from an angle that only the PIAT-carrying model is visible to the sniper)

Bug manifestations

There are two outcomes possible, both of which are a bug:
1) The Tommy Squad will drop the PIAT. This is despite the fact that the squad has enough space to carry the piat

2) The Tommy Squad will not drop the PIAT. However, they will also not be able to use the PIAT until they are reinforced (the PIAT icon will not be visible on the squad).
This becomes a problem since the upgraded weapons are superior to the vet3 weapons that Tommies get for free.

Of course, you can repeat as necessary, so that you get both manifestations of the same bug. Both bugs are _extremely_ annoying and limit the unit's performance.

The cause

At Vet3, Tommies get access to 2 scoped Enfield rifles (which replace their standard Enfield rifles). These rifles have a slot size of 0 (thus, still allowing the Tommy Squad to access weapon upgrades).

The problem is that scoped Enfields do count as special weapons when it comes to occupying a model's carrying capacity. Thus, the PIAT will not have a chance to transfer to a model that carries the scoped Enfield.

Possible fixes

The most thorough fix would be fix #1. This might require a bit more effort to implement, though.

I am also proposing 2 band-aid solutions. (Personally, I prefer #2 to #3). Either of these fixes should be effortless to implement.

The idea is that you could implement one band-aid solution for the next patch/hotfix. This will buy you time to work on the more-longterm/consistent solution (#1).

1) Implement some weapon-carrying priorities.

There will be 3 kind of weapon priorities:
- Highest priority: Minesweepers
- Middle priority: dropable weapons (e.g., PIAT)
- Lowest priority: Non-dropable weapons (e.g., scoped Enfield, g43)

This means that when a higher priority weapon drops, it immediately transfers to a squad member carrying a lower-priority weapon. If no such squad member exists, then, and only then, does the drop chance take place.

CoH2 seems to have already 2 weapon priorities in place: Minesweepers vs everything else. What I am suggesting is to extend the weapon prioritization system to 3 classes.

This would be the best solution by far. It would also prevent this bug from ever resurfacing in the future.

2) Only give Tommies 1 scoped Enfield at vet3, but with upgraded stats

Let's say that the DPS of scoped enfield is A, and that the DPS of a standard enfield is B, initially the squad DPS would increase by:

2 x (A - B)

Thus, the new DPS of the scoped enfield could be:
- B + 2 x (A - B) = 2x A - B

The bug will still be there, but it will be a bit less noticeable
(With 2 upgrades weapons, you need to drop down to 3 models for the bug to happen).

3) Give Tommies the Soviet Union Guard Rifles treatment

Guards Rifle infantry used to have a similar issue (since they were carrying 4 guns). They tended to drop weapons all over the battlefield.

Some ~1 year ago (?), it was decided that guards would have a lower weapon-drop rate than other squads. Nobody has ever complained about Guards Rifle weapon pinatas since.

Note that this bug will NOT address bug manifestation #2, which means that the Tommy squad will be using an inferior, baseline weapon, although an upgraded weapon is available.


Other units affected by the same bug

- USF Airborne Pathfinders
- (edited to add) Axis infantry upgraded with g43
- (26 Dec, edited to add): possibly PPSH Conscripts and Guards too?

(possibly also) USF Recon I&R Pathfinders

As far as I know it case 1) work the same way with any infantry that upgrade with non drop-able weapons like the scoped enfield including g43s,PPsh,...

Thanks! I edited my post to add g43 infantry. I've never seen it in practice, since it's very rare that weapons end up on that squad.

The problem becomes most pronounced on Tommies, since it's mainline infantry, and the only possible upgrades they can get are also drop-able. What makes it works is that the vet3 is an automatic upgrade, you have no choice in the matter.

Instead, for g43's the choice you make is active.

There are many times during games where I would gladly _pay_ munitions to _remove_ the vet3 upgrade. This is an enormous hindrance to my playstyle when I play Brits.

As far as I know (and I might be mistaken), the mechanics works as follows.

When ever a squad member carrying a drop-able weapon dies there is check for an empty weapon slot. If such a slot exist the weapon is moved to a entity, if there are no slots left open there is role 33% (less for guards) that the drop-able weapon will "drop".

Keep in mind here that all weapon upgrades even non-dropable take up slots.

I personally don't see the higher drop probability as a serious issue. That is because purchasable weapon upgrades make cheaper more more efficient than their cost and that should come at price.

I would go so far as to characterize current behavior beneficial in some situations. If for instance I have 2 tommies squads and I can give 2 brens in 1 of them (instead 1+1), I can use make 1 of them reach higher veterancy faster so it can access scoped enfield and then wait for the weapon to drop so that I can pick them up with second squad and vet it also...

It's a pretty dumb bug. For some reason relic found it necessary to give tommies different weapons when they vet instead of just boosting their stats like literally every other unit in the game. This makes them worse weapon-pinatas than the old pre-patch guards who could at least take 2 casualties before dropping their weapons.

I gave it a bit of extra thought, and it seems there already exist some manner of weapon priority in the game: minesweepers.

If a minesweeper carrying member dies, the minesweeper always carries over to another squad member (obviously, even an 1-member squad should be able to perform sweeping).

I've updated my initial proposal to reflect that fact.

(PS: I plead you all kindly, NOT to derail the thread with balance-related arguments. A bug is a bug, and bugs deserve to be fixed).

Wait, so what happens to a minesweeper squad with a pickup weapon when it drops down to a single model? Does it auto drop the pickup?

Wait, so what happens to a minesweeper squad with a pickup weapon when it drops down to a single model? Does it auto drop the pickup?

I am not sure exactly. However I do know the following:

Suppose that you have a Rear Echelon with a bazooka and the minesweeper upgrade. Now, suppose that the RE squad has dropped down to two models. One model carries the bazooka, the other model carries the minesweeper.

Regardless of which dies, the other model will ALWAYS have the minesweeper. This is because the minesweeper seems to have a higher priority.

It has happened to me that, sometimes, that RE squad will also drop the bazooka when the squad drops down to one model.

My hypothesis is that the only way the bazooka will (have a chance to) drop is if it is the bazooka-carrying model that dies.

I've never really looked hard enough to test this out, though. You are welcome to try!

When an entity carrying a dropable weapon dies (and there are not weapon slot left) the weapon will either drop (33%), be equipped by one of the remaining models replacing the current weapons or still be in the squad (without any member actually using it) and appear once the squad is reinforced.

This mechanism is the same (as far as I know) for most squad (if not all) and thus is not really a "bug".

It is true the tommies getting upgraded weapon with veterancy is a unique feature...so this mechanism is a bit odd on them.

minesweepers do seem to have priority over other weapons for most engineer type units...

known issue but relic hasn't done anything about it.

Yeah, this doesn't sound like a "bug", but more like an oversight/quality of gameplay issue. Pickup weapons should not be 100% dropping on vet 3 IS's.

Yeah, this doesn't sound like a "bug", but more like an oversight/quality of gameplay issue. Pickup weapons should not be 100% dropping on vet 3 IS's.

They don't they have a 33% of dropping if the units has 2 dropable weapons and it is vet 3...

Tommies will simply seem to prefer to use the scoped Enfields over other dropable weapons.

Tommies will simply seem to prefer to use the scoped Enfields over other dropable weapons.

Not always; it depends on which model dies.

Say, if you have a 4-man IS that carries dual Brens, and it's the Bren-carrying dudes that die, the Brens will not transfer to the scope-carrying dudes.

Conversely, if it's the scope carrying dudes die, the Bren-carrying dudes will still keep using Brens.

This is the MOST annoying part of the bug (bug manifestation #2), as an upgraded IS's performance becomes completely unpredictable after a few deaths. Even if you think it's OK for the IS to drop weapons (I can live with that), there is NO excuse why the IS should NOT be using the upgraded weapons.

Not always; it depends on which model dies.

that was meant but you put much better thanks you. (scoped enfield will not transfer over drop-able weapon and vice versa)

Added Issue to our database. Thanks