firesparks' balance mod

Feedback:

-Valentine Mk. XI tanks arrive too soon, now that they are much stronger. Perhaps a CP requirement increase?

-M4 Shermans firing HE are exceptionally strong against German infantry. It's as strong a shock unit--it will demolish anyone still sitting in T2. Perhaps a Veterancy requirement or an upgrade to increase durability?

Edit: abilities\british\toggle_ability\brit_emplacement_braced_mp seems to be Brace ability.

does 9 cp for valentine look good? it's the same requirement as the command panzer 4.


and I also want to decrease the sherman's moving accuracy. its current 1.5 moving scatter make it easy to wipe infantry on retreat.

updated the mod. First post have the accumulative changes but here's what's been recently changed

-UKF-

hammer/anvil cost increased to 240 mp 70 fuel
squad size upgrade cost lowered to 80 mp 15 fuel

Tommies
target size increased to .9
reinforcement time decreased to 5.6 (also affect build time)

Sapper
now have access to white phosphorus grenade once the grenade upgrade is researched
target size increased to .9

(emphasize the importance of purchasing side tech by making it cheaper or stronger. White phosphorus grenade to give the british more option in clearing garrison. More expensive hammer/anvil to match the ost t4)


delay the arrival of british tank, especially the churchil/comet, but make the squad size upgrade cheaper to compensate.

bofor suppression barrage range raise back to 80. (last patch nerfed it pretty hard)

Firefly tulip now disable the gun for 7 second instead of vehicle stun.
(remove the issue of having vehicle stun on a mobile platform. The tulip is now used to mezz powerful target such as King Tiger)

Vicker:
Redid vicker profile, better suppression but lower dps
20.8592| 18.8722 |16.9871| 15.2030| 13.5195| 11.9713| 10.5465| 9.2058| 7.9491| 6.776471

valentine:
command point requirement raised to 9
(delay its arrival per AtomicRockets' suggestion)

comet:
range lowered to 40 meters
cost lowered to 490 mp 175 fuel
now retain access to regular smoke at vet 1
wp smoke range decreased to 30
(comet was a too effective with its range, sight, and white phosphorus shell)

-OST-

tiger:
top speed increased to 5.5
acceleration increased to 1.8
(increase the tiger's speed to differentiate it from the King tiger)

panther:
range decreased to 40 meters
reload time decreased by one second
(faster reload and shorter range to emphasis the panther's role as a tank hunter/brawler)

increased the panzergrenadier mp44's long range dps
15.3553 | 15.3553 | 12.8163 | 10.10420736 | 7.76411 | 5.9189 | 4.2441 | 2.7303


-USF-

sherman moving scatter modifier increased to 2
(make the sherman less deadly against infantry, to emphasis the sherman's role as the USF late game meatshield)

-OKW-

volks:
(changes to its veterancy)
healing moved to vet 4
sight bonus moved to vet1
(giving volks healing at vet 4 was found to be too powerful)

Panther: I had almost the same exact idea, but I nerfed its HP to 640 and decreased its cost to 440/155 so that it would be more easy to field. WM T4 is really late, after all.

Also, did you adjust the moving accuracy penalty?

Volks: Typo? I don't quite understand your change.

I see that you have differentiated the Tiger from the Tiger II. Would you like to look into making the IS-2 unique as well?

I think this goes in the wrong direction for a lot of things. For example making the 17 pounder too viable AND increasing bofor hp (without removing brace) just means that the map will be more totally locked off for the ukf.
I don't like the agility nerf for the Cromwell either. Find a better way to reduce crush.

Panther: I had almost the same exact idea, but I nerfed its HP to 640 and decreased its cost to 440/155 so that it would be more easy to field. WM T4 is really late, after all.

Also, did you adjust the moving accuracy penalty?

Volks: Typo? I don't quite understand your change.

I see that you have differentiated the Tiger from the Tiger II. Would you like to look into making the IS-2 unique as well?

lowering the panther's hp mean that it's going to have less hp than a lot of other tanks, including the e8 and t34-85.

I didn't adjust the moving penalty. one second faster reload is pretty drastic change. I want to see how it perform before I change it further.

I made changes to the volks' veterancy. turns out giving them healing at vet 1 was too powerful. If you weren't following the vet changes closely you can just look at the main change log. the minor log are for recording "day to day" changes

and the is2 is good enough that I don't really want to change it. If I was going to do anything it would probably be something to the is2's alpha damage and reload.

I think this goes in the wrong direction for a lot of things. For example making the 17 pounder too viable AND increasing bofor hp (without removing brace) just means that the map will be more totally locked off for the ukf.
I don't like the agility nerf for the Cromwell either. Find a better way to reduce crush.

you are going to be need to be more specific with your objection to the 17 pounder changes. I change the 17 pounder's range to 85 meters to match the jagdtiger. Without that changes, the jagdtiger hard counter the 17 pdr. I lowered the 17 pdr's pop to 14 pop because 20 seems excessive. the pak 43 is only 10 pop. The british could probably do without the 17 pounder considering the 6 pdr and firefly.

I will admit that I'm sort of treating lock down as an afterthought. There's a lot of stuff I can do with it but rI am not quite sure which one is the best.

the cromwell's high agility is directly tied to its crushing ability. Aside from nerfing its acceleration or rotation rate, the only other way to nerf its crush is to remove the crush entirely.

lowering the panther's hp mean that it's going to have less hp than a lot of other tanks, including the e8 and t34-85.

With 1 second less reload and brutally thick front armor, the Panther will still win the fight against advanced allied mediums. It has the speed to continuously keep its frontal armor pointed in the right direction, and enough DPM to kill a T-34/85 or an M4A3E8.

and the is2 is good enough that I don't really want to change it. If I was going to do anything it would probably be something to the is2's alpha damage and reload.

My idea to make it unique would be to increase its main gun to 240 damage, but also increase reload time by 25%. Also increasing its scatter from 0.25 to 0.5, making it less of an infantry wipe monster as well.

With 1 second less reload and brutally thick front armor, the Panther will still win the fight against advanced allied mediums. It has the speed to continuously keep its frontal armor pointed in the right direction, and enough DPM to kill a T-34/85 or an M4A3E8.



My idea to make it unique would be to increase its main gun to 240 damage, but also increase reload time by 25%. Also increasing its scatter from 0.25 to 0.5, making it less of an infantry wipe monster as well.

if the intention was to make the panther more easy to access, I don't believe down scaling the panther is the right choice. The panther needs to be efficient against both heavy and medium. I don't think 640 hp is enough hp against comet, Pershing, is2, etc.

I had similar idea with the is2's gun and I appreciate your feedback. However, I believe that the is2 is at a good place currently and I don't want to fix what's not broken.

I think the wehr panther and tiger suffered from a case of power creep ever since wfa and british got release. I want to give them both a minor buff without going overboard.

new changes:

-USF-

stuart:
cost increased to 280 mp 70 fuel
stun round no longer stop movement

81mm:
now longer require the grenade upgrade
vet 1 passive bonus replace with delayed fuse HE
cost lowered to 240mp

-sov-
t-70:
cost increased to 280 mp 70 fuel
reload time increased to 3.2-2.8 seconds

-british-
brace now only halve damage. (50% protection from 75%)

(as always, the grand list in the first post have everything)

There's two things that irk me about British infantry upgrades (in the live version):

1. It's too expensive, and way too skippable (making them irrelevant in the grand-scheme):
- Brits start the game on the backfoot, until they can field the first Cromwell
- Upgrades will allow them, to offset part of that disadvantage
- No matter how many resources are spent into the upgrade, Tommies will become obsolete by the late-game, regardless
- Thus, it's better to eat the bullet early so that you can start pumping out Cromwells.

2. Brits have strong tanks. However, their upgrades are entirely geared towards infantry.
- If upgrades aren't meant to make your infantry strong, they become skippable
- If upgrades are meant to make your infantry strong, then this might cause a balance issue (strong infantry AND tanks)

As things are, I would currently rate the side-benefits for researching Hammer/Anvil way better than the global upgrades you can buy off the HQ (which are, cumulatively, more expensive)

The changes you propose in the mod, handle issue #1 really nicely. However, I worry whether we arrive at the situation described in #2. One option would be to make upgrades really useful, but also really expensive (thus, getting all of them becomes difficult). Say:
- Make UKF (non-skippable) Tech costs amount to 250-ish like other factions
- Make each individual upgrade useful, and make it so that researching everything + tech costs would amount to 320 fuel or something
- (no idea about manpower costs though)

However, even in a long-ish game, getting all upgrades will not be an issue.

Perhaps a more sustainable solution might be substituting some of the infantry upgrades with tank-geared upgrades. e..g, make vanilla tanks weaker, but offer the player to fork additional cache to unlock them. For instance:
- A tank commander upgrade before you are allowed to purchase individual tank commanders
- Warspeed upgrade
- Heavy engineers upgrade
- etc

2. Brits have strong tanks. However, their upgrades are entirely geared towards infantry.
- If upgrades aren't meant to make your infantry strong, they become skippable
- If upgrades are meant to make your infantry strong, then this might cause a balance issue (strong infantry AND tanks)

The changes you propose in the mod, handle issue #1 really nicely. However, I worry whether we arrive at the situation described in #2. One option would be to make upgrades really useful, but also really expensive (thus, getting all of them becomes difficult). Say:
- Make UKF (non-skippable) Tech costs amount to 250-ish like other factions
- Make each individual upgrade useful, and make it so that researching everything + tech costs would amount to 320 fuel or something
- (no idea about manpower costs though)

However, even in a long-ish game, getting all upgrades will not be an issue.

Perhaps a more sustainable solution might be substituting some of the infantry upgrades with tank-geared upgrades. e..g, make vanilla tanks weaker, but offer the player to fork additional cache to unlock them. For instance:
- A tank commander upgrade before you are allowed to purchase individual tank commanders
- Warspeed upgrade
- Heavy engineers upgrade
- etc

the changes to the british faction nerfed the end state of both infantry and tanks. one bren gun and .90 RA is significantly weaker than two bren with .80 RC. Comet is also a significantly weaker beast without its 50 range. I will also likely remove one of the croc churchill's flamethrower as well. Having decent tank and decent infantry is different from having strong infantry and strong tank.

beside, two of the british infantry upgrade are just the standard weapon rack and grenades. The US, wehr, and OKW get similar upgrade on their infantry. It doesn't seems a good idea to replace the vital infantry weapon and grenade upgrade for a vehicle upgrade. One of the main issue plaguing the conscript since release is their lack of weapon upgrade.

The one true unique british infantry upgrade is their squad size, and it's kind of part of their identity. The main reason I nerfed the base infantry and lowered the cost of the squad upgrade is to balance the british infantry around them being 5 men. I wanted to make people buy it early on.

Good points.

The one true unique british infantry upgrade is their squad size, and it's kind of part of their identity. The main reason I nerfed the base infantry and lowered the cost of the squad upgrade is to balance the british infantry around them being 5 men. I wanted to make people buy it early on.

Brit squad size upgrade is probably the MVP of the optional upgrades. The upgrade could use a manpower cost reduction (you are paying for the 5th reinforced member after all). However, making the upgrade too cheap will turn it back into a no-brainer.

One way to more consistently balance around the upgrade is make fresh squads always come out as 4-men squads. Thus, if you want 5-men squads, you always have to reinforce.

One way to balance this upgrade is the follows:
- Suppose that the worth of a 5-man Tommy squads is 280 (at 28MP / model)
- This would make the worth of 4-man Tommy squads equal to 224MP

Now:
- Change the cost of 4-men Tommy squads to 252 MP (or round it up somehow)
- Every time the player summons a (4-man squad) they pay 252MP.
- If the player wants the squad bumped up to 5-man, they have to pay 280 MP (summoning the squad + reinforcing)

Alternatively, another way to make the 5-man upgrade more appealing is:
- Change the popcap cost of vanilla 4-man Tommies (and sappers) back to 7 (like the live version)
- Make the 5-man upgrade reduce the popcap requirement of Tommy and Sapper squads by 1, so that 5-man squads have a popcap requirement of 7, and upgraded 4-man squads get a popcap requirement of 6.

PS: Another thing that affects infantry combat but doesn't show up in the stats at first glance is an additional 0.9 received accuracy modifier applied to all Brit infantry (Tommies, Sappers, Commandos), while those units are behind cover. I don't know if you intend to keep it or not.

Good points.

Now:
- Change the cost of 4-men Tommy squads to 252 MP (or round it up somehow)
- Every time the player summons a (4-man squad) they pay 252MP.
- If the player wants the squad bumped up to 5-man, they have to pay 280 MP (summoning the squad + reinforcing)

PS: Another thing that affects infantry combat but doesn't show up in the stats at first glance is an additional 0.9 received accuracy modifier applied to all Brit infantry (Tommies, Sappers, Commandos), while those units are behind cover. I don't know if you intend to keep it or not.

it would be easier to make the tommies cost 250 by default and then 280 after upgrade.

trying to implement your suggestion is going to run into math problem. 28/(252/4) = .4444... . Squads are also seems to be hardcoded to enter the battlefield at max member by default. Making them enter "short handed" would require some tricks.

and I do know about the .90 ra bonus in cover. I want to keep it since it encourage the use of cover.

it would be easier to make the tommies cost 250 by default and then 280 after upgrade.

trying to implement your suggestion is going to run into math problem. 28/(252/4) = .4444... . Squads are also seems to be hardcoded to enter the battlefield at max member by default. Making them enter "short handed" would require some tricks.

and I do know about the .90 ra bonus in cover. I want to keep it since it encourage the use of cover.

I think it should be possible to assign the 252 as follows:
- 224 MP core unit cost, with 0.5 reinforcement modifier (to get 28 MP tommy models)
- 28 MP one-off upgrade cost (to make the grand-total 252)

I don't know how to do this exactly like that yet. However, this is what Miragefla has done for his mod to fix the MG/AT-gun recrew bug (where Tommies/PGrens etc would cost their original highway-robbery price to reinforce every time they man a weapon).

bar: cost decreased to 50 munition

UKF: tommies squad now cost 250 mp by default, and 280 mp after size upgrade. reinforcement cost unchanged.

(fixed an issue where people can still buy double m1919a6 or bren)

UKF sappers could also use a loose formation like Tommies/axis infantry in the mod.

Another thing you could do with Sappers is cause the 5-man upgrade to increase the cost of calling in new Sappers.

Give then changes to received accuracy for Tommies/Sapper, I can't really recommend an appropriate price for your mod. However, for the live version, I would say that:
- 4-man sappers should cost about 215-225
- 5-man sapper should cost about 240-260

(reinforcement cost should not go above 26, since that's the only unit that can be safely used to recrew team weapons for Brits, currently).

UKF sappers could also use a loose formation like Tommies/axis infantry in the mod.

Another thing you could do with Sappers is cause the 5-man upgrade to increase the cost of calling in new Sappers.

Give then changes to received accuracy for Tommies/Sapper, I can't really recommend an appropriate price for your mod. However, for the live version, I would say that:
- 4-man sappers should cost about 215-225
- 5-man sapper should cost about 240-260

(reinforcement cost should not go above 26, since that's the only unit that can be safely used to recrew team weapons for Brits, currently).

I will most likely make it 210/260mp.

I will most likely make it 210/260mp.

With a 210/260 cost it will be cheaper for the player to first amass a group of Sapper squads, and then do the upgrade.

The difference between the two should, probably, not exceed the reinforcement cost. You should be incentivising people to research the 5-man upgrade earlier; not later!

new changes:

sapper now cost 234 mp by default, and 260 mp after size upgrade. reinforcement cost unchanged
sapper population cost lowered to 5/6

tommies now cost 252 mp by default, and 280 mp after size upgrade. reinforcement cost unchanged

changed PIAT to use arcing homing projectile (thanks to Mr. Smith for the instruction)