(Mr.Smith's) Quality of Life mod

Is there any possibility to give to the tanks' machine guns the ability to pin infantry (in the same way as the ordinary MGs) when the tanks stand still? Is this a good idea?

Is there any possibility to give to the tanks' machine guns the ability to pin infantry (in the same way as the ordinary MGs) when the tanks stand still? Is this a good idea?

I think this is very doable. You just need to copy-paste whatever made the Kubelwagen MGs work before OKW revamp v1.

Alternatively (if that would hurt DPS too much), you can always add a suppression modifier that only kicks in when the unit is stationary.

Even if that fails, you can alwyays make it a pay-to-activate ability like the universal carrier.

Personally, I don't think that this is a very good idea:
- It is not possible to directly control the target of tank MGs. This is sort of like the UC in the live version. In my mod I made it so that the suppressing MG follows the main MG. For UC this works because both MGs respect the same arc.
- Tanks are very durable, and extremely mobile
- Infantry play might become completely sidelined when a critical mass of tanks start rolling in
- Over-available suppression means squads getting pinned (= trivial to crush them over) or mass retreats (= infantry squads getting wiped on retreat)
- RIP anti-infantry-only "elite" squads

This will, sort of, be like CoH1 teamgames, where vetted Wermacht tanks had passive suppression, and it was just impossible to rely any kind of infantry but airborne vs that kind of threat. (Suppression in CoH2 is, like, 10 times more punishing than CoH1).

This will, sort of, be like CoH1 teamgames, where vetted Wermacht tanks had passive suppression, and it was just impossible to rely any kind of infantry but airborne vs that kind of threat. (Suppression in CoH2 is, like, 10 times more punishing than CoH1).

Ok, I understand that. Maybe Relic should just buff the Ostheer Panther instead.

But I hope that Relic would implement your changes that you have made in this mod to the game, because they are really logical and solves many problems in the game.

That is an excellent idea to benchmark the requirements of this mod. Many of the changes in this mod required me to tweak some conditional actions (some of which are checked as often as 100 milliseconds), while others required me to include repeated actions.

1. Is there any chance you can describe what units the AI built, or, even, uploading a replay to this site, so that I can inspect it?

2. Could you repeat the same test by having 4 Soviets vs 4 Soviets battling it out? There's only a handful of things I changed in that faction, and I want to try to see which changes are the heaviest.

As i said before, i tried to get Kyle_RE attention on this mod, it wouldn't solve everything but more a second step after June balance patch.

https://community.companyofheroes.com/discussion/comment/256701#Comment_256701

Otherwise, i'll upload, in a few hours, some AI battles 4 vs 4 with soviets / OST / OKW & BRITS and make feedbacks on bugs seen.

EDIT :

4 soviet VS 4 soviet -> Used cheatcommand mod to test every unit -> Only one bug detected : a soviet AT refused to moove after i put him on camouflage + no shoot and used barage ability.
Did it on a groupe of 15 AT and only one bugged.

-> Second battle without cheatcommand mod - 1 hrs long - NO FPS ISSUE/ NO BUG DETECTED.

LINK TO THE REPLAY : http://www.filedropper.com/568704vs4

*couldn't upload it on COH2.org, replay upload is bugged*

other replay will come tomorrow, fighting during 2 hrs with AI was boring as hell

Is there any possibility to give to the tanks' machine guns the ability to pin infantry (in the same way as the ordinary MGs) when the tanks stand still? Is this a good idea?

Definitely - expand the suppression_ext in the vehicle MG's weapon bag, set non-zero value (typically it's 0.01) for suppression, and - voila!

As i said before, i tried to get Kyle_RE attention on this mod, it wouldn't solve everything but more a second step after June balance patch.

https://community.companyofheroes.com/discussion/comment/256701#Comment_256701

Otherwise, i'll upload, in a few hours, some AI battles 4 vs 4 with soviets / OST / OKW & BRITS and make feedbacks on bugs seen.

Thanks again for coming back to me!

EDIT :
4 soviet VS 4 soviet -> Used cheatcommand mod to test every unit -> Only one bug detected : a soviet AT refused to moove after i put him on camouflage + no shoot and used barage ability.
Did it on a groupe of 15 AT and only one bugged.

-> Second battle without cheatcommand mod - 1 hrs long - NO FPS ISSUE/ NO BUG DETECTED.

LINK TO THE REPLAY : http://www.filedropper.com/568704vs4

*couldn't upload it on COH2.org, replay upload is bugged*

I have no idea why the soviet gun would bug like that. I will definitely look into it. Does the camouflage-move bug happen in the replay you uploaded? If so, could you give me a hint:
- Which minute of the match this happens
- Where about on the map?

1. Finally, could you try a 2 ostheer 2 OKW vs 4 soviets?

I would expect that the panzerschreck QoL changes I did to be some of the most resource-intensive changes I have included in this mod.

If the CPU spawns pgrens/etc and puts schrecks on them, and the game starts lagging, that would be a very good indication of what went wrong.

2. In your previous post, when you mentioned that the AI battle was lagging, is it possible that you tried to play 3 AI battles in a row? It's very possible that the game fails to unload certain resources between matches, and that's very interesting to discover.

2. In your previous post, when you mentioned that the AI battle was lagging, is it possible that you tried to play 3 AI battles in a row? It's very possible that the game fails to unload certain resources between matches, and that's very interesting to discover.

That seems pretty likely to me since I've tested stuff with matches in quick succession (probably because I forgot to set CheatCommands on or something) and have it take forever to load or even crash.

Sadly, the AT bugged during the first game which i didn't save.
I had spawn a dozen of AT GUN and sent them fight against ennemy base (cloacked), one of them got hit by a mortar shell and couldn't moove anymore. only shoot.
-> it was a big mess and honestly, there is 0 chance that it happens in a real game so i wouldn't bother too much about it.


The reason why i made a second battle is because during the first one i had also the cheatcommand mod (needed to try every unit) and the game started to slutter & micro-freeze a lot.

So i did a second try, only with the QUALITY OF LIFE mod during 1 hrs and everything went fine.
-> the cheatcommand mod was causing the freeze.


2 ostheer & 2 OKW vs 4 soviets will be uploaded tomorrow

Again, i'll make one very stressfull test on each unit (especially with pgren + pzerschreck) with cheatcommand and one without of 1 hrs each one.

2 ostheer & 2 OKW vs 4 soviets will be uploaded tomorrow

Again, i'll make one very stressfull test on each unit (especially with pgren + pzerschreck) with cheatcommand and one without of 1 hrs each one.

Actually, if you believe that the cheatcommands mod was causing the freezes you can save a bit of time by having all 5 factions present in your teamgame.

If the game doesn't slow down, then everything is golden; we don't need to test anything extra. If it freezes up, then we start adding factions step-wise.

Btw, what are your PC specs?
- CPU speed (GHz)
- Memory (Gigabytes)

I7-6700 HQ
970 GTX m
8 gb ram

laptop config.

I just pushed a big-ish update.

The update consists of:
- USF Paratrooper changes
- UKF Commando Glider changes
- Reinforcement fairness*

In short:
- Paratrooper-crewed weapons can now reinforce near beacons (by parachuting into the weapon!)
- Commando Glider can spawn 350MP commandos
- To differentiate Commando glider from Logistics glider, Commando glider can reinforce nearby units, even when cut-off
- Reinforcement times normalised, from 4 seconds to 9-ish seconds to all models
- All infantry models cost 1-pop per head (which means it's now safe to recrew team-weapons with, e.g., Commandos/Paratroopers without running out of popcap).

You can dig up more details about these changes on the original post.

*If your name is Miragefla, I want to know how you fixed things for Panzergrenadiers/Obersoldaten/Tommies/Sturmpioneers
Planet Smasher was kind enough to provide a fix!

Here you can see the precise cost/reinforcement time per squad in the mod. A (+) or a (-) denote a value that was touched by the mod.

Let me know if I missed something / there is any value you disagree with.

Table:
Show Spoiler

grenadier : 240 MP 30 reinforce mp cost ... something wrong in this world
penal 300 MP but reinforce 25

seem like all elite infantry except Obersodaten have almost the same reinforce rate its fine now

1. I changed the squad formations for all squads in the game. Now all squads use the riflemen formation.

There were two decent squad formations in the game:
- Tommy formation
- Riflemen (all allied infantry, except Sappers)

The Axis squad formation sucked, so they needed to change.

The only difference between Tommy formation and Riflemen formation is what happens when the squad is down to 2 men, or 3 men.

I, personally, couldn't tell the difference between Riflemen formation and Tommy formation. Thus, I picked the Riflemen formation, which was more prevalent.

Note:
- All squads still have terrible bunching up behind yellow cover
- I haven't touched weapon team formation at all

2. Airborne can now (re)buy singular LMGs if they only have 1 slot free (or they lost a weapon).

grenadier : 240 MP 30 reinforce mp cost ... something wrong in this world
penal 300 MP but reinforce 25

seem like all elite infantry except Obersodaten have almost the same reinforce rate its fine now

That's the live version shenanigans! Note that you shouldn't make the reinforcement cost between Penals and Conscripts too big, or you are going to see loads of merge cheese.

Obers and Falls are significantly stronger than the other squads. They also come in a smaller squad, thus reinforcing them shouldn't take that much time.

4x30 = 120 MP -> Grenadier (cost 240).
6x25 = 150 MP -> PENAL (cost 300).

Everything is ok, i don't get why "something is wrong" ?

However, these changes in reinforce values are HUGE.
Some are clearly understandable, like WTF would pioner be a 6 pop squad when soviet engineer is 5 pop ?

seems fair to bring them to the same level, however i got some doubts on 2 things :

Grenadier -> reduce to 6 pop (same that conscript) while being still much better at any time of the game. you are going to make soviet main infantry more useless that it is already.

To counter that, a little buff of soviet infantry (accuracy at long range & received accuracy) would be great.

USF captain and lieutnant : you reduced their reinforce cost, considering they are 'free' squad it makes them too better.

i could be wrong on these things, that's just a point of view.


But, honestly, trying to balance coh 2 is a big mess.


i was much hyped in this mod because it is mainly fixing bug issues and adding some usefull stuffs (no balance except piats, para and commandos) but if you want to change infantry cost, it's not the same thing.
If you are going to make more balance stuff, you might loose all the potential of this mod : there are already a thousands of balance mods (miragefla, GG, and much more...).

Grenadier -> reduce to 6 pop (same that conscript) while being still much better at any time of the game. you are going to make soviet main infantry more useless that it is already.

To counter that, a little buff of soviet infantry (accuracy at long range & received accuracy) would be great.

That's a good point actually. The 6 pop thing is kinda necessary to bring grenadiers in line with Riflemen and (reduced-pop) Tommies.

I will try to give Conscripts (and Ostruppen) a 5-popcap cost, but I can't guarantee that this will be possible.

To be fair, for Soviets it would make more sense to simply increase their popcap to, say 110 - 120. The reason is that those 6-man crews really chew up popcap. However, unlike other factions, Soviets completely lack infantry that's proper for recrewing team weapons (OST gets free sight range, Brits get received accuracy, etc).

The reason why you don't see maxim-spam etc fill up Soviet popcap so fast is because Maxims cost literally 0 popcap. For comparison:
- MG34: 1 popcap
- All other MGs: 2 popcap

USF captain and lieutnant : you reduced their reinforce cost, considering they are 'free' squad it makes them too better.

1. Then make the squads cost MP to summon. For another example that follows the same twisted logic, take AT partisans.

In the live version it takes about 270MP to summon a partisan squad with a panzerschreck and an AT nade out of any building. That's super cheap.

However, the cost to reinforce AT partisan models is 2 popcap and 35+ MP per model. That is way too much for what this unit can do. Partisans can't even fight OST Pioneers properly; why should they cost so much more to reinforce?

Thus, the pricing scheme is killing the unit, limiting its use to spawn & snare cheese.

2. This wasn't so much a reduction in the cost, as much as a normalisation. The captain model would take 50MP to reinforce, whereas the cohort would take 25MP per-piece to reinforce.

Occasionally, when you would queue up reinforcement for these squads, the game would screw you over and it would charge you 200MP to reinforce 4 members, instead of 125MP. That difference is big, and that made those "free" squads a huge dead-weight.

Riflemen and Tommies cost 28MP to reinforce. Lieutenant and Captain are no better than riflemen, so why should they cost more to reinforce?

i was much hyped in this mod because it is mainly fixing bug issues and adding some usefull stuffs (no balance except piats, para and commandos) but if you want to change infantry cost, it's not the same thing.
If you are going to make more balance stuff, you might loose all the potential of this mod : there are already a thousands of balance mods (miragefla, GG, and much more...).

That's true.

The thing, though, was that it was always my intention to fix popcap/reinforcement cost of these units when said units are recrewing, say, an AT weapon. This completely screws up certain factions (e.g., Brits), since they only have 1 unit "appropriate" for recrewing AT guns. Everything else is a suicide.

Since, to implement that change, I had to touch a whole lot of files. Thus, also fixing the inconsistent reinforcement cost/popcap at the same time was actually easy to do at that time, than leave it for later.

I mean, some of the values for some units are so glaringly-off, you have to ask why:
- 35MP-ish per AT partisan model
- 35MP-ish for assault engineers
- 10 popcap for commandos
- etc

Most of the reinforcement buffs I gave are in line with other, similar buffs that 4-man elite squads have received. It's just the units that are outside the limelight for too long (e.g, Greyhound, KV1) tend to get completely ignored.

Version 0.1:

I added some changes which with further improve squad spacing in all squads in the game. The goal of these changes is to:
- Avoid squad members bumping onto each other when issued different orders
- Find squad formations that make squads spread out as fast as possible when moving away from cover

When squads drop to 2 or 3 models they will use the Tommy/Panzerfusilier squad formation, which don't have the forementioned issues.

However, the most immediately obvious changes are for the following:
- 4-model squads will now use the 5-man formation, but with one member missing
- 6-model squads will use the 5-man formation + 1 guy spaced up between the two guys in the rear

Previously, 6-model formations sucked really hard, since they always had 3 members in close proximity with one another.

Let me know how the formations feel like, especially the 6-member one. Do the new formations create issues for:
- Close-range squads (e.g., shocks)?
- LMG-troops?
- Engaging MGs, etc (since the 6 squads members no longer form a line)

Let me know, if those problems are an issue and I can try to do adjustments per-squad.

PS: Many thanks to Planet Smasher, once again, for his feedback.

i will definately try this new squad formation today !

Btw, the idea of increasing pop cap of soviet is not bad but it could lead to abuse, since it would be easier to spam maxims/guards and still let the conscripts in the trash.

(if you can't set conscript pop to 5, why no reduce their reinforce cost to 16/18 (like osstruppen)).

on the other hand, you are right to fix these population "bugs/balance", just beware of the balance impact on the game.

Again, these are only suggestions from a top 200 player, might be great to get help from some top 10 player on reinforce & pop of units.

i will definately try this new squad formation today !

Btw, the idea of increasing pop cap of soviet is not bad but it could lead to abuse, since it would be easier to spam maxims/guards and still let the conscripts in the trash.

(if you can't set conscript pop to 5, why no reduce their reinforce cost to 16/18 (like osstruppen)).

on the other hand, you are right to fix these population "bugs/balance", just beware of the balance impact on the game.

Again, these are only suggestions from a top 200 player, might be great to get help from some top 10 player on reinforce & pop of units.

I actually forgot to try the 5-pop conscripts.

The thing with popcap is that all values have to be integral, otherwise there might be issues when calling tanks in:
- If you recall, USF had issues where calling in the Pershing tank sometimes took the money away but spawned no tank

If I were allowed to change soviet popcap to 120, I would do the following:
- Conscript remains at 6 popcap
- Zis and Maxim guns now get popcap equivalent to OSTheer. This means that maxims now cost 8 popcap
- Penals go to 8 popcap
- Guards/Shocks might get to 9 popcap
- T34 goes to 12 popcap
- SU85 goes to 14 popcap
etc

The idea, here, is that assuming I can't change Conscript popcap:
- I increase max popcap by 20%
- Inflate every other unit's popcap by 20%
- Adjust MP upkeep to scale according to the new popcap

... this is functionally equivalent to reducing conscript popcap to 5. Except for the fact that 1-man conscripts will not cost 0 popcap.

Thus, whichever compositiion was possible popcap changes, it remains the same.

PS: I am thinking of trialing a nerfed USF mortar for the mod. USF mortar stats must obviously be a bug.