Some other changes that have been in for sometime, while we were working on the fall balance preview mod:
Anti-emplacement damage target tables
Due the effective removal of brace and the extreme amount of damage several abilities can cause to unbraced emplacements, we are toning certain abilities down:
- Removed all damage bonuses vs emplacements for all weapons except for goliaths
- MortarHT/Stuka dot modifier vs emplacements reduced from 1.25 to 0.6
- Remaining flame dot damage modifiers reduced from 1.25 to 0.42
- Scavenge artillery damage modifier vs emplacements from 1 to 0.75
The modifiers do not mean that while those abilities remain strong vs emplacements, they will not outright kill them. Adjustments were necessary since Brace duration is 5 seconds.
MortarHT
MortarHT flame barrage has become too unreliable; especially with the small hitbox size of certain emplacements.
- Incendiary DoT spread reduced from 14 radius to 7 radius (makes damage more concentrated/reliable)
- DoT damage vs emplacements affected from target table changes.
Still says 2.1 ingame. No squad AI to be seen when playing.
You can tell if you're playing v2.2 or later if the squad formation of Combat Engineers looks different from that of Conscripts, and both look different from what is in the live game.
Note that the only squads that have received idle squad AI are undisciplined squads (e.g., Conscripts, Volks, Penals, Osttruppen, RE's). That's because all currently available idle AI is bad (and we cannot modify squad ai files). All non-weapon-team squads, however, have received squad-ai changes to their attack plans.
I played the mod earlier today against the CPU out of curiosity. The changes to the squad formations and AI work like a charm, it's really fun, and makes the games feel, well, brand new again. That's definitely a positive addition, albeit it being a bit weird looking sometimes, but I am not used to infantry moving around that much I guess. I didn't know about the IAC, but it's great you guys work together. Any chance to bring that over to the scope of the official FBP mod?
We'll definitely try pathfinding improvements and formation changes.
For squad-ai, we first have to get assurances from Relic that they will let us modify squad-ai to improve it. e.g., all squads should at least be allowed to take potshots at their direct target before being forced to seek cover (that way AT weapons do not become unusable*).
If we use current squad-ai, the outcry is going to be vocal enough for squad-ai never to be seen again.
Btw, fixing squad-ai will also allow for squads to become more "chatty" during combat.
*In the mod handheld AT is on a good spot with squad-ai, given that they have passive prioritise vehicles on; so I guess they're still usable.