Cheers for taking the time for testing this to us! I hope the adjustments to AA make those platforms feel ok now?
The Ostwind, Flak Emplacement, M15A1 seem much more in line. Schwerer is practically useless as an AA tool. Centuar is better, but still a little underpowered from my perspective. However, the Soviet Quad is ludicrously effective, as are pintle-mounted DshK-38s (e.g. those found on IS-2s).
Perhaps 50% damage vs aircraft for the Quad, and for the DshK-38 25% damage?
USF's pintle M2HBs and WM/OKW's pintle MG42s are still completely useless as an AA tool.
Howitzers apply a fixed amount of bonus damage to emplacements, even if they barely touch them. Since we can't touch sim-city stuff, I think it's ok for howitzers to be a safe pair of hands to wipe sim city off the floor, for now. However, if we were allowed to do a proper rebalance of all emplacements, that bonus damage would be have been snapped off.
Indirect fire is meant to be inefficient and unreliable vs mortar pits. That's because we want to design around the retardedness of artillery-spam which the current design promotes. Nevertheless, if we reduce the HP of the pit sufficiently, indirect fire could remain some sort of a soft-counter.
I'd like to see indirect fire remain a soft counter to emplacements. After all, artillery can reliably damage each other on the battlefield (e.g. mortar duels), so I'd like to have the option of brute-forcing down a mortar pit with mortars and infantry support guns.
In FBP v1.2 the fight is extremely one-sided: the pit is so accurate that it reliably damages even Sdkfz. 250/7 Mortar HTs.
If the pit is too durable to all kinds of threats, then it's good news. We can trivially fix this by reducing the raw amount of HP. The fun begins when we make the pit becomes uneven to different kinds of threats.
I haven't tested the pits enough. However, my original impressions are that even without brace, the pit seems too durable. (the only reason the pit might require brace now is fallschirmjagers and lava nades, tbh).
Don't forget the Sdkfz. 250/7 Incendiary Mortar Shell and the mighty Goliath!
Yes, the Pit seems a little too strong. Based on its current durability, I'd like to see 500HP stock and 750HP advanced, then see how that goes and adjust from there.
Edit: Pit survivability seems okay now. Quite vulnerable to infantry flanks, especially when it has not yet been upgraded.
Now, hitbox size and target size are two completely different parameters.
Target size is what balistic weapons use in their calculations to attack. Ideally, the values should stay within 0.8 and 1.2. Anything higher than target size of 2 and bolt actions become completely obsolete, whereas short-range automatics will start sniping the pit from max range, which is less than ideal.
Hitbox size is what affects the size of the mortar pit and determines vulnerability to AoE. We can't change it at will, and can only reuse hitboxes from other entities (in this case, we had to use the TM-35 mine, as it's the only entity that seemed to be able to get overshot by AT guns).
I see why target size shouldn't be touched. Assault Grenadiers wiping Mortar Pits from 30m range would be very bad. However in my experience LMG42 Grens and even LMG34 Obers aren't too effective because the total DPS of the squad is rather low compared to squads completely armed with automatic weaponry (especially at range).
A few thoughts on other units that might need tweaking:
Kubelwagens are so useless as combat units that on most 1v1s I'd go 4 Volks every time instead. They might see use in team games with larger maps though.
If I could tweak Kubelwagens, I'd revert the unit to its original state (strong early-game combatant) but remove its capping ability, or lock it behind an ability akin to SOV Secure Mode (that also requires 3-5 seconds to toggle). This makes the Kubelwagen an early-game combatant, capable of causing decent MP bleed and help infantry win fights, but the OKW player sacrifices capping power (at least the ability to contest points and fight enemy infantry at the same time).
Alternately, because the FBP Kubelwagen is all about capping, increase the rate that it caps points even more (150% capping rate?). This would make it a very strong capping unit, and would also make it much more viable as a point-harrasing unit.
leIG 18s are much, much stronger against infantry. However, the HE barrage is a bit lackluster, and the Hollow Charge ability confounds me (its damage is negligable).
I would say their performance in FBP v1.2 might warrant a cost increase back to its original cost, and throw in a bigger HE barrage (perhaps 6 shells?) and/or a vehicle critical (blind sounds pretty good) for the Hollow Charge (increase cost accordingly too).
#makeleIGgreatagain
M36 Jacksons are strong, very, very strong. Reliably counters all Axis heavy armor, and wrecks mediums reliably as well (even at max range). The only units that reliably outgun it are heavies (Tiger I, Tiger II) and casemate TDs (Elefant, Jagdtiger, StuG III G, Jagdpanzer IV-70) provided they aren't flanked.
I think their performance in FBP v1.2 might warrant a cost increase to around 420MP 155FU (Firefly territory). Either that or reduce it's HP down to 560HP and make it a glass cannon again.