state of british artillery

The british's weakness in artillery is fairly well known. While there are suggestion of replacing the pit with a mobile mortar, I believe that it is still possible to rework the existing system to be useful.

Foward observer Tommies: current howitzer barrage is replaced with a free mortar barrage that can hit anywhere . The catch is that the ability is useless without a mortar pit built. the range of the ability itself is 60m. IE you can hit the HQ section if you can get the tommies that close.

mortar pit: population go down to 6 pop and cost go down to 240.

This mean the mortar pit and observation tommies work as a system. Instead of a mobile mortar, the tommy act as a FOO calling down long range fire from on map mortar. The tommies' ability is free because you need to build and maintain a mortar pit.

HQ 25 pdr: ability moved to the HQ. Can now fire anywhere within LOS at a cost of 60 munition.

Concentration Barrage (Royal artillery doctrine): now affects all sexton and mortar pit in addition to the HQ 25 pounder. Bypass normal barrage recharge.


valentine coordinated fire: replaced with the tommies' mortar barrage from above.

you never played the right brits commander with their arty abiltys, do you?

Why should the best defence faction ingame get the best arty bombardment to defeat defence lines? brit laugh about a defence line...drop a red flare and wait that your enemy must run to the base..or get killed.

No.

240MP for a mortar pit that can technically hit anywhere, has 2 mortars and can do so for free?

Tommies aren't even at any risk because it can direct those flares from a TD's max range. Same goes for the Valentine.

Have you ever considered learning more about the faction and how it's played and compares to others before asking for unnecessary buffs?

Sooo this is basically the CoH Victor target of the Captain, but instead of player built 25 pounders firing, it's player built mortars?

I could see that working, but then if you lose the IS section with the flares the mortars basically become useless unless they are not built in the safety of the base sector and still have their normal auto barrage ability.

Which would then make this pointless as the problem with the mortar pit is it's inability to move, and thus survive.

So even if you get another IS with flares their effectiveness again comes under questions, especially mid and late game where there is a bigger chance of them getting wiped. So having to keep buying IS with flares just to use your mortars sound a bit iffy.

Then there's the 2nd scenario where the mortar pit is built on the frontline and would be hell to babysit because you'd need to divide your attention between the defense of the pit and the flare IS and what they're targeting.

Now like I said, I like the idea and it seems realistic to me that an in direct fire unit would need a spotter in order to fire at long ranges but in practice it only worked in CoH because you usually built the 25 pounders wayyy back in defended lines, they had longer range and their firing abilities had a timer on them after use, so using the captain's Victor target was actually worth it.

While here you have something that's shorter ranged and costly in the early game because of the manpower shortage of the British, and again, if built in the back in a safe place, it's auto barrage potential is wasted, if at the front you'd need to babysit and devide your attention between it and other things constantly and most people cannot reach that high of an APM like some Starcraft pros can.

i like brit. but i dont think this is a good idea tho. althoguh it is mid game. but all tommiea can have free cover remover for everyone. like every volks in this game have a good cover remover from the start. tbh there is no other options but to give back pit range back or give brit commando support weapons from coh1

While interesting, I think that this is too radical of an idea to implement at this point. A safer solution would be to simply buff the mortar emplacement’s range. It won’t be OP because all mortars are getting a damage nerf that will severely nerf all mortars enough in other ways.

While interesting, I think that this is too radical of an idea to implement at this point. A safer solution would be to simply buff the mortar emplacement’s range. It won’t be OP because all mortars are getting a damage nerf that will severely nerf all mortars enough in other ways.

What are you talking about "radical" lol. Just replace the base 25 pounders firing when the IS throw their flare ability with the mortar pit and presto, just copy and paste the current ability to the HQ and remove it's range limit and you have this, I can probably whip it up in like 30 minutes or something if I wanted.

However I may be tripping a bit here since I'm quite rusty in CoH2's modding and I'm currently doing other things so yeah...

But other than that, I don't think there is anything "radical" about it.

Not radical in implemtation, but radical in how it changes the gameplay. A simpler buff to range would make it useable again without the potential for unforeseen second and third order of effects as a result on such a big change in how the mortars are used.

I just think it’s a safer bet to go with incremental changes rather than a whole new way of playing the mortar pit.

But that’s just my opinion. Lol

Not radical in implemtation, but radical in how it changes the gameplay. A simpler buff to range would make it useable again without the potential for unforeseen second and third order of effects as a result on such a big change in how the mortars are used.

I just think it’s a safer bet to go with incremental changes rather than a whole new way of playing the mortar pit.

But that’s just my opinion. Lol

then you run into the problem of scaling.

stationary howitzer work because they are essentially a choice by the player. The three factions that use on map howitzer have rocket artillery and mortar/leig. In most cases the rocket artillery and mortar is enough to dislodge an enemy and a howitzer is unnecessary.

secondly the howitzer's range doesn't become an issue aside from the huge 3v3/4v4 map, and even then it's huge enough to cover the mid vp while in relative safety. They actually had to force the restriction of "no hq sector" to make the player build them closer to the front line.

lastly, the howitzer is a late game unit when the frontline is starting to stall, and it is for situation when the line stabilize.

Early game front-line is entirely too fluid to commit your force to a single location, and I doubt we want the mortar pit to be powerful enough to force a static front.

I don't see mortar getting the kind of barrage range necessary to not be liability.

No.

240MP for a mortar pit that can technically hit anywhere, has 2 mortars and can do so for free?

Tommies aren't even at any risk because it can direct those flares from a TD's max range. Same goes for the Valentine.

Have you ever considered learning more about the faction and how it's played and compares to others before asking for unnecessary buffs?

see:

I could see that working, but then if you lose the IS section with the flares the mortars basically become useless unless they are not built in the safety of the base sector and still have their normal auto barrage ability.

Which would then make this pointless as the problem with the mortar pit is it's inability to move, and thus survive.

the mortar pit's autofire will still be 80m, meaning the mortar pit's purpose is to provide the tommies with an off map. The FOO upgrade is painfully obvious and would be the primary target of every axis player.

If the british have the FOO tommy hang back it's 7 pop, 280 mp, 45+ mu not contributing to the fire fight.

i like brit. but i dont think this is a good idea tho. althoguh it is mid game. but all tommiea can have free cover remover for everyone.

the medic kit is exclusive with the FOO upgrade. In practice you need at least two medical tommies. If the british decide to go all FOO then he's going to lack healing.

and since it's a victor target, all the FOO order is going to get in each other's way. They would only allow the mortar to change target faster, not more firepower.

Have you ever considered learning more about the faction and how it's played and compares to others before asking for unnecessary buffs?

what, spam land mattress if you want any decent artillery? In the Han/devm vs scot/nog UTT game there was basically no usage of mortar pit and FOO tommies and it was land mattress every game.

Pit would be fine if its BARRAGE range was returned to its former glory, base arty would be alright if it was quicker to respond. Being a semi on map there's no reason for it to take so bloody long to get going ontop of having an arty flare. It has the drawbacks of off maps AND the drawback of not being a global... Worst of both worlds

Pit would be fine if its BARRAGE range was returned to its former glory, base arty would be alright if it was quicker to respond. Being a semi on map there's no reason for it to take so bloody long to get going ontop of having an arty flare. It has the drawbacks of off maps AND the drawback of not being a global... Worst of both worlds

extending the pit's barrage range doesn't solve the fundmental problem.

The british is going to be stuck as a campy faction if their only tech artillery is immobile with a limited range. the investment into the mortar pit demand the british protect it.

extending the pit's barrage range doesn't solve the fundmental problem.

The british is going to be stuck as a campy faction if their only tech artillery is immobile with a limited range. the investment into the mortar pit demand the british protect it.

Its previous range gave it dominance of most of the map and that range being auto fire allowed it to sway battles without any input. Its current range makes it nearly unusable because its stuck between being in range of a mobile enemy and out of range of anything.

It needs range to not be a waste but it needs a micro tax to not make it over powered

I think the pit should keep its auto attack range , but be given its barrage range back , as its pitiful now. I rarely even emplace anymore as I dont think its worth , unless ive got the spare mp.

IS w/ flares i tend to have one or two. Even then its more area denial than kills , how effective is it for everybody else?

Glad a thread on this now exists.

Not radical in implemtation, but radical in how it changes the gameplay. A simpler buff to range would make it useable again without the potential for unforeseen second and third order of effects as a result on such a big change in how the mortars are used.

I just think it’s a safer bet to go with incremental changes rather than a whole new way of playing the mortar pit.

But that’s just my opinion. Lol

Again, there is nothing radical about it. The base 25 pounders are just replaced by mortars firing after the IS lob the flare and the base 25 pounders can fire independently without the IS, that's about it, if of course we're going by what he wants to do.

the mortar pit's autofire will still be 80m, meaning the mortar pit's purpose is to provide the tommies with an off map. The FOO upgrade is painfully obvious and would be the primary target of every axis player.

If the british have the FOO tommy hang back it's 7 pop, 280 mp, 45+ mu not contributing to the fire fight

Apart from that like I said if the mortar pit happened to be firing at another squad, possibly an enemy mortar trying to counter it for example, and you throw the IS flares the mortar will start firing there instead of at the enemy mortar or other squad coming to take it out. And believe me this will happen more often than not because you can't constantly divide your attention between your infantry squads, your HQ, any vehicles or other emplacements you have and also pay attention to your mortar pit or what's it firing at and so forth.

And I would like to again point out that the pit's main problem is it's survivability. It's the only non-doctrinal indirect fire unit that cannot move, and that's a huge problem especially given now that it has a shorter range.

Literally the only thing it had going for it before was it's range and arguably fire rate.

It's auto barrage range has been nerfed, it's fire rate has been nerfed with the removal of the bonus from the FA requiring you to garrison it with an infantry unit, something the British just cannot sacrifice in order to bring their mortar to fully operational level.

Now I understand that before, especially with the Bofors, it was a cancerous and OP combo, but Advanced Emplacements was also nerfed along with the Bofors so good luck getting any emplacement to survive to vet 3 in the late game, especially when things have changed so much that it's also easier to approach and kill the mortar pit as well now, which wasn't the case before.

The simple truth is that the British while still cancerous were at least playable before, now with all of these competitive oriented patches they have become perhaps harder and extremely less fun, at least for me.

This is not a game where it's ok to build emplacements anymore, emplacements were never meant to be permanent defense structures anyhow but it becomes a problem when your only indirect fire option is an emplacement with a low range requiring you to constantly babysit it.

Perhaps radical was the wrong word to illustrate my point.

I still thank that a simple range buff would do a lot for balancing the British mortar emplacements lack of mobility and high price. It’s a simpler solution that what is being proposed.

Perhaps radical was the wrong word to illustrate my point.

I still thank that a simple range buff would do a lot for balancing the British mortar emplacements lack of mobility and high price. It’s a simpler solution that what is being proposed.

With that statement I agree with.

It would not however fix the core problem which has plagued the British since their design inception.

But yes, it would be at least a bit better if we just started from the beginning.

Remember the mortar pit in beta?

You could swap between light and heavy mortar rounds, light would do rifle nade ish aoe but the range was extended. Heavy rounds did regular damage.

bring it back and give light rounds the former range before the nerf. That way you get a counter to garrisons but not random wipes all game. Keep cost at 350 so it's not GG as soon as a flame HT/shrek rush kills your investment

Its previous range gave it dominance of most of the map and that range being auto fire allowed it to sway battles without any input. Its current range makes it nearly unusable because its stuck between being in range of a mobile enemy and out of range of anything.

It needs range to not be a waste but it needs a micro tax to not make it over powered

that would help the pit specifically, but the british will still be without any type of mobile light arty.

mortars and light artillery are there to provide a counter to the mg42.

that would help the pit specifically, but the british will still be without any type of mobile light arty.

mortars and light artillery are there to provide a counter to the mg42.

If its barrage range is over half the map it certainly would help counter the mg42. The brits are a primarily defensive faction and thats reflected in the pit (poorly, but reflected none the less) the max range of the barrage would be your line in the sand and when the enemy crosses that line they feel it.

That said, if pits had a toggle to attach their barrage range free on the pyro flares i would not be upset in the least. A little more rapid, light damage in between the 25lb shells might be a thing of beauty

If its barrage range is over half the map it certainly would help counter the mg42. The brits are a primarily defensive faction and thats reflected in the pit (poorly, but reflected none the less) the max range of the barrage would be your line in the sand and when the enemy crosses that line they feel it.

That said, if pits had a toggle to attach their barrage range free on the pyro flares i would not be upset in the least. A little more rapid, light damage in between the 25lb shells might be a thing of beauty

It probably will, on 1v1, 2v2 and small 3v3 maps at the most but keep in mind that we are talking about balance across all modes and maps here.

Not just competitive people are playing this game but like I said, the majority of the community are casual people playing the game just to relax for a few hours and have a nice time.

The issue of balance between the realms is also the reason why I suggested there be 2 separate balance modes. One for the smaller 1v1 and 2v2 competitive game mode and 1 for the bigger and more casual 3v3 and 4v4 game mode to keep everyone happy.