How to fix UKF: Unit overview

Yo, this is gonna be a long one.

I wanted to make this post to highlight the current state of the faction and for people to concisely highlight their issues with it. More specifically it's units. Everyone seems to have complaints about the faction whether it be brit players on how the faction pales in use and versatility compared to soviets and USF. Or Axis players on how they're boring to play against or how certain units are just broken or whatever. Whilst many people claim the faction requires a complete revamp in order for any meaningful changes to occur, I do not believe this is the case and instead I wanted to:
1. Review the units in the roster and offer my opinions on potential tweaks to the entire unit roster in order to make the faction more usable online and in the competitive scene, (specifically to units as I feel this is where many of the flaws lie, especially as we've now had 2 commander revamps and an upcoming patch to fix the other aspects of the faction.)

2. Ask everyone else their opinions on what needs to be done to revive the currently dying faction as I feel a lot of people are actually happy to see the faction die as the other 4 factions are currently the best balanced we've seen them in years and UKF seem to 'get in the way' of that balance.

Currently people's opinions on this topic are scattered far and between in loads of different threads, I wanted to make it easier for other people's suggestions, (as well as my own) to be seen by the team that are patching the game.

But here are my opinions:

Infantry Section:
Since the nerf a few patches ago to their cover bonus / buff to their out of cover effectiveness + the bren gun nerf, tommies now are effectively are weaker than nearly all of their peers, especially in the late game as they are too expensive to lose and too weak alone to contest points, especially with the current prevalence of artillery. They lose to most units when out of cover as expected but now trade out too poorly with most units when in cover too. Definitely require 5 man upgrade if you plan to use them. I normally use them as medics for my sappers and commandos though.

I suggest either a reversal to the cover bonus change as the brens have been nerfed so they won't be quite so broken or a cost decrease to 250-260mp and unit reinforcement cost decrease.

Vickers MG team:
One of the best MGs in the game. Suppression is a little buggy, the vickers not suppressing when it should results in axis taking more casualties than they should due to not receiving the received accuracy buff they get when suppressed and people escaping your fire arc when they shouldn't.

Universal Carrier:
UKFs early game width, strong unit despite nerf, an edit I would suggest is allowing it to deploy smoke for infantry similar to the sherman and valentine. (maybe with less range) this would allow british to be more effective against early game machine gun spam which hurts brits a lot due to lack of a mobile mortar. (Is also historically accurate)

Royal Engineers:
Very strong, decent assault infantry when in a pinch, especially at 5 man squads due to being cheap and powerful, once with snares next patch will be very good. Salvage sappers get smoke as well which is extremely useful for dealing with MGs.

6 Pounder AT gun:
Very potent AT gun, one of the best, no complaints. Sabot rounds at vet 3 is awesome, although they rarely get there without being decrewed.

Sniper:
Decent sniper, used to be better than the rest due to better accuracy against garrisons but now all snipers are the same. Extra damage against vehicles isn't really useful though.

AEC:
Still good, but needs a lot of improvements in order to be worth taking as it delays centaur/cromwell/churchill and still worse than the puma, treadshot perhaps takes too long to target. Perhaps revamping to work like the puma might be better? Another MG buff again too maybe?

Bofors:
Powerful for early lockdown but difficult to use effectively late game due to prevalence of artillery in this meta. Quite good, quite niche. Needs to be effective anti air though, was bugged, as far as i know, it still is.

Mortar pit:
An essential unit, UKF's only early effective indirect fire and only way of deploying smoke. Issue is it either wins you the game or costs you it as being unable to keep it alive means you will be mortared all game and keeping it alive means they will as it will quite happily fight off 2 enemy mortar teams happily. I would suggest making the mortar pit buildable without mortars for 100mp and adding mortar teams to the platoon command post, although with tactical support getting a mortar through air resupply this may not be necessary after next patch.

Centaur:
UKFs only real blob control, although since the nerf I think it's lethality is a little questionable especially once the map is full of craters, until the vet 1 strafing fire ability although this has been nerfed too. Still good, although so essential to deal with enemy blobs and getting it early delays actual armour (cromwell/churchil firefly)

Cromwell:
Good, I personally prefer to use it than the centaur as my first tank as it scales better into the late game especially since it's cost was reduced.

Firefly:
No issues here although needs vet 2/3 in order to be useful late game as gets overwhelmed easily on it's own. Still worse than the jackson though.

Comet:
For the love of CoH fix this tank. Costs more than a panther and performs half as well. No longer kills infantry, It's vet 3 buff is more or less useless (throwing grenades? wut?), no longer fires accurately on the move, if it doesn't miss it's shot, it bounces, mobility is good but with prevalance of Axis snares (seriously, everything has fausts now) flanking is far to dangerous for this essentially extremely overpriced sherman 76 clone. Only positive is it's extremely trolly armour against rockets, I have regularly bounced multiple panzerschreks and watched mine bounce 3 raketenwerfer shots in a row the other day. It craps all over panzer 4s but so does the firefly and churchill for 30 and 25 less fuel and both are better against panthers. If the gun can't penetrate the front of a panther or doesn't deal more damage, it may as well be a cromwell with a 6 pdr, it has a short 17 pdr (77mm), it should act like it.

I would suggest, definitely reverting it's fire on the move accuracy to what it used to be and increasing the penetration to what it used to be (perhaps adjusting fire rate if need be) and leaving it as bad against infantry OR Making it good against infantry again and leaving the penetration the same but giving the comet an ability to use discarding sabot rounds with amazing penetration at the cost of munitions, similar to the jackson's HVAP. OR decreasing the price to the same as the Sherman 76 (125/135 fuel). It is not as good as a panther, it either needs to be made as good as one, or made cheaper. I would prefer it to be buffed though otherwise I will still probably take churchills every time.

Churchill:
God tier tank, cheap, unkillable and can kill most of it's counters, definitely the crutch of the british roster right now, probably the most powerful and useable vehicle. I don't think it is OP particularly, but perhaps the ability to reverse through smoke and flee to safety at normal speed is a bit excessive. Perhaps smoke shells might be less silly if it did need a nerf.

17 pounder:
Difficult to keep alive with the prevalence of artillery this meta but the best counter to Axis Superheavies this patch, when used with commanders/allies who can kill LefHs easily, this thing is amazing. A great backstop to prevent dives. At best, it locks down a portion of the map. At worst, it's so cheap, even if it kills one panther and dies it has nearly tripled it's value. Could do with a little more health due to it's size which makes it very easy to hit with mortars and artillery.

The Doctrinal units I think all perform well, or will do after the next patch. (e.g. sexton buff)
I'd really like to hear other people's opinions on what needs to be done and pointing out stuff I've missed or got wrong.

I think additional issue of mortar pit is that you cannot deconstruct it and change spot if its needed somewhere else, as not always fights happen around it and its just waste of popcap when enemy decides to got to other side of the map.

The Mortar pit is just all around bad, it's no fun to play against or useful with it as I have been on both sides.

You either consider it a nuisance and just bomb it to high hell with GrW34s, LeIGs, Pwerfers or Stukas or try to keep it alive but fail because you can't repair it when it's under constant bombardment and you got nothing to counter their artillery with.

Ground assault is a whole different matter but in general -

It's harder to keep alive in 1v1s and 2v2s but it may pay it's investment off because of the smaller maps.

It's it's easier to keep alive in larger team games however, the maps are bigger and thus the fighting might not happen within it's range, meaning it's a wasted investment.

Also, the addition of the mortar to Tac Support Reg does little to fix the core issue of the Army, people will now just go for it more because of it along with the Churchill Croc and nothing more, if anything it will just further prove my point that people simply want a mobile mortar by default and not having to go a specific doctrine to get it, similarly to what they have done with the AT grenades on the Sappers.

But seeing as it currently stands they won't change this so the next best thing is to add it to as more commanders as possible, looking at Royal Arty Reg and the new commander coming in the winter.

My proposals:

- Infantry Sections regain the extra 0.9 received accuracy modifier in cover. This should make them more resilient and match up to Axis infantry better.

- Mortar Pit gains specialist rounds through Hammer and Anvil specialization. While I would like to see it able to be built independent of mortars, the model is fixed to the emplacement. Therefore I propose adding utility through Hammer and Anvil specializations. For Hammer, I envision Flares and Incendiary Shells. For Anvil, I envision Flares and Airburst Shells.

- AEC Mk. III main gun damage from 120 to 160, reload from 3.6/4.1 to 4.8/5.5. This is more of a flavor change than anything, as its DPM is effectively unchanged; however, this would fit the high-alpha British tank destroyer theme and make the AEC vs Puma matchup more interesting.

- Comet main gun penetration from 210/190/170 to 240/220/200. This should make it much more effective against heavy axis armor. I'd also give it the Panther treatment: HP from 800 to 960.

I would suggest making the mortar pit buildable without mortars for 100mp and adding mortar teams to the platoon command post, although with tactical support getting a mortar through air resupply this may not be necessary after next patch.

If only someone made a mod for that

If only someone made a mod for that

I actually mentioned this in another one of his topics lol.

All sound like solid suggestions. Nothing crazy just bringing a great many units back in line as the UKF has the worst unit roster at present.

I don't agree with all the suggestions as I have my own personl ideas, but nothing is overly far fetched and is generally understood as how a unit performs currently.

Personally for the cromwell I'd rather they just buff its scatter and go back to the old 120F price. The unit just doesn't hit anything in comparison to other stock mediums.

Comet should get the same treatment without the price increase. Just buff the scatter, make it consistant and it'd be fine. It has incredibly high armor (290) for a vehicle of that speed.

I didn't know the 6 pounder had sabot? Or is that just what the brits used and is the standard shell here for brits? Don't know, but I'm thinking of abilities that you activate like the USF M1 AT gun.

And other things that are true. Mortar pit sucks, replace it etc. Churchill is great tank, firefly is fine just not as good as jackson.

Very solid piece, enjoy'd reading it. I think a lot of people talking about UKF could learn a thing from this.

I actually mentioned this in another one of his topics lol.

Hahah, yeah I know like I said, I wanted to get a lot of the suggestions in the same place for greater visibility to the guys patching the game.

My proposals:

- Infantry Sections regain the extra 0.9 received accuracy modifier in cover. This should make them more resilient and match up to Axis infantry better.

- Mortar Pit gains specialist rounds through Hammer and Anvil specialization. While I would like to see it able to be built independent of mortars, the model is fixed to the emplacement. Therefore I propose adding utility through Hammer and Anvil specializations. For Hammer, I envision Flares and Incendiary Shells. For Anvil, I envision Flares and Airburst Shells.

- AEC Mk. III main gun damage from 120 to 160, reload from 3.6/4.1 to 4.8/5.5. This is more of a flavor change than anything, as its DPM is effectively unchanged; however, this would fit the high-alpha British tank destroyer theme and make the AEC vs Puma matchup more interesting.

- Comet main gun penetration from 210/190/170 to 240/220/200. This should make it much more effective against heavy axis armor. I'd also give it the Panther treatment: HP from 800 to 960.

I definitely agree with the cover bonus, I watched my tommies lose to sturmpioneers at range whilst in heavy cover the other day, (RNGsus abandoned me I guess).

The thing with buffing the mortar pit is it's already soooooo powerful in certain situations and takes a group effort to kill it often, that would be a lot more interesting though. I think hammer definitely needs some buffs as Anvil is by far the best in every regard right now. I think british emplacements do need a self destruct button though as if the frontlines shift, half your popcap is locked in the emplacements with no way out unless the enemy does you a favour and kills them. Also building them in the wrong place can mess with pathing and get your tanks/retreating units killed.

I really like the AEC change, I'd especially like to see a balance where the AEC reliably wins in close quarters and the puma reliably wins at range. The AEC I think should scale into a flanker late game rather than just a cheap command vehicle so making the damage good again i think is a good idea, even if the penetration is bad. If I pull of a crazy flank on an elefant with my AEC I'd like to be able to do some actual damage.

dont worry, they get buffed next patch and then they can kill all our game experience from new

also @ShadowlinkX37 yes at vet 3, the 6 pdr fires sabot rounds by default which are goddamn ridiculous, they go through king tigers like every time. But you need vet 3 which means it needs to stay alive.

You know it's firing sabot cos it gets a big white super velocity tracer and goes WHOOOOSH a lot.

If only someone made a mod for that

Lol. I still to this day wish that was a part of the live game. It’d fix so many problems pertaining to indirect fire and countering it as brits.

As for OP, I think a lot of points you make are pretty good, as for a lot of the other suggestions of users in this thread.

My 2 cents:

IMO infantry sections should be tweaked and the cover changes rolled back so that they’re good in cover but fairly bad out of it (much like ostruppen). I think their veterancy bonuses are kind of shitty too but I don’t remember for sure. Could somebody who knows their way around the game files post those? Also, I think brens should receive some sort of cover based bonus on sections too.

I think the comet definitely needs it’s main gun bugged against infantry but I think it’s penetration is fine as is and it already has so many abilities that giving it HVAP or DS rounds might be a bit much.

Churchill smoke is a bit silly and should be removed (and replaced with smoke shells like you said) IMO, but other than that it’s more or less fine. JP IVs counter it pretty well IIRC, and stugs and panthers do okay against it too.

I like ShadowLink’s proposal for the Cromwell as well.

I think snares will help the firefly perform a lot better and cover for its general sluggishness so IMO it’s fine as is.

The AEC is a little slow in general especially compared to the puma, and the treadshot could use a bit more responsiveness on the first shot and should be viewable on the move IMO like it was before, but other than that I think it’s more or less fine. The smoke seems a bit finicky at times too (much more so than any other analogues).

The base howitzer mechanics could use some love too. Even just a free smoke barrage callable by the sniper and pyrotechnics sections would go a long way, but I think a slight throw range increase (especially on the sniper) would help too.

Lol. I still to this day wish that was a part of the live game. It’d fix so many problems pertaining to indirect fire and countering it as brits.

As for OP, I think a lot of points you make are pretty good, as for a lot of the other suggestions of users in this thread.

My 2 cents:

IMO infantry sections should be tweaked and the cover changes rolled back so that they’re good in cover but fairly bad out of it (much like ostruppen). I think their veterancy bonuses are kind of shitty too but I don’t remember for sure. Could somebody who knows their way around the game files post those? Also, I think brens should receive some sort of cover based bonus on sections too.

I think the comet definitely needs it’s main gun bugged against infantry but I think it’s penetration is fine as is and it already has so many abilities that giving it HVAP or DS rounds might be a bit much.

Churchill smoke is a bit silly and should be removed (and replaced with smoke shells like you said) IMO, but other than that it’s more or less fine. JP IVs counter it pretty well IIRC, and stugs and panthers do okay against it too.

I like ShadowLink’s proposal for the Cromwell as well.

I think snares will help the firefly perform a lot better and cover for its general sluggishness so IMO it’s fine as is.

The AEC is a little slow in general especially compared to the puma, and the treadshot could use a bit more responsiveness on the first shot and should be viewable on the move IMO like it was before, but other than that I think it’s more or less fine. The smoke seems a bit finicky at times too (much more so than any other analogues).

The base howitzer mechanics could use some love too. Even just a free smoke barrage callable by the sniper and pyrotechnics sections would go a long way, but I think a slight throw range increase (especially on the sniper) would help too.

Fireflies will see a huge performance increase with snares definitely. But I think this may just serve to make the comet even less relevant. The comet's penetration may turn out to be fine, my issue right now is, like I said, if it doesn't miss, it bounces, if it could hit it's shots, it's penetration might bug me less. Multiple times have I tried to surprise flank a panther only to watch it wiff it's first shot into outer space and then bounce with it's second off it's side just for the panther to turn its turret and hit first shot whilst retreating.

Sherman 76s and easy eights have similar pen but fire twice as fast, cost significantly less, can repair themselves and are better against infantry. Only comet advantage right now seems to be it's trolly rocket proof armour.

Lol. I still to this day wish that was a part of the live game. It’d fix so many problems pertaining to indirect fire and countering it as brits.

It would indeed be an improvement. I always liked the idea and thought it had merit enough to deserve being tested in an official capacity.

Another method could build on the whole point that British emplacements are also garrisons.

Reduce the cost of emplacements by about 210-280mp. Disable all weapon functionality until garrisoned. Remove all popcap from emplacements. The extra abilities from being garrisoned could be handled by: adding another garrison slot and require a second squad, or incorporate them into vet bonuses for the emplacement.

Know how vehicle crew vet imparts vet onto the vehicle they're crewing? Same deal for emplacements.

Maybe they could have magic passwords, or maybe they could be stolen.

That's how I always thought British emplacements should work in this damned universe where they absolutely for some unknown reason HAVE to have emplacements.

I actually mentioned this in another one of his topics lol.

Oops, didn't know that. Thanks

Lol. I still to this day wish that was a part of the live game. It’d fix so many problems pertaining to indirect fire and countering it as brits.

Thanks! It's probably not gonna make it into the live game, but maybe there'll at least be a British mortar team some day.