Brace Idea

An idea I had for the UKF Brace ability that might make it a bit less frustrating to play around and encourage mixing emplacements and mobile forces rather than going all-in on one or the other.

Brace

• Brace is now a toggled ability: the structure will remain braced (weapons disabled, 0.25 received damage, 0.25 received repair iirc) until you unbrace it.
  
• After disabling Brace, the emplacement's weapons will remain disabled for 60 seconds.

The idea is to make Brace functionally more like a retreat. You can shut down the emplacement as long as you need to, but doing so pretty much removes it from that engagement.

It should make using singular emplacements more viable as they can last a little longer hunkered down, but it'll make SimCities a bit more difficult to use: a misjudged Brace will leave them defenceless.

Great, so if you build emplacements you get punished.

If you go fully mobile you lack indirect fire for example and again get punished.

Brilliantly designed Army.

Edit: Just for the record before people go ape shit on me, I AM NOT DEFENDING OR ENCOURAGING SIM CITY.

I am only pointing out the flaws of the British Army.

I'm not sure what UKF's problems in general have to do with changing Brace. If anything, being able to use a mortar pit without surrounding it with trenches and Bofors would help with that rather than hurt.

I'm not sure what UKF's problems in general have to do with changing Brace. If anything, being able to use a mortar pit without surrounding it with trenches and Bofors would help with that rather than hurt.

My point is that anything that's static and you have poured resources in it becomes a liability in that you have to babysit it and later on if and when the fighting is out of it's range especially on bigger maps or in team games it just becomes useless and you have no way of remove it effectively unless you pour even more resources and time in it.

A far better solution would be to have emplacements be something entirely option to the player and not being forced into making and then babysitting them just because of some stupid sense of asymmetrical design for each Army in order to make it "feel unique". They can be made unique by different means.

So it's fine by me whatever they do with brace, just don't force me to build the shit if I want smoke or indirect fire support which does not require a doctrine, fuel or my Sniper/Infantry throw some stupid flare in suicide range and then wait for the base howitzers to move their fat asses into position and fire on the target.

Plus every other Army has access to smoke on demand, why are the Brits lacking that exactly? Nobody seems to have the answer besides the complete and utter stupidity which is "Because it needs to be asymmetrical" which I already think I've given enough example why it's not effective and is not working.

The problem with brace and emplacement in general is their design to inflict bleed and receive none unless completely destroyed. It's all or nothing. If the enemy gets it down to a cunt hair of health and can't finish it due to attrition the brit has inflict a heavy blow at the cost of nothing.

My proposal would be to allow brace to be used as often as they chose, but cause a manpower income drain while active same as Soviet self repair used to on munitions.

This means forcing an emplacement to brace isn't a get out of jail free card, but a last resort to defend the unit since it actually impacts the game economy.

My point is that anything that's static and you have poured resources in it becomes a liability in that you have to babysit it

That's sort of the idea. An emplacement with toggleable Brace can stay in Brace indefinitely, giving you time to react and protect it.

On the flipside, forcing an emplacement into Brace disables it, so as the opponent you can play around emplacements with a loosely similar back and forth to a retreating and advancing team weapon. Shell a Bofors enough to brace it and it's out of action, allowing you to attack the units near it.

The problem with brace and emplacement in general is their design to inflict bleed and receive none unless completely destroyed. It's all or nothing. If the enemy gets it down to a cunt hair of health and can't finish it due to attrition the brit has inflict a heavy blow at the cost of nothing.

But this is essentially identical to how vehicles work.

The problem with emplacements for me personally is that they are simply too cost effective (the amount of resources needed to counter it is about 3x worth the cost of the emplacement). Which is fine in a 1v1 where the emplacement has to compensate for the fact that it's static, but they become borderline OP (especially with cancer emplacements regiment) in team games where they can lock down key sectors with ease.

Emplacements Regiment's problem is the completely broken Repair Assembly, which is able to heal an emplacement through four LeiGs barraging it constantly. Prevent the repair robots from healing emplacements and the whole thing falls apart. Which'd be good, because it's awful.

The ideal emplacement is the OKW Flak. It'll hold ground pretty effectively, but if you barrage it for a bit or throw a tank at it you can clear it out fairly easily. They force the enemy to commit a substantial force rather than a couple of units, but they won't hold a point alone against said substantial force.

Emplacements Regiment's problem is the completely broken Repair Assembly, which is able to heal an emplacement through four LeiGs barraging it constantly. Prevent the repair robots from healing emplacements and the whole thing falls apart. Which'd be good, because it's awful.

The ideal emplacement is the OKW Flak. It'll hold ground pretty effectively, but if you barrage it for a bit or throw a tank at it you can clear it out fairly easily. They force the enemy to commit a substantial force rather than a couple of units, but they won't hold a point alone against said substantial force.

Sure if you make the Bofors not cost anything tied to tech and u get a free one like the OKW to lock down pieces of map

Remove brace from the game please

Give Brits a mobile mortar, bofor gets changed to a AA unit only buildable once but only costs 1pop cap to deal with planes in teamgame.

Emplacements Regiment's problem is the completely broken Repair Assembly, which is able to heal an emplacement through four LeiGs barraging it constantly. Prevent the repair robots from healing emplacements and the whole thing falls apart. Which'd be good, because it's awful.

The ideal emplacement is the OKW Flak. It'll hold ground pretty effectively, but if you barrage it for a bit or throw a tank at it you can clear it out fairly easily. They force the enemy to commit a substantial force rather than a couple of units, but they won't hold a point alone against said substantial force.

I agree completely, the repair automatrons are ridiculous. At the very least their respawn rate should go up a lot because they seem to respawn almost immediately after they get killed. If you put the ISG barrage near the repairing automatrons on purpose they will still be able to respawn and repair before the barrage cooldown is over. And most of the time you won't be able to target the Assembly behind the Bofors because you have no idea where it is (FAs do not remain visible in FOW unlike the other emplacements) as the Bofors prevents scouting too deep.

And I agree with the second point as well. I was going to type that in my previous post. I'd like to see emplacements modified to be cheaper but less effective, and have the brace removed. For example basically turn the Bofors into a 360 degree bunker that does some damage to lights as well for half the price (i.e. like the 20mm Flak Emplacement), instead of the annihilator it is now. Same for the mortar pit. 17 Pounder I don't know, maybe turn it into a Pak 43.

But this is essentially identical to how vehicles work.

The problem with emplacements for me personally is that they are simply too cost effective (the amount of resources needed to counter it is about 3x worth the cost of the emplacement). Which is fine in a 1v1 where the emplacement has to compensate for the fact that it's static, but they become borderline OP (especially with cancer emplacements regiment) in team games where they can lock down key sectors with ease.

Vehicles are different though. The ones that are even remotely in the price range are threatened by small arms fire, even the lowley mortar put unbraced can tank a sturmtiger rocket which if my memory serves is the highest damage per shot vehicle in game no?

If brace is a necessary evil, which I think it is, it needs to play into the very important variables already in game, on of which is bleed. Brace should be a last resort to save the unit and its vet, not a pop at every inconvenience and buy time to hurt the enemy.

I agree that in 1s it's not an issue because map control is effected and critical mass of emplacement means little reactionary units, but in team games it can be so frustrating, both having a team mate that commits to the cancer and playing against it.

I reay think that being able to inflict attrition to emplacements would help. It would really effect good emplacement play much, but would add some sort of yeuld to forcing the enemy to brace but not being able to secure the kill

Sure if you make the Bofors not cost anything tied to tech and u get a free one like the OKW to lock down pieces of map

I'm not sure a 120 fuel limited-to-one Bofors that disables tank production when destroyed would be a buff.

I'm not sure a 120 fuel limited-to-one Bofors that disables tank production when destroyed would be a buff.

I know, allied aren't allowed to have buffs

The problem with brace and emplacement in general is their design to inflict bleed and receive none unless completely destroyed. It's all or nothing. If the enemy gets it down to a cunt hair of health and can't finish it due to attrition the brit has inflict a heavy blow at the cost of nothing.

That sounds like so many units in coh2. All vehicles, snipers, early retreating squads, you name it. Not saying that emplacements are well design. But this argument makes no sense what whatsoever.

That sounds like so many units in coh2. All vehicles, snipers, early retreating squads, you name it. Not saying that emplacements are well design. But this argument makes no sense what whatsoever.

early retreating squads aside both snipers and early vehicles are very easy and quick to destroy if caught out of position or flanked. Later armour is less of an issue because of price and timing-counters are readily available, emplacements needed an entire army assault to try and kill them.