Conscript Utility

Here's why its a bad idea then
1. Giving suppresion to infantry is a bad idea, something we have learned long ago, there's a reason we only get it via ability (Rear Echelons) that has been nerfed into near-uselessness or Vet 5 Obersoldaten(Or has it been removed already? i don't remember)
2. The amount of suppresion given would either be so low you would need to mass Conscripts to see any effect (pro tip: we don't want that) or it would be so powerful it could be classified as "cancer incarnate" (we don't want that either)
3. Limiting suppression to green cover only doesn't really work on infanrty that can build its own green cover
4. Seriously, we don't want suppression on infantry, really.
5. Outisde of suppresion, even if it is technically possible to have Maxims be part of a regular inf squad, and even if it is possible le to make it work without being clunky, buggy and with broken animations, no one will actually go through with the effort to get the same result as simply giving them literally any other LMG we already have in the game, and having it behave the way you suggested (limited movement speed, long setup time). Its a cool looking gimmick at best.

1. I don't recall mass RE's or even the Para's with LMGs being particularly cancerous.
2-4. So basically a conscript blob is going to march right up to your infantry, build a piece of cover for all of them mid combat? Even if this does happen guess what. You can walk away.
5. All the animations are already there. On top of being a cool gimmick it should also cut all the conscript and maxim whining in half.

RET: on release. You spammed (160?) cheap RET and volley fire at every encounter. Special note that you would also spam it while having zook for that unintended Zook machinegun experience.

Paras: the funny thing is that due to how suppression mechanics work, you don't want a high DPS squad wasting munition on suppressing when you can outright kill the enemy units.

Obers/Rifles: most cancerous situation. Never give passive suppression to any infantry unit. Rifles with 1919s had access to defensive stance. Ober had it with vet4. Nowadays it has been removed from 1919 and Obers have to use an active as any other squad.

Grens/Falls: for a short time, they had passive suppression. Nothing like blobbing 3 squads of Grens and suppressing shit.


On top of the idea been bad (take a clue, no one likes it), it would be a nightmare to accomplish, test it and balance it. If you think it's that easy, there's the modding tools for you to download and implement.


PD:

I was wrong, and got target size confused with how high ROF is better than high accuracy in cover situations.

That's also false. The only point at which High RoF weapons are better are when accuracy doesn't matter at all cause the target size of the thing they are shooting at is big. AKA vehicles and buildings (which i'm not sure if there is an exception as old brit trenches).

The DPS variation between shooting an SMG against cover or a bolt action rifle is the same. The damage is cut in half in both cases against light cover and by 75% against heavy cover. There's specific weapons which have different values against cover (IR STG or JLI G43) but those are the exceptions.

That's why I think cons should act as super lite officers via oorah. If oorah makes the maxim function as a machine gun suddenly you have cons and maxims instead of just a wall of maxims. If they are supposed to be the prime support infantry let them support! If it's tied to munitions it's better to balance but also can have strong units like penals dialed back and cheapened with that in mind. Cons could and should be in every engagement, providing bodies and a few inaccurate rifle volleys but also inspiration.

I dig this. I dig this a lot

That's also false. The only point at which High RoF weapons are better are when accuracy doesn't matter at all cause the target size of the thing they are shooting at is big. AKA vehicles and buildings (which i'm not sure if there is an exception as old brit trenches).

The DPS variation between shooting an SMG against cover or a bolt action rifle is the same. The damage is cut in half in both cases against light cover and by 75% against heavy cover. There's specific weapons which have different values against cover (IR STG or JLI G43) but those are the exceptions.

You can use simple operations to get a pretty good approximation of what squad wins and all, but the game itself isn't continuous single variable math. Models are discrete entities. Damage is discrete.

Accurate modeling involves Riemann sums. Simple equations aren't going to account for left and right shifting. E.g. 20 damage done to a model won't change the squad DPS one bit, nor will 80 damage spread out over 2 models, but 80 damage against one model will.

Damage between squads also requires systems of equations for accurate representations.

I'm way to rusty on my math to explain all of it, but no it's not as simple as an x% reduction.

Don't SMGs also do AOE/splash damage? And so, even assuming each model is locked in a 1v1, the SMGs will win because they do splash damage to those around them.

Don't SMGs also do AOE/splash damage? And so, even assuming each model is locked in a 1v1, the SMGs will win because they do splash damage to those around them.

can someone explain to me about this smg splash damage? never heard of it and I am curious

can someone explain to me about this smg splash damage? never heard of it and I am curious

Some automatic weapons when they roll a miss get to roll a hit on another model. Not sure which ones or how effective it is though. It's probably not consistent across all weapons because relic...

Don't SMGs also do AOE/splash damage? And so, even assuming each model is locked in a 1v1, the SMGs will win because they do splash damage to those around them.

Such mechanic would be very useful in a possible quickfix for blobs cancer... but thats offtopic. Its just good to know that exist

Don't SMGs also do AOE/splash damage? And so, even assuming each model is locked in a 1v1, the SMGs will win because they do splash damage to those around them.

No flamer do AOE damage.

Some weapon can "scatter" if they miss and they can re-roll to hit model behind the intended target.

Don't SMGs also do AOE/splash damage? And so, even assuming each model is locked in a 1v1, the SMGs will win because they do splash damage to those around them.

An explosive projectile has AoE. Bullets can't do damage to more than 1 target.

When focus fire is set to false, weapons have a chance to "re-roll" a miss in a small cone deviation from the initial target.
From experience, unless the targets are side by side when hugging cover or straight behind the model which is shot at, you won't notice it at all. You can check it by making a 1 model squad with invulnerability and make other units stay besides and behind it.

...

Not sure what your point is, but DPS calculations are pretty straightforward in this game. Same with how cover applies and the benefits of it.

There's plenty of variables such as cooldown, ready aim time, fire aim time, reload, burst, etc. but fortunately, the way the equation works makes it quite simple to calculate and see the variations with the 2 most important values (accuracy and damage).

Show Spoiler

If you checked the 2nd equation you can see that it is basically Damage x Accuracy x (The rest of values).
This is the reason why an increase in damage or accuracy straight up increases the DPS of a unit by the same value of increment while changing other values such as cooldown or reload, are less impactful overall and varies greatly based on range and type of weapon.

The only instances on which accuracy will not increase damage done, are when the unit has already a REALLY high accuracy value, the opposing unit is on negative cover and/or the unit is using a commander ability to further increase accuracy. Going over 100% acc won't increase your damage.

That been said, light cover and heavy cover provides a 0.50 acc modifier while heavy cover also reduces damage done by 0.5

Ex: A gren Kar98 does 16dmg per shot and has basically a bit more than 4 DPS at range 10*. Against cover it's doing 2/1 DPS respectively.

*Using range 10 cause there's a "hidden" mechanic called point blank which makes small arm fire ignore all but garrison/negative cover modifiers at ranges below 10.

I'm way to rusty on my math to explain all of it, but no it's not as simple as an x% reduction.

Yeah, it's a simple dmg% reduction.

OK maybe 'AOE' was the wrong technical phrase for this specific game.

If it's scatter, then sure that, point was that an SMG is capable of doing extra damage to a squad than just whatever model it is aiming at.

OK maybe 'AOE' was the wrong technical phrase for this specific game.

If it's scatter, then sure that, point was that an SMG is capable of doing extra damage to a squad than just whatever model it is aiming at.

No that is the whole point. It does not do "extra" damage. Under certain circumstance shots that have missed and would no damage at all, re-roll and have a chance to hit other model than the ones intended.

You can see this effect on kubel's mg where it can do allot of damage to a squad with out actually killing any models.

You are just repeating my conclusion but changing the wording.

So sure, whatever, yeah. That.

JFC.

No that is the whole point. It does not do "extra" damage. Under certain circumstance shots that have missed and would no damage at all, re-roll and have a chance to hit other model than the ones intended.

You can see this effect on kubel's mg where it can do allot of damage to a squad with out actually killing any models.

Extra damage as in that the DPS listed on any unit without focus fire is actually higher than what it is listed.

Yeh, that.

Extra damage as in that the DPS listed on any unit without focus fire is actually higher than what it is listed.

Well extra damage is not a accurate description and it can create misunderstanding, but a unit that can "scatter" may end up having higher DPS than theoretical listed...

If you consider missed shot as part of the dps, scatter will increase DPS. But the way of seeing it is that the attacking unit has fixed DSP and the missed shots are a % of an RNG calculation. Scatter will diminish the impact of such missed shots, the attacked unit will get more consistently damaged, but the attacking unit DPS has not changed at all

This thread inspired me to go back to Russians and try out the connies again. I'm not sure if this reflection will help the 1v1's or even 2v2's as I play 3's or higher. I actually have fun using them, complimenting them with call in units (Shocks or guards). Not a bad combo. Also, if your russian battle buddy goes penals while you go maxims/cons. I find the utility aspect of them great until late game, where I would use them as bait. Get the volks attention thinking they have easy wins and dump katushkya on them. Without PPSH's they were obviously outmatched. Many points were made that giving them weapon upgrades at T4 could make them viable. I couldn't help wonder "What happens when my shocks are vet3 and my connies are vet 3 with some new toys to play with?" This could open up a whole new balance issue. Personally I think the AT/Mollie is the best thing to address as it is unfortunate to have to invest so much in a unit that is used as bait late game. Those are my thoughts.

Yeah, it's a simple dmg% reduction.

Nah it's not. Like I said I'm a bit rusty on my math. Intuitively I know that higher accuracy units are more affected by accuracy modifiers. High ROF units tend to have lower accuracy and aren't as affected. I don't remember enough of my math to explain why, but I think it's due to the asymptotic behavior of 1/x. Either that or some geometric/ trignometric bullshittery. IDK exactly, and I'm driving myself mad trying to remember.

Because I can't explain this as well as I want to I went ahead and fired up cheat mod.

*Using range 10 cause there's a "hidden" mechanic called point blank which makes small arm fire ignore all but garrison/negative cover modifiers at ranges below 10.

Thank you for mentioning this btw. I thought I was going crazy until I realized my first trials were too close.

First I did 10 trials of panzer grens vs conscripts. 5 in cover 5 in open ground.

15 of the 20 pgrens that fought in equal green cover remained.
12 of the 20 pgrens that fought in equal open cover remained.
15% difference in favor of equal green cover
https://imgur.com/TuSqGT4

After doing these trials, and then re-reading the thread I realized pgrens have focus fire= false, and I didn't want that spoiling everything. I did my next trials with Obers and thompson rangers. Picked due to the accuracy disparity, and the focus fire = true on thompsons.

A total of 30 trials. 10 in open, 10 in green, 10 in yellow.

From the open cover fights: 22/40 obers remain. Rangers lost all fights.
https://imgur.com/tTmrbAE

From the green cover fights: 21/40 obers remain. Rangers won one fight with 2 models remaining.
https://imgur.com/l7QzyGS

So the damage reduction from green cover tends to hide the disparate effects on accuracy. This is most likely why the devs chose to do damage reduction instead of yet another accuracy multiplier. We should expect to find the largest difference in yellow cover, and we do!

From the yellow cover fights: 18/40 obers remain. Rangers won one fight with 2 models remaining.
https://imgur.com/dqxBlvh

From these trials there's a 10% better performance from Thompson rangers fighting obers in equal yellow cover than in equal open cover. 2.5% in equal green cover. Keep in mind I hand selected these two units for the largest accuracy difference I could find. Most units won't experience such a large difference as their accuracy stats tend to be fairly close.


With all that done and said: no it's not a simple %dmg reduction.

tests and whatnot

It's a very flawed test you IMO, too many variables (4 man vs 6 man, different RA etc.) and too dependent on the RNG, few lucky snipes or incorrect focus fire is all it takes (cons focusing 1 PG model down drop the PG DPS by 25% for example)

A much better (and simple) test would be to measure time to kill between units. Since all we care about is the % drop in DPS, not infantry duels.

1. Measure how long it takes PG (or other squad with depends on volume of fire rather than accuracy) to kill Penals with and without cover
2. Measure how long it takes for Obers to kill Penals with and without cover
4. Do it multiple times, get the avereage
5. Difference in TTK tell us the % of DPS lost
6. If the % difference in TTK between "accuracy" and "ROF" differs, then we can agree that it isn't a simple % dmg reduction.

I might actually do it myself later, out of curiosity.

ANYWAY

Can we come back to Cons now?