Profile of Chocoboknight88

If you suspect an OKW zeroing artillery nuke (e.g., if you see LeFH's and the enemy hoarding munitions) consider packing up and selling for scraps. Nobody will ever use zeroing artillery vs singular mortar pits. On the other hand, the armagedon effect will, hopefully, continue to incentivise people not to do sim city.

You gain nothing by blobbing your emplacements anymore (e.g., FRP aura removed); except maybe for reducing the amount of territory you need to protect.

With respect to emplacements in the mod, we've found a few bugs; namely that the extra HP on the second mortar doesn't apply etc. In the next version, we will also be trialing reduced hitboxes for mortar pit/17 pounder and see if that addresses some of their main durability issues.

You make a fair point. While this would have been a major problem in the live version, being able to pack up does reward those who can read the wind. That way it isn't as painful, even if you do lose the veterancy. Though it would be nice if Trenches themselves could be more resistant to that ability to at least maintain some kind of foothold.

In my defense though, I won't go beyond 30 Pop Cap towards emplacements in any given match. Beyond that and you are a sitting duck. I'd go with Mortar Pit first and later a Bofors or a 17 Pounder. Everything else in my defensive line is a mobile unit inside a trench or on the flanks. I don't consider it blobbing.

That being said, the Mortar Pit's auto-fire range decrease is going to make people build it closer to their other emplacements. My normal, idea layout involved placing the Mortar pit behind the Forward Supply Station, the 17 Pounder/Bofors on the outer limit of the aura facing the enemy and Trenches about 20 Range in front of that.

While I do still feel the armour increase is the way to go for both the Mortar Pit and 17 Pounder, I will look forward to testing your way first with the target sizes. That and re-test the Mortar Pit durability after the upgrade bugfix.

First of all; thanks for taking the time to run the tests for us. There are a lot of units and threats that the emplacements have to come up against that it's impossible to have just the same 3-4 people playtesting emplacements with us (and there's only that many Trois Ponts matches we can survive without turning insane x_X).

One thing about Mortar Pits and the 17 pounder is that their hitbox is insanely large. Like any shots (AT gun or whatever) that lands on the net will deal full damage to the emplacement. That may also affect small arms fire, but I'm not sure.

We've found a way to reduce the hitbox size of those emplacements, which we may trial in the next version, to see if that also affects small arms fire.

Secondly, according to your guestimate, the mortar pit should be roughly 2-5 times more durable vs small arms fire than it currently lis.

My questions to you are...

1. does the Mortar Pit also need to be made more durable vs indirect fire than it currently, is, or did we already hit the right spot? (note that the mortar pit can barrage at longer ranges than the adversary)

2. Do Flame Nades/Flame barrages deal too much damage to emplacements currently? If they do too much damage, by how much should we reduce their damage? Half? 1-third? etc

3. Note that emplacements require squads garrisoned inside to operate at their full potential. Do garrisoned squads take too much damage from indirect fire?

4. (Due to repair speed normalization/HP), do emplacements take too long to repair?

5. Did we miss any offmap that deals too much damage to emplacemnets that brace cannot account for?

I am more than happy to continue helping out with this. Though it will be a couple more days before I do more in depth testing. My job is keeping me from the game at the moment.

I can answer questions 4 & 5 immediately though. It indeed currently takes a long time to repair emplacements now. However, it's only really a big problem due to the fragility of emplacements right now. I think we should only tackle the repair times after we have fine tuned the emplacements first.

As for number 5, There is one ability that I absolutely loath to face as one who builds emplacements and that is "Zeroing Artillery" from the OKW. The ability that speeds up arty drops while your emplacements are revealed to the enemy.

Even before the Brace nerf, this ability scares me when used on my defensive line since it could still pound away beyond the 30 Second Brace in the live version. With the brace nerf, this ability mercilessly destroys emplacements and leaves nothing left.

Balancing this could be tricky since 30 Second Brace is unpopular with the opposition. I'd personally like to see brace going up to 15 Seconds (Considered "Too Short" back in the first days of the game) and maybe the duration of Zeroing Artillery shortened yet accelerate the rate at which it starts bombing at full steam. But I feel we would need to hear more input from more unbiased OKW players regarding this.

That's all I have time for the now. I promise I'll be right back on my tests as soon as I can.

Mortar Pits have a lot more HP than shocktroops, though. They also need to be vulnerable to something. If it's not indirect fire, and it's not AT guns sniping them, they have to be vulnerable to infantry.

I do agree that it does need a certain weakness and a small arms weakness makes sense but it's a bit too vulnerable under the current stats. I did a test of this and it's quite shocking. I placed two UNUPGRADED Vet 0 Ostheer Pioneers (A realistic assault group size for most players) next to the upgraded British Mortar Pit. It went down in three bursts. Then tried with Sturmpioneers to see it go down in two.

Next with two Vet 0 Panzergrenadiers and then finally two Vet 0 Assault Grenadiers afterwards. It went down in a mere 1.5 bursts from each. That's horrifyingly fast. It makes the USF Fighting Position look like a hardened bunker.

There are light vehicles with more armour and they can still be considered counterable with Small Arms like the Soviet M3. YES, they have less Health but you can still do noticeable damage without it vaporizing.

Combine the fact they have seemingly high health and the now slow repair rate of Sappers and they are just a liability to try and keep alive. I am willing to accept Small Arms as a counter for Mortar Pits but certainly not to this extent.

They don't need the armour of the live version (Which is 5 Armour) but they need to have at least some resistance to show their Sandbags aren't just filled with air. Hell, I'd go no higher than 3 Armour (4 Armour with the Emplacement Regiment).

I'm sure you guys would have agreed if you were able to do more testing before this version was released early. Good thing is, we can keep tweaking it until it feels right since this isn't an official Relic release.

Good idea, I like that! Never thought of that before.

Sorry but 3 seconds is really taking the piss... Even with a very short cooldown, you'll be forced to only be able to realistically save no more than one emplacement from say... a Stuka Dive Bomber or a Sturmtiger. As suggested by myself and others, 10-15 seconds is more reasonable. That's 50% - 67% shorter than the live version!

Hey, just had a thought! Could we perhaps make the Officer Commando Section come equipped with Lee Enfield Rifles? It would compliment them far better to lead from a little further back. Right now, they just feel like a weaker Commando Section with some leadership skills. Sten Guns don't suit them at all.

I had an idea off the top of my head that maybe giving it wider aoe (like a lot wider) but reducing the damage 40 (half of a model's health right?) or even less and having little damage fall-off at range so that it's an effective way to open an ambush even on a larger force, but can't be the ambush by itself.

Before you start calling for that, try using Light Gammons on weapon teams in Heavy Cover. They will not be wiped.

As for the armour decrease on the 17 Pounder... Not a big fan of it or rather of how big the decrease is. This is a Sandbag fortified structure after all and yet all small arms will penetrate it now. Can't we meet in the middle and give it an armour rating of 2, stopping 50 % of the damage? Just look at AT Guns that have passive Heavy Cover like the Ostheer Pak38 or the Soviet Zis-3. An Armour increase to 2 will bring it closer to that kind of durability.

Emplacement Pack-Up
The goal of pack up is to allow British players to potentially relocate parts of their assets elsewhere, or when it is no longer possible to maintain static presence on the field.

- Sappers can now pack-up emplacements for a 75% return in resources invested in them
- The duration of pack-up time is 20 seconds
- During pack-up the emplacement cannot attack, and takes increased damage (3x)
- Attack restriction penalties persist for 6 seconds if pack-up is cancelled
- The resource yield also counts the 2-mortar upgrade, but doesn’t count Advanced Emplacement Regiment upgrades (i.e., no munitions refund)

Now this does please me a lot. With this change being made, I will no longer feel the need to fight for longer range mortars. Thank you!

Regarding Infiltration Commandos. Would you guys be able to add a "Greyed Out" button for the Demo Charges to explain how to unlock them eventually? I understand I may have... forced you to officially release the mod earlier than planned. Heh... ^^'