Profile of Mr.Smith

Ontopic:

Keep in mind the following:
- AT guns are meant to be a sustainable cost-efficient way to counter vehicles
- Even if an AT gun crew gets wiped you can recrew the gun for a bit of MP cost (reinforcing the squad)

1. Due to how things work, no matter how we change things, recrewing an abandoned M-42 will still cost 120 MP/6 popcap to operate.

For comparison, a Zis-3 gun would require 120 MP/9 popcap to operate.

Thus, even if we go for a crappy-for-crap's-sake design, we can't circumvent that part. (Yes, we can give a reduced reinforcement cost for crew, but that might lead to recrew-with-shock-troops cheese).

2. If penetration is bad, there will be no way for the M-42 to gain vet from attacking vehicles in the late game. Thus it will suffer the same fate as the soviet mortar; if its vet is wiped, it won't be worth to replace it.

3. Regarding anti-infantry

You have to keep in mind that Soviets can also get the Zis-3 gun that has an expensive, but decent barrage ability.

- Giving M42 direct-fire anti-infantry (T70-like) might be problematic depending on the map and obstacles available. The performance of the gun might range from terrible (hills etc) to OP in closed space maps. Unlike T-70, M42 is not mobile enough to manoeuvre

- Giving it Focused Fire (i.e., turning it into a short-duration sniper) might end up being a bit cheesy (e.g., using it to snipe MG teams, or even snipe the sniper). This is not a bad idea per se, however it requires care given that it hurts low-member squads the most

- Canister shot seems like an OK proposition. It can combine the best of both worlds outlined above, but also the worst of either of them. At the very least it costs munitions but doesn't guarantee kills, which is fine in my books.

Offtopic:

Why is access to one of the better AT guns in the game at T2 not enough? Please just stop this agenda of giving Soviets more and more AT.

I really feel like you guys are just f-ing with stuff just to f with stuff.

Even when the units within T1 have not been changed multiple times, T1 has changed a lot. That's mostly indirectly, due to the other factions changing.

You are entitled to your opinion that we should be ashamed of ourselves for even considering giving comparable AT options to both tiers, and experimenting with that in a balance preview mod. However, no matter how hard I try to scan your comments for useful feedback, all I see is ranting.

What is your proposed solution to the T1 problem?

In the most recent history, Soviet T1 has been through 3 different iterations
- Current iteration, where you have Flamer Penals, and Flamer Penals are really really worth it. Especially if you have guards/ your teammate can provide AT
- 1-year+ ago, when Luchs was locked behind T4, and 222 had 240HP with a need-to-buy autocannon upgrade. This meant that there was no light vehicle threat to worry about.
- Pre-buff Penals, where Soviets had to worry about 320HP auto-cannon 222 and T2 Luchs. That was a ~6-month period when Soviet T1 was not seen-of or heard-of.

Assuming it's heresy to give T1 access to even soft-AT options, which one of the forementioned iterations would you consider closer to "the spirit of T1".

Thanks.

Put down PTRS and make M-42 great again!

Even if PTRS Penals are weak, at least they allow the Soviet player to get some non-doctrinal handheld AT. Even barely anything is better than nothing. That already gives T1 an edge over T2.

Unless T1 units are really worth it, nobody will ever want to pick T1 to build a crappy M-42, when they could simply get Maxim & Zis instead.

Nobody wants to build a crappy AT gun so that they leave it abandoned later on.

To give you an idea about what a hopeless team weapon looks like, try to imagine yourself, playing as OST and coming across 3 abandoned Soviet PM-41 mortars. Would you ever waste the manpower needed to recrew them? I bet not.

You probably wouldn't even bother destroying them, so that your enemy can waste more of their manpower to recrew them. M-42 shouldn't be such a hopeless unit.

Thus, if you want to help making M-42 decent, open up a new brainstorming thread and get the community to contribute. Since M-42 should be weaker vs heavier tanks, at least it should compensate with utility.
- Avoid putting cheesy utility, like stun
- Designs without klingon cloaking fields are greatly appreciated

I'll start by mentioning that damage should go up to 100 (maybe even 135) to allow the gun to be a specialist light-vehicle killer, even if its penetration remains crappy.

Even if M-42 won't make it to T1, we could reuse the ideas for a potential commander rework in the future.

My problem is primarily that this patch is taking a unit that already arrived too early (particularly vs. Brits that don't go AEC) and then makes it arrive even earlier. Makes zero sense.

I wasn't really complaining about the nerfs. I was complaining about the "very nice price reduction" lol.

- The AEC is stronger vs the Luchs (armour buff).
- Brits now also have the option to go PIATs vs the Luchs; with or without the AT gun.
- Soviet T1 has PTRS Penals. To make Luchs more worth it vs the resource tradeoff OKW is enforcing on the Soviets, the Luchs is better off being cheap. (neither the OKW player can unbuild the luchs, nor the Soviet player can revert the PTRS upgrade)
- M20 is cheaper
- M15 can have its flanks protected by AT rifle grenades that deal 100 damage each

On the other hand, OKW vehicles needed to do a bit of something vs Maxim spam, and that's what fixing anti-garrison damage for those vehicles achieves.

MechHQ is already a risk-tier as it is. I don't think it's fair for the OKW player to be forced to invest so much to get only a single Luchs out.

if the issue is with collusion, you can fixed it by changing the stug E projectile's collusion type from tp_artillery to tp_homing(what the stug G and pz4 use).

We could. On the other hand it is more faithful to immersion if we have the projectile going through obstacles using arcs, rather than travelling through things to achieve the same effect.

the new stug E is basically another brummbar at this point, with minor stats difference.

The vanilla stug E had two issue, it's too cheap (200mp 75 fuel 8 pop is a steal) and the main gun stun is too powerful.

I really have to stress how cheap the vanilla stug E is. At 200 mp 75 fuel it's only 5 fuel more expensive than the vanilla t70. The t70 might be the better infantry killer, but the stug E is just a much better overall package.

I think your solution is over complicating the issue by changing it into a new units.

and the doctrine itself have issue in 2v2+ because of the lackluster Tiger and Assault grenadier.

Live version Stug-E is a glorified, long-range T-70.

Unlike T-70. Unlike the T-70 though, this unit lacks a turret and, thus, the ability to safely close the distance. Thus, if the map happened to have any sort of elevation between the Stug-E and the target, tough luck.

I have played a lot of 3v3+ games, all steps of the ladder. I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever seen that commander bring anything but misfortune to the guy that chooses it.

There's so many hills and shotblockers and anything, that you are better off spamming Ostwinds (which arrive earlier than the Stug-E for those game-modes).

Even TWP is not enough to carry the Stug-E there.

Even if massed Stug-E can somehow displace Brummbars (which don't die to 3 shots poking them, btw), let it be. In any case the doctrine also gets access to Tigers.

Stug-E

Do note that Stug-E becoming better, and more consistent vs stationary infantry is the intended design.

The trade-off here, is that stug-E should be considerably worse vs mobile infantry.

Also note that a Stug-E costs about half of the resources that a Brummbar requires. Thus, 2x Stug-E's should be somewhat comparable. Especially now that Stug-E packs inferior AT utility/durability to the Brummbar.

The days of cheesing the Stug-E commander are over.
However, Stug-E should still have -something- to draw people to picking this commander over the other commanders.

The real stress-test here is how Stug-E performs vs AT guns.