Profile of Mr.Smith

I think thats what "combat" stands for. :-)

I wonder if it applies on stand still vehicles too?! Because the -50% received accuracy make things even funnier.

Basically your stand still Panther with combat blitz has twice the chance to hit anything, while everything have half the chance to hit the Panther. Too bad i rarely build Panthers with OKW, i would always use blitz in combats.

Yes, the ability will work as advertised, even if your Panther remains stationary.

However, note that "missed" shots will spawn stray, non-homing, shells that act like the attack ground command. If you hold still, there is still a very high risk of those "stray" shots of hitting your Panther (and, thus, causing damage).

To reduce the chance of getting hit by those "stray" shells, try one of the following:
1. Try to have an obstacle (e.g., a fence, elevation) between you and the enemy.
- Assuming you have accuracy superiority, their shots are more likely to hit world objects than yours.
- I am not so sure about this, but the game files imply that that the obstacle needs to be within 10 meters from you, in order for the enemy's projectile to have a chance to collide with it. (this mechanic is worded extremely ambiguously)

2. Have a fast enough unit that reverses away from the target
- The Puma and the AEC which have very small scatter -- great for AI -- are notorious for having their shells land short of their targets).

3. Otherwise, assuming you have a small target profile, try to fight the enemy from a distance as great as possible
- Here, you rely on "angle scatter" to produce a random value large enough to miss your tank

What about a hold-fire toggle instead? This way you can control when and on which target to unload the first volley so more micro is rewarding, while the dreaded A-move blob doesn't become more powerful.

You mean, revert the change to a hold fire ability that disables all weapons while it's active, or just the panzerschrecks?

To me, this just boils down again to more micro for micro's sake. AT guns have a prioritise vehicle function for the express purpose of preventing infantry from baiting their shots. It's only fair that dedicated AT infantry has access to a similar function:
- Somebody paid good money to upgrade that infantry
- With damage nerfs in June patch, giving handheld AT to infantry no longer increases their AI power
- With the added change of completely banning AT infantry from engaging infantry, giving AT weaponry to infantry will completely gimp the unit's damage vs infantry.

Again. This boils down to the following:
- If handheld AT is too potent, nerf its stats
- If handheld AT is too spammable, increase the cost.
- If some units have too much utility in their hands that doesn't depend on equiped weapons (e.g., bundle nade, smoke, snares, minesweeping) while also having access to good AT, then remove the side-utility when AT weaponry are present.

The other reason I want to avoid having too many toggles (or at least make the most common state the default state) is because it looks ugly. When was the last time somebody saw a Jackson/Panther/JP4 without prioritise vehicle on? The rest of the time (i.e., all of it), there's an ugly (but useful) yellow icon hanging atop the tank.

Wouldn't the game look prettier without all those prioritise-vehicle icons saturating the field?

Just to mention it, i don't mind if a squad ends up with 2 LMG if one is been picked up from the ground (and i don't care that we only have 1 commander on UKF which does that).

If AR get "nerf" (starting with BAR) at long range, i wouldn't mind as well letting people have 1919 + BAR or zook.

Problem1: if my previous idea is possible, would this mean that there is no way to make commandos been able to pick 2 LMGs? Roughly thinking i guess this is the "only" unit in conflict (been them "elite) and don't necessarily optimal for this. We could live without it.

Another brainstorm idea : not sure if it's needed or not (in case people see problematic RET x2 zook). Say that Rear echelons have their current cost based on their capabilities of getting 2 weapons. Wouldn't it be better to have their cost reduce but reducing their weapon slots (make sweeper in this case not cost any weapon slot).
Regarding RE/Sappers with Piats, i would start first by seriously nerfing or removing their vet3 reinforce bonus. You could also limit weapons to 1 for RE and making sweepers/salvage 0.

Problem2: RET/RE might not be able to pick up a single LMG if it requires 2 weapon slots.

Commandos can be made to be allowed to pick up double LMGs, etc.

TheMachine actually has everything you mentioned working for his GG mod (can't pick double-guns from racks, elite infantry can have their double LMGs, etc). I"m pretty sure Firesparks' mod uses an identical ruleset for picked-up weapons. I don't know what's the status for Miragefla mod.

You can also nerf REs by limiting them to one weapon per rack (no matter which). As long as the only restriction you want to place is on upgrades/weapon racks, then it's no biggy to do.

The hairy stuff happens when you want to change the rules about what happens to weapons you want to pick up from the ground.

Does this mean that e.g. Panzerschrecks will only attack vehicles while the guys holding regular rifles will attack anything as they do now?

Yes. This is what this change accomplishes, precisely.

The counterplay you describe is, exactly, how one deals with AT blobs currently. However, this is completely gimmicky, and hinges on the AT squad having bad DPS-on-the-move (Volks, didn't have issues damaging on the move; and at all ranges, that's why they were so cancerous).

Imo, this quality-of-life change is worthwhile to include in the game:
- I see no reason to deny a player control over their squads, if that control makes so much difference in performance
- This is in-line with the force-facing MGs in building. Previously, you could pop a crappy squad to flank, to make the MG rotate, and then push through with the blob.

You are correct that it might raise some balance concerns. IMO, all handheld-AT deserves a nerf, especially in the following areas:
- range
- deflection damage

However, I don't think it will make that much of a difference:
- PIATs/Zooks have a pretty tight reload cycle, anyway
- Panzerschrecks are pricey and only ever come on clumsy, inconvenient squads.

Since I intent to keep this mod a collection of neutral pluggable-fixes to other mods, I am not planning to put-through any balance changes:
- If this mod were about balance, the first thing that would get nerfed is Airlanding Officer Heroic Charge.
- The PIAT nerfs were necessary, due to the drastic ease-of-use changes, which are very commonly requested (by players and modders alike)

On the flipside, it will take more micro for the AT-player to attack enemy squads (AT still deals non-negligible damage point-blank) or, accidentally blow up their cover.

PS: I am thinking that Luchs needs both a prioritise vehicle button, and a hold-fire button.
- However, both abilities usually occupy the same slot in the grid, and have the same hotkey (H).
- If I had to move one of these abilities to "V" (bottom right), which one should it be?

Bugs > Quality of life changes > Frequent, frustratingly-unavoidable wipes (RNG or not) > Balance

Unless you are in the top-300, balance really doesn't matter that much. Why? Matchmaking will fix things for you.

Just take a moment and have a look at http://coh2chart.com/ and observe the how the winrates have changed since the June patch. Now, they are nearly the same, again, as it was before the June patch.

This is, even though, it is significantly more difficult to play OKW (no Volksblob) or OST (USF mortar) than before. Don't deceive yourselves; this isn't the result of players adapting to the meta. This is the result of the matchmaking algorithm adapting to the varying difficulty of playing the different factions.

On the other hand, bugs and questionable decisions that affect the quality of life of the players affect every single person playing the game. That is, apart from the top-300-ish competitive player, it also affects: teamgame players, compstomp players, campaign players, etc. That's massively more people than the competitive few players, for whom balance actually matters. As it happens, that's the biggest source of cashflow this game can hope of getting.

You can still enjoy an unbalanced game, by playing the underdog and fighting against superior odds. It's not always fun, but it's damn rewarding when it works. If you keep losing, the matchmaking algorithm will match you against easier opponents, with whom you have a better lee-way of trying non-meta strats and 2nd-rate factions.

However, if, every single time you play, you have to come face-to-face with the same 10+ debilitating bugs/features/whatever, it gets tiresome. Having a bugged game means that the game is going to quickly start losing its playerbase when active support (and meta-shifting) gets dropped.

The first game, CoH1, definitely has it's issues, but it's still pretty damn appealing to play. This is despite the fact that the meta has settled to the same do-and-repeat cheese over and over again for... 5-ish years? That's because, the vast majority of debilitating bugs has been crushed out of the game.

When units behave consistently, you can start basing strategies around them. If those strategies are too suboptimal to face the meta-cheese, you will get your arse kicked by the tryhards. But, at least it wasn't an undocumented game bug/feature that robbed you out of that victory.