Profile of Mr.Smith

But problem is - even if you put LeFH now on back, even if you cover it with everything, it's still not effective.

I don't want to turn howtizers into "offensive" tools, it's ridiculous idea from very start. I want to make them better as support to mainforces tools. Infantry stun or supression + direct hit criticals would really work as support for you main troops or troops of your allie. Right now, it provides no support, it just bombards area, randomly hitting targets and causing not such huge damage.

Let it be vunerable, let it be overpriced, but let it also be effectve! That's what I ask! You suggest otherwise "let it be less vunerable, let it not be overpriced, but let it still be useless". I don't need cheap and useless howtizers, I need expensive and effective, please.

The problem with stationary pieces of equipment is that it's an all-or-nothing investment. This is a more general problem, which you can also witness in Brit Sim city:
- You invest a lot resources to gain access to (stationary) indirect fire
- Now you need to invest the remaining resources to protect that indirect fire unit
- Camp!

If we make Howitzers even more expensive, there is no way somebody could, realistically, also field an offensive force to take advantage of covering fire from the Howitzer. Thus, the remainder of the resources will go towards HMG/Pak-walling, which are more efficient for that role. Then, the howie-player is going to remain stationary, while taking potshots at the other guy, who will now be forced to attack.

Now, if we also make Howitzers deadlier against something (e.g., tanks), we have all the ingredients there for C____r!

I understand the point that howitzers should be good at something. They can't match rocket artillery when countering pak-turtling or infantry. However they are very good at smashing defensive structures:
- OKW trucks
- Punishing forward retreat points
- (occasionally) punishing mortar/ISG blobbing

The LeFH is exceptionally effective at punishing forward retreat-points/campy-play. It is also particularly deadly if you manage to create a death-grip around the opponent and force them to concentrate their forces (e.g., HMG-wall/Pak-wall; in team-games mostly). While the howitzers barrage, they are excellent area-denial tools (each shot can really wipe an entire squad). I know this, because I have been at both ends of the LeFH.

We already have off-map artillery that is quite good at smashing immobile things. That costs munitions, and usually a lot of them. Howitzers are more economical in doing that, provided that they survive long enough to pay off. The problem is that they are already too expensive.

A Brit forward retreat point costs 450 MP. If you need to pay 600MP for a howitzer just to smash that, that's not going to pay off (since there is also the risk of the howitzer dying). What if the howitzer cost 400MP instead?

A price/range readjustment will help in the following vector:
- If you want to be offensive, you can always afford one howitzer to break up the enemy FRP.
- The lower range will make it risky to create a howitzer-farm. One miss-step and it's gone.

Now that won't always make howitzers, worthy, but they will be even better vs:
- OST that spams bunkers/pak-walls
- Brits that like their Sim-city
- OKW that gets greedy with their truck placement

I believe Miragefla once mentioned that the reason OKW base flaks down planes is because they have a deflection crit chance to auto-kill the plane. This means that:
- Even though Flak Defences normally do no damage to (armoured) planes, each shot has a tiny chance of insta-gibbing that plane down.
- I think that gliders have no armour. Thus, Flak Base defenses always penetrate/gib the poor gliders.

--> The deflection crit chance should go away. If possible, the glider should also get an armour buff while it is airborne.

Base flak defenses used to make sense in the pre-buff OKW, when they were extremely vulnerable to vehicle rushes, and they could (realistically) not field any light vehicles of their own. This has changed.

Another annoying thing with OKW base defenses has to do with teamgames, and how base defenses are selected:
- Every time you start a teamgame, one player from each team is randomly selected
- All defense structures for that team are spawned according to the selected player's faction

Thus, if you have a mixed team of 3 OST and 1 OKW, there is a 25% chance all players benefit from OKW flak defenses. Naturally, this kills light vehicle pushes and invalidates some tactics that OST should be naturally vulnerable to (e.g., deep-base dives to eliminate snipers, assuming you even manage to dodge the faust-wall).

--> If the team-spawning issues aren't addressed in any different way, OKW should probably get fixed-facing bunkers like all other factions. If it is decided that they keep their flak defenses, penetration should be nerfed accordingly.

One issue with that is that bulletin stacking still works, in some form:
- Some units benefit from multiple bulletins (e.g, PGrens, Stugs)
- Some units benefit from bulletins that should be affecting other units (e.g., most OST units, as per Cruzz thread).

If we could limit stuff like Stugs etc benefiting from 3-4 different bulletins, then, sure.

Now, regarding the specifics, if 10% is the magic number:
- Vet boost is too high. 15-20% is good enough, I think?
- Received accuracy is too low compared to accuracy bonuses (make it -9.1% received accuracy or something).
- Reload time buff is too high relative to other buffs. Again, make it -9.1% (should be the inverse of +10%).

- On single-shot guns (most tanks, handheld AT etc), the reload speed is directly linked to the DPS output.
- For burst-oriented tanks / MGs (e.g., 222, Centaur, etc), the effect of reload is minimal to begin with

did you use a formula? formula doesn't really take into account stray shot hitting.

I didn't take stray shot hitting into account. However, if I knew the probability of stray-shot hitting per range, I could integrate it into the formula.

The firerate IS VERY slow, less than a second from a jadgtiger infact.

How's the 85 getting butchered? now it gets to be reliable vs all armor while losing 1- sec in reload for a 30% total pen on vet plus even more base pen? and smaller target size with a small cost increase.

Even then its going to fire faster than the panther, they're not exactly equivalent units either though.

The same conversation about Panthers, Comets, and the other zoo animals has been going in parallel in another thread.

Regarding Panther vs Comet, let's, first, acknowledge some hard facts:

Comets actually lose very hard to Panthers.

I have calculated the probabilities of winning for this engagement, and it looks like this:

When both units are at Vet0

- The panther has 75-80% chance of winning on ranges from 0 to 40
- The probability drops to 51% at range 50

The lighter the portion of a bar is, the more HP the winning tank will have after the engagement.

For instance, at range 25, the Comet has 30% winning chance. This can be broken down into:
- about 20% chance of surviving with 160HP left
- about 7.5% chance of surviving with 320HP left
- about 2.5% chance of surviving with 480HP left

When both units are at Vet3

- The Panther has 99.9% chance to win on ranges from 0 to 25
- The Panther has at least 95% chance of winning on ranges from 25 to 40
- The probability drops to 85% only at range 50

(Yes. The graphs also take into account that the Comet has been upgraded with the Tank Commander).

Note that:
- Range 50 is the max range. Thus, the Panther can choose to disengage whenever
- It requires a spotter for either tank to be able to continue to trade shots. If, at any time, the LOS is broken, the Comet loses its advantage to use its slightly higher RoF. Thus, the Panther wins there, too.

Now, regarding the SU-85 comment.

1 second difference makes a HUGE difference when the original quantity is tiny.
- an 1-second increase for something that took 4 seconds to complete means that it is now 20% less efficient.
- an 1-second increase for a huge cooldown (e.g., B4 barrage) is not noticeable at all.

If you read the patch notes carefully, you are going to see that the SU-85 not only lost its Vet0 reload speed (-25%). It also lost its Vet2 reload speed (that's another -30%):
https://community.companyofheroes.com/discussion/comment/245956/#Comment_245956

Cumulatively, the SU will fire 1.9 times slower than before.

This is a -50% performance reduction for anything with armour 190 or below (T3, JP4, etc). The SU-85 paid a heavy price to get its penetration and accuracy increased, so that it no longer fires dud shells vs Panthers and the like (and that the Soviets get a reliable counter to Panther-spam).

Now, what do you propose that the Panther sacrifice so that its RoF increases? Don't you agree that the charts show it is already very powerful as it is?