Profile of Mr.Smith

And Mr.Smith, I am not a fan of einsteinian theory crafting as it doesn't bode well for video games discussions. I prefer to play the game as all factions and make unbiased judgments supported by facts and realities of different faction designs.

Then state the fact and reality that necessitates widening the gap between the Panzerwerfer and the Katyusha even further.

The JT is currently sluggish (even with the engine upgrade), has no turret and is easily flankable. It compensates this with long range and a punchy gun. If you nerf both the mobility considerably and make the gun worse there is no need to ever pick it over the KT. You make it completely obsolete. It's not OP now anyway.

Are you discussing your experiences in 1v1?

What Imagelessbean is describing is the reality in 3v3 and up. Since these modes are more heavy on the armour department, JT scales much better in those modes. Since units should be balanced according to the modes they are the most potent in, I fail to observe an error in Imagelessbean's logic.

JT is both a mobile Pak43 AND an artillery piece (40MU for 125 range). Currently it's just too easy to use. With the addition of MG34 in the faction, this will shut down the currently best avenue of approach to take that unit down; thus it will become even stronger. (The doctrine already has snares, since it contains pfussies).

I think that the problem with emplacements begins with the faulty design of the mortar pit. If Brits had mobile mortars, we could redesign the Bofors/17-pounder without needing to involve brace. Ever.

Brace is a mechanism that allows somebody to leave their emplacements alone for a while, without having to worry about them being wiped out. An OST player could have emulated the same movement by relocating their mortars along with their army,
or retreating them to base.

If you take brace away, you will be promoting sim city, not deterring it
- This is because sim-city is an all or nothing thing. You either manage to keep everything alive, or it starts falling apart (and you end up losing your entire investment)
- Lack of brace means you need to keep your entire army (blob) together to guard the emplacements at all times.
- Since you are already immobile, why not invest in additional emplacements to help you protect your initial investment?
- "Let there be sim city!"

On the other hand, removing brace will immediately doom any play BUT sim-citying with the Brits (map dependant).
- This is because aggressive play sometimes requires you to have access to indirect fire (especially since the game forces Brits to use Tommies as the mainline infantry).
- Getting access to indirect fire is impossible without building mortar pits
- Mortar pits are expensive, and (without brace) you will be forced to guard them. Therefore:
- "Garden it. I will just go sim-city instead."

(if you make Mortar Pits cheaper, you just make them more spammable. Glory to the Sim City!)

Now. I don't have to go to lengths to explain why brace on Mortar Pits is ugly:
- Sure, mortar pits should win indirect fire engagements vs other indirect fire pieces
- However, if your mortar pit is overrun by infantry, you DESERVE to lose some resources
- Instead, the game punishes the infantry pusher with a silly gimmick, forcing the aggressor to either overcommit, or avoid sim-city. Both outcomes are extremely frustrating to the attacking player.

However, if Brits had access to mobile mortars instead, I would redesign Bofors/17-pounder as follows.

17-pounder could become, quite literally, a clone of Pak-43.
The only exceptions would be that its would have to have additional defense vs Stuka Bomb / Walking Stuka (since those two are extremely accurate and/or spammable). This is easy to implement.

Bofors could replicate the success of FlakHQ (which OKW gets for free).
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The modifications I would do to Bofors are the following:
- Double up the amount of HP to match FlakHQ
- Remove brace (now it has enough HP to withstand indirect fire, and mortars that can aid if needed)
- Remove barrage (Now Brits have access to mortars to support the Bofors, when needed)
- Adjust damage/suppression
- Increase price (say, around 300MP/70FU, without counting unlock).
This should be the same price OKW should be paying for activating/replacing their T4 truck; Increased fuel price would also delay the time for its first appearance.
- Remove veterancy gain (this one doesn't make any sense at ALL on an area denial piece:
If the area denial works, nobody should be coming close to the Bofors.
If it doesn't, it means that Bofors is crappy)
- Retain/Adjust popcap cost (so that Brits don't spam Bofors everywhere).

Since the game already contains a Mortar Pit, I would repurpose the pit as a garrisonable pit.
- The pit should be expensive enough, not to be spammable (e.g., 120MP)
- It should give good defensive bonuses to garrisoned mortars (so that they win over fights with other indirect fire pieces)
- Since it will be expensive, it could also give certain offensive bonuses to mortars too.

Compared to the current mortar pit, a garrisoned mortar pit:
- Will cost significantly more than spamming emplacements
- Will have normal-mortar range (instead of the insane 115 range)
- Mortars can bleed
- The pit can also be destroyed if not repaired
- Garrisoned mortars don't benefit from auto-repair
- Mortars can be relocated to be used elsewhere

If you find the idea of having access to FlakHQ + Pak43 + indirect fire at the same time repulsive, why haven't we heard people rail against OKW Fortifications doctrine recently?

Old SU-85 vet3 engaging a Panther(<vet2) while moving, on max distance is doing 88% of its original dps. (Pen*vet2_accuracy*(vet2+vet3_rof)*accuracy while moving)

The "buffed" SU-85 vet3 will do: 61% of the original dps.

You forgot to factor in the penetration and the accuracy buffs!

I did a quick calculation for mid range, and the new SU-85 is going to be 99% as efective as the old SU-85 vs targets with armour equal or above 300.

DPS on turretless tank-hunters is a bit misleading. If you are really good, you will always have the target in front of you. Otherwise, your SU-85 will spend a lot of time rotating to catch up. That rotation time would hit the old SU-85 much harder than it would hit the new one. This is the same reason why the old USF AT gun (which was trading penetration for rate of fire) was a horrible, horrible gun.

On the flipside, SU-85 will always penetrate on targets below 300.

Actually there is probably a fix. Low the XP value of vehicles to lets say half. Then apply an XP bonus to vehicles of 2. That would have infantry damaging vehicles gain half veterancy while tank would get full veterancy...

Tanks would twice xp of killing infantry but that would probably be a lesser issue. It would also help dedicated AI tank like luch, flame hetzer, KV-8...

That's not a bad idea actually!

However, I wonder how much veterancy tank destroyers would generate get by crushing infantry (M-10 & co) or targeting infantry with their MGs (Panther & co). Unless I can think of another cornercase, this looks like a lesser evil to what we are currently experiencing.