Profile of Mr.Smith

Actually, I just thought the following.

On release, the Mortar Pits (allong with all other emplacements) were garrisonable by MG teams. Could the MG weapon slots be interchangeable with Mortar weapon slots. Would that also make all garrisoned mortars able to fire on whichever direction ordered (without relocating)

That is indeed true, but the second would be the case for trenches as well! Although it might look slightly less awkward.

You are right. I kind of completely forgot that garrisoned models kind of "disappear" when they die. That's great, because the idea of disappearing models from mortar pits will not look so alien after all!

Sure, here you go: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=635567216
It's in the German Defensive and Infantry doctrines. There might be a lot of bugs, because I haven't worked on it for about a month and Relic made some alterations to the Attribute Editor in the meantime, but the last time I checked, mortars in trenches worked fine: You could garrison them while retaining full functionality. Currently, that includes only the Ostheer GrW34, however!

Thanks! I just tried it and it looks great!

I am going to have a jab at the following tasks, and I would appreciate your expertise to help answer whether those tasks are "doable" or "it's probably impossible/too much work/don't even bother"

This is what a plaussible roadmap would look like:

1) Let's assume that I would like to extend the trenches you used for the Defensive commander so that they can hold 2 mortars at the same time. Would it be possible to control the both mortars' abilities while having the trench selected?

2) What is the easiest way to bestow a small buff (e.g., to reload) to garrisoned mortars (i.e., least amount of work)

3) I would like to take the Mortar Pit building model and turn it into a garrisonable Trench thing. What I mean is that whichever mortar & crew is garrisoned is visible at preset locations on the mortar pit (like they currently are visible around the middle of the trench). (Let's ignore the fact that we also have the 2 abandoned mortars there). Would this be a doable task?

From my (users') experience with garrisons, there seem to be 2 kinds of them:

- Ambient buildings: Garrisoned units will instantly zoom to whichever window is closest to the enemy. That looks a bit awkward
- Trenches: Units will tend to remain at their garrisoned spots, without zooming (or I've never noticed that because of the net).

Would it be possible to:
- Take the Mortar Pit building
- Assign the precise spots where units should appear (8 of them basically, since I have 2 mortars and max crewsize is 4 for each)
- That way, the two mortars will spawn exactly where the current two mortars are at
- The crewmembers will remain at their preset positions

(let me know if something doesn't make sense. I wrote this in a bit of a hurry)

I haven't the slightest clue about creating my own mods. However this is for a good cause.

Brief description

I want to see whether it is modable to build a Mortar Pit emplacement that feels more like a trench, than the immersion breaking "building" that the maligned mortar pit is known for.

The UKF player will be able to build mortars from their T2, and they will have the option of building vacant mortar pits for their mortars. While the mortars are located inside the mortar pit, they can benefit from:
- Some kind of defensive bonus (something better than heavy cover)
- Some kind of offensive bonus

The bonuses could be arbitrary (e.g., -10% reload time. -60% damage taken).

The idea is that if this is moddable and visually-appealing, we might be able to convince Relic to accepting this into the mainline.

Why this is important

Currently, the Mortar Pit is the cornerstone and the cause of the Brit sim city. Suppose you want to build a Bofors:
- Brits lack mobile indirect fire
- The mortar pit is expensive, so that it is not too spammable
- Thus, the mortar pit has to outrange all other indirect fire (otherwise it is useless)
- This creates a problem when you want to take down a Bofors cannon that is flanked by 2 mortar pits.

If we could create a garrisonable mortar pit, we could immediately do the following:
- The mortar pit will have absolutely no more need for its insane range (if you are under attack, you can relocate)
- No more need for brace (overwhelmed? you can retreat)
- No need to retain bofors barrage (if you want to defend your bofors, you can relocate your mortars)

Detailed description

Basically, this mod should give the UKF player the ability to create the following two entities;

1. The Brit 3 inch mortar

If the animations for it exist in the game files, then please do. Otherwise, just copy-paste any existing mortar and call it the 3 inch mortar. I don't think anybody will care.

The stats of the mortar are irrelevant.

2. Mortar Pit

Basically, this is an empty pit. While there is no mortar garrisoned, it would be nice if you could completely remove both the crew and the mortars to simulate a vacant pit.

If it is not possible to remove the mortars, you can simulate this by simply removing the crew.

Garrisoned pit

Since Relic gave us a double-mortar pit, this is where it gets tricky. If you could make the visual representation match the number of garrisoned mortars, that would be awesome.

e.g., if there is only one mortar garrisoned, there should be only one mortar visible.

Mortar Pit buffs

Make them something minor (like -10% reload time etc). However, please be sure that the buffs:
- Apply on each mortar only once
- Are removed from the mortars once they exit the pit

(i.e., no buff stacking)

Pit/Mortar death events

Let's make the Mortar Pit a bit more durable than the trench, so that Mortars will, realistically, die first before the pit is destroyed.

Both the proposed modifications aim to make the mortar pit less of a death trap for the garrisoned mortars (else, why would you EVER place 2 mortars in such a vicinity to one another).

- Mortar dies

When a mortar dies inside the pit, the mortar should drop outside of the pit and be recrewable.

- Pit dies

Both mortars survive and remain where the mortar pit was previously at (just like an MG team does when the occupied trench is destroyed)

Mortar variety (optional)

It is entirely possible that a UKF player may capture other factions' mortars. If it is possible to copy-paste the garrisoned mortar stats into the mortar pit weapons. That would be great.

If it would also be possible to copy-paste the visual style of the garrisoned mortar it would be ace!

In the grand scheme of things, it won't matter as much, though.

Barrage/abilities from within the mortar pit

If possible, it would be nice to be able to access the mortars' barrage ability while the mortars are garrisoned (otherwise, why would people garrison their mortars if it makes their ability less accessible than before?)

If this is not possible, it would be nice to copy-paste the barrage weapon stats into the mortar weapon entity (just like the procedure outlined in the "Mortar variety" subsection).

In the latter case, the mortar pit emplacement would endow a permanent barrage-status ability to the garrisoned mortars, and that would be the only buff that it provides.

What about Bofors/17pdr?

We can solve the Bofors problem easily by making it something between the OKW flak base and the OKW flak emplacement. There should be some middle ground where Bofors can stand up on its own, be counterable by indirect fire and AT fire, and hold up against infantry. Brace is optional here (since there's Popcap requirements).

The 17pdr makes absolutely no sense as an emplacement. It is currently counterable by AT guns and tanks (which it should counter instead). On the other hand, it is nearly invulnerable to infantry rushes (which it should be completely vulnerable to). Copy-pasting a unit that works (Pak43) would be the best idea, I believe.

Is it? if it can counter enemy mortars, ATG and AT infantry, one has to risk vehicles against it which in most cases are more expensive than M8a1. Buffing the unit so much combined with the m36 sight buff will probably prove problematic, since M36 will be able to spot and counter most vehicles and m8a1 counter ATgs...

I don't really see where the problem exactly lies if the Scott can counter all that. The Scott is not a 2CP(?) 200MP/40FU mortar half-track. It's a late-game indirect fire unit. The following factions have these non-doctrinal tools to provoke the kind of reaction you describe (force the enemy to attack);
- Soviets have Katyusha
- OST has Panzerwerfer
- OKW has Stukas

Moreover, some factions have additional side-options to counter pak-walls:
- OST: Brummbar (hopefully, with the new Patch)
- OKW: KT

At this point I am a bit curious. How do you counter extreme pak-walling (a non-doctrinal option for OST) as USF?

If you want to compare it whit mortars you have to keep in mind that it uses lower trajectory so projectiles have less travel time and are better against moving targets. Has a barrage range of 80. Is more mobile. Can not be countered by mortars and can pop smoke to counter direct fire.

Those are valid points. The trajectory point is crucial (Pack Howie and Leig had an insanely low shooting angle during Leigfest, which created all sorts of issues).

However, a barrage range of 80 is necessary for a unit that -might- be used to counter a Pak wall -- something that the Pak Howie is not great at. A 60-range Scott means you will be shot back at.

Feel free to. The unit might or might not be Op, but there is nothing "minor" to specific 4 buffs and 2*far AOE buff.

One could argue that the M8A1 has been completely forgotten while numerous buffs came and went to other indirect fire pieces (LEIG, Pak Howie etc). All 3 buffs aim to correct inconsistencies between the M8A1 and the other indirect fire pieces.

Technically there are three buffs:
- Health buff: absolutely necessary for a T3.5 unit
- Built-time: This is a mere formality. Completely bypassed by the Captain's Supervise ability.
- AoE profile buff: This one we'll have to see (while also taking the 100 damage of this arty piece into account).