Profile of rofltehcat

EDIT: Found it and fixed it in the code below, leaving it up for reference.

I'm playing around with Autohotkey and this seems to be the most recent AHK-related thread. I'm trying to get the old "plot vehicle path" (Rightclick, then repeated quick shift-rightclicks while button stays pressed) working again.

However, somewhere in there, something seems to be causing "next idle builder unit" (comma key "," on my keyboard layout). So it keeps selecting my builder units instead of keeping my vehicle selected.

Here is my code, I hope someone can point out the mistake to me:
;vehicle special
$XButton1::
Send {Rbutton}
Send {Shift Down}
Loop
{
if not GetKeyState("XButton1", "P")
break
Send {Rbutton}
sleep 20
}
Send {Shift Up}
return

Fun fact 2: HMG have very high accuracy against vehicles due to their size. This means that their AoE supression, which is tied to landing hits, is extremely high when shooting at vehicles. Aim at a vehicle next to a squad, and the squad will get suppressed rapidly despite not being shot at directly by the HMG.

EDIT: According to Woof, AoE suppression only applies to actual hits. My bad, I thought it'd apply to the normal suppression amount. Ignore this post if you want, I'll leave it up in case someone wants to salvage any of it

Afaik, it isn't. It is still good advice, though.
It does not matter how often the MG hits, it only matters how many bullets it shoots at a target and what modifiers count against the target. The modifiers for different cover types (accuracy, suppression, damage, penetration) are different for many types. What you are experiencing is the result of vehicles not receiving cover boni. If it would only count hitting bullets, there would be double-dipping and the modifiers would need to be much lower.

Example modifiers HMG42:
Light suppression: 0.5
Light penetration: 1.0
Light accuracy: 0.5
Light damage: 1.0

Heavy suppression: 0.1
Heavy penetration: 1.0
Heavy accuracy: 0.5
Heavy damage: 0.5

With 0.1*0.5 = 0.05 suppression modifier, nothing would ever be suppressed in green cover because their suppression regeneration would pretty much cancel it out. (However, I can't give you numbers on the regeneration nor on the mechanics... there once was a very good article about it on the VERY old and since replaced coh1stats site, not probably lost forever. So I'm just assuming it works roughly the same as in CoH1, like most things in this game.)

Overall I really liked the commander when it came out. However, I have not used it recently and do not know what changes have been made to it in the meantime. So my statements are mainly based on the effectiveness I perceived back then. However, much may have changed so my suggestions may be too severe. I think it could be nerfed but the nerfs should not be over-done because at least back then the commander did not offer THAT much else (and the meta has shifted a lot since then). My suggestions would mainly aim at differentiating the two effects, making the ability more flavorful and less of a "one button does it all" type ability. Of course in that form it'd be weaker but I don't think it'd be too weak.

Some other buffs have a cooldown period in the form of their ability cooldown or even a weakness period. I think splitting up the healing and combat buff effects would be a good way to go:
1. If a unit takes damage while the healing effect is active, the healing effect stops.
2. After the combat buff ends, a unit cannot acquire a new one for x seconds. However, the effects can still be stacked.

This promotes two uses: 1. Either use it out of combat to heal troops (use one packet at a time), taking into account that troops might not be able to get a new buff effect in combat. This way the packets last longer but their effect on combat is smaller. For their pure healing effect the price (30, doctrinal, takes a while to arrive) is ok, compared to a medic bunker (60, area-bound).
2. Use the packets in a more active manner for the combat buff, either extending the effects or stacking the effects. This way the units won't get much healing from the packets and the packets are used up quickly. That way their combat buff cost would also be a little more comparable to other buff effects.

I still think they should also be usable by the enemy if you leave them lying around (incentive to use and defend them). I am also assuming that their buff effects are still stackable (which may have changed somewhen).

I think Assault Engineers are quite fun to incorporate into US strategies and I was more or less successful when trying them. However, I think they should be treated as close quarters and flanking elite infantry. If they can wait behind a hedge or flank around houses, they are very effective. You still won't want more than 1 or at most 2 squads of them for that role, though.

Their demo charges are also great, especially considering US otherwise has a lack of mines. It also helps them get to Vet 2 for the received accuracy modifier.

I think when they are in the right situations they are pretty good but in other situations they of course get decimated. So they are pretty niche.
Does that niche limitation make them bad? I do not think so. Rather, I think other US options are over-performing and/or are not properly limited to any niches. For example, Riflemen tend to do well in all combat situations and even the weapon upgrades tend to simply make them better at that instead of making them better close range or long range units.

It is a bit like the Panzergrenadier situation: They are not bad on paper and they are not bad when used in the right situations. But everyone is just using LMG grens instead because they are performing well on all ranges and are easier to use.

However, Assault Engineers' high damage potential also puts them in the same balance conundrum as Panzergrenadiers: If you buff them, you can quickly get a unit that just indiscriminately walks over all enemy units. I think this is one main reason why we haven't seen many PGren changes. In the end they also double as builder units, have demo charges (good utility for non-mine faction) and can repair.

So in short: They are not bad, it is just other US options overperforming and invading their niche and changing them can lead to severe balance problems.

Katyusha changes 22th:

Katyusha
We wanted to increase the lethality and reliability of the Katyusha.
AOE radius from 4 to 6
AOE distance from 1/2/3 to 1.5/3/4.5
Damage from 80 to 160
Scatter angle from 5 to 10
Scatter offset from 0.25 to 0.1

Katyusha changes 31st:

Ability recharge time from 70 to 110 seconds
Far AOE damage from 4 to 8
Damage from 160 to 80
Deflected shots now deal 20 damage

What it has now, compared to before the changes:
+ Much larger AoE damage area. + Much larger infantry-killing radius. + More rockets land near the target's center. - But a few of the rockets can also scatter more to the left and right (depending on katyusha distance). + Better damage against heavy vehicles. - Longer cooldown.

To be honest, by stats the Katyusha is now better off than it was before. It has gained in power but shoots less often.
I think people are just perceiving it as bad because they got used to its performance between patches. I also think people got used to using it "wrong": Its splash area and killing area before meant that it did not really matter how far from the target the Katyusha was positioned and vision did not matter as much. One could even argue that it scattering more was good to cover a larger area. However, I think that now it is better to fire it from medium instead of from maximum range and preferably with line of sight.
People should give it more of a try in the new patch, I certainly will. Same for the Panzerwerfer, we'll see if that works out.

In any case it won't help at all if nobody uses those units anymore just because they assume that they are now that much worse. Possibly I'm wrong with my stats interpretation but instantly writing it off as useless is bad attitude.