Multi-purpose weapons

[Razz1]

I don't think anyone is asking for multi purpose planes. They are pretty much multi role as tac bombers and the other two classes are specific.

If a member plays enough they will understand what we have now.

[heinrich]

As for 'move and fire' artillery, we disagree. It ties into a problem of over-complication (special units with special rules, which BTW recon units will suffer from but this is being addressed), but it's not too powerful. If it is too powerful, the stats of artillery can be tweaked, as they have been several times so far. The idea was to add a degree of flexibility to the game, to depart from the Panzer General system of absolute unit action. Each unit had to move and shoot all at once, there were only 2 units states and now there are 4.

See I like this move & fire of the arty but this feels like cheating... in the spirit of old school wargaming and yezzz let me guess... accessibility ftw^^

I´m so frightened that I have to defend a city one day and then there will come a row of 4 artys creeped out of the middle of nowhere and blasts me to the moon

awwww and I have not one Turn to react... Now take that and tell me about special rules

[Kerensky]

I don't think anyone is asking for multi purpose planes. They are pretty much multi role as tac bombers and the other two classes are specific.

2nd post in this thread did.

Artillery is powerful, but it's not overpowered. Tanks cannot handle entrenched infantry, but artillery cuts them to ribbons. Tanks, however, cut artillery to ribbons. It's a careful balancing game. Units in their designed role are strong and effective, but as long as they have counters, they are not too strong or 'overpowered'.

[Rudankort]

I also think that heavy towed AD,PaK and Arty should not be able to move and fire.
One hex in the game may be something between 5-20km and i don't see how a 88Flak crew would "carry" its gun
this far over an active battlefield and then move in position and save's the day.
Also those heavy gun units should not be able to retreat with their weapon.

You know, I never understood how it is more realistic that a unit can do an attack and a move within one turn, but can never do the same things in the reverse order. And speaking of the old PG model, there "can't shoot after move" rule applied to self-propelled arty units too, which is even more wierd.

I understand why SSI had to do this in PG. Their artillery was so powerful that you could move your bunch of artillery units to a city and kill everything in it, all in a single turn. So they prevented you from doing this, but still, you could do it in two turns. In PzC arty cannot do much on its own, it is a supporting unit. And so I think it is perfectly logical that it is not subject to PG artificial limitation any more.

As for the switching role feature.

When u put an experienced fighter pilot into a different kind of fighter plane he may have some time to adjust
but he will still be expirienced in dogfighting.
But if u put that same fighterpilot into a bomber he won't be an experienced bomber pilot even if knows the plane.
Same goes for Anti Air/Pak,Torpedo/Dive bomber units etc.

So i prefer the "old ways" on this matter for gameplay and realism reasons.

2cents

Well, you can argue that a unit switched to another role should lose its experience or get some other penalties, and it does make sense (although this can be easily reflected in stats), but I don't see how "old ways" are more realistic if in reality the same unit, not different ones, were used in those different roles. I'm talking about units like 88mm FlaK and ISU-152 now, for which this feature was implemented in the first place, not about other ideas in this topic - they still require some more thinking.

[Kerensky]

Oh, and for the record and to stem any 'OP QQ' before it starts, that picture I posted is slightly out of date. Some new calculations for heavily armored units got tweaked, so artillery isn't quite THAT ineffective against a target like a Tiger tank.

With the new rules, 122mm artillery (not the best Russian artillery) now has an 11% chance to suppress (up from 5%) and 1% chance to kill (up from 0%).

[Dragoon24]

Speaking of multi-purpose weapons would it be possible to transform the Russian Artillery into direct fire mode? Historically this was Very common with many of the Russian gun being designed for it in the first place, such as the A-19 122mm (this gun was adapted to become the main cannon on the IS-2 tank) even Katyushas direct fired in the battle of Kursk.

[Panzer3L]

One hex can represent any amount of terrain. A multiplayer scenario coming up soon takes place entirely within the bounds of a single city..

Yeah but even if its just 200meters i don't see a 88 crew (and even heavyer gun's) retreat or move with its gun while the enemy has range on them and can see them.
Not happening in reality.


However its just a detail and i can change this by setting all heavy guns in the efile to zero moveabillity,so no problem here

As for 'move and fire' artillery, we disagree...

Agreed

The whole blitzkrieg concept was based on air support because heavy arty units were never fast enough to be of any use to provide support
in a fast offensive movement.

It ties into a problem of over-complication (special units with special rules, which BTW recon units will suffer from but this is being addressed), but it's not too powerful. .

Over-complication?
Learning to play the game is part of the attraction.
I understand u want to make it easy for beginners to get into the game but i think u wanna make em stay for as long as possible also.
I'm looking at my stock of games as we speak and from 30+games i can see ,only 4-5 (PG series counts as one game)had me play it for more than a year.
All of them lasted that long because they could not be learned in a few days.
When i bought PG in 1996 i couldn't tell a Tank from an Antitank at first and without the manual i would have been lost.
But the more "aha"-expiriences i had when reading the manual,the more i got "turned on" by the game.

So even if u were to add some special rules to some units,PzC would still be very easy compared to say Hearts of Iron-Series,Panzer Campaigns and World of Warcraft.

I think its always good if people have something left to explore and discover within a game once they think they "know" the game.

No hard feelings its just my opinion

see ya
andy

[Razz1]

I like the the Sherman Art unit conversion to ART and back.

Please keep that as the Sherman is weak anyhow.

But I don't want a regular Sherman to be converted to ART.

[Kerensky]

Over-complication?
Learning to play the game is part of the attraction.
I understand u want to make it easy for beginners to get into the game but i think u wanna make em stay for as long as possible also.
I'm looking at my stock of games as we speak and from 30+games i can see ,only 4-5 (PG series counts as one game)had me play it for more than a year.
All of them lasted that long because they could not be learned in a few days.
When i bought PG in 1996 i couldn't tell a Tank from an Antitank at first and without the manual i would have been lost.
But the more "aha"-expiriences i had when reading the manual,the more i got "turned on" by the game.

So even if u were to add some special rules to some units,PzC would still be very easy compared to say Hearts of Iron-Series,Panzer Campaigns and World of Warcraft.

I think its always good if people have something left to explore and discover within a game once they think they "know" the game.

No hard feelings its just my opinion

see ya
andy

Were there the time to implement a variety of well balanced 'basic' features as well as 'advanced' settings, I'm sure it would be done. And if PzC is the success we all hope it will be, I'm sure eventually these 'advanced' features will see implementation. But we have to start somewhere, and getting basic foundations of the game done first takes priority over expanding the game into customizable and options extras.

No offense taken, it's good to see passionate players who want an excellent and long lasting product.

There's still plenty of exploring and discovery to do in PzC, I'm really fighting hard to preserve this element in multiplayer. You will see this in custom scenarios, as well as scenarios designed with the intention of being played in Double Blind mode.

For the record, WoW isn't hard. There's just a whole lot of bads playing that game, which is what happens when you have 12 million subscribers (although that number is currently dropping significantly).
I wasn't a world leader, but I was a realm leader. Plenty of Realm first Death's Demise, Celestial Defender, et cetera. Only raided 12 hours a week. Account is long expired, so I can't prove it in the Armory. You'll just have to take my word for it.

I like the the Sherman Art unit conversion to ART and back.

Please keep that as the Sherman is weak anyhow.

But I don't want a regular Sherman to be converted to ART.

Sherman 105 is a good unit for being multi-purpose, but it should be weakened. Like soviet dual purpose assault guns, artillery mode should be 1 or 2, definitely not the 3 it currently is.

[Panzer3L]

[You know, I never understood how it is more realistic that a unit can do an attack and a move within one turn, but can never do the same things in the reverse order. And speaking of the old PG model, there "can't shoot after move" rule applied to self-propelled arty units too, which is even more wierd.

I'm not saying the old PG ways were perfect.
I always felt that SPG's should be able to move and fire and i'm glad PzC has this feature .
But towed heavy Arty is just too heavy for its crew to carry over some kilometers under combat conditions.

Even supply can't go to a unit which has an enemy unit next to it(which is good),this should reflect the combat conditions.
So why should u be able to bring in a big weapon which can be spotted and then shot at by the enemy just as easy as a supply truck?
Especially if its not towed by a truck but carried by its crew at a speed of say 1 mile per hour (not to mention terrain conditions).

[Rudankort]

But towed heavy Arty is just too heavy for its crew to carry over some kilometers under combat conditions.

Even supply can't go to a unit which has an enemy unit next to it(which is good),this should reflect the combat conditions.
So why should u be able to bring in a big weapon which can be spotted and then shot at by the enemy just as easy as a supply truck?
Especially if its not towed by a truck but carried by its crew at a speed of say 1 mile per hour (not to mention terrain conditions).

If we were talking about AT units here, I could agree with you. AT guns require line of sight to shoot at the enemy, ok. But artillery does not even need to see the enemy in order to attack it, and no sane player (unless his name is AI) will bring arty next to enemy unit in order to shoot at it. Much more often we see a different picture: a city is surrounded by your assault units, and you bring in arty within 2 or 3 hex range from the city in order to bombard it. No direct contact with the enemy, no immediate danger. Why this should not be possible, but doing fire and move in reverse order is perfectly ok? I seriously don't get it.

Ironically, in PG towed AT units were never subject to the same limitation as arty. To me this clearly proves that realism was something SSI guys never really cared about. They just tried to balance their overpowered arty class this way. That's why I don't think we should follow in their steps.

I've seen some mods where all towed guns had movement of zero, and so to move them you needed to use a transport and so lose fire-after-move ability. But I think that it is pretty bad for gameplay (defense is especially crippled, because you can't regroup any more when enemy units get to you), and not realistic either for the reasons explained above. That is the reason why we did not follow this path in PzC.

[Razz1]

There's still plenty of exploring and discovery to do in PzC, I'm really fighting hard to preserve this element in multiplayer. You will see this in custom scenarios, as well as scenarios designed with the intention of being played in Double Blind mode.

I like the the Sherman Art unit conversion to ART and back.

Please keep that as the Sherman is weak anyhow.

But I don't want a regular Sherman to be converted to ART.

Sherman 105 is a good unit for being multi-purpose, but it should be weakened. Like soviet dual purpose assault guns, artillery mode should be 1 or 2, definitely not the 3 it currently is.

Really? The Sherman 105 Art is too weak against the Germans. I have tested this allot. so we disagree.

For Double blind mode ... I hate it. So will most players.

It's ok when you have played both sides several times, but when you enter into a new game you don't know what the FUck happened.

That's not right. Why? Because you always have a report from field operations as to what you were in combat with.

Double blind = What the Hell is in the field? What reduced my strength. What killed my unit? And HAY!!!! Where is my unit? There is a Bug!

Also, it tells you where the enemy has moved. Yes, I love FOG of War but this Double blind is not acceptable in allot of MP situations.

Since I can see a use to it, an option is highly preferred.

I think the first time a player uses a MP map is when they really do not want double blind.

[Panzer3L]

For the record, WoW isn't hard.

Hard is relative,brain surgery is hard
My point was,its much more complex,take's longer to know all about it,as PG or PzC.

Btw. PVP ftw, the hardest about PVE is waiting for everyone to be ready

[Kerensky]

Hard is relative,brain surgery is hard
My point was,its much more complex,take's longer to know all about it,as PG or PzC.

Btw. PVP ftw, the hardest about PVE is waiting for everyone to be ready

I refuse to play a popsicle, which is required of serious mage PVP. Fire mage 4 Life.

As for Double Blind, it's going to be an extra option hopefully, not the default setting. I agree it's too punishing for people to play under when seeing a scenario for the very first time. It's meant for players who are experienced, not only with the game, but with the specific scenario as well.

[MrWhite]

What about the StuG III ?

First it was designed to support the infantry as an close range artillery but got more and more to a role as a tankdestroyer ...

[tnourie]

I like the idea of arty being able to fire Offensive fires or being put in a role of firing Defensive fires (Counter-battery). One but not the other per turn, but I feel the individual units should be relegated as in the real world as "stand by" counter-battery, if you wish. You guys are the programmers, and like a Dungeon Master, you are the gods of this "universe". . . .

[IainMcNeil]

On the 110 I think you add or remove a big bomb to the fuselage or under wings (not sure where thy carried them) if you want to do it.

I think we should ve very selective about the the units that can change for now. We can always experiement with more later. We dont want to break the core mechanics which work really well.

Lets just stick to the AA guns?

[heinrich]

the more people post their ideas for multi purpose weapons in this thread, the more I want to quote myself

I´m curious how to implement this in a useful way...

Just because the most things I read are very special... like weapons which were used in a complete improvised way in a special battle under very special conditions...

[Panzer3L]

[Why this should not be possible, but doing fire and move in reverse order is perfectly ok? I seriously don't get it.

I meant they should not be able to move at all without using transport,no move/fire,no fire/move and no retreating.
The main reason for this is weight.Some 15cm guns were 12tons heavy.Even on a straight paved road,how many man would it
take to move such a beast over some kilometers...i don't know tbh but i guess it would be alot.

U could say though when a heavy arty is moving,it is using horses as transport which can't be seen in the game for grafic reasons.
Same goes for bridge pioniers which can move in the game also without transport and carrying also very heavy gear.
So i just stick to the idea that there are unseen horses involved whenever i see them moving without trucks.


I admit u did a good job about balancing those arty units,at least in the scenarios i ve played so far i never felt that arty is OP.
So there's not realy a "problem" here.

[Rudankort]

U could say though when a heavy arty is moving,it is using horses as transport which can't be seen in the game for grafic reasons.
Same goes for bridge pioniers which can move in the game also without transport and carrying also very heavy gear.
So i just stick to the idea that there are unseen horses involved whenever i see them moving without trucks.

Yes, I thought about this too, and my idea was that there are some trucks in those units, just there so few that they need to do several trips back and forth to transport all guns. That is why it has just one move.