Another unit balance thread

[Kerensky]

So yea, late war level bombers. They got a little crazy. Lancaster with 32 soft attack, B-17, B-29, HE-177, all of them have 20+ or even 30+ SA. That's a bit much.

Other balance changes that are neccessary:

Italian Bersaglieri up to 2 hard attack (+1)
Marder IID is too cheap, especially when you compare it to the 7.5 PaK 40 which has nearly identical stats, except it lacks mobility and costs nearly double the Marder IID

Me262 is too strong in every single way.
FW190s needs their air attack values lowered.
Me163 and He162 need some buffs or price reduction.
Any anycraft with ~20 fuel needs this amount increased for game play purposes. Me163 and Dornier should have about 30-35 fuel to make them actually usable in game play.
British Tempest needs a nerf in the air attack department. (I thought this was a fighter-bomber like the Typhoon?)
Late war Spitfires need buffs.

P-47 needs a serious rebalance: Bump air defense value to 22 (it was extremely rugged)
Nerf initiative to 8,9,11 for the 3 version.
Nerf air attack value to something closer to 16,18,19 for the 3 versions.

P-51s need buffs.
Up the initiative, 13 and 14 for B and D.
Lower the air defense value somewhere around 16-18.
Increase air attack value to 16-19 range.

Russian aircraft need to scale better.
Best russian fighter, LA-7 needs to be about equal to or slighter inferior to an FW-190A(after FW-190A gets nerfed), and the second best, Yak-9U should be slightly inferior to the LA-7, but perhaps have better initiative as the trade off so there are 2 'top tier' fighters each with viable uses and strengths. Currently 2nd best Russian fighter is Hurricane I, that's fairly insulting.
IL2 Could use a buff to hard attack value, and perhaps a nerf to soft attack values, much like the Stuka G is configured 4/8 for SA/HA.

AD defense units across the board need slight nerfs to their air attack values because they recently got switched back to 'killing' mode and not 'suppression' mode.
88 has an attacking rating of 11 and thus a 40% chance to kill a 19 ground defense air unit. 35ish% may be more appropriate. Weakest AD units 2cm with Air attack value of 4 is a little too weak, with only 8% to kill a 19 defense rated air unit.

AD units in general may actually be okay and may only need slight tweaking. I noticed they are stronger when attacking in a defensive role (aircraft are getting a negative defense modifier called 'low altitude attack') but AD units do not receive this benefit when firing voluntarily during their own turn.

[Kerensky]

KV-5 needs to be nerfed more, it's still way too good considering the year it's available. It's a miniature IS-2 with nearly identical stats including price, but it's available in what... 1942 or something? Game breaking.

IS-2 and t34/85 need buffs. IS-2 should be roughly equal to an M26, T34/85 should be slightly inferior to the stats on a Sherman firefly.
IS-2 HA + GD is 16 + 26 for a net 42.
M26 HA + GD is 22+24 for a net 46.
I would increase IS-2 HA to 19 (ISU-122 to 18 ), and the SU-100 to 20.

Firefly is HA + GD is 22+11 for a net 33.
T34-85 HA+ GD is 14+11 for a net 25. GD up to 12 possibly, but the HA needs to go up to 17ish(assuming the IS-2 gets pumped up to 19) SU-85 will follow whatever stats the t34-85 gets.

T34/40 and T34/43 should not have the same HA, they both had the same 76.2mm gun, but I'm almost positive the T34/43 had an improved version.
Russian 76.2mm ATG needs a buff, and the 57mm ATG needs an buff as well. If I remember my history, the 57mm actually had nearly as good, if not better, armor penetration than some version of the 76.2mm. I won't be certain without actual research, but I'm confident any research will validate my claims.

[OmegaMan1]

I'd like to add submarines to this list. I haven't researched the exact figures like Kerensky has, but here is my view: currently, subs are immune from attack by all ships except destroyers, and even then, destroyers only have a 50% chance of getting a hit on a sub. This makes the sub far stronger than any naval unit -- a battleship is at the mercy of a sub, and said battleship's only defense will only hit half the time. I've gotten this impression by playing the Hunters of the Atlantic custom map, so if you haven't tried that scenario yet you might not have seen the devastating power of subs. My suggestion is to either (a) increase the ability of destroyers' chances to hit a sub (at least 75%, if not higher) or reduce the sub's effectiveness in hitting other ships.

[Kerensky]

Diminishing returns on submarine evasion would solve that problem nicely. 50% to evade first attack, 35% for another attack in the same turn, 20% for the next, 5% for another, no evasion on a fifth attack. So a sub can't magically evade 4 surrounding destroyers.

Destroyers hunting in groups would be excellent at hunting down individual submarines, but if you group up your destroyers too much, you lose the ability for them to cover more areas of the Atlantic because they are all densely packed together.

[IainMcNeil]

I think subs should be weak against destroyers in general. To do this they'd need to have their naval attack reduced against all and destroyers have their sub attack increased.

[apanzerfan]

values and concepts mentioned here are absolutely right!


could you please add the balacing of the German tank/anti-tank movement abilites to the to-do list?

also, about he162: it should be tuned. its price is relatively correct (as it was meant to be a cheaply manufacturable plane), but its values have yet to be adjuested.

[Obsolete]

Level bombers have already been nerfed to hell in this version, meaning I"ll NEVER buy one unless I am forced to because of naval.

So why should I care about nerfing them even more?

[Razz1]

They updated the cost of the 7.5 Pak. It completely effected the Zitimor map strategy.

Beforehand, it was easier to up grade the 5 to a 7 Pak with transport. Now it is better to upgrade to something else.

So I don't agree that the Marder is too cheap. It gets killed easily. The cost of the 7.5 Pak should come down.

The ME262 pretty much was God unless you were fool enough to do a slow dog fight. I like it. Perhaps adjust it a little downwards.

Fuel... Not really. You can use those units just fine for game play. The strategy is defensive role.

La-7 should be just under the FW-190a from what I have read.

[Kerensky]

Well I don't intend to update this thread like a proper list, I already have two of those going, but feel free to compile all of your suggestions here in this thread, I'll keep it bumped for visibility and possibly sticky it, although we already have quite a few stickies already.

[skarczew]

British Tempest needs a nerf in the air attack department. (I thought this was a fighter-bomber like the Typhoon?)

You are wrong. It was one of the best fighters.

Currently 2nd best Russian fighter is Hurricane I, that's fairly insulting.
IL2 Could use a buff to hard attack value, and perhaps a nerf to soft attack values, much like the Stuka G is configured 4/8 for SA/HA.

The best fighters used by USSR were allied ones, I guess. Not for a reason a lot of aces were flying on Aircobras and Kingcobras.

Il-2 should NOT get any buff to HA value. It was medicore at attacking tanks, and just average-fine at attacking soft targets.
It experienced a lot of issues starting from faults in design, rushed production, bad AT armament, low possibilities of carrying bombs ...
Hurricane IIc and IId were much better tank destroyers.

Do not compare it to Stuka G, please.

[Kerensky]

Some of your points are valid, but remember I'm speaking from a game play perspective.
If the IL2, IL2m3, and IL10 are ALL weak against armor, the Russians have no aircraft capable of hurting enemy armor. Il2m3 vs tiger tank is a near worthless 0 - 1 encounter in clear weather. Doesn't sound like a unit deserving of the name 'Black Death' to me.
As it is, Russian counters to armor are already weak (best tank in the IS-2 with only 16 HA).

Thus they need a unit similar to the Stuka G, or similar to a Hurricane IID. Low SA, high HA.
There's little use in having an IL2, IL2m3, and IL10 if all of them have practically identical stats. The game should use the opportunity to have multiple relevant russian tactical bombers. Some are durable, some have better SA, others have better HA. No one unit is 'the best', each has its own a unique role and strengths.

[tnourie]

I think subs should be weak against destroyers in general. To do this they'd need to have their naval attack reduced against all and destroyers have their sub attack increased.

I believe the atack values are about right, although destroyers did have a 'special ability' vs the sub; but the larger capital ships were quite vulnerable and 'slow' so the attack value should remain what it is. Capital ships could not (effectivly) use sonar because they made too much 'noise' and as a result were less effective at anti-submarine operations.

Perhaps the "ini" can be tweaked on destroyers to compensate and make them more eficent vs subs, but not the capital ships? That should give them the slight advantage you are refering to?

[skarczew]

Some of your points are valid, but remember I'm speaking from a game play perspective.
If the IL2, IL2m3, and IL10 are ALL weak against armor, the Russians have no aircraft capable of hurting enemy armor. Il2m3 vs tiger tank is a near worthless 0 - 1 encounter in clear weather. Doesn't sound like a unit deserving of the name 'Black Death' to me.
As it is, Russian counters to armor are already weak (best tank in the IS-2 with only 16 HA).

Thus they need a unit similar to the Stuka G, or similar to a Hurricane IID. Low SA, high HA.
There's little use in having an IL2, IL2m3, and IL10 if all of them have practically identical stats. The game should use the opportunity to have multiple relevant russian tactical bombers. Some are durable, some have better SA, others have better HA. No one unit is 'the best', each has its own a unique role and strengths.

"Black Death" was a nickname invented by Russian propaganda.
Germans called it "Zementbomber".
The 23 mm cannons could not do too much vs tanks, and when some machines were equipped with 37 mm, it wasn't possible to hit anything smaller than a ship (the whole plane was shaking due to asynchronous fire from cannons, which were placed in outer part of wings).
Maximum bomb load - 600 kg - was almost purely theoretical, because the machine was heavily overloaded itself.

You want something similar to Suka G / Hurri ...

Well, Il-2 was so great , that Russians started to look for something better:

- First example is LaGG-3 (one of versions) with a NS-37 Cannon
- Another example: Yak-9K armed with a 37 mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-37.
It was used against armored targets and ships.
- Yet another example is Yak-9T with a 45 mm NS-45 cannon.
- Yet another: Bell P-63 Kingkobra with its 37 cannon is said to be successful used in ground attack role.

[Kerensky]

Well no new unit models can be added or created at this point, that window closed a long time ago unfortunately. So we're going to have to work with the assets given to us for the time being.

[skarczew]

Well no new unit models can be added or created at this point, that window closed a long time ago unfortunately. So we're going to have to work with the assets given to us for the time being.

Well, all the Mustangs and Jugs seem to look exactly the same (even kid can see difference between Mustang B/C and D), so I don't see the problem doing the same with Russian planes as well .

Just create LaGG-3 and Jak-9 "tactical bomber" versions that look exactly the same as originals, give them some HA and minimal SA buff, lower Initiative, lower Movement, lower AA, lower AD.

[Dragoon24]

"Black Death" was a nickname invented by Russian propaganda.
Germans called it "Zementbomber".
The 23 mm cannons could not do too much vs tanks, and when some machines were equipped with 37 mm, it wasn't possible to hit anything smaller than a ship (the whole plane was shaking due to asynchronous fire from cannons, which were placed in outer part of wings).
Maximum bomb load - 600 kg - was almost purely theoretical, because the machine was heavily overloaded itself.

The destructiveness of the IL-2 was not the gun or bombs it was the rockets or the PTAB-2.5-1.5 HEAT bomblets these proved very effective especially during the battle of Kursk. Although the Luftwaffe thought poorly of the IL-2, it was well respected by the Red Army and and feared by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS.

[skarczew]

The destructiveness of the IL-2 was not the gun or bombs it was the rockets or the PTAB-2.5-1.5 HEAT bomblets these proved very effective especially during the battle of Kursk.

Well, rockets did not help much. During training fields' tests it was calculated that the rocket has about few % chance to hit (Il-2 usually carried 8 of RS-82 - and this configuration of armament was preferred).
The similar numbers were for western allies planes.

As for PTABs, good point . I agree - this was somewhat useful and successful weapon. Il-2 could carry almost 200 of those, and it could penetrate up to 60 mm of armor (when they hit at 90 degrees) if it was used properly (they had to be dropped at certain height in order to be armed; lots of pilots used them on too low height, though). Those were available in 1943 - during Kursk for first time, I think.

Although the Luftwaffe thought poorly of the IL-2, it was well respected by the Red Army and and feared by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS.

Not only Luftwaffe. They had lots of captured machines, and they proposed them to Finns and other armies. Nobody wanted to use them.
As opposed to T-34 and other Russian tanks, that were used by both Germans and Finns.

Regarding the respect - I would also respect the people that had the "luck" to fly them. It may be machine that was giving beating to German troops (mainly thanks to colossal numbers), but it was causing high casualties to its pilots and gunmen as well - so high that nobody counted them .

Il-2 gained "respect" and "fame" only thanks to propaganda, I am afraid.

[Kerensky]

Thus they need a unit similar to the Stuka G, or similar to a Hurricane IID. Low SA, high HA.
There's little use in having an IL2, IL2m3, and IL10 if all of them have practically identical stats. The game should use the opportunity to have multiple relevant russian tactical bombers. Some are durable, some have better SA, others have better HA. No one unit is 'the best', each has its own a unique role and strengths.

Almost all Allied units are significantly cheaper than German equivalents, for example the Firefly, Comet, M26 are all quite good, but fairly cheap at 300-400 a piece. Allied equipment prices need to raise like we've seen with German equipment. Maybe not to quite the same level, but it needs to be higher than it currently is.

[Iscaran]

Not sure if its been already brought up - but.

Opel Blitz (transport option for artillery) has a ground def of 4.
The SDKFz 251/1 (I hope I got the number correct) only has a GD of 2.

IMO it should have the same GD or even +1 compared to the opel truck.

If you think this is too much then either decrease the opel truck cost a little - or increase the sdkfz cost a little further.

Though I think costs are OK - just the GD value needs to be adjusted.

[Kerensky]

You're looking at the wrong numbers. Those are air defense values, not ground defense ones.
The reason the Open has more AD than the Halftrack is because the Opel is a Soft target while the Halftrack is a Hard.