Unique units ideas

[Mojko]

Just a random idea for some late German campaign:

Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte

It's a super heavy tank that dwarfs both Maus and IO tanks. Could be also a German specialisation. Maybe it could be part of some special missions as auxiliary unit since having it in your core forces would probably be imbalanced.

Alternatively, we could have an objective to destroy it in a campaign against the Germans.

Feel free to post interesting unique units and also link to their historical background.

[Mojko]

I think we also need this one:

Panther II

And also E-50

[GabeKnight]

How about a railway gun? Schwerer Gustav

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/274mm45_railroad_gun_captured_Apr1945.jpeg

274mm45_railroad_gun_captured_Apr1945.jpeg (954.17 KiB) Viewed 5089 times

[Horst]

The fat Gustav is a unit that could have been expected for Panzerkrieg at Sevastopol. PzC clearly beat OOB there. There is still a chance for amends in form of a German railway gun at Anzio in the US/Allied-Liberation DLC one day or year.
I'm personally already happy with "boring" Tiger II and Jagdtiger in Endkrieg later.

[terminator]

We already have this (Battle of Britain) :

701(E).jpg (132.71 KiB) Viewed 5065 times

[Horst]

Oh yes, the "Cross_Channel_Gun". Totally forgot about it. Hopefully, we are going to see it similar like the 20mm flak in the main game one day. Better this railway gun for owning Panzerkrieg than possibly the Boulton Paul Defiant plane as bonus reward for owning Burma Road. Oh, did I just make a bad suggestion here?
Oh wait, we already got Australian Commandos for owning Burma Road. Phew!

Back to topic: I guess it will take a while with Afrika Korps, Soviet, Liberation, Endkrieg (in not that particular release order) after there is development time for fictional 1946+ stuff. Too bad only the Pacific campaigns had time for this so far.

[GabeKnight]

@ Horst, terminator

Thanks, guys, great idea.

It took me a few hours, but after adding and modifying some lines of code, I was finally able to expand my core in the Germany Grand Campaign to satisfy my inexplicable need for train artillery (I hope Erik don't mind, and there won't be any copyright infringements )

Screenshot 39.jpg (586.92 KiB) Viewed 5027 times

[Erik2]

Erik don't mind. Have you asked for permission by Krupp and Rheinmetal?

[Horst]

Gabe, isn’t it satisfying to give birth to new game content for yourself?
Did you include the Cross_Channel_Gun to a new mod (folder) or to the main game?
The 210mm_K12 model still won’t show up for me if I copy the graphics and units folders into the installation structure. To test it quickly, I’ve changed the Armoured_Train_ART unit name and model in units.csv. No clue what I miss here and there.

[GabeKnight]

Gabe, isn’t it satisfying to give birth to new game content for yourself?

Indeed. But kinda feels a bit like cheating.

Did you include the Cross_Channel_Gun to a new mod (folder) or to the main game?

Yeah, my "Gabe-Mod". At first I just wanted to replace some flags and markers in the game (with some content available online, I'm not a designer) and to be able to revert the changes quickly at the same time, without compromising the main game's integrity and having to switch directories and rename files and so on, you know what I mean. Then I tried to mod specific stats of units within the "units.csv", like a two hex range attack for infantry units . Kind of funny to watch.

But to be honest, I've got quite frustrated over OoB at some point for not being able to play the new Panzerkrieg DLC, because of the many reported bugs/errors here at the forum's. I remember the broken RPs-transfer mechanic and the wrong values being calculated during naval prognoses at the start of Kriegsmarine DLC, that spoiled the gameplay quite a bit for me.
So whatever wrong values, traits, dates, stats, triggers, events and effects there's gonna remain after the "v5.2.5" official patch, I've decided to be more independent, do-it-myself and finally start the "new" Panzerkrieg DLC...

The 210mm_K12 model still won’t show up for me if I copy the graphics and units folders into the installation structure. To test it quickly, I’ve changed the Armoured_Train_ART unit name and model in units.csv. No clue what I miss here and there.

I've copied that whole "Channel_Gun" line from BoB-units.csv to mine and corrected it then - but your method seems like the more logical (and way easier). Well, my first time, you know...

Maybe you'll find the difference, I don't know, it worked for me from the start: mainly copied the required files as you mentioned from the BoB-mod to my mod. I created a new unit ID, so I had to add a listing for the new unit in the english_.txt, the model and counter are "210mm_K12", the weaponeffect's that of a coastal gun, the stats I've made up and gave the unit following traits: noPurchase,slowRepair,noEntrench,staticFire. That's all, the rest equals the armoured train unit. Hope that helps.

[terminator]

Many basic units are lacking for the creation of certain scenarios :
- French : Engineers, Cavalry
- Romania : Cavalry, truck
- Germany : Cavalry, German Mountain Infantry '39 & 40
- Soviet : Soviet Mountain Infantry
- Greek : Cavalry
- Finnish : Cavalry
- Norway : Ski troops
...

[rupd3658]

You can add SS Gebirgsjagers to this list.

[Horst]

Indeed. But kinda feels a bit like cheating...

...Hope that helps.

Yeah, it is maybe cheating if you have access to extreme-range artillery, but that’s what balancing unit and supply/command cost and other stats is for. As long as it’s a historical unit for that time, there should be no shame playing with it.
I don’t feel bad either when I use my added tactical bomber mode for all the historically supported fighter and strategic bomber variants of the main game. I like more flexibility with more options.
The only drawback is that you can’t really compare to other players’ gaming experience anymore when they play the game with less cool tricks up their sleeve.

I understand that it can be nerve-wrecking if you have to wait for official fixes and like to play online and such. I don’t play multiplayer with OOB, hence I’m only interested modifying the main game data to easily play all singleplayer content with my modified original files.
It seems strange that the game accepts new 2d pictures in an installation’s Content/Graphics/Units folder but no 3d mdb and 2d texture files in a Content/Units folder. Putting the mdbs/textures into the Graphics folder doesn't work either. An oversight, a mean dev-purpose, or my inability? Oh well, then I have to play without a railway gun until it eventually pops up as vanilla content one day or year.
There is often that much that someone can change for oneself in a game, the rest has still to be waited for if someone is no coder like me.

[GabeKnight]

As long as it’s a historical unit for that time, there should be no shame playing with it.
[...]
I don’t feel bad either when I use my added tactical bomber mode for all the historically supported fighter and strategic bomber variants of the main game.

Well, that's somewhat a problem for me, cause I've got like zero knowledge of real military equipment and tactics - of that time or nowadays. I have absolutely no basis on how to decide to change stats of certain units and what stats to change altoghether. I'd just end up having units I've always wanted, with stats that somewhat suits my playstyle. That's why I 'd rather not change things. Correcting some value or stat is another matter, of course. But I'll keep my train-arty, that's for sure And if you have some ideas about some stat changes of said unit (see screenshot, traits), I'd gladly appreciate any input as to make my train as historically accurate as possible

I don’t play multiplayer with OOB, hence I’m only interested modifying the main game data to easily play all singleplayer content with my modified original files.
[...] Oh well, then I have to play without a railway gun [...]

I'm not into MP either, for that matter. But why aren't you using a mod yourself? It only overrides files that you've changed. You could easly make a mod with just a modified units.csv file in it. And there's no problem playing single player offical and custom content with it. You'll just have a different directory for options and savegame files and such. The scenario and campaign files remain untouched, so that I can easily select to play without the mod anytime on game start (of course I won't be able to play with a savegame of my train-arty then...)
The only downside I see at the moment is gonna be with offical patches and updates that might change the structure or add new content to the files I've modified in the mod (mainly units.csv). I'll have to redo all changes again with the new files. The best solution's problably gonna be to keep some kind of detailed "change log" for myself. But I'd reckon you'd have similar problems with game updates yourself (?). Or how do you handle new DLCs?

[Horst]

@Gabe
I add the new DLC units to my Excel sheet which calculates all stats according to researched data. I’ve got an extra sheet that transforms anything of my data into the units.csv format. How much work it is depends how many new units and features are implemented, in particular new variables. Well, it’s not necessarily wise to start modding a game if it is still in development somehow.
I’m just used to overwrite original files as it doesn’t require any additional file work. It’s also easy to copy original file lines to my files if the game won’t start due bugs. And if you have to do bug-hunting and re-run the game like dozens of times, you definitely don’t want that extra-click because of nag-screens like mod-launcher menus.

It’s a typical problem if you want to add new units to a vanilla game. How are the rules for stats? I can't really help there much. Instead of reverse-engineering and doing a lot of inaccurate guess-work, I prefer to invent my own formulas to calculate anything. I like doing that for other games too since many years. I had already collected so much data for Panzer Corps, so it wasn’t a complete rework to convert everything to OOB stats. It’s very easy later to configure general real-game conversion formulas and let Excel calculate all affected unit stats on the fly. Copy & paste to units.csv in the installation folder and I can play on. It's still a never-ending development process like OoB as it seems.

[GabeKnight]

As I'm all new to this modding stuff, I'll see how it goes from there. Al least now I know who to ask if I may need "professional" help...

[Erik2]

Interesting about using formulas to get more consistent unit data.
I used to do this for another Be-Ne-Lux game (Decisive Campaigns).
It 'suffered' from the ame black-box approach to hard data as our beloved OOB.

[Mojko]

Geschützwagen Tiger

This is 17 K18 Artillery mounted on Tiger II chassis. I always wanted to have an equivalent of Russian ISU 152 in my German army