The "Gabe-Mod" (v8.4.4)

[GabeKnight]

Gabe-Mod v8.5.6 build 20200813 - не работает
The turn does not end

Sorry to hear that, but my version of the mod's working just fine, so no idea what's causing your problems.

Either use the (older) stable version then or you'll have to give me MUCH MORE info about when, where and what's not working with "the turn does not end".

PS: Saved games might not work if you switch versions of my mod (esp. downgrading)!

[Igor1941]

Gabe-Mod v8.5.6 build 20200813 - не работает
The turn does not end

Sorry to hear that, but my version of the mod's working just fine, so no idea what's causing your problems.

Either use the (older) stable version then or you'll have to give me MUCH MORE info about when, where and what's not working with "the turn does not end".

PS: Saved games might not work if you switch versions of my mod (esp. downgrading)!

Order of Battle: Red Storm 3. Kerch-Eltigen Landings

[GabeKnight]

I see. I think I've got to rephrase my last post to be clear, sorry about that:

I did not update the mod to the latest OoB game version 8.6.0 yet!

This means it's NOT recommended playing the RedStorm DLC with the current build(s) of my mod as new units introduced with this DLC will NOT be available then!

Still, playing any of the "old" content should work fine.

[prestidigitation]

Currently when starting mission one of the Red Star campaign numerous AA units are missing.

I'd also love it if you could remove the AA/AT switch from the 4M and give it to the 85mm heavy AA.

[GabeKnight]

Currently when starting mission one of the Red Star campaign numerous AA units are missing.

Yeah, because introduction date is 01/1939!

I'd also love it if you could remove the AA/AT switch from the 4M and give it to the 85mm heavy AA.

All AA have a switch mode in my mod, and I'm not removing any switches, although I've read your "justification" for your request somewhere else. I simply don't agree.
But you can do it yourself in the units file. Use an editor and remove any entry you don't like. I don't mind...

[prestidigitation]

Currently when starting mission one of the Red Star campaign numerous AA units are missing.

Yeah, because introduction date is 01/1939!

I'd also love it if you could remove the AA/AT switch from the 4M and give it to the 85mm heavy AA.

All AA have a switch mode in my mod, and I'm not removing any switches, although I've read your "justification" for your request somewhere else. I simply don't agree.
But you can do it yourself in the units file. Use an editor and remove any entry you don't like. I don't mind...

I loaded the mod and the 85mm doesn't have the switch? Maybe it's because you're behind a patch?

[GabeKnight]

I loaded the mod and the 85mm doesn't have the switch? Maybe it's because you're behind a patch?

Don't know. Works just fine for me:

Screenshot 224.jpg (976.19 KiB) Viewed 2287 times

[Chema_cagi]

Just finished Red Steel with your mod and enjoyed it very much, thank you for all your work!

[Horst]

Greetings!
Still busy updating the mod to 8.6.0?
I’m still busy updating my mod too from 7.1.8 to 8.6.0. I started easy with anything but the units.csv file. Gosh, it already took a while for me to get the spec-tree lines look fine in the Soviet campaigns with my proper dates.

Let’s see what ideas I can rip off from your mod now in return. About some things I read in the OP:

- Naval transports have two steps: moving and debarking on the same turn is possible
I like that, but I restrict it to only LCVP and LCT as these got somewhat amphibious capability.
I wanted this for the LVTs and other simming vehicles too, but the game always blocks the switch-button whenever you move, even with 2 steps and/or action points available. Boo!

I see you finally gave in with the support AA fire of the capital ships. It’s simple the best thing to watch during naval-air engagements.

- Changed Ger. Panther traits according to Ichthyic's recommendation
While I would never give the guerilla trait to a non-engineer vehicle, adding the weakFlanks trait to armored vehicles with awesome front protection but miserable side is maybe indeed a good idea to better reflect the difference. I need to check this one day which ratio is reasonable for granting this disadvantage.
I’m also not sure yet if HeavyTreaded for Panzerkeil is worth it for the Panther although I’ve read and seen photos where Panthers got accompanied by Panzer 3 or 4 as anti-infantry protection. That was the point to give the outdated Pz.3 a short 75mm gun in the end. Without HeavyTreaded, the Panthers got their deserved cross-country performance.

- Increased all cavalry movement +2, added assault=1
That’s my speed too, but an assault bonus compared to regular infantry feels wrong, as they don’t demolish entrenchments any better. Horse-cavalry rather tends to ignores entrenchments by jumping over trenches on the move, although barbed-wire hinders them as same.
One thing you could still try is give cavalry 2-steps, but they get really powerful then if they trample over low-eff infantry by running around blocking units. You can test this in Morning Sun very well against Chinese cavalry. I still hesitate to give 2-steps back to them, but with recent light-tank 2-steps introductions, cavalry as typical recon and hunter units should fit to such style.

- Reduced maximum range for all commanders to two hexes
I think that wouldn’t simulate well what especially high-ranking commanders, like Rommel or Zhukov, affect among the battlefield, but the vanilla bonuses are definitely too much that’s why I have toned them severely down. I have reduced all 0-range commanders to +1/+1 and >0-range commanders to only a single +1 bonus. This way, the 0-range ones are always more beneficial than the >0-ones as the lower-ranks typically directly get into action with the attached unit.
It’s still understandable if you don’t want to mess too much with the vanilla stats.

- To be solved: (Add bombard ability to all ships -- Problem with icon space/cargo hold)
You maybe still know that I already did that for all destroyers, cruisers and battleships, but utility ships like the minelayer are better left untouched with the many options. I can’t remember if I changed something like cargo space for that to always make it work.

Alright, time to get back to units.csv. Bah…

[GabeKnight]

Yay! Look who's come to visit...

Greetings!
Still busy updating the mod to 8.6.0?

Nah, just playing at the moment. I was quite busy with my mod beginning this year, now I'm slacking...

I'll get to you in more detail tomorrow, just wanted to say a quick "Hi back" for now.

PS: BTW, I think I've neglected the OP changelog a bit, but the included Excel file (changelog.xlsx) should have everything.
PPS: And your request, some howitzer in "US colors" (was it the 155mm M1917?), was also included in the mod

[Horst]

PS: BTW, I think I've neglected the OP changelog a bit, but the included Excel file should have everything.
PPS: And your request, some howitzer in "US colors" (was it the 155mm M1917?), was also included in the mod

I'm already glad if I get all the many new vanilla units into my mod one day. At least game and editor still works with old units files.
Afterwards then I'm looking forward to take a closer look at your extra units. Yeah, I remember vaguely that I wanted one "short" US 155mm as these were rather standard in divisions than Long Toms. Cool stuff, man!
I'm glad to still roughly know the mechanics of the game after a long break, that's why I make so many notes to check on everything again, but it will still take a while to get smart of everything again.

[GabeKnight]

Coming back to your post, Horst:

Re cavalry: Yeah, thinking about it I may have made an error. It shouldn't have been assault, but rather shock. I'll change that. But they need "something" extra, as they are quite the fragile unit when attacked, similar to engineers.
And I hesitate to give the 2-step to too many units. If used correctly (by the AI for example), those can circumvent your defenses and encircle your units in quite a clever, but bad, way. I've played with the 2-step change for some time now in my mod, and I even consider of removing it again from some vehicles. I still have to re-check what was done in the stock v8.6 update with the 2-step units and compare to mine. It's a cool change, but really powerful, esp. with the AI as it LOVES to cut your supply...

Re hero range: I did that because I hate overlapping commander spheres of influence and with many of Erik's stuff, there are all commanders unlocked from the start. I mean, if I want one battle group "protected" by a commander with defensive stats, I REALLY do NOT want some other commander, with maybe shock values, to interfere.
But I like the variety (stat-wise) of them and wouldn't want to "equalize" them like you suggested to have similar values.

First scen of Eriks Germany West 1940

Screenshot 232.jpg (849.7 KiB) Viewed 2104 times

Re cargo space: Yeah, you removed the cargo hold to free up the icon space. But I like to land my recons on ships.

BTW, I plan to tone down the land attack stats of all ships. They're just too powerful as "precision strike" arty right now: According to your tests and my observations they're the best choice for finishing off weak land units. Shouldn't be IMO.

And yeah, no internal changes in the game's data file stucture since OoB v7 IIRC; only additions, like it should be. Even older mods should still work.

Take whatever you need for you "Tech-Mod" (wasn't it called like that?) and I'm open to any suggestions/changes/opinions you may have.

At some point I'd like to add some switch abilities to planes, too. You know, a fighter/bomber switch and so on, as you did. But until now I did not have somebody like you - a modding and equipment expert - to help me out with realistic stats etc.. Although I know this is a massive task and perhaps I'm NOT up to it, eventually. But I'd like to take a look (and advice) from your stuff and maybe steal some ideas for my mod (again)...?

[Horst]

Cavalry: yeah, the AI has always been overly eager to cut off supplies at cost of own safety. Cavalry with open-ground move of 4 hexes is maybe still harmless compared to all the many light tanks with 5 hexes. I did turn some tankettes to recon units but these can’t conquer terrain anymore. Light tanks indeed lose enough meaning in the later scenarios and I also have to test-play this for a while how annoying it can get with 2-steps.
Giving shock for cavalry is no good idea. Shock in general is a way too powerful ability gimping quickly units to pie. For that reason, I also removed it from all commander bonuses.
As my attack/defense values hardly differ over the years compared to vanilla, I don’t really need to create yearly upgrades for cavalry, but the vanilla system simply demands it if you still want to make them more useful throughout years. It's simply the best way to fix the vanilla cavalry. I can't tell you now how long horse-cavalry or rather horse-recon units were used for each nation, but vanilla ends their availability on 1/5/41 for all units. It would already be a good start if you create proper upgrades for 37/39 to 41, using the comparison of Japanese 37 infantry with its cavalry unit for 37 and follow the same stat-improvement pattern. Nations like Poland only need them for 39, so update the stats for proper 39 ones.

Commanders: I took care to create enough differences. Especially those with radius with only a single benefit offer more useful mixes with other commanders for less overlapping same bonuses. In the end, you can’t and shouldn’t stack too many units with commanders on the same spot anyway.

Cargo: no, my cargo spaces are still there, but my removal of the AA-fire button is possibly the major reason for having enough room for the bombard ability. I can only repeat myself here: the AI large-ships are simply too easily distracted by airplanes and shouldn’t hunt them down with their ridiculous slow speed difference to planes. Only a single KM mission demanded shooting down aircraft by ships so far, but changing it to general damage to aircraft solved that quickly. The AI capital ships should focus on other ships. Period. Anything that helps the AI becoming fairly better is justified. Your addition of air-defense to large ships is already enough counter-balance for the lack of AA-fire.
Ah yes, and I don't have this silly primary-gun firing for BBs anymore what also saves space, but the exchange of AA-fire to Bombard alone is enough.

Ships vs. Land: we can’t do much there until they finally adjusted the damage-mechanics to the diminishing effect of the land-artillery. I need to take a closer look at this too one day again for less destruction as you usuallly have and can gather too many ships along coasts. As attempt to semi-fix this low-strength killing, you could create a root-function based on the vanilla small-ship attack value. Or simpler, you cut all inf-/veh-attack values at half at first and see how this works. These are typically always 6, 8, 10, or even 12.

Aircraft switches: I wouldn’t do this as it demands too much inventing numbers. It makes things only easy for the player as the AI can’t use this. I don’t care so much, but you should better stick as close to vanilla with the gameplay and rather only fix the annoyances and imbalances maybe as long as you don't want to leave the realm of vanilla. Replacing fighters for bombers is still sometimes doable in vanilla scenarios as long as the maps support such redeployment-zones. You need to see it as feature and wise player-decisions how many fighters and bombers someone should deploy at start. We all know that air supremacy quickly leads to easy victories.

[GabeKnight]

I don't know about cavalry, amigo. I mean, if I saw a horde of riders charging at me, waving their swords and/or shooting - I think I would be a bit shocked...

And I think my annual cavarly upgrades and their stats choice is okay, quite close to the vanilla cavalry stats I'd say. But I'll reduce the costs to +5RP/year, their stats aren't that good compared to regular inf. Thanks for the input!

Putting some light tanks/tankettes into the recon class sounds actually like a good solution to me. Thanks, I'll try that. Which ones did you "convert"?

And I'll recheck the Panther. You may be right that the guerilla trait may mave been too much. Almost forgot about it...

If I recall correctly, you never liked the move and shoot ability of any AA; I think you even put the "staticfire" on all land AA units, mobile or not.
But personally I think that the vanilla AA solution's okay - we had this discussion before, if you remember; it's probably even in this thread somewhere...
In my experience, if AI ships have valid naval targets, they'll engage them instead of planes. And if they're idle, why shouldn't they be able to fire back at my air units? I really don't see a problem here. And I'll definitely won't remove the AA ability from ships in my mod.

About the powerful ship-arty: I've noticed it - again - rather recently while playing some stock and custom content. I didn't do any stat-changing-tests or anything YET. But thanks for the suggestion, in this case, halving the stats sounds actually like a good starting point, even if it seems a bit extreme.

Re aircraft switch: Yeah, you're probably right. And doing it only for a select few wouldn't feel quite right either.

Different question about specs:
I didn't mess with the specs before, but after my last playthrough of the German trilogy, I feel like something should be done about the costs - specifically a significant increase IMO. And I vaguely remember you fiddling with spec-dates and availability and even adjusted some stock campaigns and whatever - so, any suggestions?
Basically the Jap. spec tree and costs look good to me, and the British almost.
(Don't remember the Finns or US anymore - have to replay them in the near future).

PS: For now, I'm only collecting any suggestions/feedback. As mentioned - perhaps - I'm currently not "working" on OoB and/or OoB-mods.
PPS: Sorry about that Erik, but if there's any urgency/emergency with the Korea-mod, let me know ASAP please!

[Erik2]

I've ben busy with other stuff for a while, but do plan to return to Korea.
No hurry (yet )

[Horst]

Cavalry: the thing about shock is that someone sitting in heavy tank would only laugh at a horse-cavalry charge. That doesn't justify an additional efficiency loss. Banging loudly a tank left, right and if lucky on top with artillery shells or setting a tank on fire by a flamethrower is a total different story. Same for surprising commando assaults during a unit's rest or sniping commanding officers of a units.
I hadn't taken a closer look at your units-file yet. It already looks fine enough, so just keep it as it is. Yes, only +5/y cost like regular inf is really enough, so they don't cost as much as light tanks in the end.

Naval AA-Fire: I wouldn't care so much if that AA-option would only be useable before moving the unit, but staticFire only works for all attack-options and that's a no-go to get added for ships.

Don't you still have an old version of my mod? There you can check on the readme and game-files for class and spec changes.
Changes to Recon, still 7.1.8:
Type94_Tankette
L3_35_Japan
L3_33_China
L3_35_China
L3_33
L3_35
T-60
T-38
l3_33_Greece
L3_35_Hungary

I still need time to add the new vanilla units. Afterwards I should have more time to do some silly tests and tweaks again like in the past.

[GabeKnight]

Cavalry: the thing about shock is that someone sitting in heavy tank would only laugh at a horse-cavalry charge. That doesn't justify an additional efficiency loss. Banging loudly a tank left, right and if lucky on top with artillery shells or setting a tank on fire by a flamethrower is a total different story. Same for surprising commando assaults during a unit's rest or sniping commanding officers of a units.

Damn, why do you always have to be so logical...
Seriously, thanks, amigo, that's why I always liked discussions with you...
You're right, I'll remove assault/shock...

Don't you still have an old version of my mod? There you can check on the readme and game-files for class and spec changes.

Of course I do, but it's really old and I'm not sure what you might have changed in the last year or so.

Thanks for the list!

No hurry (yet )

OK.

[terminator]

Capture d’écran (11).jpg (74.6 KiB) Viewed 2011 times

PS: you will meet this reconnaissance unit in the scenario Debrecen(Red Storm DLC).

[Horst]

I see there are actually vanilla differences about tank->recon. I still had my recon-changes marked but no idea if that was changed in vanilla in the past.
As far as I can see in vanilla, only the Hungary and Greece variants of the L3_35 got the recon class with 2-steps.
No idea why they did that, but I guess it shouldn't hurt to change the other nation's tanks to recon and 2-steps as well if something is different.
I also see that not all light tanks have 2-steps.
Oh well, I take closer look at all this light tank 2-step issue much later again.

[Horst]

I can't remember if I sent you in the past a version of my mod with my latest conversion units for German vehicles, like:
- German Panzer IB to 15 cm s.I.G.33 (Sfl.I) (van: Sturmpanzer I) conversion, click the Indirect Fire Mode button to permanently switch to the real unit, only available on 10/5/1940
- German Panzer IB to Panzerjäger IB conversion, click the Direct Fire Mode button to permanently switch to the real unit, available from 10/5/1940 to 1/1/1943
- German Panzer III to Sturmgeschütz IIIG conversion, click the Direct Fire Mode button to permanently switch to the real unit, available from 14/5/1943 on

These are at least the most useful conversions that require that tricky class change for an upgrade.
These conversions are tank units belonging to their source series with a permanent switch-option (without return) to the regular anti-tank or artillery variant.
They are basically the same like the target unit with the same cost but added traits: noEditor, noRepair, noUpgrade, onlyUpgrade. The last trait is responsible that they only show up in the upgrade screen.
They should work pretty well during a deployment phase, especially if you want to convert your old Pz.3 to StuGs, but usually I had enough cash to convert them to Pz.4 or Tigers before. Anyway, it's always good to have conversion options.

Permission to copy that idea granted!