Slitherine

Late German Infantry '45(after modding) defending the Reich :
Maybe, create two types of infantry with and without Panzerfaust ?

@Horst, terminator, airbornemongo, Kondi and others

First of all, THANK YOU gentlemen for all this valuable help and input so far.
It's nice to see this thread's going where I was hoping it would.
Although I must confess, the amount of ideas and work involved are starting to outgrow my ambition a little...
But Rome wasn't built on one day either...

One question for the experts:

This I've figured out so far: if you want to add a new switch abilily (with a NEW BUTTON/ICON!) to a unit, one can use this setting in the "switch" column of the units.csv

weapon:<switch_unit_name> <icon_name> <cooldown>

and placing the new button's graphic in "Graphics\UI\Large" with the filename "ability_weapon_<icon_name>.png". This works so far as I've been using it on my railway gun. But with this method there's always the cool-down timer attached:
Now the real question:

How do I use or create new switch modes not being of the "weapon:" class? I mean like "submerged" or "uparmour" with them having own graphics like button_submerge.png or button_uparmour.png respectively. For example a switch mode between tactical bomber and dogfighter mode. I won't use the stupid weapon-switch (with cooldown) or torpedo:/torpedo_switch graphics for that. I'd rather like to have an own button_ruestsatz_1280.png graphic. And there seems to be a number of unused button graphics files in the vanilla game's own library anyways. Like this: How do I activate it? I've tried adding a switch ability "supply:" and "supply_mode:" but this didn't work. Any ideas?

For tactical bombing, I use the bomb:unit and the revert:unit ability.
Then I have renamed tooltip texts in
english.txt:
tooltip_torpedo_mode = Unit is equipped with torpedoes, click to switch to bombs.
to
tooltip_torpedo_mode = Unit can switch to tactical bombing.

english_2.txt
tooltip_revert_disabled_1 = Kamikaze aircraft cannot revert back to default setup when airborne
to
tooltip_revert_disabled_1 = Aircraft cannot revert back to default setup when airborne

I haven’t bothered repainting the bomb_switch buttons so far. They still show a little torpedo graphic, but it shouldn't be that hard to remove it. There is also another bomb icon available without torpedo but only available for low-res as it seems.

These are all current abilities, but it looks like that "supply" is disabled:
airlift
amphibious
anti_air
anti_tank
artillery
banzai
bomb
instantrevert
kamikaze
ohka
rail
revert
road
submerge
supply
surface
torpedo
uparmour
weapon

The supply feature of Blenheim_MkIV_Supply and Ju52_Supply still works though if some mapper is interested in using them. They provide 3 land-supply beneath the plane which is kinda cool. You have to remove the noEditor trait for these to show up. They are also noPurchase, but I think that's fine. They should rather be used only as aux units as long as there is no proper switch available.

terminator wrote:

Horst wrote:Maybe, and only maybe, I’m going to upload my own mod after the last German DLC, as I don’t expect many unit additions afterwards.

If it will be later Endkrieg, we will have to be very patient...

I'll make sure to make the mods of others here better than mine before my release.

Ah, I see. So mostly a work-around with existing switches and not new settings.

Maybe I'll just abuse the "ohka" switch for the plane's modes and replace the buttons for it, as it seems to be unused within player's units anyways.

Horst wrote:

terminator wrote:

Horst wrote:Maybe, and only maybe, I’m going to upload my own mod after the last German DLC, as I don’t expect many unit additions afterwards.

If it will be later Endkrieg, we will have to be very patient...

I'll make sure to make the mods of others here better than mine before my release.

That mod would definitely be something to try out "blind" and experience the new settings, stats and other changes as one plays along... cool...

German Infantry air def :
Is there an explanation in these variations of the parameter air def according to the year ?
I would have thought that the air def increases logically with years (?)

I considered it to be some kind of copy error. Already fixed in my mod as discussed here

But I've no clue whether they SHOULD be increasing over the years (?)

Gabe, Finland and India still show air defense values of 16. The higher commando (and sniper) defense wasn't that wrong as they are camouflaged and usually operate at night when artillery and air is less effective.
You could also compare the inf/veh att/def values of each infantry unit. For example, Finnish infantry seem to have one less point veh-def than the rest of the world. Maybe there are more of such discrepancies.

These bomb/air/nav defense values should absolutely not increase over the year. You can see at the many Spitfire variants that their ground attack values aren’t progressing like infantry either, so if you don’t want to make bombs and artillery obsolete against infantry then stick to the 12/14 or higher for camo units!

GabeKnight wrote:I considered it to be some kind of copy error. Already fixed in my mod as discussed here

But I've no clue whether they SHOULD be increasing over the years (?)

Saddened, I had not been able to seen, there were too many texts.
I thought that the anti-aircraft defense improved in time with a better armament.
In PanzerCorps, the Air Defense does not evolve between the models of infantry (Pionere and Pionere 43 for example).
Probably a mistake in OoB (?)

But should the Heavy infantry not have a better air defense ?
The heavy infantry can use their MG in AA mode as on the image.
In PanzerCorps, Grenadier have better Air defense than regular infantry.

While it makes sense for infantry to develop better anti-tank tactics over the years in combination of newly introduced anti-tank weapon systems, this shouldn’t be true for defense against any kind of bombardment.
The only defense against bombardment is to jump to cover (if available at all) and pray. A level-bomber crew high in the air doesn’t care if infantry is pea-shooting with low- or high-caliber machine guns at them.
This is in contrast to vehicle defense. If infantry can attack/defend with bazooka-like weapons, tanks couldn’t that easily overrun infantry anymore, therefore an increase in vehicle defense is justified.

Here is an example how helpless ground units are against air attacks. Rare US Apache dive-bombers (Mustang-variant) attack German units and a bridge in 1944.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAPqoC3_hqA
It's basically just a shoot'em up game if there is no cover or better protection like bunkers available. Bombs blow anything up, and .50 cal tracers rain down to the ground from far away and bounce sometimes back to the sky again. That's the bitter reality.

Horst wrote:Gabe, Finland and India still show air defense values of 16. The higher commando (and sniper) defense wasn't that wrong as they are camouflaged and usually operate at night when artillery and air is less effective.

I didn't do no cross-refence checks between nations, that's right. Like I said, I didn't touch for example the Indian or Thai units, if the values seemed consistent within one nations infrantry units. Otherwise I'd have to do exactly this:

Horst wrote:You could also compare the inf/veh att/def values of each infantry unit. For example, Finnish infantry seem to have one less point veh-def than the rest of the world. Maybe there are more of such discrepancies.

That would mean building comparative stat tables for all nations for all infantry units for all year's variants. And I really hate that kind of work.

I'm wondering, though, if the Finnish infantry's higher veh.-def. values could unbalance the Winter War DLC a bit - there was quite much Soviet armour around. How much does one point defense or attack value difference mean in the end anyways? This I'll have to test first.

Horst wrote:These bomb/air/nav defense values should absolutely not increase over the year. You can see at the many Spitfire variants that their ground attack values aren’t progressing like infantry either, so if you don’t want to make bombs and artillery obsolete against infantry then stick to the 12/14 or higher for camo units!

Deal.

GabeKnight wrote:And I really hate that kind of work.

I wonder if you share the same thought like our devs here.

You can make a copy of the units.csv and remove all non-infantry units lines to get a better overview.
Vanilla infantry stats are meant to be totally balanced among factions and should stay this way.

finnish_heavyinfantry_43 has an empty vehicle-def value.
finnish_engineers_43: 12-18 inf-att, 3-9 veh-att, 12 inf-def, 10 veh-def
finnish_engineers_44: 10-16 inf-att, 2-7 veh-att, 10 inf-def, 9 veh-def
finnish_engineers_45: 11-17 inf-att, 3-8 veh-att, 11 inf-def, 10 veh-def
If that's not inconsistency, then I can't help anymore.

I have to compare all vanilla files from version to version too, so I know what exactly has changed to possibly make changes in my mod too. It's indeed a tiresome job to fix the mistakes of others.

Horst wrote:

GabeKnight wrote:And I really hate that kind of work.

I wonder if you share the same thought like our devs here.

If I'd just had an intern for that kind of preparatory work....

Horst wrote:finnish_heavyinfantry_43 has an empty vehicle-def value.

That I should've seen myself. Fixed =13.

Horst wrote:finnish_engineers_43: 12-18 inf-att, 3-9 veh-att, 12 inf-def, 10 veh-def
finnish_engineers_44: 10-16 inf-att, 2-7 veh-att, 10 inf-def, 9 veh-def
finnish_engineers_45: 11-17 inf-att, 3-8 veh-att, 11 inf-def, 10 veh-def
If that's not inconsistency, then I can't help anymore.

And you've forgotten the engineer's 42, there's where it really starts.
Yepp. Looks like the lines got mixed up. If I allign them like this, it makes more sense again:
(EDIT: Although shouldn't at least one of the values go up every upgrade? Why else should the higher cost be justified?)

finnish_engineers_39: 8-14 inf-att, 1-5 veh-att, 8 inf-def, 9 veh-def
finnish_engineers_40: 9-15 inf-att, 2-6 veh-att, 9 inf-def, 9 veh-def
finnish_engineers_41: 9-15 inf-att, 2-6 veh-att, 9 inf-def, 9 veh-def
finnish_engineers_42: 10-16 inf-att, 2-7 veh-att, 10 inf-def, 9 veh-def
finnish_engineers_43: 11-17 inf-att, 3-8 veh-att, 11 inf-def, 10 veh-def
finnish_engineers_44: 11-17 inf-att, 3-8 veh-att, 11 inf-def, 10 veh-def
finnish_engineers_45: 12-18 inf-att, 3-9 veh-att, 12 inf-def, 10 veh-def

Okay. Temporarily fixed like this in the mod's next update. Thanks, Horst.

Just look at German or Soviet engineer units how the stats are made. There is absolutely no need to make up something. It only requires proper copying & pasting!

Horst wrote:Just look at German or Soviet engineer units how the stats are made. There is absolutely no need to make up something. It only requires proper copying & pasting!

Yeah, well, it seems I finally have to get into this, even though I wanted to avoid it, at first. I've already put this off long enough...

Although a second monitor or a printer would really come in handy for comparing large tables like this.... *sigh*

Horst wrote:finnish_heavyinfantry_43 has an empty vehicle-def value.

It should be indicated as bug.

The StuH 42 (ART & AT) is only available from 14/03/1944
In PanzerCorps, it was available from 06/10/1942

The last week or so, I've been "playtesting" my own mod, so to say. The one-turn-supply-stash for tanks proved to be quite the good idea. Some bold armoured moves deep into enemy territory gone bad won't be punished that hard, as well as encircling enemy tanks ain't that simple anymore.

On a sidenote I've got to say, that compared to early official campaigns (e.g. the US Marines DLC), the latter ones really gone sparse on RPs! Just played through it without any saves and ALWAYS had PLENTY of money to upgrade and buy all the fancy new stuff in middle difficulty!

And this is what I've been REALLY up to, but I've still got a lot to learn about the basics of 3D modeling. My CAD knowledge helped a little, and as always, some things work from the start, but most don't... The provided export script from the "main" mod page works, but there are very strict rules to be followed. I've been trying and hitting some walls... and knowing myself, I'm not sure I've got the required motivation to go through with it all the way. So don't get your hopes up, sorry.

Fixed the British Paratroopers '40 - '45 missing names and pictures (nothing fancy, used the Japanese paratrooper's pic.... and I get the irony of that ) in the coming update.

GabeKnight wrote:Fixed the British Paratroopers '40 - '45 missing names and pictures (nothing fancy, used the Japanese paratrooper's pic.... and I get the irony of that ) in the coming update.

Do you use also the Japanese paratrooper's 3D models ?
Names = "Red Devils" ?