Slitherine

Hi there all,
After few years seems that I have more free time and come back to this awesome game. And I would like to ask some questions and share some ideas:

1) What do you think about different philosophy for MLRS ATY units (like Katyusha) - in real warfare they are used for massive fire so they provide huge amounts of ammo on impact point and then they have to be loeaded again. So in my opinion it's good to consider option to change MLRS units stats - very good HA and SA values, much higher than classic ATY guns and only one point of ammo value

2) What do you think about increasing range of fire for TK and AT units with long barrels to 2 points as it was in PG2, PG3 and PeG?

3) Is it possible to provide AT units in close firing support ability? e.g. they would provide support fire to attached units when they are attacked ?

4) Is it possible to provide mortar units with 'ignore trenches' ability?


best regards,
Kornel

https://warshistory.ru/tank-3/skolko-ta ... -1938.html
https://chervonec-001.livejournal.com/1980950.html
This is a stick of two ends ) Yes, somewhere it will add realism, since, for example, the Tiger Tank could confidently knock out enemy tanks from a distance of 1.5-2 km, so the rest should approach it at close range) But for each mod, for example, one hex can be equal to 10 km, and someone has 1 km, which means that the balance will have to be adjusted again! Now you just need to teach AI to shoot cannons bomb planes and only then attack with infantry and tanks storming some city )
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KornelPL wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 7:29 am 1) What do you think about different philosophy for MLRS ATY units (like Katyusha) - in real warfare they are used for massive fire so they provide huge amounts of ammo on impact point and then they have to be loeaded again. So in my opinion it's good to consider option to change MLRS units stats - very good HA and SA values, much higher than classic ATY guns and only one point of ammo value

Not sure such an extreme solution would work well with the Panzer Corps engine (eg 1 ammo on low supply hexes). Especially towed rocket launchers would be much less useful. And those units would block own units from retreating without the ability for defensive fire. Too much single attack damage would be a problem with the current PzC system which massively punishes player unit losses.
All that said, I agree with the direction. For my Locarnus Addon mod, I adjusted their rate of fire, but gave the self-propelled ones less ammo (still 3). However I found it hard to balance them within the Panzer Corps engine.

KornelPL wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 7:29 am 2) What do you think about increasing range of fire for TK and AT units with long barrels to 2 points as it was in PG2, PG3 and PeG?

Unfortunately Panzer Corps engine was not made for something like that. bondjamesbond also listed balancing problems for the current environment.

KornelPL wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 7:29 am 3) Is it possible to provide AT units in close firing support ability? e.g. they would provide support fire to attached units when they are attacked ?

Another shortcoming of the Panzer Corps engine. The fire support mechanic is hard coded to the artillery and AA unit classes. The suppression vs kills relation is hardcoded as well (more suppression for arty class). The AT initiative boni and mali are hard coded to the AT class.
So you could only make an AT gun manually switchable, between direct AT fire and support arty fire. I experimented with this for my addon mod. It worked pretty well with some balancing and made towed AT guns more useful, especially those in player hands.
However for Battlefield Europe, McGuba gave AT guns the camo trait (which brought other issues due to its implementation by the Panzer Corps engine) and thuse made them more useful anyway, not only for the player but also the AI.
A combination of camo AT + arty switch was imho too much for game flow and AI issues.
I stayed with the camo AT to keep consistency with BE, on which my Addon is based.
edit: Read next post, the great AMULET equipment mod implemented the AT - arty switch mechanic!

KornelPL wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 7:29 am 4) Is it possible to provide mortar units with 'ignore trenches' ability?

You could give them the meng (military engineer) trait, which allows a unit to ignore enemy entrenchment. Pioniere/Engineers have that trait, as well as flame tanks. For my addon mod, I also gave it to especially massive arty pieces, like Gustav, Karl and the Sturmtiger. Smaller mortars and arties are imho too powerful with it, since you can not fine tune it (eg to ignore half the entrenchment).

KornelPL wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 7:29 am 3) Is it possible to provide AT units in close firing support ability? e.g. they would provide support fire to attached units when they are attacked ?

Oh, I nearly forgot, the AMULET mod by Messmann implements such an AT - Arty switch.
Not only giving AT units an arty mode (AT of 7.5cm and bigger caliber iirc), but also doing the reverse, giving arties an AT mode!

You should definitely check out the AMULET mod:
https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=63616

Long range tanks can be dangerous. One possibility is to maybe have a switch from normal to long range. I use a similar approach allowing some AT to switch to artillery mode with range 1where they retain attack stats, but have reduced Rate of Fire (I use 80% but it works OK at 50% or more). That allows eg a marder or towed AT gun to support other uinits. It loses it's 2/stra HA bonus, but means an 88 or Nashorn makes an attacking T34 pay a price, and also allows the AT guns to take on bunkers - essentially sniping at the firing slits.

As for the mortars, I had thought of having howitzers or mortars with MEng trait. You'd probably be best off reducing the SA and maybe HA a few points to balance that, as they'd otherwise be very powerful against entrenched infantry, but it isn't completely unreasonable as they were designed as shorter range high angle weapons to counter defence works.

I have thought of giving all 6"/150mm+ guns the fortkiller trait (+5 against structures) as this is the point where shells start to do real damage against concrete structures - there's a very interesting US army video on this from very early 1950s - "guns against concrete" I think.

The very powerful attack but only 1 or 2 ammo is also a reasonable idea. If you make these weapons Armoured train class, then they still are suppression weapons like artillery but on't do defensive fire. This is pretty much essential for 1 ammo units, and does make sense if it takes a lot of work to load them up for a massive suppression attack.

Mortars are also different ) In addition to 82 mm and 120 mm mortars , the Red Army used a 160 mm mortar )
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/160-мм_ми ... _1943_года

captainjack wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 3:58 am Long range tanks can be dangerous. One possibility is to maybe have a switch from normal to long range. ............ It loses it's 2/stra HA bonus, but means an 88 or Nashorn makes an attacking T34 pay a price, and also allows the AT guns to take on bunkers - essentially sniping at the firing slits.

Sounds good to me

Don't mix up direct and mounted fire. Tank guns and pure ATs (not SPAty) almost can NOT shoot over buildings, hills, forests. And for any type ground unit fights at plain terrain there's an Initiative stat used.