Really Liking the Gustav Rail Gun

[Zhivago]

I've been screwing around with some of the east DLC scenarios with the Gustav Rail Gun. If you can afford 7000 in prestige, I'm coming to see that it is a pretty kick ass investment to add to your core (even if you have to use the cheat code to make it available). Nearly every scenario I have encountered has railway lines--railway lines that most of the time are never used during the course of the game except to transport units around. The Gustav is a monster, and has a surprising amount of mobility and reach on nearly every DLC East scenario I have played to date. With its firing range of 6, it is an awesome stand-off weapon. Having a soft attack of 80, and a Hard attack of 60 doesn't hurt either. It also has an air defense of 20. It can move 10 hexes per turn on the rails too, which is nice. The only downside is the ammo capacity of 3. Even still, I have been having fun using it to suppress pesky AA and Arty units. They even earn heroes.

I don't know if this is a bug or not, but if you hit an enemy unit with the Gustav, the enemy unit does not change red to show it has been suppressed. I have also noticed that they do not earn prestige like other units. The Gustav I have now has 2 and a half stars, but I can't over-strength it past 11. Perhaps someone more geeked into the mechanics of the game could explain why this is to me, or the effects of a Gustav artillery hit on a unit. My take is that if an enemy unit gets hit by a Gustav arty shell, it should lose ALL entrenchment bonuses, and be suppressed for the entire turn.

[Vaughn]

That sounds fun. I'm going to have to get myself one the next time around. As for the mechanics, I know little.

[ThvN]

Zhivago, I took a quick look at the equipment file and I have found some info there which may help explain some things.

First of all, its traits are: 1)nopurchase 2)noupgrade 3)noreplace 4)minekiller. So taking the FAQ:

1) It's not listed in purchase menu (duh).
2) It cannot be upgraded.
3) No replacements are possible. This may be why you can't reinforce it.
4) Attacks against minefields cause more than the 'standard' 1 damage.

And another tidbit, its RoF (rate of fire) is only 4 (=40%). So that means that if it is at strength 10, it only has four shots. And this means it will have only four chances to hit (and kill) per attack instead of the more usual 10 (=100%, most units get one shot per strength point they have).

So if a Gustav is strength 10 you would never kill/supress more than 4 strength points of your target. You can check this by pressing 'L' after it has attacked, you will see the combat log with the relevant values.

I'm guessing that the Gustav, due to its high attack values, simply kills four strength points of whatever it is you're attacking and leaves the rest unharmed...

[case23]

I think it could kill up to four units and also suppress an additional four units. Rudankort indicated in a post buried in history somewhere that units roll separately for kill and suppress chances, so it has four chances to kill a unit and four chances to suppress a unit.

- Case

edit: I found the source of my confusion. It was an old post and not by Rudankort, who confirms that it's one roll per strength point. Kills also cause suppression in units with fewer than five stars, so it's possible to kill+suppress up to 6 strength points with a ROF of four.

[Zhivago]

Zhivago, I took a quick look at the equipment file and I have found some info there which may help explain some things.

First of all, its traits are: 1)nopurchase 2)noupgrade 3)noreplace 4)minekiller. So taking the FAQ:

1) It's not listed in purchase menu (duh).
2) It cannot be upgraded.
3) No replacements are possible. This may be why you can't reinforce it.
4) Attacks against minefields cause more than the 'standard' 1 damage.

And another tidbit, its RoF (rate of fire) is only 4 (=40%). So that means that if it is at strength 10, it only has four shots. And this means it will have only four chances to hit (and kill) per attack instead of the more usual 10 (=100%, most units get one shot per strength point they have).

So if a Gustav is strength 10 you would never kill/supress more than 4 strength points of your target. You can check this by pressing 'L' after it has attacked, you will see the combat log with the relevant values.

I'm guessing that the Gustav, due to its high attack values, simply kills four strength points of whatever it is you're attacking and leaves the rest unharmed...

I used the "all eqp" cheat code to be able to purchase it--like I said, I was screwing around with different artillery pieces. I knew that it could not be upgraded--there really is no need to upgrade it. It appears that you can replace lost units in between scenarios. However, it does gain experience (even though I have not been able to overstrength beyond 11), and it gains heroes, which is kind of cool (which opens the door for a range hero which would increase the reach beyond 6 hexes).

Thanks for the other info you posted--I would definitely be in favor of changing the ROF to 10 out of 10, and expanding its combat capabilities. A Gustav shell (in terms of its soft and hard attack values at least) is far and away more devastating than any other artillery piece in the game. But the key to the power of the Gustav (at least in the East DLC's) is that there are plenty of railroad tracks in most scenarios that allow the Gustav to be employed in most areas of the battlefield. I wanted a way to make the railroads more useful, and the Gustav definitely fits the bill. With the firing range of 6, it can really "reach out and touch someone" so to speak. Another thing, I noticed it does have defensive fire capabilities like any other arty unit. I had a tank in front of the Gustav in one scenario, and when the Russian unit attacked, the Gustav fired in defense of the tank.

[FOARP]

Slith designed the gun as an epic weapon for special missions, but for inclusion in the core, whilst range 6 seems pretty accurate, 80 soft attack may be a little OP for a unit comprising a single gun that fired only 14 (admittedly massive) shells a day. Air defence of 20 is just totally ridiculous - the gun was totally vulnerable to air-attack. 20 hard attack is also over-the-top: just how would you use this gun against tanks?

It should definitely suppress though - at the very least I think most people would want to duck if they knew a 31" shell was going to fall in their neighbourhood. I say if you're going to include the gun in your core you lower soft attack to 40. Lower ammo to 1 or 2 to simulate the low rate of fire. Lower air defence to 1 or 0. Lower hard attack to 5.

[Zhivago]

Slith designed the gun as an epic weapon for special missions, but for inclusion in the core, whilst range 6 seems pretty accurate, 80 soft attack may be a little OP for a unit comprising a single gun that fired only 14 (admittedly massive) shells a day. Air defence of 20 is just totally ridiculous - the gun was totally vulnerable to air-attack. 20 hard attack is also over-the-top: just how would you use this gun against tanks?

It should definitely suppress though - at the very least I think most people would want to duck if they knew a 31" shell was going to fall in their neighbourhood. I say if you're going to include the gun in your core you lower soft attack to 40. Lower ammo to 1 or 2 to simulate the low rate of fire. Lower air defence to 1 or 0. Lower hard attack to 5.

Despite having a soft attack of 80, it does not destroy soft targets--it might take them down four or five points, but it is definitely not the devastation that you would expect. Using it against armor is a waste of time. It is best used to soften up entrenched infantry and cherry-pick AA units that are parked next to artillery units, etc. It's definitely not a standard-issue core weapon, but like I said, I wanted to experiment.

[dumbttt]

Slith designed the gun as an epic weapon for special missions, but for inclusion in the core, whilst range 6 seems pretty accurate, 80 soft attack may be a little OP for a unit comprising a single gun that fired only 14 (admittedly massive) shells a day. Air defence of 20 is just totally ridiculous - the gun was totally vulnerable to air-attack. 20 hard attack is also over-the-top: just how would you use this gun against tanks?

It should definitely suppress though - at the very least I think most people would want to duck if they knew a 31" shell was going to fall in their neighbourhood. I say if you're going to include the gun in your core you lower soft attack to 40. Lower ammo to 1 or 2 to simulate the low rate of fire. Lower air defence to 1 or 0. Lower hard attack to 5.

Gustav was meant to be a wonder weapon, not something you would bring to every fight, realism shouldn't be too high on the list for these things. Afterall, PzC is just a game, not a digital recreation of WW2. Few things in PzC are realistic, for example, there is nothing realistic about heroes that can increase the range of your artillery. An artillery with range 1 can potentially get three +1 range heroes, quadrupling its range. This is totally unrealistic but it makes the game fun.

[ThvN]

I think it could kill up to four units and also suppress an additional four units. Rudankort indicated in a post buried in history somewhere that units roll separately for kill and suppress chances, so it has four chances to kill a unit and four chances to suppress a unit.

- Case

Hi Case, thanks for the info, but I suppose you wouldn't know how I can find this post? I vaguely remember something about kills that could cause suppression side effects, but I can't find anything about it in the FAQ. Could be interesting.



And Zhivago, thanks for the reply, to be complete I put every 'hidden' feature of the Gustav in my earlier post, even the 'nopurchase'... I think 'noreplace' means that during battles the 'reinforce' button remaines inactive, so you can't replace losses during scenarios. But I am very curious why it will only go to eleven points overstrength? I assume you did this in between scenarios? I might try some things later, see if I can find a cause.

BTW, if you are interested, I can make and upload a custom equipment file with some different Gustav stats you want changed, and you can drop that in your data folder and see if you like it. Let me know if you are interested, changing a single unit in this way is very easily done. If you want it with RoF 10 and 'fortkiller' traits or whatever you fancy, be my guest, just let me know.

Be careful though, if you start playing too much with big guns on railroads next thing you know you want to rename yourself as 'Strelnikov'...

[deducter]

I think it could kill up to four units and also suppress an additional four units. Rudankort indicated in a post buried in history somewhere that units roll separately for kill and suppress chances, so it has four chances to kill a unit and four chances to suppress a unit.

- Case

Hi Case, thanks for the info, but I suppose you wouldn't know how I can find this post? I vaguely remember something about kills that could cause suppression side effects, but I can't find anything about it in the FAQ. Could be interesting.

For green troops, every 2 kills inflicted upon it generate an additional point of suppression; this ratio decreases (very noticeably) when unit gains more experience, until at 5 stars the unit suffers no additional suppression from damage.

This information is most relevant for forcing surrender/retreat, and most useful against green units.

[ThvN]

For green troops, every 2 kills inflicted upon it generate an additional point of suppression; this ratio decreases (very noticeably) when unit gains more experience, until at 5 stars the unit suffers no additional suppression from damage.

This information is most relevant for forcing surrender/retreat, and most useful against green units.

Thanks for the info!

[Zhivago]

I think it could kill up to four units and also suppress an additional four units. Rudankort indicated in a post buried in history somewhere that units roll separately for kill and suppress chances, so it has four chances to kill a unit and four chances to suppress a unit.

- Case

Hi Case, thanks for the info, but I suppose you wouldn't know how I can find this post? I vaguely remember something about kills that could cause suppression side effects, but I can't find anything about it in the FAQ. Could be interesting.



And Zhivago, thanks for the reply, to be complete I put every 'hidden' feature of the Gustav in my earlier post, even the 'nopurchase'... I think 'noreplace' means that during battles the 'reinforce' button remaines inactive, so you can't replace losses during scenarios. But I am very curious why it will only go to eleven points overstrength? I assume you did this in between scenarios? I might try some things later, see if I can find a cause.

BTW, if you are interested, I can make and upload a custom equipment file with some different Gustav stats you want changed, and you can drop that in your data folder and see if you like it. Let me know if you are interested, changing a single unit in this way is very easily done. If you want it with RoF 10 and 'fortkiller' traits or whatever you fancy, be my guest, just let me know.

Be careful though, if you start playing too much with big guns on railroads next thing you know you want to rename yourself as 'Strelnikov'...

ThvN--Yeah, I'd like to modify the Gustav along the lines I discussed so it can gain experience and be overstrengthed beyond 11 and repaired during the scenario. It should also be able to immediately suppress (to red) any soft target unit that it hits. I like the idea of exploiting the railroads in the game, even if it is unrealistic in many scenarios. I like the Streknikov reference!

It would be interesting to develop a flat-car railroad car that could be mounted with any standard arty piece and moved--and fired--during the same turn. It would be a good way to increase arty mobility (and still add some danger to potential ground/air attack). Even Trains in the US Civil War were mounted with heavy arty. I'm just experimenting with ways to make artillery units more mobile. I've been moving away from towed artilery in favor of mobile artillery, even though the Sig 33, for example, is relatively limp-wristed compaired to towed arty. That's why I thought playing around with the Gustav would be fun.

I also played around with the Karl Gerat 040 (which is not restricted to using railroads, but it is far too slow, and only has a range of 3, so it is not very effective and I disbanded it.

[Zhivago]

I was checking out the Wikipedia page on the Gustav Rail Gun and note that it was employed briefly against Stalingrad as well as Leningrad. As such, I would advocate a patch to allow these guns to be employed in the DLC scenarios to provide a semblance of historical reality.

For fun it would be cool to see the Langer Gustav employed as a weapon (even though it was never completed--kind of like the gotha bombers and Amerika Bomber). It would also be cool to see the Landkruzer P. 1500 Monster impleneted in the game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_gun

[deducter]

For fun it would be cool to see the Langer Gustav employed as a weapon (even though it was never completed--kind of like the gotha bombers and Amerika Bomber). It would also be cool to see the Landkruzer P. 1500 Monster impleneted in the game.

The Gotha Bomber and Amerika Bomber are in the game, for 1945. They are prominently featured in GC45West.

[boredatwork]

I was checking out the Wikipedia page on the Gustav Rail Gun and note that it was employed briefly against Stalingrad as well as Leningrad. As such, I would advocate a patch to allow these guns to be employed in the DLC scenarios to provide a semblance of historical reality.

God no.

The Gustav as implemented in the game has nothing to do with historical reality. If you want to use cheat codes to play around with them then by all means. But don't ruin the scenarios by making another dud of a german "wonder weapon" into something far more effective than it was historically.

[case23]

I can't find hide nor hair of that post I was referring to. In theory it should be easy to find: I'm pretty sure it's posted by Rudankort and should contain the words "roll" and either "two" or "twice" (maybe "2"). Nada. I started looking through every Rudankort post, but couldn't find it. That dude posts a lot .

There are some other posts that indicate that green units suffer a suppression result for each two kill results, presumably in addition to any other suppression results. Elite units have this penalty reduced. Ruh-roh, now you're going to ask me where that post is and I don't recall specifically. I'm searched out at the moment; I'll try again tonight. I don't recall any specifics on how the reduction was handled. Maybe suppression is reduced by 20% per star? Wonder whether that's rounded down or up?

- Case

[Zhivago]

I was checking out the Wikipedia page on the Gustav Rail Gun and note that it was employed briefly against Stalingrad as well as Leningrad. As such, I would advocate a patch to allow these guns to be employed in the DLC scenarios to provide a semblance of historical reality.

God no.

The Gustav as implemented in the game has nothing to do with historical reality. If you want to use cheat codes to play around with them then by all means. But don't ruin the scenarios by making another dud of a german "wonder weapon" into something far more effective than it was historically.

Don't be such a crashing bore. I know that it would be a mod or cheat code feature. Slitherine is not going to mess around with the DLC's. They are already onto other projects.

[Zhivago]

For fun it would be cool to see the Langer Gustav employed as a weapon (even though it was never completed--kind of like the gotha bombers and Amerika Bomber). It would also be cool to see the Landkruzer P. 1500 Monster impleneted in the game.

The Gotha Bomber and Amerika Bomber are in the game, for 1945. They are prominently featured in GC45West.

Yes I know--that is why I was making the case for the addition of those other units that were under construction by Germany late in the war, but were abandoned. I think it would be fun to see more "drawing board" German weapons added to the game in a bonus/optional patch or something just for fun.

[Rudankort]

Slitherine is not going to mess around with the DLC's. They are already onto other projects.

Actually, there will be one DLC update, and it is discussed in this sticky:
http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=121&t=40898

[Zhivago]

Slitherine is not going to mess around with the DLC's. They are already onto other projects.

Actually, there will be one DLC update, and it is discussed in this sticky:
http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=121&t=40898

I look forward to seeing it, but I would be shocked if the Gustav Railroad Gun would be tweaked or added in any way to the Stalingrad or Leningrad scenarios. I'm still waiting/hoping for one last DLC in the German Panzer Corps series--something with a few 1936 Spanish Civil War scenarios, and something what-if scenarios and/or scenarios with additional "wonder-weapons" that never made it past the prototype or drawing board stage because of Allied bombing raids, or whatever. I hope that if/when the Allied Panzer Corps series comes out there are some of these proto-type/drawing board weapons included for fun as well.