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Does anyone still play this dumb game?
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May 24, 2014 02:25
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Arglebargle III posted:Does anyone still play this dumb game? Personally I've been playing more Skirmish than multiplayer because goddamn is setting up gimmick deck fights fun. 4v4 of nothing but M48s on one side and T55s on the other. Or like Cat C fights without waiting ages for pubbies to fill up slots.
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May 24, 2014 02:29
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Yeah actually. Folks joining 10v10s and so on mumble. You still like talking about it cause you're traditionally one of the folks who likes talking about it and posting cool textwalls? I'm looking for a cool textwall is what I'm saying. Edit: On phone, reply to argle
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May 24, 2014 02:33
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DarkAvenger211 posted:Has anyone written a Naval guide? I don't know where to start with it, and since it's the newest thing I kind of want to get some info on it. So far I've mostly just been getting my ships wrecked at ranges way outside my own. I'm assuming there are certain types of ships which exist just to act as missile defense? How to botes: Your 500p command ships are the backbones of your fleet -- Sovremenny/Udaloy/Kongo, etc. They have retardo amounts of SAMs, a lot of HP, a solid supply of ASMs, and powerful guns for slugging it out when you get to gun range. You should never ever leave them unsupported or they will die and you will have wasted 500 points. Your closest line of defense for these are the 150-200p frigates. These are your Oliver Hazard Perry, Lafayettes, Luda, etc. These tend to have good or very good CIWS, a small but reasonable supply of SAMs, and a decent deck gun; usually also a few ASMs but not so many you can just waste them. These should be in-between the enemy and your Sovremenny. They also will have the benefit of occasionally shooting down planes. Your outer line of defense are CIWS spammer ships. These are usually around 100-125 points, and you get a shitton of them (like 5 per card, with multiple cards) . These exist to be spammed around your good ships, to eat fire, and put up an impenetrable wall of CIWS. The most popular ships in this category seem to be the Jianghu-III, Cham-Su-Ri, and similar boats. You probably will want a card of supply ships in there to refill your ASMs/SAMs. The fastest and easiest way to kill other boats is to launch so many harpoons at them that they overwhelm the CIWS and at least 1 or 2 get through. This means making all your NAV tab air units is a viable strategy. I can only really speak to Blufor for this, but you want Harpoons (for longest range), which means you want Intruder TRAMs (4x Harpoon), and the Super Hornet (2x Harpoon, but also has AMRAAMs and a poo poo-ton of ECM). SEAD planes also work well. You want to pick off CIWS ships until you can get a clear shot on something bigger, and you generally want to start from the closest boat to your avenue of attack (which means the farther back ships won't have a chance to hit your planes before they evac winchester). You also can't do it piecemeal -- you need to salvo fire 8-16 Harpoons to have really much of an impact and generally guarantee a sinking per sortie. ASM helos also are nice because they are cheap and if micro'd properly can dump enormous amounts of ASMs on a target, but they take supply, so ultimately they are a second choice to planes. Botes have various firing arcs for their weapons, which are hard to figure out and you kind of have to learn by trial and error. In general, CIWS works best broadside and deck-guns seem to work best from the front. Some ships can only fire ASMs from a certain angle too, so be aware of that. If you don't plan on fighting a purely naval battle, use the NAV tab to stock up on amphibious units (which also gets you around the limitation on numbers of transports -- for example as soviets, you can get an extra card of BTR-90 and BTR-80A from the NAV tab, assuming you are playing a deck with a naval call in point), or take more fighter/interceptors in the NAV tab so you can put more bombers in the AIR tab. You can also get an extra card or two of sniper recon at a slight price premium. For river fighting, the Strb boats for BLUFOR are loving godly fingers of hellfire death and their grenade launchers are amazing. Monitor 105s are excellent pocket artillery, Shmels (REDFOR) are pocket rocket artillery, and I don't really know what else people use for river stuff. That's basically Botes in a nutshell.
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May 24, 2014 05:24
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One other important thing is any bote marked as "Riverine" cannot be targeted by ASMs. And Hellfires actually do decent damage to larger boats. A roving swarm of STRBs is actually a serious threat to larger ships, especially on maps with islands you can scoot around for cover. They're just drat fast and probably way too hard to kill for their cost. But drat do I love those things. Especially on Naval only maps. They're golden for flanking around the main blob and attacking command ships holding zones. On the same subject of river botes, a lot of people miss the Zippo. Even without using the flame throwers, it's a durable platform with a good 40mm cannon, and also a pair of 20mm despite not having any listed on the unit card. They can be surprisingly useful against infantry and IFVs when advancing up a river. Mr Luxury Yacht fucked around with this message at 06:32 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 06:22
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Leif. posted:For river fighting, the Strb boats for BLUFOR are loving godly fingers of hellfire death and their grenade launchers are amazing. Monitor 105s are excellent pocket artillery, Shmels (REDFOR) are pocket rocket artillery, and I don't really know what else people use for river stuff. Monitor Zippos carry a 40 mm autocannon in addition to their primary flamethrower armament. They also have excellent optics and can take a pretty serious beating due to the sheer number of hitpoints they have even if the armor's fairly thin. Opponents who can stay out of range are a definite problem area for it, as are opponents with very heavy armor. In Wonsan Harbor and Another D-Day in Paradise, monitor zippos can seriously disrupt movement to the front lines. In Strait to the Point and Gunboat Diplomacy, they're capable of breaking up hellforts and forcing back more mobile opponents from the front lines along the river's edge. As a bonus, all fires produce smoke that blocks the line of sight of retreating units and even the heaviest tanks can be panicked. And they're 30 points apiece with high availability so it's never just one monitor zippo, it's a goddamn congo line of pain. edit: Didn't refresh
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May 24, 2014 06:33
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Huh, it's weird but SEAD seems to have been buffed so much that it's totally worthless since no one is bringing radar AA anymore.
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May 24, 2014 06:51
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I don't think mod-chat could sustain itself in a separate thread. Incidentally, I've started background work on SAMs. The idea is to have 3 broad kinds: LRM(Buk): Long range and expensive, need to be babysat but if you can kjeep them up then enemy air attacks are going to take losses. MRM(Osa-AK): Need to be on the forward line and are more mobile and plentiful than LRMs, but can still intercept bombers before they drop missiles. SHORAD(Strela-10M): Last ditch defenses against bombers that can be taken out by AGM planes, usually IR and the most plentiful and disposable. Also considering moving SPAAGS to vehicles as I've wanted to do for a while. Already we are seeing air attacks not be so important as simply put, forces are now much stronger and more mobile so they can keep pushing much harder as one bomber strike does not shut down half an attack. But I think it need to got a bit further still. Air should be an ace in the hole, not a solution to all problems that you face. Potential issues: goddammit UK, why are you so loving awful at AA and the Eurocorps are not so hot either. Even the Scandiboos can set up a decent enough web with Hawks everywhere. This also plays into SEAD: if we boost SEAD to be able to out range the big LRMs, nations with only MRM's are kinda screwed. The solution to that I think though could possibly be found by messing with detection ranges. Edit: Also if we change SAMs we will also need to look at Naval stuff by default too  Edit2: Now provisionally done the numbers for the Xerxes17 fucked around with this message at 12:33 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 11:14
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Why does AA need to be modded at all? Just wait for a SEAD nerf and reduce the price of radar AA to reflect the fact that it got hit with the guided tag. I don't think anyone would complain about OSAs and Rapiers being guided as long as their price point was reasonable. And shooting down planes is kind of a solved problem, radar aa prices and sead just need a tweak.
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May 24, 2014 17:12
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Yeah, I agree here. Radar AA just needs to be cheaper; spam can be easily avoided because you don't get a ton of availability per card and there is a lot of competition for those slots. Given it's general reduced performance versus Helos, increased supply dependency (and hidden cost), and generally slower RoF Radar vs IR is much more of a lateral move than the prices seem to reflect. I'd be fine with moving SPAAGs that don't have integrated SAMs like the Tunguska to VEH, but I don't know that it's strictly necessary (and I kind of like having the pressure on the support slots at the moment). Hubis fucked around with this message at 18:01 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 17:57
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Yeah I don't think it requires any stat rejiggering, just make Tunguskas not retardedly expensive anymore and such, and cut MRM AA and some IR AA prices (Avengers are fine, some others could use some help). Commonwealth has ADATS, which while it isn't long-range is still really solid because it's SALH.
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May 24, 2014 19:11
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Xerxes17 posted:Edit: Also if we change SAMs we will also need to look at Naval stuff by default too I think any potential idea for a changed interplay between AA and air can't treat things some coalitions don't have as crucial. I'm also not firmly convinced that the air game is fundamentally mechanically broken such that price changes (and a possible upscale of range) wouldn't do the job. If we are going that route, then the answer might be implicitly splitting SEAD planes into groups by missile load. Ones like the Raven would have the long range to pick off individual pieces without much risk, but only two or so missiles. Then planes that are either significantly cheaper or have considerably more missiles have to go at least into long range missile range if not medium range missile range, but can put down enough shots against AA to make the recipient consider whether to risk the radar bits of their ADN in order to get shots off at a strike package. They'd be short enough range that they'd be vulnerable to AA turning off and turning back on as they're pointed away and/or long range missiles so they'd really be for supressing ADNs to get a major strike in and not something that can be sent in continually with low risk. I don't really think that significantly changing the mechanics is obviously necessary though. Adding vehicle tweaks and the dragon values from the sheet. HP tweaking will have to wait till I can find the appropriate field. That might take a bit. Other than that one tweak am hoping to get a preliminary version with all tanks done. Definitely could use numbers for the gun TDs for the dragons too.
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May 24, 2014 20:59
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xthetenth posted:If we are going that route, then the answer might be implicitly splitting SEAD planes into groups by missile load. Ones like the Raven would have the long range to pick off individual pieces without much risk, but only two or so missiles. Then planes that are either significantly cheaper or have considerably more missiles have to go at least into long range missile range if not medium range missile range, but can put down enough shots against AA to make the recipient consider whether to risk the radar bits of their ADN in order to get shots off at a strike package. They'd be short enough range that they'd be vulnerable to AA turning off and turning back on as they're pointed away and/or long range missiles so they'd really be for supressing ADNs to get a major strike in and not something that can be sent in continually with low risk. Does every coalition have a SEAD aircraft that can do the Raven's role and one that can do this new theoretical role (say, for the Prowler)? I'm in favor of just increasing the reload times on SEAD even further because then you know once you see one of them you won't see it again for a while, but I'm pretty bad at this game so my opinions are probably bad also.
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May 24, 2014 21:26
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Honestly I use the EF-111 as an agility tank way more often than I use it to actually pick away at AA. I can never seem to take enough AA down just sniping at it periodically so I save it up to send it as part of a big group of bombers all at once. I think its role is legitimately different from something like a Prowler, which has enough missiles to kill lots of AA but not the speed or ECM to survive flying right over it with an extended middle finger. The SEAD planes that really benefit from the buff are things like Electric Voodoos which previously had garbage grade accuracy and now can be swarmed over AA and eliminate it piecemeal the way that people used to do with rocket planes in late stage ALB. Mortabis fucked around with this message at 22:14 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 22:11
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Hubis posted:Yeah, I agree here. Radar AA just needs to be cheaper; spam can be easily avoided because you don't get a ton of availability per card and there is a lot of competition for those slots. Given it's general reduced performance versus Helos, increased supply dependency (and hidden cost), and generally slower RoF Radar vs IR is much more of a lateral move than the prices seem to reflect. If nobody's taking it, then it's not providing much pressure on support slots. Meanwhile vehicles are pretty low pressure since how many varieties of ATGM carrier does a single deck even need? Tank destroyers are militia for places where all you've got is rows of trees. The multipurpose guns repurposed from SPAAGs like Afghanskiy and ZSU-57-2 are also there, so there's precedent and it gives a good short range/long range split between vehicles and support.
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May 24, 2014 23:40
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My notes on planes: Bombers are the cornerstone of valuation. Every bomber should be matched with a "target" and priced so that it needs 2 runs to be profitable. Fighters are the main defense against things that fly. They should be matched to bombers of similar age period. I like planes more with increased refuel, reload and repair times as opposed to getting only 1-2 per card. Former means you can't lean on planes even if you're successful with them, latter means you have less agency as randomness is maximized with minimal amount of dice rolls. Radar AA is a revenge weapon that can't prevent ground forces from being hit but can make sure they won't be again. Since planes can hit targets everywhere on the map but radar AA can only cover a small part of it, they should be priced 50% to 33% of the bomber it's meant to shoot down. I prefer radar AA with lower accuracy and high range as opposed to lower range and high accuracy. Player evacuating the bombers before they hit targets is punishment enough, especially with increased refuel times. Infrared AA is cheap. MANPADS are mainly useful against helicopters, other systems more against helicopters than planes. Helo gunships are priced like bombers, but given a small discount. Since fighters can easily dispatch any single helo, doing so should result in roughly 1:1 value trade between gunship hovering over friendly AA and fighter of similar age period. The cost of helo is mainly points where cost of fighter is mainly AP. SPAAG should be moved over to VEH to make sure every deck can have one as core card. SEAD works like a bomber and should be priced as one. Older helicopters with missiles count as gunships, others are priced against infantry transports.
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May 24, 2014 23:42
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Well my thought ia that it isn't just enough to give them price buffs as the SAMs need range to do their job. As is the Osa is just a poo poo Buk as it doesn't even have the range to get a single hit on a bomber before it releases. They need to be buffed to the point of minimum function. Tgough I do agree this is the most fraught srea so we will do it last.
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May 25, 2014 02:28
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Is plane speed much of a driver for AA hit rates? It feels odd when evacing F16s seem just as vulnerable to MANPADS as an SU-7.
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May 25, 2014 02:34
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Jet Age posted:Is plane speed much of a driver for AA hit rates? It feels odd when evacing F16s seem just as vulnerable to MANPADS as an SU-7. Oddly, its a total non-factor in CTH 
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May 25, 2014 02:40
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Xerxes17 posted:Well my thought ia that it isn't just enough to give them price buffs as the SAMs need range to do their job. As is the Osa is just a poo poo Buk as it doesn't even have the range to get a single hit on a bomber before it releases. They need to be buffed to the point of minimum function. Tgough I do agree this is the most fraught srea so we will do it last. The way it's set up, the long range sams fill the role of things that can shoot down planes before they get in too close if massed, the medium range radar is a revenge weapon with decent coverage, and the IR sams are point revenge weapons. I've got a version with everything in it but the red/blue dragon gun tank destroyers and a draft of those on my worksheet. I'm not 100% sure about the pricing on the PTZs, but I think it's reasonably close considering their fragility and comparing them to the M48A5K2 and each other. The 89 seems to have over twice the firepower in tankulator, but between effects of quantized shots and fragility I think about a third more expensive than the 59 seems reasonable. I'll be able to put in whatever vehicle numbers get settled on tomorrow or tonight and put up a full version with all tanks and gun vehicles, which'll be super cool. The Blue Dragon numbers felt pretty good in practice as far as deck building went. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 04:08 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 03:14
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PTZ 59 needs its price reduced there's no way that thing is worth 60 points. It has 35% accuracy and 7 front armor FFS.
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May 25, 2014 03:22
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Arglebargle III posted:Does anyone still play this dumb game? Gotta say a lot of what I seem to be doing now is rolling up new deck types (Chinese Mech, Eurocorp Motorised, Swedish National) and seeing if they can be used to roll pubbies in 10v10.
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May 25, 2014 04:13
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Working on these vehicles with Hob, they're looking semi-reasonable. The Chonma-ho IV could probably use a price check with that accuracy, range and AP on a decently armored tank.
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May 25, 2014 04:32
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Dandywalken posted:Oddly, its a total non-factor in CTH On the other hand I can't imagine it would be easy to make plane speed affect CTH without completely loving the plane/SAM balance equation.
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May 25, 2014 05:29
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Chantilly Say posted:On the other hand I can't imagine it would be easy to make plane speed affect CTH without completely loving the plane/SAM balance equation. It really doesn't matter plane speed in the context of this game right now. If you actually had fighter jets going mach 1.5 or higher then yeah I could see inflicting a CTH penalty on AA but since everything is subsonic they'll all the same.
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May 25, 2014 06:15
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It'd probably be easier and more transparent (ha ha ha ha ha.) to factor it into ECM and call it a day. Incidentally,  Uralgraznomod, now with all factions' tanks and gun vehicles!EDIT: Just updated to give the Scandanavians more 103s cause that's the highest end they've got and they could actually be reasonably expected to want that many. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 07:49 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 06:27
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Power crystals/Hob/othermoddingmagicians I'm trying to use the new tool to change the accuracy of some weapons. So I need to change the reference to the hitrollrule. Here is an example of the structure of tmodernwarfarehitrollrule code:code:quote:C:\Wargame\Moddingtools>wgpatcher ndf_win3.dat infmg.xml I would be very grateful if anyone knew how to achieve this.
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May 25, 2014 11:18
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Shanakin posted:I would be very grateful if anyone knew how to achieve this. Based on those errors either the error itself is wrong or the parser for that is broken. I was going to work on it later today so I'll throw that in too.
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May 25, 2014 13:32
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The Shazbots mod is making a lot of progress and they're also talking to FLX as well and are looking to rebalance other aspects of the game. We really ought to talk to them considering that they're an ESL team and their posters make very cogent arguments. I know some of us have simply looked at their changes and said "they don't go far enough", but I don't think it's very productive for us to make two separate "total rebalance mods" when we have similar ideas. I don't want to criticize too much obviously, as you all know I love tanks and I love playing the tanks mod, but I think their ideas regarding stat buffs for the tanks, fix the tanks problems in a way that price buffs have a hard time accomplishing alone. Some of their pricing relationships also make more sense. For example, their T-72 Obr 1987 is priced under the M1A1, rather than vise versa--which makes sense because despite the ATGM, the Obr 1987 is inferior in rate of fire, AP and accuracy and is only superior in a situation where you have a wide open field that does not have LOS blockers. Their price changes in many cases are just as significant as ours--e.g, their T-72 Obr 1987, T-80BV and T-64BV are all in the 100-120 point change, just as in Uralgraznomod--yet not only that, their price buffs are accompanied by stat buffs, particularly with respect to accuracy; for example, their T-80 is priced at 70 rather than 55, yet it has 45 accuracy instead of 35 accuracy. I would rather take a 70 point 45 acc T-80 rather than a 55 point 35 acc T-80; even though their price changes didn't go as far, the combination with stat buffs makes a tank that is wholly more compelling because they fix the problems that make the tank inherently awful. The T-80BV at 110 points with 50 ACC, is also another tank that they have made competitive and compelling compared to the T-64BV and T-64BV1 without overpowering it compared to NATO tanks--something that doesn't seem possible in Uralgraznomod with price buffs alone. Welp, thats my terrible advice about tanks anyways. Regarding the air game; I think that the primary changes needed are to reduce the effectiveness of IR MANPADS and decrease the price of medium range AA at the OSA level. BUK-M1s and the like are fine where they are; you park two of them in a group and micro them, and they can take down absurd numbers of planes. The whole idea of increasing plane refuel time and ensuring that planes require 2 runs before they pay for themselves is one I absolutely agree with, although I wish we could make people pay to re-arm their planes, since you have to pay to resupply everything else in the game. OctaMurk fucked around with this message at 14:37 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 14:15
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OctaMurk posted:The Shazbots mod is making a lot of progress and they're also talking to FLX as well and are looking to rebalance other aspects of the game. We really ought to talk to them considering that they're an ESL team and their posters make very cogent arguments. I know some of us have simply looked at their changes and said "they don't go far enough", but I don't think it's very productive for us to make two separate "total rebalance mods" when we have similar ideas. I've been talking to daywalker, mostly helping him with the tools. DW doesn't care for authenticity, he makes the changes based on gameplay effects alone. I don't think he really expects Eugen to implement their changes either: they might pick some of column A, some of column B and come up with ideas of their own but the chances of getting a mod like this implemented completely is zilch. Their numbers are mostly ok, some of the tanks might need a little love but largely speaking I can't spot glaring errors. It's just another way of making tanks more useful. There's no official spokesman for Uralgraznomod. Why not contact Shazbots yourself and see what you can come up with? It's not a competition of whose ideas get implemented, after all.
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May 25, 2014 15:26
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Hob_Gadling posted:There's no official spokesman for Uralgraznomod. Why not contact Shazbots yourself and see what you can come up with? It's not a competition of whose ideas get implemented, after all. This is going to be my job, once the full range of tank prices go in we should be ready for our first release.
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May 25, 2014 15:31
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power crystals posted:Based on those errors either the error itself is wrong or the parser for that is broken. I was going to work on it later today so I'll throw that in too. We got it working. As hob pointed out referencing an instance is a bad idea anyway because it changes between patches. So we have to brute-force it by matching all the options. On the other hand, how would I go about adding new entries to this and then setting them as the new reference? Can I do that? Because it seems some of the desired changes don't have entries. e: I may not need to after all. Not sure. Would still be useful no doubt. e2: I've edited in new entries manually with the old mod tools for now. Shanakin fucked around with this message at 16:31 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 15:53
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Shanakin posted:We got it working. As hob pointed out referencing an instance is a bad idea anyway because it changes between patches. So we have to brute-force it by matching all the options. You can use <ndfadd> to create instances and then connect to them by matching property "__order" with value "last". Check my post history in this thread, I explained this in more detail a few days ago.
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May 25, 2014 16:47
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Largely the tools have the functionality required. It just takes a bit of mangling the XML to get desired effect. Best practices: - keep all XML in separate files. You can use the following .bat file to run all of them (just change the directory first): http://hobmod.com/loop.bat - do a complete dump of .dat file before you start. Don't start writing XML from scratch, that way madness lies. - You can change the order changes are applied by changing the name of XML files if you use the .bat. Files are processed alphabetically. This may be useful if you create new instances and want to refer to them via __order. - don't use instance numbers for anything, ever. They will break and your work will be useless. - usually you can copypaste the applicable "change" lines and change them to "matchreference". Easiest way to create several match criteria. - be sure you understand the difference between reference and the contents of what it refers to. Edit the correct place. There may be a new version of enohkas tools coming out. If there is, I have a feature request; I'd like to add new properties to an existing class and populate all existing instances with values for that instance. This would be used for creating IDs for classes that don't have any, for easier referencing.
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May 25, 2014 17:46
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Hob_Gadling posted:- keep all XML in separate files. You can use the following .bat file to run all of them (just change the directory first): http://hobmod.com/loop.bat Also on the todo is allowing you to specify multiple patches on the commandline (which it will execute in the order specified). Hob_Gadling posted:- don't use instance numbers for anything, ever. They will break and your work will be useless. Unless I got it wrong, I made it explicitly impossible to do this anyway for this very reason.
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May 25, 2014 18:05
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power crystals posted:Unless I got it wrong, I made it explicitly impossible to do this anyway for this very reason. Dump names the xml files after instance numbers. This is very useful for quickly locating the correct files, but not very useful afterwards. Especially not when you have a folder full of random numbers and you want to have some idea what's what. The tool works as it should, it's just a reminder to rename your stuff after you've changed it.
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May 25, 2014 18:38
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OctaMurk posted:The Shazbots mod is making a lot of progress and they're also talking to FLX as well and are looking to rebalance other aspects of the game. We really ought to talk to them considering that they're an ESL team and their posters make very cogent arguments. I know some of us have simply looked at their changes and said "they don't go far enough", but I don't think it's very productive for us to make two separate "total rebalance mods" when we have similar ideas. I don't want to criticize too much obviously, as you all know I love tanks and I love playing the tanks mod, but I think their ideas regarding stat buffs for the tanks, fix the tanks problems in a way that price buffs have a hard time accomplishing alone. The biggest thing concerning differences between mods I see is that at a macro level, tanks and armor are cheaper in our mod than theirs even if firepower is the same price or even cheaper in theirs. This encourages the use of lighter tanks as a significant component of the force, and that's important, because it gives tank forces a degree of mass to help break stalemates. That 70 point T-80 can't take hits better than a 55 point T-80, and with the latter coming at about a four to three ratio, the 55 point T-80 can actually deliver similar firepower per point. The lower end doesn't look as compelling to my eye with tanks that are fragile for their price, and that's a problem because more often than not that's the tanks that are spearheading attacks in Uralgraznomod games. That's also the group that provides the targets for the heavies, so they've got even more capable predators, which makes me feel like it pushes the lighter tanks into a niche role in SK, and makes the heavies more important. These forces push towards a lighter (in terms of EHP), less numerous force composition than in Uralgraznomod, which I feel would make it considerably easier for a traditional ~50 point ATGM outpost to hold up an attack for fear of unsustainable losses or single target ATGM plane like a Kahu to take down enough of a tank attack that it can't continue, while in Uralgraznomod it seemed like the only time an air attack truly devastated an armor push it was a four or five plane strike which allowed an Su-25T to get five kills. I think that one of the important things Uralgraznomod does is give an armored force the durability under fire that when given a sustained stream of reinforcements it can apply continual pressure if needed and give the prolonged slugging matches and brawls around control of avenues of approach into key terrain features. In short I think that the Uralgraznomod making EHP/armor cheaper than Steel Kings is an important factor in creating the fun mobile gameplay. That is also most likely a philosophical difference that would require replays and discussion to bridge. Doesn't mean that there aren't weirdnesses with the pricing between some tanks though, there's kind of a few of the things and that benefits from a lot of eyes. My 2 cents, I wouldn't mind seeing a game of that in action either to see if my predictions pan out, all I've got to work from is reading their thread and a comment or two talking about a lot of ATGMs. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 20:12 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 19:19
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Power crystals, is it ok if I announce the tool's development on the official forums?
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May 25, 2014 20:54
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power crystals posted:Now supports <ndfcreate> and <ndfdelete> at the same level as <ndfpatch>. Bug report/feature request. When you dump XML and edit an TUniteAuSolDescriptor it works out fine. If you add a ndfcreate at the start to create a new unit first, change matchreference to last and then run all the existing change clauses, it leaves a lot out. Most importantly it fails to create references. Hob_Gadling fucked around with this message at 21:46 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 21:43
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 00:21 |
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I understand that having less expensive medium tanks increases the effective HP of your fighting force, what I'm saying is that this is not necessarily the factor promoting armored advances. I'll be honest here, I think that having tanks that are effective and affordable is more important than having tanks that are really affordable but not all that effective. This is a long-ish post and I don't think my opinion is going to too popular, but I think we are too caught up in "hey our tanks mod is working" and not really looking into the details of what works or what doesn't, or what design goals are being achieved. I have played a bunch of tanks mod games now and I don't see these "high EHP" affordable medium tanks like M60A3s and T-72s actually spearheading armored advances either; in the games I've played and the replays I've watched, armored battles have been dominated by ~100 point tanks--the M1A1s, the Leo2A4s, the T-64BVs et cetera. Mobility of the battle and fluidity of armored warfare has been increased, not because we have cheaper medium tanks, but because the MBTs that can take hits and give 'em are now cheap enough that you can afford them and afford the infantry and support and recon to go with them, and it's not worth it to auto-sacrifice an ATGM plane or helo at them. That's good and that's how it ought to be. The cheap end tanks like M60A3s and T-72s that we want to make viable, that give us "high EHP" because they're cheap, that we can keep buying them to sustain the armored battles? I've only really seen them in reserve, defensive and support roles. Frankly, we say they're now priced cheaply enough that you can and are supposed to 'spearhead' attacks with them, and in practice, I don't see that happening--when it does, it often fails. When you hit a T-64BV1, the firepower does not decrease any, and you can roll the tank back, repair it, and send it back into the fight. When you hit one of the 3 T-64As that you buy for the same price, one of them blows up, and your firepower has decreased by 33%. Not only that, but the T-64BV1 will engage targets from a longer distance with far higher AP and superior accuracy and will probably destroy them, which reduces the chance that it will take damage in the first place. This is not theory--this is something I have seen in the games we have played, that armored advances relying on the cheap tanks seem like a good idea, even seem dangerous when you're facing them, but are actually nothing to fear. In any case, we frankly have tools to deal with the 50 point ATGM outposts and defensive lines. I rarely see people use smoke, hell, most games I am the only person who uses mortars and smoke to protect myself from ATGMs, enfilade fire, or superior tanks. People say "wow that was really good, that messed up my ATGMs!" then they don't do it themselves. I also don't see people time their attacks with support; for example, people don't bomb/artillery and then immediately move in the assault force. I think increasing the accuracy of medium tanks with moderate price decreases is a better plan than simply decreasing medium tanks prices. On the 55-point T-80 example... we claim that having cheaper T-80s allows you have higher effective hitpoints in the same price band, but so what? Do you really see a lot of people taking T-80s in tanks mod? I don't, because it's a bad tank and it really doesn't have use. It's still too expensive to actually get it in numbers than matter, yet if you decreased the price, it would be start to become too powerful because at 45 points for example, it would have 10 ROF with 2275m range and that would be just too good for that price compared to any other choice at 45 points. Increase the accuracy of the T-80 from 35% to 45%, and now you have a useful tank even if it's slightly more expensive. It doesn't have a ton of armor, but you didn't want it to get hit in the first place--now for 70 points, you have a fairly accurate 2275m gun on a tank that can probably take one or two hits and live to tell about it, and you can support your heavier tanks by destroying key ATGM vehicles, APCs, recons, AA etc because it has good enough accuracy to do so; and to tell you the truth, if the T-80 had 45% accuracy, I would buy it even at 80 points in vanilla RD. Its role is different--now it exists to support the heavier tanks or provide fire support for light forces such as infantry (especially since it's available in a mechanized deck), rather than serve in some sort of "mass armor" role that it was not really possible to properly balance it for using prices alone. TL;DR moderate price decreases for medium tanks plus medium tanks having accuracy closer to that of higher end tanks will make medium tanks more useful than simply flooring their prices because they will actually be able to hit and kill things. MBTs like M1A1 and Leo2A4 are actually the heart of the tank game OctaMurk fucked around with this message at 21:56 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 21:51
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