Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Shadow Empire >> Suggestions and Feedback >> Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting

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Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 1/30/2021 9:53:25 PM

zgrssd

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Joined: 6/9/2020
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Currently Artillery has a capped damage per shot. Adding firepwoer beyond that does not increasae the power of the attack - instead it adds extra attacks. My understanding is that there is some form of maximum damage and the firepower is evenly split to avoid exceeding it.
While bigger Artillery does add firepower, the damage per shot will stay the same - it will just be used more often/combat turn.

There is no incentive to ever do anything but the biggest.
Unfortunatley that also means that big artillery might get issues affecting tougher enemy units (like Combat armor or Battledress with > 200 Armor Strenght before the roll).

My suggestion is this:
- divorce the Firepower from the Gun. Maybe this becomes a fixed number for the unit type. Or maybe it becomes another part, like the "Ammo Storage" (wich would also define ammo consumption)
- instead the gun provides the Divisor/Per shot cap. It decides how many shots you get/how much you overkill the target
- Weapon design would apply to firepower, not the Divisor

A comparaision would be the engine and fuel tank in planes, where Engine Efficiency acts as a divisor for "Airtime". But it is the overall speed that decides how far you go.

Example:
If you got 100 Firepower daamge from the Ammo store:
- A bigger gun with a cap of 100/Attack would give you one attack of 100 attack power
- a medium gun with a cap of 50/Attack would give you two attacks of 50 attack power
- the smalest gun with a cap of 20/Attack would give you five attacks of 20 attack power each
- they could all cost more or less the same material (with the smaler gun, it is simply split up over more guns) and use the same amount of ammo (derived from firepower)

Where the guns come in:
This rule could also be applied to tank guns and infantry versions of those guns. Different sized guns do not have inherently more/less firepower. They just have a different divisor, meanign a small gun with a big storage could throw a lot of fire down the street - but will still have issues affecting heavy units. While a bigger gun can hit units realy hard - but might seriously overkill any given unit.

Post #: 1

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 1/31/2021 1:07:39 PM

BlueTemplar

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Well, a bigger gun does increase firepower indirectly, via its calibre !
By the way, why is there no intermediate howitzer calibre between 105 and 150mm ? 120mm would be perfect for ranged attacks against 40mm plating (like Combat Armor). Right now, you're forced to either go underpowered or overkill...

This is a great suggestion, however there needs to be some additional progression for firepower and costs, if you were to introduce right now a 20mm/5 attacks howitzer from the very start it would both be very expensive to field and absolutely SHRED <7mm plating targets !

So, let's see : right now a 25mm Howitzer costs 20 metal & 15 IP for 0.6 ammo/shot, while a 150mm Howitzer costs 50 Metal and 35 IP for 2.6 ammo / shot - both for a Padded Arty... hmm, now that I think of it, the 150mm with 6 time the calibre, 2 time the attacks and 2 time the attack power actually is waaaay too cheap (even for the ammo cost, which is only 4 times higher) !

And since both the 25mm and 150mm are available from the start, it's no wonder that players directly pick the biggest ! (At least for foot arty, where weight isn't a consideration.)
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4951892

So, at the very least, bigger calibre Howitzers (that foot arty can use) need to be made much more expensive to field and fire, because there's probably no point in using anything than the biggest 150mm!
(I didn't do the math for the stats of the intermediate calibres, but I guess it works in the same way?)

(in reply to zgrssd)

Post #: 2

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 2/2/2021 12:29:51 PM

zgrssd

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Joined: 6/9/2020
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quote:

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

This is a great suggestion, however there needs to be some additional progression for firepower and costs, if you were to introduce right now a 20mm/5 attacks howitzer from the very start it would both be very expensive to field and absolutely SHRED <7mm plating targets !

That is the beauty - there needs to be no change of the firepower. Smaler and Larger guns are inherently more usefull against different targets.

If you got 500 firepower you could:
- drop one 500 Power shot/combat round on one 50 HP infantrist. Killing one subunit really hard.
- drop ten 50 power shots/combat round on up to ten 50 HP infanterist. Meaning they all get targeted, so they can not break through. And they all could be subject to pinned, retreat or kileld attack results.
- drop one 500 Power shot/combat turn on one 500 HP Tank. Meaning you actually can seriously affect it
- drop ten 50 power shots/combat turn on up to 10 500 HP tanks, propably not even scratching the paint

The callibre would be about how much firepoweryou could focus on a single entity (to overcome the incredible HP), but it would reduce your ability to attack often if you face masses.
Quite often the gun that was picked was the smalest that was still big enough to have a effect on the targets.

Just imagine how many full artillery/field artillery Batteries you could have gotten for the material, money and explosives tied up in one Schwerer Gustav and Ammunition?

< Message edited by zgrssd -- 2/2/2021 12:31:07 PM >

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 3

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 2/2/2021 1:44:11 PM

BlueTemplar

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Oh yes, I just mean that it seems to be a bit too easy to have such a powerful anti-weak plating weapon by merely having to discover and design artillery (or light tanks, what is their biggest starting howitzer calibre already ?) !

Right now it would be :
Average starting thermosuit infantry HP : 50*1*0.85*0.85 = ~43 (with 0mm plating)
(Funnily enough, since thermosuits get an armor design rating, infantry with them gets less starting HP than with regular uniforms !)
(For some reason in practice I'm only getting 93%-96% of HP for my infantry ??)

Biggest starting towed artillery soft attack firepower (for 150mm) : 700*1*0.85*0.85/2/2 = ~126
(For some reason my towed arty seems to have 19% higher firepower than expected ??)

126/43 = ~3 shots

OK, that's not *too* powerful I guess ?

< Message edited by BlueTemplar -- 2/2/2021 1:45:51 PM >

(in reply to zgrssd)

Post #: 4

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 2/2/2021 7:07:11 PM

zgrssd

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Joined: 6/9/2020
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quote:

Biggest starting towed artillery soft attack firepower (for 150mm) : 700*1*0.85*0.85/2/2 = ~126
(For some reason my towed arty seems to have 19% higher firepower than expected ??)

I have no idea where you get those two 85% modifiers from. Firepower is affected by the Weapons design roll, but only once. Same way HP is affected by hte armor roll, effective engine power by the engine roll.

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 5

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 2/2/2021 8:22:56 PM

BlueTemplar

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Thanks, I got two things confused, your remark managed to make me notice my mistake.

I guess it's the regular uniform infantry that confused me.

How do you get 41 HP for infantry from 50 armour strength, 90 structural design, 85 base design and no armour design ?
(I indeed get the right numbers for the other models I looked at respectively for HP = armour strength * armour design and effective firepower = weapon firepower * weapon design * modifiers .)

I'm using
effective firepower = firepower * structural design * base design * weapon design
and
HP = armour strength * structural design * base design * armour design
because AFAIK in both cases, the effective weapon/armour design is going to be based both on structural design and base design ?
So the weapon/armour design that you see listed in the design tab is this structural design * base design * weapon/armour design. I'm working with averages here of course.

I thought this multiplication explained the weapon/armour/engine design numbers lower than 70 ?

Buuut now I just checked, and I have a light tank (mk 1, not sure if that matters) with 114 structural design, 88 base design... but 67 armour design. Which would have required rolling 67/(1.14*0.88) = 67 ... on a roll between 70 and 100 !

Ok, I guess I'm still getting some of the math wrong ?

< Message edited by BlueTemplar -- 2/2/2021 8:23:56 PM >

(in reply to zgrssd)

Post #: 6

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 2/2/2021 9:13:02 PM

zgrssd

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quote:

How do you get 41 HP for infantry from 50 armour strength, 90 structural design, 85 base design and no armour design ?

Despite not being supposed to roll at all, a Armor Design Roll happened, propably landed around 82, took effect - but was not displayed (as it was not supposed to happen).

I noticed something similar in a pre-Stratagem Scrap Savegame, but did not want to report it as I need to verify happens with the current version first.

(in reply to BlueTemplar)

Post #: 7

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 2/3/2021 3:32:58 AM

GuardsmanGary

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Joined: 7/4/2020
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quote:

Despite not being supposed to roll at all, a Armor Design Roll happened

Even wearing just fatigues infantry models still have design factors that contribute to their hitpoints. They have the same 30 base hitpoints every model has plus 20 for their size value. Given that soft/hard attack is not simply a measure of a weapons direct killing power but a combination of factors that reflects the models ability to deal with those kinds of targets, hitpoints also aren't simply a reflection of the thickness of that models armour. You could explain a way a bad armour design roll on fatigues as having bad or no camouflage patterns, or lack of medical gear issued to the soldiers.

(in reply to zgrssd)

Post #: 8

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 4/11/2021 10:12:36 PM

zgrssd

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GuardsmanGary

quote:

Despite not being supposed to roll at all, a Armor Design Roll happened

Even wearing just fatigues infantry models still have design factors that contribute to their hitpoints. They have the same 30 base hitpoints every model has plus 20 for their size value. Given that soft/hard attack is not simply a measure of a weapons direct killing power but a combination of factors that reflects the models ability to deal with those kinds of targets, hitpoints also aren't simply a reflection of the thickness of that models armour. You could explain a way a bad armour design roll on fatigues as having bad or no camouflage patterns, or lack of medical gear issued to the soldiers.

That these units had a armor roll was confirmed as a bug:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4974947
But the roll not being displayed was a pretty huge giveaway.

But let us come back to smaler guns:
@Eretzu suggesed to add what was - in effect - field guns. Small scale arillery to be used in infantry vs infantry combat, not ranged attacks:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4997865

Now a interesting fact is:
Most AA weapons have a AA range of 0 or 2 or more.
However the Flak is odd:
Up to 50 mm it has a range of 0.
But starting at 88mm it has a range of 1.

So what if we decided that smaler artillery becomes field guns with the following effects:
No artillery range, so no ranged attack. If it wants to deal damage is has to be part of attack
No counter-attack against artillery attacks either.
None of the artillery speed penalty, just treat it like basic infantry.

One complex part relating to the difference:
Foot is mostly defensive
Soldiers on foot without ranged attack have their Soft and Hard Attack Values divided by two.

Finding a target
A Subunit can only attack an enemy backbench Subunit if the attacking Subunit has either accomplished a breakthrough or if it has artillery range. Furthermore, artillery capable Subunits cannot fire on enemy Subunits that have broken through.

Not having range, these Field Guns would not be able to benefit - or be penalized - by either of those.

(in reply to GuardsmanGary)

Post #: 9

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 4/13/2021 6:06:27 PM

Eretzu

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There is also one aspect I had with the field cannons, but did not make it clear enough.

Currently artillery gets "Ranged indirect modifier" applied to its firepower. As I see this modifier basically halves the original fire power. (Then later this modified firepower gets further divided by the multiple shots rule)

Field cannons should not have this modifier as they are supposed to be direct attack weapons.

It would still work well even if field cannons were to be just zero range artillery. In that case I think that the ranged indirect modifier should just be a combat modifier that gets applied during ranged attacks. Then when artillery are used as part of ordinary attack, they would use their full firepower. (Some balancing might be needed obviously.)

(in reply to zgrssd)

Post #: 10

RE: Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting - 4/13/2021 7:08:04 PM

Zanotirn

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Actually this kind of light direct fire cannons were already going out of fashion by WWII - they made sense when the range of artillery in general was in hundreds of meters, like in napoleonic wars, but by WWII any decent artillery's full range was in indirect fire territory, and with the larger number of heavy weapons in the field, bringing a big gun with bad armor within range of enemy direct fire weapons was a bad idea. So the successor to field guns are assault guns and other armored self-propelled artillery (anti-tank guns are obviously exception since these are by necessity high velocity and have limited range of effective penetration, thus have to be direct fire, and even when not vehicle-mounted they have use in defensive emplacements or ambushes).

< Message edited by Zanotirn -- 4/14/2021 1:29:36 AM >

(in reply to Eretzu)

Post #: 11

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Shadow Empire >> Suggestions and Feedback >> Making smaler artillery (and tank guns) interesting

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