Tanks tanks tanks 2

[blahmaster6k]

It might actually be worth making a new thread - the total tank rebalance in the latest open beta means the templates in the original post don't work any more. (For example, tank destroyers are no longer vastly cheaper than tanks)

Unless they changed the AT tree more, TDs still get an extra 30% hard attack and piercing just because of the designation, so players are still going to want them for the inflated stats compared to regular tanks. That being said, it's going to be much cheaper to make more armored tanks and towed AT piercing has been nerfed, so I'm sure the designs will change.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Yeah, I noticed tanks are “cheap” to build now. I restarted again to test out the new balance and, using the same number of factories as before, I have FAR more tanks than I can actually use (early game buildup).

I try to balance my early factory setup so I can feed full strength divisions to the army with minimal equipment overflow. The old mil factory allocations from the guides don’t balance with my templates now. I needed to dial down my tank production, especially compared to trucks.

On the positive side, I can get enough equipment for a handful of extra foot units compared to before.

edit - now I wonder if I should have freed up some army experience to strengthen the tanks instead. The specs are a little different now. I was running out of trucks after building extra tank divisions, so I started pushing out more infantry instead.

Maybe I could have improved the tank designs more?

I await new meta guidance from the good players.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Unless they changed the AT tree more, TDs still get an extra 30% hard attack and piercing just because of the designation, so players are still going to want them for the inflated stats compared to regular tanks. That being said, it's going to be much cheaper to make more armored tanks and towed AT piercing has been nerfed, so I'm sure the designs will change.

This design choice by Pdox strikes me as strange. I thought part of the reason for the rework/redesign is to get away from random BS like this. Why should any tank designed have to be "designated" anything? The whole POINT of having a designer is for the player to make tradeoffs in capability by swapping parts of the chassis. Whether something is "AT" should be based on what you build into the tank, not what you call the tank.

Otherwise, why can't I also "designate my infantry as anti-tank", lol?

I also find it bizarre/vexing that the same turrets on line AT necessarily perform worse than on TD. That's stupid, and overlaps/double-counts the tradeoffs of attacking (much slower, terrible breakthrough for AT, both reasonable) vs defending (where a tank driving towards entrenched gun shooting at it should not expect more safety than if a tank was there instead).

 

[Secret Master]

I thought part of the reason for the rework/redesign is to get away from random BS like this. Why should any tank designed have to be "designated" anything? The whole POINT of having a designer is for the player to make tradeoffs in capability by swapping parts of the chassis. Whether something is "AT" should be based on what you build into the tank, not what you call the tank.

Because there is no mechanism for having proportional equipment in battalions instead of uniform types of equipment.

For example, you can't say "I want 50% of AFVs in an armor battalion to be StuG IIIs, and 50% to be Panthers." You also can't say "I want 50% of this MOT battalion to be tube artillery, and 50% to be rockets." Instead, the game engine handles this by having equipment designated for use by battalions, and if you want a division to have X number of StuGs and Y number of Panthers, you need to designate some battalions as armor and some as TDs or assault guns.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it was probably easier to integrate a tank designer into the game's base "battalions are one thing" set up than it was to rewrite the entire engine from the ground up to support proportional AFVs in generic battalions.

I also suspect that since the intermediate techs in the AT, artillery, and AA tree all have ammunition in their graphics as opposed to other things that the system is meant to mimic that certain designated units might receive specialized ammo for specialized roles. You issue the tungsten core AP rounds to the TDs and AT guns, and not the Panzer IVs even if the Panzer IVs are mounting guns that could fire that ammo.

I'll admit that where the system in the game starts to lose its easy to see abstraction is when you start thinking about all the ad hoc arrangements we saw with AFVs during the war. Sherman Fireflies, Tiger battalions being used as corps level assets, massed artillery barrages that didn't respect division organization, intended US employment of tank destroyers versus actual use, and so on. I suppose one day there will be a DLC where the game gets corps and army level assets to create mechanics that for these cases instead of the lock-step division designer that controls your destiny that we have now. (Not that I dislike the designer, but it has its historical limitations.)

 

[ashandresash]

Sherman Fireflies, Tiger battalions being used as corps level assets, massed artillery barrages that didn't respect division organization, intended US employment of tank destroyers versus actual use, and so on. I suppose one day there will be a DLC where the game gets corps and army level assets to create mechanics that for these cases instead of the lock-step division designer that controls your destiny that we have now. (Not that I dislike the designer, but it has its historical limitations.)

That'd be so great... A corps/army designer should be the way to go .

 

[Voigt]

I would have liked if higher AT tech would allow a ammunition module, so you can put wolfram ammunition in your TD template, which gives it +20% Hard Attach and +20% Piercing for -10% Soft Attack. Something like that.

 

[Corpse Fool]

I would have liked if higher AT tech would allow a ammunition module, so you can put wolfram ammunition in your TD template, which gives it +20% Hard Attach and +20% Piercing for -10% Soft Attack. Something like that.

I'm happy enough being able to put squeezebores on rockets.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

For example, you can't say "I want 50% of AFVs in an armor battalion to be StuG IIIs, and 50% to be Panthers." You also can't say "I want 50% of this MOT battalion to be tube artillery, and 50% to be rockets." Instead, the game engine handles this by having equipment designated for use by battalions, and if you want a division to have X number of StuGs and Y number of Panthers, you need to designate some battalions as armor and some as TDs or assault guns.

Okay, but this still does not merit a random % boost from designation. I see no reason you couldn't then designate an SPG as "anti-tank" and just have your AT divisions suck at piercing if you want.

I also suspect that since the intermediate techs in the AT, artillery, and AA tree all have ammunition in their graphics as opposed to other things that the system is meant to mimic that certain designated units might receive specialized ammo for specialized roles. You issue the tungsten core AP rounds to the TDs and AT guns, and not the Panzer IVs even if the Panzer IVs are mounting guns that could fire that ammo.

This does not explain why tank piercing/hard attack is higher than AT piercing/hard attack, however. Presumably, AT battalions are (by definition) designed to fight tanks and would be given ammo accordingly.

As for guns mounted on TD, it would be a more reasonable abstraction to match ammo to turret type than it would be based on designation alone, and then let designation merely constrain which types of battalions the tanks go into for the purposes of division design (so if you want regular tanks to act like TD, and TD to act like regular tanks for whatever reason, you could and would gain no advantage/disadvantage from that other than maybe confusing yourself for no reason).

 

[Anaraxes]

That'd be so great... A corps/army designer should be the way to go .

Don't forget the battalion designer, so you can get the proportional stats for different kinds of AFVs like SM mentioned.

 

[Secret Master]

Okay, but this still does not merit a random % boost from designation. I see no reason you couldn't then designate an SPG as "anti-tank" and just have your AT divisions suck at piercing if you want.

Now I'm confused. Why would you try to designate something with crap piercing as a TD just to harvest a percentage bonus to piercing? It only makes sense to designate AFVs with the right kinds of guns as TDs anyway. For example, rocket modules have worse piercing than Tier 2 infantry kits. Why would you try to scam the system to get a 30% boost to piercing when it would virtually no impact.

Say what you want about percent increases to unit stats in general game design, but in this case it means that it only makes sense to designate AFVs with real potential to kill opposing tanks as TDs.

This does not explain why tank piercing/hard attack is higher than AT piercing/hard attack, however.

Because we don't have an artillery designer to give AT, ART, and AA more granularity, so it's almost impossible to make them uniform? Between squeeze bores and the super-heavy cannon in the super-heavy tank tech, even if the base stats were uniform between high-velocity guns and AT guns, there would be no uniformity in actual practice.

I've also had some people argue that the TDs deserve better piercing or hard attack due to better mobility. I'm not the expert on this stuff, so I'm not sure.

For what it's worth, I suspect that regardless of historical considerations, there's a game design incentive to make TDs a bit better at piercing as an offset to their price increase over AT guns.

As for guns mounted on TD, it would be a more reasonable abstraction to match ammo to turret type than it would be based on designation alone,

Why? Vehicles functioning as tank destroyers did not have uniform fixed mounts.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of the M18 Hellcat and the M36. Both had turrets, and both were intended to focus on killing actual tanks.

 

[Harin]

I've also had some people argue that the TDs deserve better piercing or hard attack due to better mobility. I'm not the expert on this stuff, so I'm not sure.

I had the same thought, especially since HOI4 plays at a much higher level than individual pieces of equipment or vehicles. The stats should represent the ability of a battalion's worth to make a hit at a high level, which means taking into consideration how much area the equipment/vehicles are covering and their ability to put rounds on target in that area in a specific period of time. That would mean mobility matters, because in that time frame more faster equipment can get to the target than slower equipment, increasing rounds on target.

Then I realized, the same thing should apply to armour. Slower equipment is going to be more vulnerable to attacks on its weaker points than faster equipment. I was getting excited.

Then I realized that would mean rewritting so much code that, nah, ain't gonna happen.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Now I'm confused. Why would you try to designate something with crap piercing as a TD just to harvest a percentage bonus to piercing?

There's less incentive to do it now that they've normalized the vehicles per battalion somewhat. Though there is still some potential weirdness if you somehow find yourself close to a threshold, at least that's less likely with non-binary armor.

For what it's worth, I suspect that regardless of historical considerations, there's a game design incentive to make TDs a bit better at piercing as an offset to their price increase over AT guns.

I don't think this makes sense. Line AT is already lower stats in the non-gun way. Especially things like speed, armor, etc. You pay more for the non-gun bits, and you accordingly get more.

Why? Vehicles functioning as tank destroyers did not have uniform fixed mounts.

To simplify the abstraction w/o creating arbitrary bonus modifiers.

 

[Aeroclub]

Now I'm confused. Why would you try to designate something with crap piercing as a TD just to harvest a percentage bonus to piercing? It only makes sense to designate AFVs with the right kinds of guns as TDs anyway. For example, rocket modules have worse piercing than Tier 2 infantry kits. Why would you try to scam the system to get a 30% boost to piercing when it would virtually no impact.

The problem is not the designation, the problem is that the designation itself gives a 30% piercing bonus. In other words, you take a tank and rename it into a TD, and just by a virtue of this renaming it becomes better at killing other tanks.

I agree with you that a designation of different tank types has it's place and purpose in terms of division design. But as the post you were replying to noted, such designation should be the result of the way the tank is designed (i.e. a TD is whatever you put an anti-tank gun on); and if the devs do keep the arbitrary designation decided by the player, then this arbitrary designation shouldn't provide any bonuses.

 

[TK3600]

Completely unrelated, but I would be nice if stuff like panzer leader give buffs to tank battalions not entire division if it qualifies as a tank division.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Completely unrelated, but I would be nice if stuff like panzer leader give buffs to tank battalions not entire division if it qualifies as a tank division.

I was under the impression this was going to be patched...was it not? Can you still game the system by having "infantry cavalry that is actually also 5 types of tanks getting infantry bonuses"?

 

[aletoledo]

Because there is no mechanism for having proportional equipment in battalions instead of uniform types of equipment.

For example, you can't say "I want 50% of AFVs in an armor battalion to be StuG IIIs, and 50% to be Panthers." You also can't say "I want 50% of this MOT battalion to be tube artillery, and 50% to be rockets." Instead, the game engine handles this by having equipment designated for use by battalions, and if you want a division to have X number of StuGs and Y number of Panthers, you need to designate some battalions as armor and some as TDs or assault guns.

I think that was the purpose of tagging the design with a special icon. Thats how it works with the ship designer and fleets. If they can get these tags to serve a purpose, then we can we can proportion the types of armor either in a battalion or a division.

 

[TK3600]

Yeah, and stuff like artillery buff advisor would actually work lol. Those command related buff should affect battalion included not 0 influence unless division has primarily that unit.

 

[Corpse Fool]

I think that was the purpose of tagging the design with a special icon. Thats how it works with the ship designer and fleets. If they can get these tags to serve a purpose, then we can we can proportion the types of armor either in a battalion or a division.

If that was the purpose it failed miserably. Right now, all that tag icon does is force them to use 'that' brand of medium tank, rather than whichever one is techinically the top of the priority list.

The conern being mentioned is wanting to have a controlled 50% mix of 'this' and 'that' tank within the battalion. Which as far as I know, cannot be done. Even if it could, it would have a weird interaction with non-additive stats piercing and speed because those stats get averaged across the entire equipment pool, the anti-tank tanks would lose piercing.

 

[sdplissken]

If that was the purpose it failed miserably. Right now, all that tag icon does is force them to use 'that' brand of medium tank, rather than whichever one is techinically the top of the priority list.

The conern being mentioned is wanting to have a controlled 50% mix of 'this' and 'that' tank within the battalion. Which as far as I know, cannot be done. Even if it could, it would have a weird interaction with non-additive stats piercing and speed because those stats get averaged across the entire equipment pool, the anti-tank tanks would lose piercing.

I think that’s honestly how it should be done. The ability to select certain tank models and assign a %. Also might be good to allow light tanks in medium tank battalions or vice versa. They really served the same role.

 

[aletoledo]

If that was the purpose it failed miserably. Right now, all that tag icon does is force them to use 'that' brand of medium tank, rather than whichever one is techinically the top of the priority list.

The conern being mentioned is wanting to have a controlled 50% mix of 'this' and 'that' tank within the battalion. Which as far as I know, cannot be done. Even if it could, it would have a weird interaction with non-additive stats piercing and speed because those stats get averaged across the entire equipment pool, the anti-tank tanks would lose piercing.

I agree it's failed, but it works with the ship designer and fleets. I assume they added the tagging to follow this same concept, but like you've said, it's pointless as it stands now.