Tanks tanks tanks 2

[Secret Master]

it's pointless as it stands now.

It's not pointless at all. I've used it several times.

For example, before the heavy tank nerf, I was using heavy tanks and HTDs and HSPART as the Soviets. I had a production line of a specifically 1934 model HTD with a speed of 4 kph that started production in 1938 and kept going forever (with only very small changes when I got a new heavy tank gun researched). That model supplied guards foot infantry divisions.

I also had a (much smaller) production line of HTDs for use in panzer divisions. It had a speed of 8 kph, advanced chasssis, and fancy modules. The 4 kph tanks were designated with the turtle icon and only went to foot infantry divisions as they were useless for panzer divisions. The others only went to panzer divisions and I didn't want them being expended in foot infantry divisions at all, even if I had extra.

 

[Anaraxes]

I agree it's failed, but it works with the ship designer and fleets.

Task forces contain individual ships. Divisions contain battalions, not individual tanks; there's an extra level of separation. The analogy would be the ship designer allowing you to specify certain proportions of different crew members on the ship, or perhaps the HE/AP loadout for each gun in the battery.

The current land system lets you tag entire battalions to contain specific equipment tagged with an icon. The desire was to specify a mix of equipment not in the division, but within a single battalion. For example, you would specify that a specific individual battalion can have 40% Icon1, 25% Icon2, and 35% Icon3 tanks, while the battalion next to it in that column of the division designer has instead 60% Icon1 and 40% Icon4.

The point would be to fine-tune the balance between hard attack and soft attack in the battalion, as well as other stats. Currently, you can sort of approximate that by selecting different guns (CS gun, medium cannon, high-velocity cannon, howtizer) on the tank that equips the entire battalion to get a few possible variations.

 

[Corpse Fool]

It's not pointless at all. I've used it several times.

For example, before the heavy tank nerf, I was using heavy tanks and HTDs and HSPART as the Soviets. I had a production line of a specifically 1934 model HTD with a speed of 4 kph that started production in 1938 and kept going forever (with only very small changes when I got a new heavy tank gun researched). That model supplied guards foot infantry divisions.

I also had a (much smaller) production line of HTDs for use in panzer divisions. It had a speed of 8 kph, advanced chasssis, and fancy modules. The 4 kph tanks were designated with the turtle icon and only went to foot infantry divisions as they were useless for panzer divisions. The others only went to panzer divisions and I didn't want them being expended in foot infantry divisions at all, even if I had extra.

It just a quick button to do what you always could do in the equipment list for the formation. It doesn't really do anything unique, it just makes something a bit easier to do.

 

[vermicious knid]

I think you just have to take some lumps in terms of abstracted bonuses, considering how the game is designed. I know plenty of folks were previously irked (me included) that artillery techs didn't boost self-propelled guns like they did towed guns.

I rationalize the bonus for tank destroyers vs. tanks with the same gun as being a product of how they were deployed. Tank destroyers hanging back and waiting for targets vs. advancing and taking ground. Which might not be perfectly accurate, but I don't think we are going to get the option to manually select ammo loadouts and battalion composition.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Replying to a number of things discussed in this thread.

One thing to understand about AT and TD is how these two types of equipment developed during WW2. The AT units started with circa 40mm scale guns that were highly mobile and easily dragged around by their crews. As the war progressed these guns became bigger and bigger, quite quickly transforming into guns that required combat motorised transport for battlefield mobility (that is a bullet proof motorised prime mover) and later in the war once we reach the really long high calibre guns pretty much impossible to move under fire. This means that as the war progressed AT units became more and more a unit where if you retreat you lose your guns. This aspect of AT battalions isn't modelled at all in the game, probably because this is simply too much detail and not sufficiently important for the effort required. All sides (in Europe) ended up using TD as their primary anti-tank weapon as a result. I think there is a serious issue about how to model this in the game without adding features. It could be argued that AT battalions should be penalised on HA rather than piercing but that doesn't necessarily work either because of the way all HA is the same whatever its corresponding piercing value is. Ultimately the game simply isn't going to be right but that doesn't necessarily matter if what works for players looks reasonably sensible and I think that is where we are now. So, what I'm really saying is don't look too close because you can't actually have realistic, just be happy that there are some meaningful choices to be made which kind of end up with sensible looking divisions.

Another issue mentioned in passing is speed. The only comments so far in this thread only discuss speed as an advantage at the tactical combat level. This is a mistake, vehicle speed differences contributed far more at the operational level. Once you move out to a scale significantly larger than the effective range of weapon systems the ability to disengage reliably or defeat in detail through superior speed is extremely relevant. This becomes extremely apparent playing operational scale games using tanks with significantly superior speed to enemy forces on a battlefield with room to use it. One downside of discussing the impact of speed is that, for example, it does very little to help smash through enemy defences, it only really relevant during the manoeuvre stage of a battle so relevance varies.

For direct fire vehicles there is a strong argument that can be made that faster vehicles get more opportunity to shoot at the enemy and that speed should have an impact of attack values. This is logical in exactly the same way that armour increases breakthrough. The effect does, however, need to be limited to direct fire units making it a bit complex to deal with within the current game model. Realistically there should be no speed bonus for SPG but bonuses for tanks and TD.

 

[mursolini]

Thy should get rid of designation giving bonuses, and instead give those to gun modules. So once you research new level of AI, your high velocity guns get high boost to peircing, medium guns - modest, and anti-personnel - none. Same with arty tree.

It ust makes no sense that same armored vehicle will have 20-40% better piercing just because it is called TD, or 20-40% higher SA because it`s called SP-ART. Same gun is same gun.

 

[GC955]

Speaking about tanks division allocation, I think that the fleet icons equivalent are not the tanks icons, but it is necessary instead a "company tag". The tank icons are useful when, as stated before, I want to distinguish infantry tank from cruiser tank, for example. But if I want to distinguish two different cruiser tank, currently I cannot. Quick example:
The German focus "Army Innovations" gives you a Panzer III and a Panzer IV designs (quite historical designs, I can say) but one of the two is ineluctably pointless (or almost). Why? Because if I produce both, the game recognize IV as "newer" and will substitute the III, making their production usefulness (from a practical point of view).

One can say that I can tag them to don't allow that; ok, but then the maximum that I can achieve is to have a Panzer-Division on Panzer III and another on Panzer IV, and not, as historical happened, a mixed Panzer Division (that can be useful also from game point of view). To achieve a historical Panzer Division is mandatory a further level of distinction: when I assign a tank battalion (e.g. a medium battalion) I should be able to say to game:"Hey, I want in my tank battalion XX% of Panzer III and XX% Panzer IV". The interface could be similar to that of planes' wings, with percentage instead of absolute numbers.

 

[Corpse Fool]

a mixed Panzer Division

Are you confusing division with battalion?

Mixing the division between 3's and 4's can be achieved with designating the p3 as a tank destroyer, which sort of aligns with its intended purposes anyway. This works out a lot more nicely with the way the beta evened out vehicle counts, even if it still arbitrarily drops 95% of the p3's breakthrough in the live version and has a wonky vehicle count for seemingly no reason.

But this is the issue with the amount of flexibility the designer gives us. It requires changes to other systems (in this case, adding the ability to mix particular amounts of equipment in a battalion) that get us bogged down in what appears to be minutia like specifically how many p3 and how many p4 are in this one battalion of tanks. It doesn't matter, tank was fine, we didn't need the designer, it only exposes how detached from reality the simulation really is. The game was a lot more streamlined when the more advanced tanks weren't a specific model/purpose of tank, it was just an abstracted, monstrous amalgamation of whatever could be determined as 'better' and the flavour text calling it a specific thing (panthers in '39!) could be safely ignored by saying 'the game calling it a panther doesn't make it a panther, just think of it as a particularly advanced design rather than any specific thing'. Now we can't do that, these specific things are supposed to be specific things and the game appears to suffer for it.

 

[GC955]

Are you confusing division with battalion?

Mixing the division between 3's and 4's can be achieved with designating the p3 as a tank destroyer, which sort of aligns with its intended purposes anyway. This works out a lot more nicely with the way the beta evened out vehicle counts, even if it still arbitrarily drops 95% of the p3's breakthrough in the live version and has a wonky vehicle count for seemingly no reason.

But this is the issue with the amount of flexibility the designer gives us. It requires changes to other systems (in this case, adding the ability to mix particular amounts of equipment in a battalion) that get us bogged down in what appears to be minutia like specifically how many p3 and how many p4 are in this one battalion of tanks. It doesn't matter, tank was fine, we didn't need the designer, it only exposes how detached from reality the simulation really is. The game was a lot more streamlined when the more advanced tanks weren't a specific model/purpose of tank, it was just an abstracted, monstrous amalgamation of whatever could be determined as 'better' and the flavour text calling it a specific thing (panthers in '39!) could be safely ignored by saying 'the game calling it a panther doesn't make it a panther, just think of it as a particularly advanced design rather than any specific thing'. Now we can't do that, these specific things are supposed to be specific things and the game appears to suffer for it.

I switch division with battalion, but the sense is the same. The (initial) German Panzer Battalion was on three Companies, two light (on Panzer I,II, and III) and the third one medium (always on Panzer IV). The icon mechanic cannot allow this, so I cannot have a division that is fairly good to piercing and fairly good to destroy infantry (from tanks point of view), but only the extreme ones. In game it isn't possible unless with forced constrains (as TD designing that you say) that involve also precious xp cost. My aim is have a balanced Panzer Division for in-game purpose (if it is good or bad, the game will tell us, but I would like have the possibility to try it ), that, in this moment, I cannot have. To have it, I must have a "Battalion Designer" that, in spite of the exaggerated name, it's none other than the possibility, from equipment screen, to say how much tanks of type XX must go in the Battalion, so that the numbers is fixed and I can distinguish my tanks in the field.

 

[Corpse Fool]

that involve also precious xp cost

How? It costs no XP to re-save the p3 as a tank destroyer rather than a tank, unless of course you are required to swap a particular module to allow you to use it as a TD. I'd also imagine that if you were trying to 'add' these sorts of vehicles into the template, you'd have to be adding a battalion of either sort anyway, it shouldn't really be considering you more XP to make one of those battalions TDs rather than tanks. Unless of course, you're looking at this from the stance of an existing template (which no one has) and trying to mix in the pseudo-TD without having to swap the battalion to TD, which would cost XP.

to say how much tanks of type XX must go in the Battalion, so that the numbers is fixed and I can distinguish my tanks in the field.

Even then, you wouldn't really be able to control each individual battalion. All battalions that use the same equipment will have their stats based off the averages what is in (or is not in [unless its mek and the equipment is otherwise marked essential]) the pool. So if you had one battalion cranked to be full 'TD' and another 9 cranked to be full 'tank', all 10 are really getting the average of those stats.

Unless of course they massively rework how a lot of things operate, which is generally not what PDX is known to do. They will tend to take the easiest path.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Thy should get rid of designation giving bonuses, and instead give those to gun modules. So once you research new level of AI, your high velocity guns get high boost to peircing, medium guns - modest, and anti-personnel - none. Same with arty tree.

It just makes no sense that same armored vehicle will have 20-40% better piercing just because it is called TD, or 20-40% higher SA because it`s called SP-ART. Same gun is same gun.

It makes perfect sense for SP-ART since the usage of a heavy howitzer in an indirect fire role is utterly and completely different from usage as a direct fire weapon. Unfortunately, that isn't really how it is pitched in the game. However, there is ample justification for the actual scores to vary depending on the usage of the battalion a vehicle is assigned to although there reasonable arguments that the game does it wrong.

 

[GC955]

It costs no XP to re-save the p3 as a tank destroyer rather than a tank

No, but it costs add a TD battalion as you say after, that shouldn't be add. I mean this.

So if you had one battalion cranked to be full 'TD' and another 9 cranked to be full 'tank', all 10 are really getting the average of those stats

This could be a compromise that I have already supposed, because it work for my aim (in a unique manner (i.e. 50/50), but it works), but also that is not possible.

I know that is a work that gives no revenue for PDX, it's only a suggestion.

 

[Kanitatlan]

One of the weaknesses (and strengths) of the current system is that it pushes you towards designing armoured vehicles to address the idea of having 1 battalion really good at armour and 1 battalion really good at piercing and then fill the rest with general purpose tanks. Given the need for the "1 battalion" to not slow down the division you can end up with some strangely specialised vehicles. For example an heavy AA tank which is actually optimised for speed and armour and has an AA gun because that doesn't slow it down at all and I can have a single AA tank battalion to boost divisional armour. A single TD battalion with optimised piercing and then bulk out with regular tank battalions. In many ways this isn't a bad thing but it gets a bit weird when your armour advantage comes from a heavy AA tank.

 

[Corpse Fool]

I know that is a work that gives no revenue for PDX, it's only a suggestion.

I think this is a poisonous line of thought.

 

[GC955]

I think this is a poisonous line of thought.

How do you mean?

Maybe I express my thoughts in the wrong manner. I want to say that mine is a really niche suggestion, a smaller "problem". There are many others "problems" (bugs, mechanics and so on), with an higher priority from PDX point of view, that require to works on it. And it is rightly so.

 

[Secret Master]

It just a quick button to do what you always could do in the equipment list for the formation. It doesn't really do anything unique, it just makes something a bit easier to do.

Given that I don't have to go into the equipment list and change things, and instead I can just designate with the icon and know that the right equipment will get sorted out, I consider it a win in terms of UI.

There are games where I might have 5 or more versions of the turtle-icon TDs running around due to tech advances, and going into the equipment manager of the templates for each division type that has TDs and turning some on and some off makes this feature a worthwhile time saver and saves me mental "clicks."

In many ways this isn't a bad thing but it gets a bit weird when your armour advantage comes from a heavy AA tank.

It's not quite "We will have Tiger battalions in regular divisions" kind of mechanics, but it's closer than we were before NSB.

It's a great example of how a better abstraction still ends up being an abstraction that creates weird outliers.

 

[sdplissken]

Thy should get rid of designation giving bonuses, and instead give those to gun modules. So once you research new level of AI, your high velocity guns get high boost to peircing, medium guns - modest, and anti-personnel - none. Same with arty tree.

It ust makes no sense that same armored vehicle will have 20-40% better piercing just because it is called TD, or 20-40% higher SA because it`s called SP-ART. Same gun is same gun.

Different ammunition.

 

[PorkchopSandwiches247]

Different ammunition.

While Ill accept this explanation, youd think that the models would be interchangeable in that case lol

 

[shadowpho]

Any thoughts on the new builds? Did it make tanks significantly cheaper? Or tanks are still rare now?

I really like the motorized nerf, as it was stupid op before. Now it’ll be back to having to use tanks instead of just moto to push.

 

[Reman]

Any thoughts on the new builds? Did it make tanks significantly cheaper? Or tanks are still rare now?

I really like the motorized nerf, as it was stupid op before. Now it’ll be back to having to use tanks instead of just moto to push.

Tank changes were very much a mixed blessing. The decreased cost is great, but it's muddied somewhat by tank battalions being standardized to 50 units, which is a big increase for TDs/SPGs/SPAA. Normal tanks themselves are a lot better (they were basically never worth using before), but there's not as much cheese available from using TDs now which increases prices.

My divisions look something like this now:

• Early game: mostly mot + mot art, with a few (something like 2-5) tank battalions to provide breakthrough and the armor bonus. Tanks designed with min armor, radios, and then getting SA as high as possible while maintaining speed and reliability.
• Early mid-game ('40-'42): The same as above, but with a tank destroyer battalion added with max armor to keep the armor bonus.
• Late mid-game ('42-'44): Questionable as to whether it's worth keeping up with AI piercing levels here. Swap mot art to rocket trucks for better breakthrough. Need more TDs or full tank divisions to keep the armor bonus, which is expensive but can sometimes be worth it.
• Late game: Modern tanks make it economical to get the armor bonus with a single battalion of TDs again. Can go with that + mot + rocket trucks if I'm trying to be economical, or go with full tank divisions if I have a million factories.