Personally, I disagree with the choice to remove the KV-2 entirely. Only one SINGLE commander could have gotten them IIRC, they were doctrinal and relatively rare. If the intent was to make them feel very limited and rare, why not re-add the KV2 to industry tactics and make it a KV-2 commander or something. KV-2 ace? A soviet equivalent to the Tiger ace. Is the KV-2 anachronistic by 1944? Yes. Does that mean it shouldnt be in the game whatsoever? In my personal opinion, no.

Alternatively, maybe give the industry tactics a more interesting call-in. The 152 is fantastic in your mod, but I kind of wish that *THE* premier soviet tank commander doctrine has the flavor that the KV-2 offered.

Well - this response was unexpected...but in a good way. Someone that really cares about a unit's removal and the impact that unit was felt to have. Nice to see people that care post - and post well.

Honestly, I don't feel like the KV-2 belongs in MP - at least within the year that MP is set and I gave my reasons why. That said, I do get where you're coming from and I do appreciate your sentiments.

I could make the call-in more suitably interesting - by offering a command IS-2 Obr. 1944 with all the attendant perks of a command vehicle.

On the update regarding flamethrowers:

I love the uncrewing feature! But I feel certain tanks, perhaps heavy ones, should have a high resistance to these tactics, and that the vehicle/mounted flame vehicles like the 251 with flamethrowers or the KV8 should have their uncrewing abilities slightly lowered. It would also make sense if you could order tanks to button themselves up if they saw a flamethrower coming, greatly reducing accuracy and movement rates/forcing any turret MG-gunners or commanders to go back inside.

Right now it feels like they are a little too good at their jobs, but thats just my honest opinion.

However against light vehicles, unless this is already implemented, they should uncrew much faster! A Kubelwagen would light up in seconds I bet :P

I'll continue testing around to see how the new emphasis on flamethrowers feels. I really like that these weapons have new tactical depth!

Nice to see some feedback on Flamethrowers! For the time being, I'll lower the chances of forcing a bail-out. I'll see if I can tweak this on a vehicle by vehicle basis, but I can't promise anything.

Not really keen on the suddenly highly limited OKW Armor halftrack. ( The first one I mean ) Example: If someone has the resources to actually successfully deploy say, a panther and then a Tiger II back to back, then why not? The opponent will have acquired more than enough anti tank infantry/camouflaged AT guns by that point to handle it accordingly. Playing against an OKW player is pretty much a guarantee of some sort of advanced armor at some point and even against AI, this should be expected by this point in the games lifespan if not the mod.

I feel like the solution to balancing this lies in reducing costs of AT mines for all factions, to pop the tracks off superior armored forces and leave them more vulnerable to AT infantry, Also I feel like the russian ability to counter with their own armor is pretty ugly right now, the T-34/76 for example should be on ( roughly ) equal footing with the Panzer IV J/H and the '34/85 should be able to pen the panther from the front ( I may be mistaken here in terms of realism but with costs equivilent, it would make sense for balance' sake. ) the SU-85 is currently performing up to par and consistently pens my Tiger E from the front, so that appears to be functioning properly but the T-34/85 variant could use just a -bit- of love I think. this is assuming we revert the original OKW truck to its former state where multiple armored units were deployable, otherwise this might create a domino effect where the OKW is overwhelmed frequently. Due partially to the pioneer nerf where they can't use flamethrowers and LMG's anymore, soviet scout SMG squads are now a threat to them unless they're positioned in a trench.

I'm a fan of armored warfare and many of the mods I've seen out there usually increase costs/decrease availability to the point they're just tedious, sitting for upwards of 20 minutes turtling/zerging until an actual mid-scale armored battle takes place, at which point I feel like I'm playing sins of a solar empire ( A game that has been touted as "The world's slowest E-sport" ), which, in my opinion just isn't very fun. I dunno.

I think the STG 44's, the Nachtjager's received a buff in the last patch and that's good, it's the worlds most advanced firearm of the period and the damage really should reflect that though I feel like the unit health is rather lacking, they can't seem to engage even SMG troops from long or mid range without cover, even if the other unit has no cover itself, which makes no sense to me seeing as the STG fires a full scale rifle round. On a case by case basis that'd make it "OP" but having a gimped STG squad roaming just seems a little "eh." Maybe increase the manpower up to 350 to account for the performance increase?

As for the KV-2, I hate that tank, I really do, but just the same I don't see why it shouldn't have a place in the industry tactics' arsenal as a niche machine call-in. Maybe rework the range so it doesn't boarderline cross-map other vehicles. I'm not sure what your thoughts or feelings are there and mine aren't very strong either, apart from my aforementioned dislike of that vehicle.

This last bit's kindov a personal request, For the OKW Special Operations Doctrine, What do you think about adding a tiger II call-in/swapping the sturmtiger for it? To me, a Tiger II matches the doctrine's kinda.. feel a bit more I guess. Yknow, night optics STG's, IR halftracks, The best equipment Germany has to offer essentially. Sturmtiger just seems kinda random for the setting I guess.

Anyway, I've been playing this mod for about a week now and I really like what I'd seen of it prior to this most recent update, and it is my hope some of this might serve to help.

Nice post there!

1. The idea behind the Panzerkompanie change is that the player chooses what type of tank company they want to commit to the battlefield.

2. Lower costs for AT mines is doable - 20 MU for allied mines and 30 MU for German tellermines should do the trick.

3. I'll have a look at the T-34's.

4. Odd - Nachtjaegers should have the same health as other infantry. I'll see what I can do.

5. I'll see about switching out the Sturmtiger for the KT in the spec ops doctrine.

6. I'll treat the Tiger 1 as a late production vehicle - so it'll have the close defense weapon and associated abilities.

Thank you for taking that last bit under advisement. ^-^

The Tiger I E variant is the late war version, the H1 is the early production model which is why I was confused about that.

I like the idea of the armor company specialization now that you've explained it, What do you think about a global cost decrease for all armor deployed from the third truck/building to make it more attractive as an option? Right now most of the games my friends and I do usually end within the first building if not the second due to the third building costing 75 fuel, which is basically "hmm, another panther to keep the pressure on, or a third building." or maybe decrease the third building's cost for factions, because as it stands the only major thing attractive about the final truck is the panzer grenadiers as general purpose infantry. Basically the OKW's third truck is just in a really, really wierd position right now where without the panzer grenadiers its at obsolete/ complete luxury status. My thinking here would be, without global ramifications, Maybe move its contents to the second truck and decrease the the third building's cost to just barely over the second truck, and give it the same contents as a "more fortified" option. I'm not sure I'm just kinda bouncing ideas around here in regards to that.

Second paragraph aside, For armor companies especially during the '43-'45 period and for balances' sake, why not mix the truck/company options like, Panthers with Panzer IV's, Tiger IIs/Tiger I's, etc. As unit formations often became numerically drained and less formalized during the wars end phase but also for gameplay purposes as commitment to super expensive equipment can go from great, to absolutely terrible within no time flat. Can live without it but it'd be pretty cool.

Also there's a bug where de-crewed Panther G's become Panther A's upon recrewing and another bug where when you intentionally or otherwise de-crew your Tiger I, it loses its ability to gain 5 stars and reverts to a 3 star maximum. Not sure if those are fixable but those are things I've noticed.

Regarding the last uppdates, as of 31 dec. I like them. They are sensible and good for gameplay. Good stuff.

My apologies with regard to the delay in getting the update out - PC was down for a week.

Glad you guys like!

Ammo rack rate seems to be 90% as opposed to 10. King Tigers and Panther's are being racked by Panzer IV's from the front so frequently that they are currently not even worth constructing as opposed to a swarm of IV's. Adding RNG to what was formerly a sure thing has really taken the enjoyment out of armor gameplay. I personally enjoy the older system, and it would be nice if we could return to the old armor system. I play this mod and have a blast I really don't feel like being one shotted after I construct several tigers.

I usually play Company of Heroes with both Von Waldstein and Desiderium, as well as a few others, and we tried playing a couple of matches against each other last night, but the result was pretty disappointing. As they have both stated before, the Panzer IVs now pretty much trade one-shot kills with other tanks, even those of superior quality like the Panther. I play Elite Armor Doctrine for OKW, and now I have no reason to build any tank aside from the Panzer IV, because it can now take down itself and superior tanks with one shot, and I only need two to take down a King Tiger. This completely eliminates any reason to build panthers and king tigers, and due to the increased one-shot kills by the tanks, matches can come to a complete standstill within the first ten minutes of the game. It quickly became very old, and we ended up not finishing the matches due to frustration. In some ways, its ruined heavy armor gameplay, because now I just need to build a mass of IVs and completely dominate. There is no longer any strategy aside from brute force. Please, remove the ammo racking system.

On another note, we also discovered an exploit regarding the Rocket Artillery car, which can by found in the Elite Armor OKW's third tier, along with flakpanzers. While the assigned limit of artillery cars is two, we discovered that if you dismount the crew, you can increase the number of cars exponentially, rinse and repeat. On top of that, dismounting the crew and then reinserting them into the car resets the timer for their rocket barrage. I'm sure you can see how this can break the game entirely. My suggestion would be to disable dismounting the crew from the rocket artillery, which I hope is an easy fix.

So i been playing CoH for a while now with Von Waldstein for about 2-3 years now and i seen some pretty good modes, so far this one is pretty good. the only thing I hate about this which really hurts this mod is the ammo racking you added to the game breaks the great game play that you had going with this mod. the reason I say that is becuase tank fighting in this game is ruined with it. I have built a King tiger that ened up getting one shotted from the front armor by a Panzer 4J. from a Panzer 4J. after that what ended up happening was that we only built that tank from then on out. This ruines the great mod that I have enjoyed playing. I hate to see it killed to this. its set to 1/10 but what ended up happening is its 9/10. I counted the shots and out of the two games I played online with Von Waldstein and the rest, out of the 50 tanks that were made only 2/50 were able to take two shots. and the secend shot killed it. I don't think added a R&D chance to tank battles works with this mod I really hated that about the main game and i'm really not a fan here. what it has done is made any tank but the Panzer 4J worthless


I like how your trying with new ideas and trying to add more things to this mod, I love your work so far and I want you to keep it up. but as of this last update, I cant enjoy this mod any more, and that is really sad becuase it was a really great mod.

I hope you all do realize that features can and will change as needed, right? Seeing as the rack critical feature is proving problematic, I will happily remove it for the time being. My apologies. Expect an update very soon!

That being said, It's never been my intent to favor certain units, much less factions, more than others. I also greatly appreciate and actively encourage players to exploit units and features as much as possible and report their findings. It's thanks to all the people that have provided constructive criticism that the mod is what it is today.

Cheers all.

Originally posted by Layndarat:

Gday Jed, haven't played for a while and like the updated mod now that I am playing again. There are a few issues...

Elite Forces I really like that it's a Tiger 1 now and that it can defend better against infantry, but you need to be able to replace the ace when he's destroyed, otherwise this Commander will never be chosen with only a one use top tier ability.

Typhoons seem very overpowering and can completely destroy an armour attack, may be historically accurate or not as the rockets were very inaccurate, the problem in the game is the planes are very cheap whereas the tanks are not, so a stalemate can develop with large reliance on artillery off map or on map units and plane attacks... so the fun starts to degrade as the game slows down and sides look to spotters for these area attacks.

Flamethrowers seem too effective against heavy tanks. Just saw a game where an ally had 2 jadgtigers decrewed by two infantry units with flamethrowers. I just don't think those monsters would get heated unbearably so quickly. The crews kept trying to get back in but were thrown out again in just a second. The last straw for him was when 3 jadgtigers were decrewed by the off map area fire attack (unsure of its name) and similarly could not recrew. I guess the same can happen to any other tank if it happens to these monsters.

Also could SS obtain an anti tank vehicle and not sure if the Heer have PIVs but they should as opposed to captured Shermans - also if you like the captured Sherman idea keep in mind there were German units of captured T34s, could be interesting for Heer to build Shermans OR T34s.

The Soviets should have access to all tanks with exception commander call ins as by war end they were producing tanks faster than they could be destroyed, so fast they would be sent out with no paint.

US armour commander should have rifle infantry available as they were core. Otherwise an armour US commander needs other team players to manage infantry battles. I understand the US specialised a lot but in the game it limits them too much.

Still love the mod so please keep going.

+1

Building functionality is unlocked the same way as it does in vanilla - via a simple upgrade.

The time and resource cost for the upgrades is the same as if you were building the structure from scratch, so teching paths, costs and time for U.S. still matches that of other factions.

Basically, the HQ spawns all those structures on game start. Buildings can be "destroyed", but leave a wreck that can be rebuilt / repaired back to working order by A&P and Operating Squads.

A&P squads still have the ability to set up ammo racks and minor defenses.

I laid out the base in such a way that there's decent pathing without it being too spread out. I deliberately avoided making it too clumped together and too busy with extraneous bits that contribute nothing to gameplay. That long, tarp covered storage rack at the back was too interesting to pass up though as it has a nice visual upgrade when Divisional Support is unlocked...