Defensive buffs
Currently, if I really wanted to spam mortars is I would build some green cover all over the place (-50% received AoE damage; received accuracy doesn't matter), stick my mortars behind it and fire away. Green cover is free, and it already gives a massive boost to survivability, at the cost of clumping your models up.
I think it is fair that the mortar pit should yield even better defensive capabilities than green cover.
- One option is to create/reuse a cover type, and modify every single weapon in the game to adjust the penalty
- However, (since we are lazy), is it possible to make the mortar pit apply the green cover bonus to the garrisoned mortars twice?
I dont think that double heavy cover would be too OP, given you can already build green cover and keep your mortars spread.
Normally, the mortar pit gives garrison cover, which is worse than heavy cover. I would recommend keeping it this way and applying an additional received damage modifier to garrisoned units - that would probably be easiest.
Offensive buffs
Give mortar pits some passive buffs:
-20% reload time (should be significant, but not turbo-mortar-like)
+5% range (so that you can always hit back attacking mortars; but none of the insane +43% range of the current mortar pit)
-20% cooldown on abilities (the amount is arbitrary. However, the cooldown is significant, as most mortars have longer barrage range than auto-attack range).
This is easy to do (and easy to adjust), so it shouldn't be a problem at all.
Pricing
Let's put it at 120MP
Given the offensive buffs, I would say that the effectiveness of each garrisoned mortar increases by 25%. With two mortars garrisoned you get 50% of a mortar for free. That's 50% of the price of a mortar (240MP). Thus, 120MP should be a good bargain if you plan on blobbing your mortars like that.
That sounds reasonable - it costs 120MP now.
Do you think it might get messy if each mortar has different cooldown durations? (e.g., different mortar, vet bonuses, etc). If it is possible to select each mortar individually and barrage that's already awesome.
The mortar pit could -ideally- give convenience abilities to access these abilities quicker (e.g., if you want a coordinated barrage).
It could get messy. But to be honest, I don't think it's necessary anyway. Not being able to barrage with both mortars at the same time would - for me - be a reason not to use the mortar pit in the first place. If you invest 240+240+120=600MP, you should be allowed to use double barrages.
You mean abilities that cause all garrisoned mortars, regardless of which model they use, to fire a certain barrage type? I'm not completely sure, but I don't think that's possible. If you have two mortars of the same type, it already works like that, though.
I have a prototype ready that includes the following:
- British 3-inch mortar team in T2. 240MP, stats and abilities from the Soviet PM-41, uses the USF M1 model.
- Garrisonable mortar pit for 120MP. Has no visible 3-inch mortars or crewmen and can take two mortar teams which show and work correctly.
- GrW 34, PM-41 and 3-inch can use all of their abilities while garrisoned.
- No stat changes to the pit or mortars yet.
Add me on Steam, and I'll give you access!