Profile of Hannibal

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The phrasing of this is very, very confusing.
What is now the new role of trucks? Do all tech ups get added to the HQ? Where do the side techs now go? What is unlocked where and when?

From what I get though (and I am not sure I understand it correctly), this would be a huge buff to OKW while at the same time destroying a lot of the faction flavor. Trucks would be mostly optional? Or at least cheap to rebuild, since a main focus seems to be to keep tech when the structure is destroyed.

Where is the trade off then for aggressive placement? This has been part of OKW since the release, as well as the decision to either get healing or the mechanized base before your first medium. The T3 is such a strong area denial tool, loosing it because of bad placement MUST hurt (it already got decent indirect buffs ever since mortars were reworked into a support role, which made repairing it much less risky). If the tech does not get destroyed, there is actually not much reason for OKW to have strong forward bases (mostly referring to T1 and T3). T1 would likely need a price increase to balance out the fact that OKW now can have medics in the base AND a forward healing/reinforcement base as part of normal tech (plus medic crates on Sturmpios). T3 should then also not get a gun at all (bunkers not having pop cap cost is already bad enough, now this building with an actually very decent weapon would be overkill).

I see more like a nerf to ATG's utility than a buff to structures.

It is both, you can't disconnect the change from the effects it has.

I guess if one wanted to address firing into the FOW one could use the system already in place for artillery pieces and increase scatter for shots fired into FOW.

Only in this cases one would have to make scatter penalty effect angular scatter and not both, since an linear scatter could act as increase in range.

Or/and one could reduce the range for attack ground?

Scatter is already increased in the FOW. I doubt though if target ground can get a difference range, since it is tied to the weapon. Modders could give in sight into this.

And while all of this would reduce the effectiveness, it would not fix that the concept of a direct firing weapon taking a blind shot is quite stupid by itself. It would make it more RNG and therefore frustrating for both sides.

But in the end that is just a personal opinion of mine, I assume a lot of other players actually like that possibility.

Though it's true they have to invest more to get more power, you literally cannot invest more to counter it because you are limited by unit design, you could have 200 munitions and you wouldn't be able to get a second MG 42 on your Grenadiers or more StG's on your Volksgrenadiers; they are simply outclassed by design.

Technically, this difference should be reflected in pop cost.
But in general I agree: UKF sections cause a lot of issues. Infantry scales by weapon upgrades and veterancy. Weapon upgrades allow to replace a squad in the late game while still keeping it somewhat relevant until it vets up again (for this reason Conscripts were considered to be bad because once you lost a squad you could not replace it due to lack of upgrades). UKF however does this scaling through an additional bolster, which could have been one way to "replace" a weapon upgrade. But they get weapons on top, which creates basically infantry sections of up to 6 difference power levels throughout the game. Still every upgrade had to remain meaningful, but not strong enough to break the game. And since UKF is supposed to tech both side techs anyway, Tommies are usually either too strong or too weak at some point in the game.

In hindsight it might have been better to make these two upgrades exclusive and then balance them to this role.
Do you want to have either more firepower OR beefy infantry?

Would have been a nice addition for the teching duality that UKF has in each building as well.

I said that I disagree with the change proposed, I did not say anything about disabling it.

Because if suddenly there's damage reduction for shooting in the FOW for one unit, every other unit should have something similar too. Otherwise, there's a weird rule that only applies to one unit. And as you said, it'd be a buff to defensive buildings; the change would be similar to a straight HP buff ...

The suggestion had nothing to do with FOW. According to Vipper, ATGs should do less structural damage in general.

That way I also would not say it were similar to an HP buff, since the whole point of this is to make mortars better relative to the ATG (which would also affect vehicles and basically all other weapons).
Still it would take out the most "convenient" way to deal with them. Not a bad thing by default but this potentially could make rebalances for all buildings necessary, since a bunker or fighting position should not force me to build a mortar at 1,5-2x the price. Obviously it all depends on how large the damage reduction of ATGs is supposed to be (10%? 50%?). If it were to harsh then people could just camp with a bunker and ATG behind it. Especially Brits without mortar option would be screwed over, but basically all faction would have trouble. I think though that mortars should first be made better vs infantry targets: static MGs, ATGs and infantry in cover. Currently the meta works completely without structures, so unless we want to bring them back, we need to balance mortars vs infantry and not vs structures.

Microing units are an essential part of the game; the suggestion to change shooting in the FoW for ATGs doesn't make sense. Your suggestion adds another gameplay complexity and mechanic inconsistency and you'd have to apply that new rule to everything that related to FoW/Shooting (otherwise there's an inconsistency). You can shoot in the FoW with a mortar (and other units) too ... If your building gets shot at by an ATG, find the source and counter it. Buildings have enough HP to provide enough time for players to react. No need to change the game for that based solely on you not liking it.

But Vipper suggested to reduce damage vs structures, not to disable ground targeting in FOW?

Regarding what Vipper said, I technically agree with him, although I doubt it would be good to indirectly buff defensive structures again at this point.

As a side note to the FOW shooting: I'd rather had it gone too. Yes, it allows good players to get some extra performance out of a unit, but even with all suspension of disbelief possible I always find it weird that units are able to do a pin point shot at something they have absolutely no line of sight on. It also really diminishes the value of smoke. Removing that mechanic would take away from micro focus, but put more emphasis on positioning and defense in depth.