Camo seems to work fine on storm and commandos, the only thing that appears to be inconsistent for me is how much time needs to pass after an engagement to regain camo. Sometimes it is near instant, sometimes I have to wait like half a minute (while sitting in cover, not engaging at all) to activate.
Does it maybe help to walk out of cover and back in again?
I sometimes had the feeling this fixes it, however it might have been random chance since it takes a couple of seconds as well during which the game can "realize" the mistake and apply camo correctly.
An approach might be a really fast plane, but a longer time between the smoke and the strafe. Then distance covered is less relevant but the time to dodge is consistent.
Wasn't this how OST frag bombs got treated or am I mistaken?
I assume this could be adjusted to a certain degree, however I am not sure how the engine will calculate the plane shots regarding ROF -> Will there be less shots, will there still be the normal amount of shots but fired very fast, or will the strafed area be enlarged?
Another issue is AA that could have issues to track faster planes, but I assume with the current limitations we have to give some at one point or the other...
No problem, I will explain with the aid of a real game situation. As I played on steppes there was a fight about the island at the bottom with fuel and VP. Germans were playing on left side. A damaged Panther that just dived in and destroyed the SU-85 that was shooting at it tried moving backwards up to base. Its motor got damaged at the fight, it was still at the island driving backwards in sight of a soviet infantry unit. Since it was real close to the lower edges I could strafe over its full length from the right bottom. The opponent tried to evade but just couldn't move out of the way fast enough. It was very close, he nearly made it. With the plane approaching from the other side I do think he should have saved his Panther.
You are surely not fighting only at the centre of the map and tanks are not always aligned parallel to the edges of a map. There are always flanks to protect and VPs close to the edges of a map. The fighting takes place there too and such situations are not rare, they happen all the time.
You won't have this problem at 1vs1 maps, they are just to small too make a real difference in approaching paths.
Alright, I see your point. Thanks for the info.
Personally I am not yet sure what to weight higher: overall better design or more constant performance across all modes. Maybe some issues can be alleviated by tuning the plane speed as previously done for other abilities, but this obviously needs testing.
Maybe they run a stable version and you're just unlucky.
Another way would be to just create a mod yourself that incorporates the changes of the preview, and then start a game with this mod and cheat commands enabled.
So shall we apply this logic to all rocket/cannon strafe? There are some Stuka strafe that deal equal damage to front and rear and that require 0 skill.
Sorry, but that is simply not true. Armor gets eliminated at a lot of situations or at least gets next to eliminated.
First exception: TDs and SHTDs that work reliable against the front of a lot of targets (especially with vet or abilities like HVAP).
Second exception: ATGs that work reliable against the front of a lot of targets (especially 17pdr/Pak43)
Third exception: Howitzers
Fourth exception: Multiple offmap abilities which deal reliable (consistent) damage from all approaching angles or from the top (penetration = 100%)
Everything might have been a slight hyperbole, but the general point still stands: Attacks from the rear are meant to be more effective so that armor matters. Armor still matters in most of the setups, especially in those involving heavily armored tanks and in next to all involving the Elefant which was taken here as an example for debate.
From a design and intuition stand point, it is good that the attack direction matters because it intuitively makes sense that shots at the front armor do not penetrate as often.
So don't get it worse. A damage reduction (although not wanted as Sander93 said) would nerf rocket strafe equally at all game modes for example. I'm not in for allied nerfs that hit 3v3/4vs4 harder than 1vs1/2vs2. Thats the wrong direction.
I am not sure if I am missing something here, but unless you have been pushed back heavily or pushed the enemy, units generally stand in the middle of the map. So it should not matter that much if you attack from the front or the back, or what am I not getting here? Why is this more special for 3v3/4v4 than for small modes? Large modes generally have more delay on plane based attacks, I just don't get why the direction is that important if units are fighting in the middle of the map anyway. If you could elaborate on that, that would be good.
Just to be fair: He has a point. Compare 5th tank to 7th tank in upper row. Both get hit from the front. Thats a huge difference already. Reason: low penetration vs high front armor = RNG
You can compare second to third tank in upper row too. Both from the rear, not such a big difference, but RNG still leads to situation where the Elephant will get destroyed with some other hits or can escape depending on RNG of rocket strafe despite some other hits.
My main issue with the pentration nerf is that the penetration nerf leads to the situation where you want to attack from the rear always. This will lead to a longer approach time in many situations and will make the attack more predictable (you know the direction it is coming from). Especially at the big 3vs3/4vs4 maps. A faster tank like a Panther or PZIV may escape completetly in this higher time window. So this is a bigger nerf to the big game modes than the small ones. Don't like that, because Soviets struggle there while doing absolutely fine in 1vs1. We don't need any futher nerfs to 3v3/4vs4 allied performance, its bad enough already.
So the ability now works like everything else in the game: reliable against the rear, RNG from the front. And this is bad because?
If you want it to be always reliable then armor does not matter at all, eliminating one of the core mechanivs of vehicle combat.
The approach time and the respective differences between modes/map sizes are a different issue. The parameters should be set to a common ground where every mode can live with it, but at the very core this issue is not fixable.
While I can understand that you see the buffs it got as "not enough", in my opinion you are not giving really good arguments for it.
It doesn't matter which buffs the other heavies and which ones the Tiger in particular got. You can use other heavies as a "benchmark" for comparison but only if you assume that your benchmark is decently balanced or if the comparison is useful in some other way. But how does the general power level of the Tiger in OST correspond to the general power level of the Pershing in USF? Hard to determine, yet it would be important for your points, since the power level is what you're actually talking about.
You criticize that USF can build only one RE in a viable build, which is not enough to repair the current Pershing? Balance team then did exactly the right thing: Make repairs with one RE quicker. What is your point on this?
Heavies in general might come a bit too late? Pershing goes to CP11? Looks like the correct call from balance team. It doesn't matter that the Tiger gets the same buff, they're not meant for a 1v1 shoot out. Unless you wan't to say that a CP11 Tiger were OP, but that again has nothing to do with the Pershing. Or you say that the Pershing is still too late at CP11, which in turn has nothing to do with the Tiger.
As to your last point: Sander literally posted a screen showing he played heavy cav recently and still is top 10. I trust him enough to not fake this, so yes he apparently did exactly what you were asking for and I assume he even picked it vs good players.
Instead of adjusting the 10% DR to accomodate the stug, you could simply increase stug health to 600 or 640 like a proper medium. (why its 560, I fail to understand).
Back on topic.. This version of mark target is fail because
1: Pak already has very very good pen and allied tanks short of is2 cant stand pak fire for long so armor debuff makes no sense to me. Panther has 220 pen already and stug also has 180? which is good enough
2: The only usable scenario I see is maybe marking the t70 so that the pak can reliably hit it, but this defeats the point because by then you already have a higher tier and tank out.
Like I actually want to know what scenarios you guys have in mind concerning this tank and this ability.
personally.. id like the cp4 to call in flares like that command panther will. no need mark target no smoke no thing else is needed.
The StuG survives three shots but then dies to a snare, which makes it slightly weaker than a medium that would survive a snare and three shots. At this strength, the StuG can reliably fight mediums while being weaker when a snare threatens it.
Regarding the CP4: The ability will still come in handy for T3 P4 builds as well as when facing Soviet doctrinal armor as well as late game UKF. If it is worth it for the accuracy (which will help in almost any setup) alone is debatable, but it fits the role of complementing other units. It'll make a medium only rarely miss its target, at least when stationary
yeah, i agree 15% might still be a bit too much and something odd like 13% is kind of questionable. I guess the only way around this would be to give tanks and infantry a flat HP bonus instead of a relative increase (i.e. 160 HP for tanks and 10 HP for infantry).
I'd actually love to see the day1 rage of everyone that loses his tank because it survived with 160 and then leaves the CP4 aura, causing instant death. I'd bet money on the code glitching out and that happening.