Armor & Artillery Tech Tree

[Black_Shade]

I cant play the mod right now due to the enormous slowdowns, so I figured I'd look around the tech tree. I managed to understand most of them, except the armor & artillery tree.

The right side of the tree makes sense, its similar to the infantry tree.

The left side is a complete mess. I dont know what half of the techs do, and many of them have some rather nasty negative penalties (ie +5-10 construction days on every unit). This side of the tree seems to be tied in with anti-tank/heavy tank development, which are already pretty much useless units/brigades, so why would you even bother researching this side of the tree if it screws over your build times?

Im probably missing something, because its not overly clear what each tech does, or what its associated with. I need a map/overview of this tree, cause im confused.

On an unrelated note, what is a recon brigade? Half the german army starts out with this. Im just guessing that its a motorcycle AC attachment, but it would be nice if brigade names corresponded to what they are called on the production menu, so I dont have to guess as to what I have attached to my unit. Another question with this- the motorcycle brigade looks fairly bad. Will it upgrade to the AC6 version or will it stay the AC3? The 10% increased softness seems like a pretty big increase in damage taken.

 

[System Lord]

I'm in the same boat...

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

Ok, I'll try and clarify a bit here. For starters, the Armor tree will see a major rework for 0.30. I've already done most of the work on it and I think the new version will improve both balance and clarity. But it wasn't ready in time for 0.25 so we are using the older version for one more go. McN developed this tree with an eye toward modeling both the RW plusses and minuses associated with developing weapons. So indeed there are some techs that do have rather substantial drawbacks.

Some of them are simply designed to realistically handicap nations that have already made doctrinal choices re: equipment types. An example of this is the choice to build an "infantry" tank instead of an assault gun. It is pretty much a given that the assault gun is a better choice. However most nations are already locked into the paths for this so it isn't really a choice.

OTOH, Heavy Tanks are something that a player does get to decide about. By choosing to build them you get the option of adding the attachments. But it also increases the effective cost of all Armor units. The intent was to model the inefficiency caused by having multiple tank types in production. This is certainly an issue. Unfortunately, it seems to be missing some of the positive effects that should also occur. In 0.30 there will also be some bonuses associated which will balance out the costs associated with these techs. As for the attachments being a bad deal I'd say that it really depends on you strategy. for some nations the added strength from these units is worth the costs associated with them The incresed Hardness is really valuable in some situations.

As for the Recon attachment we've got two types of units represented here. There are "light" recon units that basically aare equiped with horses/motorcycles and there are "mechanized" recon units that are equipped with light tanks/armored cars. Many nations can build either version, though nations that haven't done armor research only can do the "light" track. Also, "light" Recon units do not upgrade to "mechanized" recon. But in general, both of these units have similiar effects, though the "light" units are somewhat weaker. However even the light units still provide nice bonuses for ORG/MOR and unit speed. Plus they are cheap and easy to maintain so they aren't necessarilly a bad deal. Again, it depends on your strategy. Re: the increase in Softness this is designed to model the addition of another battalion of troops. This would increse the available "soft" targets by about 10%. You'll also see this effect with some of the other manpower intensive attachments. I don't see this as being a really big downside whaen all of the positives are considered.

mm

 

[unmerged(24102)]

Hi,

Ok, I'll try and clarify a bit here. For starters, the Armor tree will see a major rework for 0.30. I've already done most of the work on it and I think the new version will improve both balance and clarity. But it wasn't ready in time for 0.25 so we are using the older version for one more go. McN developed this tree with an eye toward modeling both the RW plusses and minuses associated with developing weapons. So indeed there are some techs that do have rather substantial drawbacks.

Some of them are simply designed to realistically handicap nations that have already made doctrinal choices re: equipment types. An example of this is the choice to build an "infantry" tank instead of an assault gun. It is pretty much a given that the assault gun is a better choice. However most nations are already locked into the paths for this so it isn't really a choice.

OTOH, Heavy Tanks are something that a player does get to decide about. By choosing to build them you get the option of adding the attachments. But it also increases the effective cost of all Armor units. The intent was to model the inefficiency caused by having multiple tank types in production. This is certainly an issue. Unfortunately, it seems to be missing some of the positive effects that should also occur. In 0.30 there will also be some bonuses associated which will balance out the costs associated with these techs. As for the attachments being a bad deal I'd say that it really depends on you strategy. for some nations the added strength from these units is worth the costs associated with them The incresed Hardness is really valuable in some situations.

As for the Recon attachment we've got two types of units represented here. There are "light" recon units that basically aare equiped with horses/motorcycles and there are "mechanized" recon units that are equipped with light tanks/armored cars. Many nations can build either version, though nations that haven't done armor research only can do the "light" track. Also, "light" Recon units do not upgrade to "mechanized" recon. But in general, both of these units have similiar effects, though the "light" units are somewhat weaker. However even the light units still provide nice bonuses for ORG/MOR and unit speed. Plus they are cheap and easy to maintain so they aren't necessarilly a bad deal. Again, it depends on your strategy. Re: the increase in Softness this is designed to model the addition of another battalion of troops. This would increse the available "soft" targets by about 10%. You'll also see this effect with some of the other manpower intensive attachments. I don't see this as being a really big downside whaen all of the positives are considered.

mm

Thanx for a good reply, dec.

 

[Black_Shade]

Thanks for the response, things are clearer now