A few armored car musings and misc. requests

[Hawk Kriegsman]

Hi Jason (or anyone),

I will take up the response for anyone. :whis:

I have noticed a few things about some armored cars (and a few other vehicles) that I thought could be tweaked for the CS, especially EF. I mention this because there seems to be some real inconsistency between the armored values, and in some cases the point values, of some vehicles in game.

Keep in mind that it is not armored values. It is defense value. All units have a defense value. Unit in red are considered hard targets and can only be attacked by another units hard attack factor. This is a important consideration when looking a units defense value. I will address victory point values latter.

With regard to armored vehicle defense factor, the general rule the designers seem to be following is A defense factor of '1' for every 10mm of the armor, PLUS one IF the vehicle is fully tracked OR fully enclosed. I honestly don't know exactly what formula Talonsoft / Matrix programmers are using to determine AFV defense, but the above "formula" is about as close as I can get. I like that, because it would offer some consistency as to how vehicle defense factors are set up in the game. But whatever - here goes (and the points below are be no means all-inclusive).

I don't think that is how it was done. Was it part of it yes. But there were other things involved. If you are really curious I suppose I could be coaxed into digging up the original EF, EFII, WF manual. I think there are designer notes in there. Send me an e-mail if interested.

1. The Soviet BA-20 armored car is described as "little more than a civilian car with a thinly armored turret with a rifle-bore machine gun." The photo looks like a mid-1930's sedan, true to it's description. Further down, it states the vehicle has only 10mm armor maximum (presumably the turret).

Ok, so why does this thing have an armor factor of THREE?? Shouldn't it be more like a 'soft' factor of two, since pretty much the entire vehicle is unarmored? It needs to be changed IMO, for the next update. No way this thing is harder to kill than a truck. It truly is just an ordinary little car with a tiny turret on top.

The description is just that. A picture is worth 1000 words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ba-20_armored_car.jpg

It is actually armored all around. Probably hard to hit due to its small size. These things really don't survive in CS. They perform poorly in the game as they did in reall life. I don't think they are overstated at all.

2. I'd like to point out, while I'm thinking about it, that the German 10/4 AAA halftrack has a 15mm thick gun shield for the 20mm, and is tracked to boot, and currently has a defense of 1. I would guess that it will probably get the default setting of '2' in the next update like all soft vehicles, but IMO, the 10/4 should probably be set to a 'soft' factor of '3' to reflect the fact that the 20mm is armored (sort-of), the vehicle is tracked, and they were crewed by combatants (as opposed to truck or wagon drivers). This is also a very common vehicle that, IMO, has trouble "competing" with the apparently much more useful PSW-222 armored car. Just something to think about.

Good points all around. I would like to see a 2 or 3 myself on some of these types of vehicles. Not a hard defense though.

3. Again on the PSW-222. The vehicle has a defense of '3,' but maximum armor of only 8mm! Shouldn't it be more like a hard defense of '1' - or perhaps '2' if you take into account it's smallish size, enclosed structure and sloped armor. But certainly no more than 2. This is a very common vehicle that I have always thought was over-powered. Also, other german AAA vehicles are usually made somewhat obsolete by this vehicle, especially early in the war, due to the fact that this thing can shoot down planes, AND has armor.

Looking around the web I have seen armor stated as high as 14.5mm. Again this is a vehicle relying on size and speed for its defense not armor. I can live with 3. Escpecially size I play with armor facing on and it is a mere one on the side and rear.

4. PSW-221. Nearly worthless attack, yet, it's worth FOUR victory points. IMO, this vehicle needs to have its victory point value reduced to '2' to take into account it's nearly non-existent attack, and to encourage the player to use it for the purpose it was intended for. No way is this vehicle more valuable than its '3-pointer' cousin, the PSW-222.

I could not agree more.

4a. Almost forgot. The PSW-221 also has only 8mm or armor max, so it's defense needs to be reduced I would think - probably a nominal hard value of '1' like with the PSW-222.

See my comments about the PSW 222

5. The PSW-233 armored car. Another very common vehicle that is...over-armored. 18mm max. Shouldn't it probably be set to an armor of three? (2 for armor + fully enclosed / well sloped armor = 3)

I don't think you mean the PSW 233. That has a 75mm howitzer is open topped and has a max armor of 30mm. It has an armor of 3.

There's probably a whole slew of vehicles in the CS that have defenses that are inconsistent with their armor thickness, but I mainly posted this because the above vehicles seemed especially out of whack.

I resectfully disagree. I think they designers got the bulk of it correct. The game reflects what should be the majority of the time.

6. Last but not least. KKR and others have pointed out before that if transport halftracks are worth 3 victory points each, and motorcycles, bicycles and wagons one, shouldn't trucks be worth two victory points? (please correct me if I'm wrong Rod).

That is Rod's position and makes perfect sense on the surface. However that is an additional piece that needs to be considered. Truck capacity was doubled. So a 6 SP infantry can now be carried by a 3 SP truck.
The old truck unit would have been 6 SP x 1 = 6VP for the whole unit.
The new truck unit is 3 SP x 3 = 9 VP. Hardly a large increase. The real issue is truck bloat. The vast majority of scenarios have too many SPs of trucks. Understandable as they were created using the 1SP to 1SP formula. The older scenarios need to have their trucks redone. That solves the problem.

Well, the last several games I played in I have made large numbers of truck kills, and I have come to the conclusion that trucks are swaying the point score more than they should be. I'm convinced that VP's for trucks should be a consistent 2 points each, across the board, to make it easier on the programmers and to help prevent 'truck victories' - games where the final score, once truck kills were factored in, made a victory occur where otherwise a draw or loss would have happened.

That's not a designer issue. That's a poor play issue. I play scenarios with lots of trucks in them. I don't lose them. Keep your trucks safe and their point value is a non-issue.

Thanx!

Hawk