Call to Arms

Call to Arms

Tank Combat Improvement
 This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important
Lord-Knight Fandragon  [developer] 9 Aug, 2021 @ 2:52am
Mod Description
This is just a re-upload of my previous Tank Combat Improvement mod.

The goal of this mod is to try and resolve issues i find within the game, and/or improve on what is already here. Chief among the issues was the combat and how it felt to engage in. The primary issues being: Obscenely OP MBT armor, crazy powerful Autocannons as well as Grenade launchers and helicopter weaponry. Additionally, infantry combat felt a little off to me. Given how certain infantry can get many hundreds of hitpoints and the high damage fall off of weapon damage, it allowed infantry to tank entirely to many bullets, resulting in very sluggish infantry combat.

With the issues in mind, this is how I set about trying to fix the situation.

MBTs:
Due to their insane armor values and excessive ranges, MBT combat is just not fun in vanilla. Your AI will waste ammo firing at tanks they cant hit or pen, out to 300m. Additionally, due to weak track health, tank combat quickly devolves into immobilized bunkers bouncing rounds harmlessly off one another. On top of that, because of the insane armor values, lone MBTs can just drive into cap circles and annihilate all the infantry while there is nothing they can do to stop it. This is how I changed them.

-Reduced Max Ranges to 200m (Vanilla values: 300m)
-Altered MBT Armor values to be penetrable out to average in game combat ranges
-Reduced MBT Side and Rear Armor to be penetrable by Autocannons
-Hulls are far weaker than turrets, its best to get hull down where you can
-Vastly improved Track Health
-Altered many vehicle ammo loadouts
-All MBTs have 6 shots of smoke
-Gave vehicles their proper gun depression values)
-M60/T62 are a-historically buffed to give them a better fighting chance against the modern MBTs(Going head to head against modern MBTs is still ill-advised).
-Armor Piercing: Standard Anti-Tank round- Shoots through obstacles and other vehicles, good general purpose round, has penetration fall off over distance
-HEAT: High Damage shell- Does alot more damage than AP and has the 100m penetration values out to max range. Good for long range fighting when your AP pen has fallen off
-ATGM: Very high damage projectile

These changes result in MBTs being far more vulnerable to return fire, while still remaining the most powerful vehicle on the field. The frontal armor is still solid, while the sides are highly vulnerable. MBT vs MBT fights are real slug fests. If you want to improve your vehicle's survivability, sit at long ranges and try to keep the vehicle hulldown. Dont get shot in the sides and ensure you have infantry support. Lone MBTs will get destroyed.

Light Vehicles:
Light Vehicles in vanilla almost feel like a complete waste of time to even deploy. Between their very thin armor and the rather small maps, it makes these vehicles excessively vulnerable. So often I place a Bradley, BTR, or Stryker anywhere near the front and it is detonated from the map edge by some MBT. It makes the vehicles so fragile you cant really use them. Additionally, in Light vehicle vs Light vehicle combat, the insane stun this game has, means whoever shoots who first wins, since you will be perma stunned until you die. This is how ive improved the situation.

-Reduced Autocannon and ATGM ranges to 180-200m down from 240-300m
-Reworked(Improved) All AFV/IFV armor values so they do not detonate in 1 shot in most cases
-Autocannon penetration values and armor values are reworked to give IFV/AFVs greater resistance to Autocannon fire at longer ranges.
-Drastically reduced the vehicle stun duration so that it stutters, instead of out right stuns your vehicle(Allows for some counter play)

With these changes, AFV/IFVs are more durable. The heavy IFVs, like BTR-T, Bradley and Puma can even take(not bounce) multiple MBT shots. While they will not repel the hit, they will not be one shot. In many cases, even BMPs are capable of sustaining 1 hit before being destroyed when hit from the front. Sides are typically still 1 shots.

Helicopters:

-Reduced Armor values from 20mm to 2-4mm
-Reduced Helicopter Weapon ranges to the standard 200m of my mod
-Reduced the RoF of all the Helicopter nose guns from 2400-3000RpM to between 450-600RpM

Autocannons:
In short, Autocannons are unbelievably overpowered in vanilla. Their 600 round magazines allow them to sit at long range, well outside the range of any infantry return fire and flatten the map, buildings, walls, infantry, other light vehicles, trees, you name it. If you do not have a vehicle that can quickly knock out an autocannon equipped vehicle, you will soon find all your infantry dead and your defense line decimated. It feels terrible to play with and against. So, these are the changes I made to them.

-Reduced RoF to between 250-400RPM
-Reduced Magazine capacity from 600 to 75 rounds(now they have to take a break and reload)
-Reload Times set to 7.5s
-Increased Penetration values to allow them to destroy MBTs side and rear armor

With these changes, it makes Autocannons far more balanced. They can still be highly effective, but with the 75 round magazine, it requires them to stop firing, giving the enemy a chance for counter play. Autocannon vehicles are still useful and will still tear up infantry, just in a more balanced and sensible manner. Also, I fully realize that real life Autocannons can fire their whole ammo load in one go, however, for gameplay purposes, I set the magazines to 75 rounds. It feels like a good middle ground.

Automatic Grenade Launchers:
Like Autocannons, these weapons were god awful OP. One Mk19 MATV is capable of just driving up to a spawn and annihilating everything in a single 30 round magazine, with little to no chance of escape or counter fire. These weapons are not fun to face and are not fun to use. These are the changes I made.

-Reduced Magazine size from 30 to 20 rounds
-Reduced Reload time from 10s to 7.5s
-Reduced ROF to 175RpM
-Reduced Max range from 120m to 110m
-Reduced damage per shell from 200 to 90

In all honestly, I havent spent enough time with these in thier new state to decide if they are balanced. When the AI has sent them against me, they have proven to be far less effective, but still capable of killing off a whole squad, but the squad has a chance to escape, or get to cover without being hopelessly wiped out.

Infantry Changes:
I made a number of changes to infantry combat. In vanilla, the values from veterancy along with difficulty modifers and other enhancements make infantry combat very clunky and weird. Due to high health values, a T5 infantry squad is able to basically walk right over a lower tier squad simply because they have more health, in addition to all the accuracy bonuses they get simply by being T5. NUmerous encounters where T5 infantry squads would walk right up the road into the fire of 2 squads and actually wipe them out....it was just bad. Also, the leveling system feels far to fast, 80 XP for rank 5? It makes it feel unrewarding, since you have whole armies of rank 5 infantry within 10 days of a conquest. This is how i altered this:

-Reduced the health of all tiers of infantry to 300
-Infantry can be revived even at rank 0
-Drastically altered the weapon fall off values
-Massively altered the Veterancy bonuses and drastically increased XP requirements

XP Requirements are now:
Lv1: 5XP
Lv2: 35XP
Lv3: 75XP
Lv4: 150XP
Lv5: 300XP

With these changes, you must keep your men alive and fight in multiple battles, giving them a feeling of actually being elite or veteran.

I also overhauled what you get at each XP rank. Infantry only receive accuracy and weapon improvements at rank 3, 4 and 5.

Infantry weapon fall off is also far less punishing, meaning even at long range, infantry die much faster than vanilla. You need cover, and proper infantry tactics to try to keep your troops alive. No more yoloing 5 Tier 5 men into 10 Engineers and living to tell about it.

With all of these changes, infantry combat has become more enjoyable. No more terminators, no more instantly having Rank 5 infantry squads.

Infantry AT Weapons:

-Increased Range to 65-75m
-Altered Penetration to fit within my mod's penetration range(400-500mm)

Infantry AT weaponry is far more useful than it was in vanilla. With these changes, one must be far more careful with how you move and place your armor. Infantry AT can and will knock them out.

Sandbags:
In vanilla, I found it quite frustrating to constantly have my sandbag walls blown away with such ease, as if they were made of literal paper, so I went in and toughened them up. While the fix isnt ideal, it does do what I want, in that it makes Engineer built sandbag walls considerably tougher, able to shrug off autocannon rounds in many instances.
Last edited by Lord-Knight Fandragon; 19 Nov, 2021 @ 10:39pm
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Showing 1-7 of 7 comments
YAMI[AI Test] 15 Oct, 2021 @ 8:24am 
Can the tank automatically use HE against infantry?
Lord-Knight Fandragon  [developer] 15 Oct, 2021 @ 8:25am 
Originally posted by YAMIAI Test:
Can the tank automatically use HE against infantry?

They should. They will swap back and forth between the ammo types as different targets appear.
加特胖 15 Jan, 2022 @ 7:45pm 
Can i fork your mod source code?

I want to add more ammo in "Dynamic Campaign flag", and this mod is better base.

The ammo like "Wargame Red Dragon" is right, the FOB is good start.
The ♥♥♥♥ is this? Cursing my eyes just reading this... literally making the game much worse, instead of dynamic and enjoyable. The entire mod and the people who subscribed to this are literally seems like out of their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mind. And someone says it's BETTER than Warfighter? What. The. ♥♥♥♥. Warfighter is builds on realism, not some fkn degenerate arcade ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Ohmygash
It's seems like (reading the changes) that you couldn't play with the game and now like a manchild, making it stupidproof easy for... kids? I guess. Holy ♥♥♥.
Lord-Knight Fandragon  [developer] 27 Jan @ 1:58pm 
Originally posted by GrimReaperHUN:
It's seems like (reading the changes) that you couldn't play with the game and now like a manchild, making it stupidproof easy for... kids? I guess. Holy ♥♥♥.

For kids? Not really. You sure your not misreading my description? My mod is less stupid proof if anything. Stuff dies faster than vanilla, and things like MBTs are more vulnerable. Yes, I did make soft vehicles like BMPs, BTRs and Bradleys more survivable, but not to the point of them being braindead. my nerfs to the grenade launchers again, makes the game less braindead, as you dont just take a single Mk19 MATV into a cap and clear it out with a single magazine of grenades.

I made MBTs LESS braindead, and require more tactics. Their armor became way more realistic, with thinner hulls and side armor, as well as even front armor that can be penetrated by Heavy AT weaponry. Yes, I buffed their tracks, because your tanks tracks falling off in 2 shots, turning every tank battle into an exchange of invincible bunkers bouncing off each other at ranges they cant pen, was stupid. 300m ranges was a waste of ammo, due to the pen values, map sizes and awful AI gunners.

Infantry, I made infantry WAY less tanky overall. In vanilla you have infantry with 500-2000 hitpoints, tanking 4-5 magazines of ammo. I watched in vanilla, as single infantryman walked 100 meters in front of an entire squad of like 12 men and he survived until he was very close. Vanilla damage fall off on infantry weapons is insane.

My nerfs to Autocannons are also to make the game LESS braindead. In Vanilla, as in my description, you can take a single Autocannon vehicle, sit in the back of the map and just hose down the entire map, destroying everything........if thats not braindead, monkey stupidity for kids, IDK what is.

I think your misreading my description, cuz my mod is less forgiving than vanilla. Is it easier? Yes, but thats because your no longer fighting the awful mechanics of vanilla. MBTs with invincible armor, HEAT shells that dont work, Infantry AT that cant penetrate, nor has a useable range.......my mod fixed all that. Vanilla Call to Arms is quite awful. Never mind my changes to Conquest points and capture zones that makes Conquest far more enjoyable.

As for better than Warfighter? To each their own I guess. Warfighter from what Ive seen of it just jacks the damage up ALOT so stuff dies super fast. If Warfighter is your thing, then go for it.
Originally posted by Lord-Knight Fandragon:
Originally posted by GrimReaperHUN:
It's seems like (reading the changes) that you couldn't play with the game and now like a manchild, making it stupidproof easy for... kids? I guess. Holy ♥♥♥.

For kids? Not really. You sure your not misreading my description? My mod is less stupid proof if anything. Stuff dies faster than vanilla, and things like MBTs are more vulnerable. Yes, I did make soft vehicles like BMPs, BTRs and Bradleys more survivable, but not to the point of them being braindead. my nerfs to the grenade launchers again, makes the game less braindead, as you dont just take a single Mk19 MATV into a cap and clear it out with a single magazine of grenades.

I made MBTs LESS braindead, and require more tactics. Their armor became way more realistic, with thinner hulls and side armor, as well as even front armor that can be penetrated by Heavy AT weaponry. Yes, I buffed their tracks, because your tanks tracks falling off in 2 shots, turning every tank battle into an exchange of invincible bunkers bouncing off each other at ranges they cant pen, was stupid. 300m ranges was a waste of ammo, due to the pen values, map sizes and awful AI gunners.

Infantry, I made infantry WAY less tanky overall. In vanilla you have infantry with 500-2000 hitpoints, tanking 4-5 magazines of ammo. I watched in vanilla, as single infantryman walked 100 meters in front of an entire squad of like 12 men and he survived until he was very close. Vanilla damage fall off on infantry weapons is insane.

My nerfs to Autocannons are also to make the game LESS braindead. In Vanilla, as in my description, you can take a single Autocannon vehicle, sit in the back of the map and just hose down the entire map, destroying everything........if thats not braindead, monkey stupidity for kids, IDK what is.

I think your misreading my description, cuz my mod is less forgiving than vanilla. Is it easier? Yes, but thats because your no longer fighting the awful mechanics of vanilla. MBTs with invincible armor, HEAT shells that dont work, Infantry AT that cant penetrate, nor has a useable range.......my mod fixed all that. Vanilla Call to Arms is quite awful. Never mind my changes to Conquest points and capture zones that makes Conquest far more enjoyable.

As for better than Warfighter? To each their own I guess. Warfighter from what Ive seen of it just jacks the damage up ALOT so stuff dies super fast. If Warfighter is your thing, then go for it.

Dude NEVER reply to these asshats. If they don't like it then they don't download it. Sh!t you took the time to make an in depth Mod that he could never do. Cheers mate.
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