This thread should summarize all ideas to make the grenadier more useful especially in his main function (destroying tanks). There are already main threads for this topic but no one likes to read endless pages of discussion. Therefore I will summarize the main ideas in this posting. If you have some ideas for how to make the grenadier more useful against tanks then please post concrete values with only a short explanation. Goal should be, that developers have a quick overview and hopefully can add some changes to the next version. -=SIP=-: - Armor detection as initial skill (If you can't kill your target you should at least always see the damage you have done. Will be especially helpful for new players) - Add armor detection to vehicle skill stacking (Grenadier in hatch should give armor detection to driver. This will promote teamwork and will increase the importance of grenadiers) - Give grenadier one point every 400 damage he makes to vehicles. (Engineers as tank drivers receives points when they repair their own tanks. But grenadiers who are fighting against these tank drivers mostly only die often without killing the attacking tanks.) - Increase RPG damage for normal, upgraded and advanced RPG to 125 (was 105), 150 (was 125), 190 (was 155) - Increase RPG speed from currently 1500 (?) to 2300 (Just for compare: Std. ML speed=1600, Homing ML speed=2800, All cannons are 3000 or faster) - Move research for upgraded and advanced RPG to upgraded RPG: mechanical->upgraded RPG (0 res, 60s) advanced RPG: mechanical->upgraded RPG->advanced RPG (0 res, 120s) (You mostly need better grenadiers when you are already behind. And then the old place in chemistry is mostly too far away for research.) - Increase initial ammo for RPG (from 3 to 9) and Mines (from 2 to 4) (Grenadier shouldn't be the only class which can only do their job when an ammo box is near. ) Sneaky: Research any armor -> get RPG damage upgraded for free, +75% damage to all but the cv. Research any other armor after that -> get nothing. Research any engine -> get RPG speed upgraded for free, +50% or +75% speed. Research any other engine after that -> get nothing. Research any weapon -> get RPG damage upgraded for free, +25% damage to all but the cv. Research any other weapon after that -> get nothing. Research any chassis -> get greater RPG capacity, +100% more RPG's. Research any other chassis after that -> get nothing. Dubee: I would like to see the rpg go 3000 like a cannon. You need to be able to hit tanks from a distance to not get killed by them plus most tanks just run when they are almost dead.
Do you really want to make a "free" grenadier too useful against tanks? This is probably the hardest to solve balance issue in empires: vehicles vs. infantry. Vehicles cost res and infantry doesn't, so the initial thing to assume is that vehicles need to be much more powerful. But once you get to a certain point in the game, usually after about 10 minutes when armor and engine are researched, you're going to have excess res anyway and at that point vehicles become way too powerful. In fact the only semi-balanced situation is vanilla vehicles vs. infantry. After that the vehicles become too powerful and the excess res allows for too many of them, making vehicles the only vehicle counter. The problem is a steep rise in vehicle power and availability as the game progresses, while infantry power and availability never rise at all. If changing vehicles is out, since it's a core empires gameplay mechanic, the only option is a steep increase in infantry power vs. vehicles as the game progresses. Research is the obvious candidate for this, but in the form of passive upgrades to infantry that happen along side the armor, engine, chassis and tank weapon upgrades, otherwise you know commanders will never bother with it short of making it overpowered. Research any armor -> get RPG damage upgraded for free, +75% damage to all but the cv. Research any other armor after that -> get nothing. Research any engine -> get RPG speed upgraded for free, +50 or +75 speed. Research any other engine after that -> get nothing. Research any weapon -> get RPG damage upgraded for free, +25% damage to all but the cv. Research any other weapon after that -> get nothing. Research any chassis -> get greater RPG capacity, +100% more RPG's. Research any other chassis after that -> get nothing. Something like that would keep the power of the RPG in line with the power of vehicles the team can produce, without ruining early game balance.
Is this on top of the changes in the SVN or instead of? I can never tell, when testers make suggestions like this.. Also lol, did someone remove the considering, and did you place that yourself?
Ikalx: I was talking about 2.24d. I don't know if higher RPG speed and more initial RPG ammo (5 instead of 3) is still in the SVN version.
All he needs is a faster RPG and the ability to kill a rifleman. I would like to see the rpg go 3000 like a cannon. You need to be able to hit tanks from a distance to not get killed by them plus most tanks just run when they are almost dead.
Yeah like I said damage buffs are unnecessary if you have more grens and have them actually accurate on moving targets.. hence the better agianst rifles and faster rpgs solution.
Well since the upgrades would come free with any armor, engine, weapon and chassis, I would assume that both teams get them pretty much at the same time or they've already lost anyway. So they not so much aid the "winning" team as aid the "team that has already won" if the other side has zero research.
Then decrease the damage it does to people. I think its more important that grens are able to hit tanks from a safe distance. That's not the case right now. They are already completley useless agianst buildings so make them suck agianst inf as well. If you mean sniping tanks then you should know that drag increased all vehicle speeds a long time ago and the RPG never got a speed buff. It is too easy for them to just MG down the gren(who has to sit still to accurately guide it) or dodge the rpg currently.
Defusal is very weak compared to the engineer ability to repair and replenish their own tank (I'm only talking about commander maps). Free armor detection and defusal as first skill should force also grenadier to drive a tank. Currently I would guess that 95% of the tank drivers are engineers. I still think that the other way will work better. Most of the tank drivers will still be engineer. And then it will be easier to pick up one grenadier. ??? What do you mean? I meant that grenadier should gain points if the hit vehicles as infantry. Therefore I suggested 2300, which is nearly exactly between 1500 and 3000. I don't think that the devs will buff the damage, speed, research and the ammo at the same time. With the current damage, speed and research even 9 RPGs will be not enough. Current RPG destroy only 0.69 to 1.41 plates of researched armor with every hit.
Didn't you check out skill stacking though? I'm sure you had SVN access, i'm also sure the last largest test we did (couple months ago, to be sure), was testing the rpg and gren - had LOADS more default and max ammoz, fast rpgs, and was generally pretty badass. No, believe it or not, vehicles do start to smoke if you do enough damage to them. This is a good skill, and should stay as such. It's not in there? Definately should be. Agreed. #Agree Damage, speed and ammo I think have all been tweaked. I'm not sure about the research and whether or not i'm allowed to comment, but I think it was taken out and amalgamated into making the RPG useful throughout.
ITT: Poor disadvantaged grenadiers try to get weapons whicha re useable and fat tank drivers who've never played grenadier and got killed by some mines one time rage about how gren is OP. It fucking isn't. Go play gren, you can't drive a tank, and you have to kill tanks.
Just give the gren some more ammo, buff the rpg speed, and then put in free research that could buff the gren rpg and shit, but make it take a while to aid the losing team.
RPG initial ammo seems to be 8 in SVN version. But speed and damage is hardcoded. Can one developer post the current values?
Last time I checked (4 days ago) it was fast as fuck and far too guidable, I mean hell, i'm all for pimping, but I could draw a box with that thing and still hit a target...if it wasn't so fast, that is. Fast is good, at the expense of guidance (well i'd say it should guide like it does now in 2.24 - which i'd call crippled guidance). And yeah, c'mon 8 ammoz default is what we all want
