General Polish

i disagree, the best research path is armor -> engine -> primary weapon (mostly cn) -> meds -> secondary weapon -> upgraded rpg -> heavies -> upgraded rpg -> 3slots, alt. armor/engine and player demands. because what use is a tank with shit weaponry? in the worst case its a huge waste of resources, in the best case it takes equal time because players build no meds without 2slot weaponry.

 

Standard weapons are nowhere near as bad as they seem. They are relatively hot but still pack a punch. The trade of spending an extra 200-300 resources for improved maneuverability (BE) or a big bump in armor (NF medium can pack 13-14 extra plates) AND an extra ML (which do hurt, that difference in damage scares off lighter tanks much more easily) AND a base for later upgrades make standard weapon mediums worth considering. Particularly if you started in mechanical engineering already - that gives you 3,5 more minutes to figure out the enemy's armor/strategy/team composition and potentially adjust your weapon research to counter them more effectively, while allowing you to field proper light tanks/AFVs and later 2-slot weapon medium tanks at the same time as the current meta research path.

The only drawback to doing this is that people who don't know how to drive a tank/manage the extra heat/refit vehicles/build a vehicle that isn't the biggest one available (which you lovingly call noobs) will cost the team more resources. In a public game, it could lead to a problem, depending on the team's roster. In a competitive game like a PUG, that's no excuse at all.

 

Ya'll missed my point, but that's ok I fully expected it. The point is new commanders, even if commanding is super simple, are too busy dealing with so many new things(like commanding real people and not ai) that they tend to not have the ability to sit down and read and think on how the research tree works. If it's automated, even not optimally, they can at least get a grasp on the order, and get a feel of what works and what doesn't without impeding the rest of the team from delaying or making bad choices, like getting 4 kinds of armor before anything else.

As an aside I don't think it would be terribly complicated to figure out how to pull armor and engine from any tree even if there's no weapon in it. It could probably just search the research script for the relevant icon(because naming of research nodes isn't entirely standardized), and just make a laid out path to said research and weapons. You can even order it a bit, like going for machine gun first for weapons so apcs can use it, then cannons because cannons are the easiest thing for people to use. Has the benefit of not needing to preset the automated research tree or worry about the order of the tree if anyone needed to make a script change.

Of course, I do think it might be a good idea to have a button the research menu to disable the automation. Some way to override it once they get more comfortable with it or vets knowing what they should get can change tracks.

Also about chassis first, depends entirely on the team as destroyer mentioned, but I would say that the nf light is better then a nf med with no 2 slot weapons, what with it having a much smaller profile and handling way better. Afvs aren't much worse then be thanks to the 3 plates, sure it's a bit bigger but 4 seats is actually pretty nice in pugs.

 

You can say that LTs are better than meds, I can say that meds are better than LTs, but we will both agree that choice is good. And earlier choice between LTs and mediums is my entire point.

 

TBH... I still can't see the point in researching something that you can't use...

Why waste lots of time researching weapons that are useless until a chassis has been researched. A 2 slot cannon is 100% useless until you get a tank that can wield it.

Why not get the chassis first, then the weapon research can be used.

An argument could be that by researching weapons first, you are stockpiling for the future, or even ensuring that you get good med tanks. But what if your radar gets destroyed??? Then you're stuck with weapons you can't use. I'd rather be stuck with a chassis and inferior weapons, than superior weapons that we literally can't use. And who knows when you'll be able to get that radar back...

EDIT: I can see the point in a vehicle mg... But not a cannon or missile launcher...

 

It amounts to people being bad drivers and unable to do heat management(which really means making each shot count).

I constantly get just one med weapon then meds because std cannon is quite decent and 2 std mls can get the job done(though neither very effectively), then going back for a second weapon. It's just I wouldn't ever get meds before at least one weapon because while yea they can take more of a beating they are also quite a bit more expensive. If you don't have very good players what you end up doing is just feeding tanks to the enemy. If you wait on it and just use lights instead til you get weapons you are effectively stock piling res so you can have more decent tanks.

I guess you could call it catering to the lowest common denominator, but if you don't I say you don't command nearly enough to be making these calls. Otherwise you will lose quite more often then you may have thought.

 

I have seen enough games you command to know why you wouldn't want meds first, but from a purely strategic standpoint, getting weapons first is a mistake.

 

I would say even in a pug getting meds before weapons isn't a terribly good idea. These skilled drivers tend to be more effective with lights then meds that have worse handling. Plus we can have more out on the field, assuming it's not a map with silly amounts of resources.

Hitting things super long range is hard for me if they are moving, but I can reliably hit people medium range, like 2 rax lengths away.

 

BE medium handling is on par or better than an AFV's, and the LT's handling is offset by its minuscule armor plating in comparison. You win some, you lose some.

 

The nf light is also super small and hard to hit, people constantly shoot under the chassis missing it completely.

 

But the reduced armor makes it inferior in holding a frontline against the beefier AFVs, it stopping leads to a larger (percent wise) amount of damage. It works great for hit and run tactics though, which synergise nicely with stronger bruiser tanks.