This is the balance discussion thread of my mod:
I have played a few games the last 2 days and made the following observations:
Comments about changes are welcome, especially with reference to a game where the highlighted point was observed to be true.
1) Replay UID : 7604870 The Dark Heart 1v1v1
1. Wagners in high numbers performed very well in close combat versus trifle amounts of navy units. 25 wagners crushed a cruiser in a short period of time and damaged a destroyer. However the t2 navy was able to retreat rapidly and get the other boats safe in this instance after reacting a little late. Maybe wagners seemed OP, maybe it was balanced and the inaction to retreat early was the cause for the crushing result. Wagners need to get in close quickly to perform well though, due to their short vision range of 20 underwater, so the wagners need to take the initiative and succeed in surprising the opposition. The result in a way was as expected given the resource cost differential of 25 wagners (around 7.5k mass in Wagners vs 2k mass of a cruiser/destroyer with 3.25 k / 7.5 k hp) in a specific situation (close range) where the wagner has the upper hand given the changes. I am happy with the outcome.
2. 35 corsairs dominated 25 swiftwinds (@36mins) as expected given the resource cost differential of of about 3x the mass.
3. Sonar ranges were not revealing as much as they previously did, which was as expected and made submerged units less detectable and their stealthiness more valuable in some instances. This was as intended given the changes to sonar ranges & underwatervision.
2) Replay UID : 7608894 Africa 3v3
1. First bomber by me, nothing to note really, its minradius didnt mess up anything when i watch replay. That is good to see.
2. Sera F/B had an issue droping bombs due to the previous solution I used to improve their air combat abilities. This has been addressed and fixed in v2 and now they can circle around and hit targets and their aa behaviour is also corrected.
3) Replay UID : 7609254 Africa 3v3
1. T1 bombers performance on min radius again worked fine. Nothing else to note.
4) Replay UID : 7609417 Flooded Niflheim 2v2
1. Wagners struggled vs torp com and torpedo bombers and torp launchers in small numbers (3 groups of 3/4 melted) mainly due to their poor sight underwater.
Wagners did well close range vs t2 sub due to t2 sub being sent in too close, it has the range and vision advantage so didnt need to take those hits. Purely micro mistake by player.
5) Replay UID : 7611235 Seton's Clutch
1. T1 bombers lived up to their former glory of days gone by
I was able to utilize them as I intended for a fair price mid game (around 15mins).2. Navy players seemed unnerved a lot about the lack of vision given from T3 sonar. It highlighted how used to having vision over the whole field without moving the sonar forward players are. It made the game more diverse by making scouting more relevant to see further out (the price to pay to see further behind enemy lines). It was remarked that Omni seems OP as it has an omni range of 200 as T3 sonar. This is a very fair remark and it will be reviewed how T3 radar works into the naval focused intel adaptations.
3. Tempest was considered strong (derived from the chat, unfortunately the game desynced when my router reset), maybe due in the new navy meta with its intel relative value augmented. Maybe just because it is not made often on the map by players, who knows.
Other things seen in chat could not be observed due to the desync.
6. Other games:
Unfortunately new versions of the mod make replays with the older version desync. Some observations I made are summed up in a general manner below.
In the newest release of the mod, it was observed that t1 bombers had issues with their targeting of moving units. Improvements have been found in testing but still not perfect, this is ongoing and will probably mean the T1 bomber will be changed in the next version. It was notably also observed that in any version of the t1 bomber (official balance, equilibrium, etc) the t1 bombers really struggle to drop bombs and when they do, to hit t1 navy units (f.ex. frigates) patrolling in a circle.
Wagners proved their worth in navy again.
The air unit speed rework did not affect game play in a noticeably bad way.
The stronger Fatboy proved its worth, however there are issues with the veterancy system giving all T3 land units 6 vet when killed. As titans f.ex. are merely a third of what percies are in cost and in hp, these lower value T3 units vet experimentals like the Fatboy too quickly, so there may be some research at some point to see how to improve the veterancy system. It was my belief that titans would have an advantage over Percivals due to their speed advantage getting into the shields of the Fatboy but due to vetting too easily the damage dealt was less than the hp gained from vetting on the Titans.
Lower intel ranges on navy made naval engagements feel different.
Auto toggle on cybran t1 maa is somehow removed, so manual toggle needs to be done to switch.