Balance APC Health

[des1206]

Too high or just right?

[Pushwall]

After the few large recent games I've been in, yeah, feels I went a bit overboard on its hitpoints.

If I drop the hitpoints, I might as well give it a speed boost to make it better at its intended roles of Hind-hunting and deploying/extracting infantry, as opposed to being an anti-personnel/anti-air MBT. It was the fastest ground vehicle in RA after all. But drop its turn rate/acceleration so it can't be a dodge-beast like the Ranger. (It was actually faster than the Ranger in RA, except on road terrain which rarely made up more than 1% of any given map - which just begs the question of why Rangers were even in the game to begin with.)

[OrangeP47]

I personally think it's fine, but give me 3-4 more games and i guess I could see myself agreeing it's too much. I think a speed boost would be a fair compensation.

As for the purpose of rangers, slightly cheaper if you need a decoy

[Ice]

If the APC gets a speed boost, it should still be a bit slower than the Ranger, both for the sake of their respective roles as well as realism (Jeeps of the time could go up to 60mph while the M113 could only go up to 42mph).

Edited May 11, 2017 by Ice

[Pushwall]

Well of course it'll still be slower than the Ranger. The Ranger's been getting speed boosts every so often to keep it relevant while tanks languish so to speak - it now caps out at 17m/s while the fastest armoured vehicles hover around 13.6 (APC's current speed) to 14.5 (Minelayer). Around the start of Delta the Ranger was 15 I think.

Even sped up, the APC still can't really be used as a solo Tanya chariot like the Ranger/LT/ML can, because due to its durability, its roles being updated to include anti-air and anti-mine, and Soviets having really strong field infantry, you want to be absolutely sure that the Soviets will never get their hands on one. A single Soviet Ranger can be manageable... an APC not so much. I go on and on about how OP high-tech Soviet Rangers were in testing times, but if Soviets were able to buy APCs they would just never buy any other unit unless their barracks was dead.  

[des1206]

19 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

Well of course it'll still be slower than the Ranger. The Ranger's been getting speed boosts every so often to keep it relevant while tanks languish so to speak - it now caps out at 17m/s while the fastest armoured vehicles hover around 13.6 (APC's current speed) to 14.5 (Minelayer). Around the start of Delta the Ranger was 15 I think.

Even sped up, the APC still can't really be used as a solo Tanya chariot like the Ranger/LT/ML can, because due to its durability, its roles being updated to include anti-air and anti-mine, and Soviets having really strong field infantry, you want to be absolutely sure that the Soviets will never get their hands on one. A single Soviet Ranger can be manageable... an APC not so much. I go on and on about how OP high-tech Soviet Rangers were in testing times, but if Soviets were able to buy APCs they would just never buy any other unit unless their barracks was dead.  

 

What about APCs with firing ports for the passengers? 

Also I didn't know terrain made a difference on unit traveling speed in Ra 

Lastly are you thinking of 350/350 or 300/300?

[NodGuy]

I would say that it has too much health. Reducing its health and/or armour while increasing its speed seems like the appropriate solution.

2 minutes ago, des1206 said:

What about APCs with firing ports for the passengers? 

*cough* Battle Fortress *cough*

[Pushwall]

58 minutes ago, des1206 said:

What about APCs with firing ports for the passengers? 

It'a a thing M113s did have at some point but they'd need to be modeled and screw that. And making them actually fire the passenger's weapon ala Battle Fortress instead of being restricted to M60s welded to the ports or something just sounds like abuse heaven (hey remember that medics and mechanics are a thing?)

[FRAYDO]

I like my APC as it is, but I do welcome the speed boost!

[SilverShark]

4 hours ago, des1206 said:

What about APCs with firing ports for the passengers? 

Oh, that brings me back to this.

[Raptor29aa]

5 hours ago, des1206 said:

What about APCs with firing ports for the passengers? 

I could imagine a high speed medic + APC healing infantry...

Although once again in the hand of the soviets would be an uber APC from hell with shocks or volkov cannon death.

neat idea although its more a Red Alert 2 thing.

Edited May 11, 2017 by Raptor29aa

[Pushwall]

On 5/11/2017 at 3:49 AM, des1206 said:

Lastly are you thinking of 350/350 or 300/300?

I'm going with 250/250 and an armour upgrade to "mammoth". This actually renders them only slightly more vulnerable to small arms compared to 400 heavy health, and somewhat less vulnerable to flamethrowers as well (as long as AT units don't strip their armour), but against AT weapons they fall as fast as a light tank would since they have the same health numbers (except against the HT where they live a little longer since armour strength matters there). Given that they'll be moving about halfway between the speed of an LT and a Ranger though, you can just avoid engagements with those, or rush through defenses. With the patch it'll also cause them to be meched 33% slower (so their ability to mech-spam versus small arms isn't any better than before), and their DPS to buildings is going down to about the same as the Ranger so they won't essentially be "the new Light Tank".

[des1206]

When's that new patch coming? You've been talking about it for a while.

[Pushwall]

Well, it's taken a while because it's going to be a big one. Feedback's been gathered from a lot of the recently posted threads (the headshot thing isn't being rushed in though). It should only be a couple of days now, if that.  

[des1206]

I still feel uncertain regarding the planned changes to the APC. On maps with a large number of players and higher-tech, the APC will pretty much always run into AT units like Volkov/Mammoth/RPG/TT/Shock. Now that the APC is as good as a light tank to those units, it will loses it role of being an "MBT with a machine gun" field unit and only a purely base-to-base infantry delivery vehicle that relies on avoiding detection before getting to a base, which, again will be hard to do in larger games (you don't see a lot of LT mid/late game in large games, they are too fragile against high-tier Soviet units). In other ways, the APC maybe OP on low-tech maps since the only AT unit Soviets have is the RPG.

Again I want to stress the APC now serves as a great field unit, which opens up new strategies for Allies. With its health, it's able to accompany med-tanks to help take out those annoying Soviet infantry that pops out of destroyed Soviet tanks. Since APCs now can be a "MBT", it also can frequently shuttle Allied infantry to the front lines (or protect them in the field to allow health/armor regen) even if they don't intend to rush a base. It's not that OP since in APB every APC is one less Phase/Med/LB for the Allies, and APC isn't great against armor or buildings (or actually even infantry).

I don't know how strongly you feel about the mammoth armor change, but I think a simple nerf to its health down to 350/350 is enough. I think we mostly see APC being OP on low-tech maps where the Soviets lack a good damage output unit. But the way the change is setup makes the APC really weak on high-tier maps where imo there wasn't much of a balance problem, and close off of some versatility to this unit. 

 

PS: Please remember to give the APC a horn in the new patch!

Edited May 21, 2017 by des1206