HEAT Rounds

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[PonySlaystation]

APCR and HVAP are good because you can use them with tank destroyers but WM don't have any tank destroyers. Stug and PzIV are terrible against tanks and if you want to have heavier tanks you're better off picking one of the other trees.

I've tried using HEAT rounds with the Stug but it's just not a good tank. It's slow, no turret, low health, weak armor, low damage. Most of the time it will die to artillery or AT guns because it's too slow to get out of the way. If engaging an M10 it will lose even if they fight front to front.

The M10 has speed, what strength the Stug have? Isn't the concept that the Stug is supposed to be slow, no turret and low health but have strong front armor so that you can take it out if you flank it but it's a viable unit if you can cover it? Because currently it makes no difference, all the tanks can penetrate it's front armor anyways. It's much cheaper than other tanks? but the M10 is only 45 FU more.

There is no way you can build a dedicated Stug HEAT rounds company the same way you can build a powerful M10, M13 HVAP or Marder APCR company.

[hans]

APCR and HVAP are good because you can use them with tank destroyers but WM don't have any tank destroyers. Stug and PzIV are terrible against tanks and if you want to have heavier tanks you're better off picking one of the other trees.

I've tried using HEAT rounds with the Stug but it's just not a good tank. It's slow, no turret, low health, weak armor, low damage. Most of the time it will die to artillery or AT guns because it's too slow to get out of the way. If engaging an M10 it will lose even if they fight front to front.

The M10 has speed, what strength the Stug have? Isn't the concept that the Stug is supposed to be slow, no turret and low health but have strong front armor so that you can take it out if you flank it but it's a viable unit if you can cover it? Because currently it makes no difference, all the tanks can penetrate it's front armor anyways. It's much cheaper than other tanks? but the M10 is only 45 FU more.

There is no way you can build a dedicated Stug HEAT rounds company the same way you can build a powerful M10, M13 HVAP or Marder APCR company.

i once said, give the stug hetzer range. It has a TD role, but cant fullfill it with the current range. m10 has higher, hellcat has higher, hetzer has higher and also ff has higher range than the stug.

[AmPM]

STuG should have 45 range, it's role has changed and it cannot fulfill it's role of Assault Gun when it loses to everything. Also, by this period in the war, STuGs were the PRIMARY tank destroyers of the Wehrmacht.

Anyway, on topic and away from STuG balance.

It's a poor doctrine choice compared the others in it's doctrine, and results in a weak company compared to APCR and HVAP.

[Smokaz]

Stug dont lose to everything. Also stug has some cool modifiers, hetze dont.

[Mysthalin]

Most of the time it [Stug] will die to artillery

Aha. K.

[tankmaster23]

 Longer range Stug is a good idea...

[PonySlaystation]

Artillery deals high amounts of damage to the Stug because of it's high chance to penetrate the armor, with other tanks it would bounce off or you'd have time to move.

[AmPM]

I would prefer the STuG be at 220 or so FU and have a 45 range...

[aeroblade56]

Artillery deals high amounts of damage to the Stug because of it's high chance to penetrate the armor, with other tanks it would bounce off or you'd have time to move.

I believe the artillery deals in splash. most artillery( from what i see) bounces if it gets a direct hit on a tank.

( im pretty sure)


And i rarely see stugs die to arty 1 killer is probably Airborne or the common ATG. but i have sometimes seen the odd wild atg appear and take a stug out.

[nikomas]

Splash and direct hits can have differing penetration modifiers, and I believe splash has bleed damage.

[Mysthalin]

Artillery deals high amounts of damage to the Stug because of it's high chance to penetrate the armor, with other tanks it would bounce off or you'd have time to move.

It has the same speed as a P4, along with better armour. Seriously, if you're losing your StuGs to arty - it's not the StuG's fault.


That being said I've always been a fan of giving the StuG 45 range. Would just bring it in line with the other TDs.

[Hicks58]

It's slow, no turret, low health, weak armor, low damage.

You earn 1 out of 5 points.

Slow: No. It has top speed 5 (On par with PzIV, .2 below Panther) and has accel of 2.5 (On par with Panther, PzIV has 1.2). It's turn rate is 5 below the PzIV and Panther (30 vs their 35) but is still good enough to track anything but point blank circle-jerking TD's/LV's, in which case you should be reverse turning like it's hard or planning ahead so you aren't in that silly position in the first place.

No turret: There's your one point.

Low health: It has 400 health, which is admittedly not a fantastic amount, but for a 150/175 FU assault gun, it's health is pretty damned solid requiring 3 ATG penetrations to kill. Against it's intended targets (Medium tanks and at-range LV's) 400 health is a pretty reasonable amount against an 87.5/65/50 damage weapon especially when combined with...

Weak armour: Against Hellcats, Fireflies and Pershings? I can see your point. Against Shermans, Cromwells and LV's? I think not. You're looking at 0.346 penetration for Shermans, and similar or lower for the Cromwell and most brands of LV. 76mm Upgun jumps it up to 0.646, but with luck on your side it's still a winnable fight. It's also impressive vs Bazookas even without skirts having a respectable 0.33 chance to be penetrated, or 0.25 chance with them (As well as the significant 0.75 damage buff that skirts give vs Bazookas). It's a very powerful tool for curbing Ranger spammers. AB require other tools though.

Low damage: lol. 87.5 damage as a base, which is medium tank damage for 150/175 FU. But that's not the selling point. The selling point is a staggering 1.5 damage modifier vs Sherman armour making it do 131.25 damage, which is a palty 6.5 points from being TIGER damage. It also has a 1.25 damage mod vs M10 armour, making it do a very respectable 109.375 damage, which is 15 points from being Firefly damage. It has the same 1.25 damage vs Greyhound armour. To sum this up, 5 rounds to bag a Sherman, 5 rounds to bag a M18, 4 rounds to bag a M10, 3 rounds to bag a Greyhound. Through damage alone, the StuG is a major pain in the ass for US.

Now take into account penetration rates of 0.75 vs Shermans, and guaranteed penetration against anything lower including Cromwells and it's a very solid weapon. It even has 0.55 penetration vs Pershing armour (Though no damage mods, so it'd be 87.5 damage) which for a 150/175 FU unit is very potent.

Long story short, get some screening infantry, and hover a Shreck/Faust or two around it and the only thing that'll give you hassle on treads is a Pershing, Firefly or Hellcat. Anything else you'll pull to bits and it's very low pop of 8 means you'll definitely be able to have support where your opponent wont.

Hell, I haven't even spoke up about it's MG yet, and that thing is a bag of lulz...

[nikomas]

Hell, last game we had a lucky stug + shreck squad pretty much fended off two slightly injured Upgunned Shermans, both shermans got away with 10-20% and so did the stug, with the gren only losing one man.

Sure luck and good stug micro (reverse and turn) was involved, but the fact that the stug penetrated pretty much every single shot and did significant damage did help, it is by now means a bad tank.


I'd like to take what hicks just said and weigh in with Heat + Panzer Aces.


Stuk42HEAT vs. Sherman
Damage - 150.9
Long     - 81%
Mid       - 91%
Short    - 101%

Stuk42HEAT vs. M10
Damage - 126
Pen       - Lolwut

Stuk42HEAT vs. Pershing
Damage - 101
Long     - 59%
Mid       - 67%
Short    - 74%

And keep in mind that long range accuracy goes from .75 to .9 as well, not that huge in tank battles but it can give you an edge.
Man is that bad for a 160 fuel tank, and you'll miss a lot to with panzer aces in the same tree

[AmPM]

You earn 1 out of 5 points.

Slow: No. It has top speed 5 (On par with PzIV, .2 below Panther) and has accel of 2.5 (On par with Panther, PzIV has 1.2). It's turn rate is 5 below the PzIV and Panther (30 vs their 35) but is still good enough to track anything but point blank circle-jerking TD's/LV's, in which case you should be reverse turning like it's hard or planning ahead so you aren't in that silly position in the first place.

No turret: There's your one point.

Low health: It has 400 health, which is admittedly not a fantastic amount, but for a 150/175 FU assault gun, it's health is pretty damned solid requiring 3 ATG penetrations to kill. Against it's intended targets (Medium tanks and at-range LV's) 400 health is a pretty reasonable amount against an 87.5/65/50 damage weapon especially when combined with...

Weak armour: Against Hellcats, Fireflies and Pershings? I can see your point. Against Shermans, Cromwells and LV's? I think not. You're looking at 0.346 penetration for Shermans, and similar or lower for the Cromwell and most brands of LV. 76mm Upgun jumps it up to 0.646, but with luck on your side it's still a winnable fight. It's also impressive vs Bazookas even without skirts having a respectable 0.33 chance to be penetrated, or 0.25 chance with them (As well as the significant 0.75 damage buff that skirts give vs Bazookas). It's a very powerful tool for curbing Ranger spammers. AB require other tools though.

Low damage: lol. 87.5 damage as a base, which is medium tank damage for 150/175 FU. But that's not the selling point. The selling point is a staggering 1.5 damage modifier vs Sherman armour making it do 131.25 damage, which is a palty 6.5 points from being TIGER damage. It also has a 1.25 damage mod vs M10 armour, making it do a very respectable 109.375 damage, which is 15 points from being Firefly damage. It has the same 1.25 damage vs Greyhound armour. To sum this up, 5 rounds to bag a Sherman, 5 rounds to bag a M18, 4 rounds to bag a M10, 3 rounds to bag a Greyhound. Through damage alone, the StuG is a major pain in the ass for US.

Now take into account penetration rates of 0.75 vs Shermans, and guaranteed penetration against anything lower including Cromwells and it's a very solid weapon. It even has 0.55 penetration vs Pershing armour (Though no damage mods, so it'd be 87.5 damage) which for a 150/175 FU unit is very potent.

Long story short, get some screening infantry, and hover a Shreck/Faust or two around it and the only thing that'll give you hassle on treads is a Pershing, Firefly or Hellcat. Anything else you'll pull to bits and it's very low pop of 8 means you'll definitely be able to have support where your opponent wont.

Hell, I haven't even spoke up about it's MG yet, and that thing is a bag of lulz...

An overall good post, but not accounting for the whole picture.

Weaknesses:

Slow: Top speed is fine, where it suffers is it's abominal AI that is compounded by the lack of turret. It has a hard time bringing things into line of fire or manuevering without trying to do a U-turn or two.

Weak Armor: The armor is good vs British tanks and 75mm Shermans, it is useless against TD's of any kind, 76mm, or bigger. Especially when compounded with the issues it has bringing it's gun to bear.

Low Health: Only an issue because most doctrines get +Pen bonuses somewhere in their tree. Negated by default choices in many allied layouts when not already negated by basic target table (M10, M18, Perhing, FF, 76mm I'm looking at you) or when you have to deal with a fast moving unit that can shoot it from the rear (because of penetration, hard to save them from buttsex).

Low Damage: Good damage modifier, medium tank damage base. Again, made an issue because of the difficulty of bringing damage on target. All the damage in the world means shit if you can't hit. Does it count as stationary while rotating? Probably not. Boo.

Lack of Range: Has a hard time responding to it's main predators. Apparently Wehr can't have TD's. Also makes it an easy target for fast units by making them less likely to take more than 1 hit on their approach.


Strengths:

Low cost: Fairly cheap on fuel, even if they gut your company on Manpower and Munitions if you try to take advantage of that.

Good Armor: Vs Brits and 75mm Shermans it does pretty good.

Top MG: It's an upgrade, and should be balanced with the unit, and the unit balanced without it.

Low Pop: You can try and make up this Assault Gun/TD's weakness with stationary or expensive support! Hurray! Or you can get any other tank or a STuH and do the same, but more effectively. Also, the moment 2 extra pop makes this a higher threat than an M10 I will use them. Still, it can help you get that Pio squad out.


On top of that Niko and Hicks. You should never use a doctrine ability to balance a unit.

[nikomas]

Shit AI?

The AI, with Panzer aces and the top MG is actually quite competent given it's price, compare it to something like the FF/M10/M18 and it's a fan-fucking-tastic piece of AI machinery, it's not just a tank destroyer. Again, panzer aces is in the same tree.

[AmPM]

AI....It's Pathfinding....

[nikomas]

It's not worse than any other tank really, if that's what you meant.


What makes you think we're using doctrines to balance this unit? Clearly we both think it's a pretty competent unit as it is. I just find the notion of heat not being worth it, specially when talking about the stug a little silly.

[Mysthalin]

Slow: Top speed is fine, where it suffers is it's abominal AI that is compounded by the lack of turret. It has a hard time bringing things into line of fire or manuevering without trying to do a U-turn or two.

Even Speedy can micro StuGs enough to be effective. Saying the StuG is hard to micro is accepting that you have worse StuG micro than Speedy. I do not think we should balance units based on people who have worse tank micro than Speedy.

Only an issue because most doctrines get +Pen bonuses somewhere in their tree

Try to list all these plentiful pen boosts and then let your cheeks burn in red flames of shame when you realize just how very wrong you are.

Again, made an issue because of the difficulty of bringing damage on target. All the damage in the world means shit if you can't hit. Does it count as stationary while rotating? Probably not. Boo.

Yet again, your fault. Not the StuG's. Sure moving means less (0.75 mod) accuracy, but that will not be significant when fighting any of the units that can reliably penetrate the StuG. Except tetrarchs with LJA. The sole exception. And I guess ATGs. But why you would take on an ATG 1v1, front to front and need to move to keep the target in the StuG's sights will forever be beyond me.

Lack of Range

Your only sensible complaint.

On top of that Niko and Hicks. You should never use a doctrine ability to balance a unit.

They aren't. It's already an excellent unit for the cost.

Also, the moment 2 extra pop makes this a higher threat than an M10 I will use them.

2 goliaths. Look, I just made the StuG a higher threat than an M10 by using the 2 extra pop.

[AmPM]

The lack of turret compounds the issues with the CoH pathfinding. Making it a BITCH to manuever in many situations. It's not a stat, but it's a factor in game.

I think most people would be happy with it getting a bump in price to M10 levels, and a FU increase.

The MG needs to be balanced separately from the unit and shouldn't be included in it's base costs at all.

Mysthalin, STuG micro, well, tank micro in general is dependent on map. Like on Neuville there is a spot of tank pathfinding death in front of the church.

God help you if a STuG goes full retard. At least another tank can shoot back.

Let me count the Pen bonuses in the launcher when I get home, but off the top of my head, RCA, AB, Armor, Infantry (i think it still gets one to ATGs), will have to check RE and Mandos, haven't checked those in months.

Also, 10 Goliaths > 1 STuG, 2 Goliaths.

[Hicks58]

Congratulations AmPM, I want to hit you. It really gets up my skin when somebody who rarely/doesn't play the game any more starts preaching on balance.

Especially when they get shit wrong on a fundamental level.

Slow: Top speed is fine, where it suffers is it's abominal AI that is compounded by the lack of turret. It has a hard time bringing things into line of fire or manuevering without trying to do a U-turn or two.

When was the last time you used StuG's? I'm willing to bet it was a long time ago. StuG's ARE more difficult to micro, however it's also a unit that should be behind another one. Not only that, most micro problems can be overcome with experience and map knowledge (Knowing exactly which objects on a map fuck with pathing, etc)

Weak Armor: The armor is good vs British tanks and 75mm Shermans, it is useless against TD's of any kind, 76mm, or bigger. Especially when compounded with the issues it has bringing it's gun to bear.

It is NOT useless vs 76mm Shermans. It's 5 rounds for the Sherman to kill the StuG, 5 rounds for the StuG to kill the Sherman. StuG has 0.75 pen, 76mm Sherman has 0.646. It is entirely down to dice rolls as to who would win a stand-up fight. That's far from useless for a unit which is a clear 75-100 FU and 2 pop less expensive. It's also not useless vs M10's, due to the whole 0.6 pen on the M10's part. If a M18 sails your way, you should probably have something backing you up considering it's twice your weight in FU.

Low Health: Only an issue because most doctrines get +Pen bonuses somewhere in their tree. Negated by default choices in many allied layouts when not already negated by basic target table (M10, M18, Perhing, FF, 76mm I'm looking at you) or when you have to deal with a fast moving unit that can shoot it from the rear (because of penetration, hard to save them from buttsex).

Other doctrines having penetration increases means the StuG should be changed as a base? People being unable to account for fast moving units also means that the StuG should be changed as a base? So basically, you want us to balance based on doctrines and user incompetence? Really?

Low Damage: Good damage modifier, medium tank damage base. Again, made an issue because of the difficulty of bringing damage on target. All the damage in the world means shit if you can't hit. Does it count as stationary while rotating? Probably not. Boo.

Get used to pointing a tank at your target. I've had StuG's do plenty.

On top of that Niko and Hicks. You should never use a doctrine ability to balance a unit.

Yeah, this is where I tell you to go swivel on it. We don't use a doctrine ability to balance a unit, and StuG's can function fine without HEAT rounds - But they'll perform a damn sight better with it.