T17 TEDtalk

T17 Deepdive

So, I'm told the t17 is now considered a problem within the EIR meta, which is amusing to me as it was in a borderline underpowered state just a few patches ago. This led me to take a deep dive into what has changed with the t17, whether these new complaints are justified, and if so, what can be done about it.

Part 1: Pauper to Prince
Here is an overview of the buffs the t17 has received
Health: 315 -> 400
Population: 9 -> 8

At a baseline, these are both very strong buffs. In the most practical terms, the T17 can now eat a full extra shreck shot or extra pak shot before death.

Assuming goal is to reach 315 damage
Shreck: (120 * 1.25 * 0.7)*3 = 315
Pak: (110*1.25)+(110*2) = 357.5

Part 2: Understanding the beast
Before making decisions about the balance of a unit, it is always good to look at what the design of a unit should be, in order to pre-empt a cavalcade of balance changes that whiplash back and forth between overbuffed and underbuffed. If a clear design goal can be achieved for a unit, you can generally avoid having to make multiple major changes and rather you can begin to fine tune a unit towards a clear and specific goal.A full reversion also does not seem like a desired route, as that would send the T17 back to its previous state of a questionably niche unit compared to the M8 Greyhound.

   A. Lets start by looking at what the T17 is in its current state: A quick, fairly tanky, pop efficient anti infantry DPS murder machine.
Why does it achieve that role?
   -Tanky-ness: 400 HP is encroaching the lower end of medium tank Health pools.
   -Anti Infantry DPS: Throwing out 14, 40 DMG shells in ~15 seconds is in the upper echelon of potential DMG output for most LVs and Tanks
   -Pop efficiency: You are getting Medium tank DMG output and Survivability at LV pop pricing.

   B. What was the T17 prior to these buffs: A quick, fragile, anti-infantry DPS murder machine that was arguably pop inefficient. Prototypical glass cannon basically.

   C. What should the T17 be: Well, that's entirely up to the Development team, but, I would like to frame some design parameters to consider.

Part 3: A tool within the toolbox.
As it stands and, as far as I can tell for the foreseeable future, the T17 is a unit that is associated with Airborne. So, let's look at the array of vehicular tools AB as a doctrine has available to it, and what niche we expect the t17 to fill.

Shermans 75/76: Multipurpose medium tank
Sherman Croc: Specialized anti infantry medium tank
Halftrack Quad: Long ranged, mid-low level anti infantry DPS/suppression. Anti LV/PE with Doctrinal upgrades.
M8 Greyhound: Multipurpose, mobile LV with extreme Utility (suppression output + mines)
M20: Super scout, minor anti infantry DPS for harassment.
M10: Specialized AT
M18: Garbage specialized AT

To me, it would seem the Role that can be created for the T17 can go down 2 possible paths
   1. An anti infantry specialist as an alternative to the M8 (basically similar to its old form)
   2. A multipurpose bridge unit between the M8 and the Shermans.

So, let's go down these two possible lanes.

   A. An 8 pop alternative to the M8.
Let us compare the Anti infantry performance of these two units in functional 20s chunks. I like 20s over DPS or DPM as it gives a more digestible engagement duration performance.

Approximate M8 anti-infantry dmg output in a 20s Engagement (35m)
Main Cannon: 73 (3 shots for 50 dmg @ 0.65bas acc/0.75 table acc)
Co-Ax: 54 Dmg output ( Sherman 50cal)
Potential Dmg bands
Mid: 127
High: 204

Approximate T17 anti-infantry dmg output in a 20s Engagement (35m)
Main Cannon: 315 (14 shots @ 40dmg, 0.45 base acc + 1.25 table dmg)
Potential Dmg bands
Mid: 315 (functionally a full gren squad wipe)
High: 700 (all 14 shots hit)

We can see that in a pure anti infantry performance, the T17 FAR outstrips the M8. At an equal population level, you are getting a more survivable platform with a better anti-infantry weapon. To keep it as an adequate 8 pop alternative to the m8, there is probably a combination of two actions to be taken here.

1. Revert HP to 315
2. Remove the 1.25/1.1 dmg modifiers in the table vs Inf/AB armor.
3. Moving acc modifier from 0.75 -> 0.5

This would take the T17 Anti Inf dmg bands to
Mid: 252 (divide by 2 if moving)
High: 560

It would also make it so that in order to achieve the optimal dmg output, the t17 would have to stand still, thereby making it significantly more vulnerable to most AT by removing the majority of received accuracy bonuses it and potentially receive.

   B. A midpoint unit between the M8 and the Sherman Variants.
To achieve this framework, we would probably be trying something along these lines

Vs M8: More survivability, Better AV performance, Worse AI performance, Higher pop Cost
Vs Sherman 75: Worse AT performance, Worse survivability, better mobility, Better AI performance, Lower Pop cost.

There are a ton of variables to look at here, and for the sake of brevity in an already overly long post, I'll just stipulate that one should look at the potential performance values of both units and scale down as needed.
If I were to make a rough draft start, it would probably be to take the current t17, up to pop to 9 or 10, copy/paste over the m8 target tables and increase the cooldown to about 1.2s and then begin to tweak the individual values on a per target performance basis.

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.

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