anti-Tank Flamethrower

This has been discussed before in a different topic and the conclusion was an ability granted to a unit, my question what unit.
The selected unit will have the general abiities to -
-neutralize:Spews flame into vehicles engine causing destroyed engine and/or weapon
-Ignite:Sprays the ground over a short distance causing the ground to give fire damage for 10 seconds.
Or anything of the sorts just be sure to post your ideas.

No this is a retarded Idea of having a unit that can deal with EVERYTHING in the game. It's stupid an OP. stop thinking nonsense.

(sorry if this seems rude or very critical but I'm find the whole idea ridiculous)

Last edited May 19, 2010 at 9:04 AM by Versedhorison

Versedhorison wrote:
No this is a retarded Idea of having a unit that can deal with EVERYTHING in the game. It's stupid an OP. stop thinking nonsense.

(sorry if this seems rude or very critical but I'm find the whole idea ridiculous)

saying that a flamethrower squad that can kill a tank's engine is OP is like saying that the AT-HT with a treadbreaker is OP, which it isn't, my initial idea for a "special" kind of squad would be the following:

Flammtruppen (I used the Pio page from CoH-Stats as base)
3 soldiers, 1 flamethrower and 2 MP40 with the same health (per man) as Wehr Pioneers, essentially this would mean they are as strong as the pioneers (210hp distributed to 3 men = 140hp to 2 men, each member of the squad would have 70hp, an officer alone has 140 i.e.).
"Aimed Burst" ability, a medium-cost munitions ability that could be used on vehicles, this would have a chance to damage the engine (yellow), a small chance of not doing damage to the engine at all, and a minimal chance of severely damaging the engine (red), the ability can be compared to the AT-HT's treadbreaker, only it doesn't immobilize the enemy tank completely, it just slows it down.
Popcap for these should probably be at min. 3, with a higher cost than the Wehr Pios (Pios = 120mp, these could be around twice the price, costing more than a usual wehr pio, but less than a wehr volk squad), like the german pioneers, they would be affected by the Negative Zeal, meaning the more of these are close, the more damage they would receive.
Of Course, unlike the pios they would not be able to do any kind of construction, as they are special :P


@Akalonor: I do not agree with the Ignite ability, as that would probably have to change the effects of the flamethrower to a level that other flamethrower units would want to have, it would affect infantry too easily.

Stop yelling at Akalonor, he only did this because it was in a differnt post.

Anyway, to me, I really dont care. Its sounds cool though, but I dont know how that will work.

S1lv3rWolf wrote:
saying that a flamethrower squad that can kill a tank's engine is OP is like saying that the AT-HT with a treadbreaker is OP,

How is a AT-HT treadbreaker OP?
British have BREN gun button, US sticky bomb and phosforus round.
AT-HT is 1 of the worst units in the game while a flamethrower that kills all infantry and stops tanks is OP.

Also a Pio squad that needs to retreat after loosing 2 men and cannot be stopped by a BREN carrier+MMG or a quick Struart will be OP.

The abilities I listed were just examples.
@Versedhorison Haven't you ever been told
'If you have nothing nice to say don't bother saying anything at all!' :)
but really that was kind of rude.

S1lv3rWolf wrote:

Versedhorison wrote:
No this is a retarded Idea of having a unit that can deal with EVERYTHING in the game. It's stupid an OP. stop thinking nonsense.

(sorry if this seems rude or very critical but I'm find the whole idea ridiculous)

saying that a flamethrower squad that can kill a tank's engine is OP is like saying that the AT-HT with a treadbreaker is OP, which it isn't, my initial idea for a "special" kind of squad would be the following:

Flammtruppen (I used the Pio page from CoH-Stats as base)
3 soldiers, 1 flamethrower and 2 MP40 with the same health (per man) as Wehr Pioneers, essentially this would mean they are as strong as the pioneers (210hp distributed to 3 men = 140hp to 2 men, each member of the squad would have 70hp, an officer alone has 140 i.e.).
"Aimed Burst" ability, a medium-cost munitions ability that could be used on vehicles, this would have a chance to damage the engine (yellow), a small chance of not doing damage to the engine at all, and a minimal chance of severely damaging the engine (red), the ability can be compared to the AT-HT's treadbreaker, only it doesn't immobilize the enemy tank completely, it just slows it down.
Popcap for these should probably be at min. 3, with a higher cost than the Wehr Pios (Pios = 120mp, these could be around twice the price, costing more than a usual wehr pio, but less than a wehr volk squad), like the german pioneers, they would be affected by the Negative Zeal, meaning the more of these are close, the more damage they would receive.
Of Course, unlike the pios they would not be able to do any kind of construction, as they are special :P


@Akalonor: I do not agree with the Ignite ability, as that would probably have to change the effects of the flamethrower to a level that other flamethrower units would want to have, it would affect infantry too easily.

It appers people are forgetting some facts. Flame Throwers to start with are very effective against all infantry, buildings and anyone in buildings. With these proposed ideas of making a flame thrower unit effective against vehicles and tanks as well you are basically creating a unit that can deal with pretty much EVERYTHING. I shouldn't need to say it but it seems I do; once you make a 'super-unit' that is effective against almost all kinds of units in the game (and especially at a relatively modest cost) you've broken the game. All that would become of the game is people spamming this one unit a soon as its available and their opponent could do almost nothing.

Akalonor wrote:
The abilities I listed were just examples.
@Versedhorison Haven't you ever been told
'If you have nothing nice to say don't bother saying anything at all!' :)
but really that was kind of rude.

Also I'm sorry if this seems rude but I'm not trying to shoot down peoples Idea's I just feel this one goes too far. Also not all critism can be what people want to hear.

It would be cool to heat up the enemy tanks, and when the crew abandoned the wehicle you can capture it. It would be cool to take the Pershing from the Jenkis. But I don't know if this possible to code it, I guess it's not.

Versedhorison wrote:

It appers people are forgetting some facts. Flame Throwers to start with are very effective against all infantry, buildings and anyone in buildings. With these proposed ideas of making a flame thrower unit effective against vehicles and tanks as well you are basically creating a unit that can deal with pretty much EVERYTHING. I shouldn't need to say it but it seems I do; once you make a 'super-unit' that is effective against almost all kinds of units in the game (and especially at a relatively modest cost) you've broken the game. All that would become of the game is people spamming this one unit a soon as its available and their opponent could do almost nothing.

Well in fact as S1lv3rWolf stated they could have that kind of stats, also they must be covered(joint opps not lone wolf or spam-negative zeal) while engaging a tank. They wouldn't be "doom bringers" they can be shot down while flaming a tank, after all they must stand a few seconds shooting it like mechanics/engies/pios while repairing. Well the ignition ability seems to make the unit a little OP(on second thought it looks like flame grenade), but that could be solved limiting them to two units. All in all, I see this unit like a flame engineer but with the ability to damage tanks' engine, lesser health and in axis side.

Faces and Men of war use the flamethrower almost as described but the run out of ammo real quick like RL. IRL an flamethrower would for one catch fuel on fire if it got in the engine and secondly ANY small hole into the crew compartment and fire would leak in and not only burn but also destroy all the oxygen in the tank collapsing the crews lungs.

@Versidhorison
You are forgetting that the US Rangers are Uberbadasslolpwners of tanks and infantry.
The squad will be of limited range, in street warfare they would be very elite but in an open map they would be worthless.

Also, to prevent spams, maybe a higher pop cap or limit on production? (1 or 2 at a time?)

I wouldn't call Rangers exactly effective against both tanks and infantry. They do have the capacity to deal with both, but are generally inferior to dedicated infantry or tank killers in either area.

If flamethrowers are to be effective against armor, they'd have to have their potency against infantry and structures reduced.

Akalonor wrote:
@Versidhorison
You are forgetting that the US Rangers are Uberbadasslolpwners of tanks and infantry.
The squad will be of limited range, in street warfare they would be very elite but in an open map they would be worthless.

Not really I find Puma's, PE armoured Cars, Ostwinds, KCH and tanks being supported take care of those units fine. Also once you force them to fire up and if you can avoid them until it runs out they are dead or they will have to retreat. Besides since I'm a 1v1 player I hardly ever let my opponent get more that one ranger/airbourne squad unless I'm losing. The only annoying spams for me are Pio Spams (which get flamethrowers by mid game) if I'm playing as british but I usually go for bren's to count

BDNeon wrote:
I wouldn't call Rangers exactly effective against both tanks and infantry. They do have the capacity to deal with both, but are generally inferior to dedicated infantry or tank killers in either area.

If flamethrowers are to be effective against armor, they'd have to have their potency against infantry and structures reduced.

If you are changing flamethrowers to do the opposite job of what they are supposed to be doing (making them effective against tanks rather than infantry and buildings) then you are modifying the core aspects of the game mechanics and breaking the game. er it.

Rangers + Dual zooks  can almost always lolpwn my tanks &infantry, I once lost a Pz IV, a Grenadier squad and a Volks squad to the same group ofRangers.I think it was on Hedgerow map where the #1 call-in spot is only 1 sector away from 3&4 . They just took out all of my rear defenses one at a time :p

How big was the group though?

If you throw a roughly equal amount of anti infantry units on a manpower basis against rangers, they will likely own the rangers.

For instance, if the enemy sends 1200 manpower worth of rangers at you, send 1200 manpower worth of grenadiers at it. The Grens will probably win. If he upgrades to Thompsons, then add a few LMG42s.

The thing about COH is that you can typically check a specific type of unit with less units of a type that are specifically good against that type of unit. 260 manpower for a machinegun that can easily best 700 manpower worth of infantry, 310 manpower for an antitank gun that can take on 800 manpower worth of vehicles, so on and so on.

Back on topic, Flamethrowers really aren't that OP if you give it Anti tank abilities(that should cost fuel mind you)given that the tank has a 25%? chance to explode when fired at. then you have the problems of any old Strelkry squad with LMG's coming at you tearing them up so I don't really think its that OP seeing many other factions have specialized troops.

as I said before if you make a unit that can kill everything effectively people will spam it and the game will be ruined.

US can spam Rangers can't they ? They are good all around , they are relativly cheap, so tell me whats the difference?

they are expensive an don't usually come until late game. Besides the units I describe earlier can deal with them easy as long as you use good micro. Plus if you use your doctine abilities eg assault, forced retreat and the ones that improve your troops damage you'll be fine. Plus the axis have better infatry to deal with rangers like KCH with Vet upgrades and Fallschrimjager.

Versedhorison wrote:
they are expensive an don't usually come until late game. Besides the units I describe earlier can deal with them easy as long as you use good micro. Plus if you use your doctine abilities eg assault, forced retreat and the ones that improve your troops damage you'll be fine.

Theres the solution.

Versedhorison wrote:
they are expensive an don't usually come until late game. Besides the units I describe earlier can deal with them easy as long as you use good micro. Plus if you use your doctine abilities eg assault, forced retreat and the ones that improve your troops damage you'll be fine. Plus the axis have better infatry to deal with rangers like KCH with Vet upgrades and Fallschrimjager.

Rangers arent good at anything but in any kind of battle (Sherman vs PzIV, supporting MGs and Rifles, blowing up bunkers) they will be usefull. If you have a gap in youre lines or need some extra damage to destroy a tank Rangers can quickly fire-up to give support.
Rangers alone will loose a battle vs MP44 PGs, Ostwinds, PE Pz IVs and veted pumas with basic micro.

On the other hand flamers are good at killing any kind of infantry in any part of a game. Even early game flamers can hide in a blob (or near a single unit) of rifleman/volks and burn anything in any cover.
Late game infantry with flamethrowers wouldnt even need a bloob to do that. They would be better than US Rifles with all upgrades (BARs, nades, stickies - 380MP 125Fuel - and supply depot upgrade - lower upkeep - probably too).

I voted for other, you'll always have those pointing out the balance issues, so to appease them too, here's this. I posted it numerous times but haven't heard much of a response. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abwehrflammenwerfer_42
It's a german flame booby trap. Could compliment mines and be effective against both infantry and armor.

I mentioned it one of my concepts too no one seemed to like or dislike it .

HolyHappiness wrote:
I voted for other, you'll always have those pointing out the balance issues, so to appease them too, here's this. I posted it numerous times but haven't heard much of a response. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abwehrflammenwerfer_42
It's a german flame booby trap. Could compliment mines and be effective against both infantry and armor.

PE Shimmwagen with Scorched Earth doctrine can place flame mines. Nasty traps. Much more dangerous than booby traps and you can place 3 of them (only 15 ammo each) instead of 1 G43 upgrade.

Anyway, normal mines are "effective against both infantry and armor". Flame traps should work only on infantry.

what about a flame-effect bottle efficient 10% vs inf and 90% vs armor ?

That's a good idea Vietlord, add the bottle effect to a troop limit and there.
something like 70% Vehicle 30% infantry (9:1 is a little harsh)With a FL of 2.
Could we get a devs opinion on this please?

As i got told to 'None of above, specify in post'

Have a Incedinary Anti-Tank Mine. It'd be only set off when the weight of a Tret. Tank or up goes on it, making it a teller mine that affects for 10-13 second's after set off. High cost thou, like 40 MUNI per mine?