Just joined Enlisted a couple days ago. I was about to complain about how hard it is to crack fortified positions, about how artillery does nothing to push campers out of their spots.
I jump on the forums and note how everyone absolutely hates artillery and mortar spam.
Gave it a little thought, and here’s my two cents on the whole issue:
*Operator squad artillery cooldown upgrade replaced with the ability to call down unique artillery strikes. Operators in a dedicated radio squad can equip radios that will call down a) regular explosive shells, b) smoke shells, c) shrapnel shells, or bunker-buster shells
regular explosives have decent damage and AoE while also concussing anyone in the AoE. smoke shells allow troops to advance under cover. shrapnel shells detonate mid-air, creating a shotgun effect that trades the concussion effect for a hail of lethal slugs over a wider area. bunker busters have a much smaller AoE but will pass through a single layer of cover before detonating–extremely useful for scattering enemies who camp the top floor of buildings with only a single entrance.
*Reduce mortar fire rate and significantly reduce the accuracy. Around one bomb every five seconds, with the dispersal area growing wider over longer distances. at 200 units of distance, i can envision mortars having the same dispersal area as the the artillery strike.
*Mortars build up smoke over time. Each shell creates a small puff that disperses over 60 seconds. If you fire too many bombs too quickly, the smoke trail will build up in height to the point where it becomes visible–leaving camping mortar teams vulnerable to snipers, strafing runs, and counter-artillery
You mean that you have read the forum and draw conclusions instead of writing another spam-post?
I’m impressed. Most of people don’t bother doing that.
I wouldn’t make it radio-specific but I agree that more options for radio operator = less spam with one ability (at least in ideal conditions). Although we need more non-lethal options (like smoke), sadly there aren’t many.
Nose Ejection : shrapnel, star, incendiary and flechette (a more modern version of shrapnel).
Base Ejection : Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM)-bomblets, which arm themselves and function after a set number of rotations after having been ejected from the projectile (this produces unexploded sub-munitions, or “duds”, which remain dangerous), scatterable mines, illuminating, coloured flare, smoke, incendiary, propaganda, chaff[57] (foil to jam radars)[58] and modern exotics such as electronic payloads and sensor-fuzed munitions.
Beside the Artillery Shell Types I could think of additional features for radio operators.
For example ground support. The operator sits down and reports all enemies in sight for a certain amount of time (spotting) for ppl that have a radio (other radio operators, planes, tanks).
Played the game a bit more, specifically on the Normandy campaign. Artillery spam is absolutely hellish against points without open cover. With cover though, artillery and mortars become next to useless against hunkered-down opponents.
Your best bet is to zone enemy out of a point with a barrage of mortars/artillery, but only stupid enemies walk into the fields of fire. They can just circle around the fire zones, flank the point from a different direction. They can then hunker up on the top floor or basement of a bunker, becoming practically untouchable unless you flush them out with a flamethrower.
So here’s my second round of suggestions:
*Artillery can only be called down once per player every 4 minutes. This cooldown is shared by all squads in that player’s roster.
*Artillery deals damage to enemies behind cover. It deals a maximum of 10% health damage to targets within 10 meters of the impact site, tapering off to 1% damage to targets within 20 meters. This damage ignores all cover except reinforced concrete (aka bunkers) or to targets under the dirt (aka foxholes or trenches)
*Standard artillery has 2 ranging rounds and 6 focused rounds for a total of 8 rounds. That’s a maximum of 80% damage to targets within 10 meters of shells.
*Operator squad upgrades allow them to call three times the guns for the strike–meaning 6 ranging rounds and 18 focused rounds. However, the dispersal area is 1.5 times wider.
*Reduce mortar fire rate and significantly reduce the accuracy. Around one bomb every five seconds, with the dispersal area growing wider over longer distances. at 200 units of distance, i can envision mortars having the same dispersal area as the the artillery strike.
*Mortars deal damage to enemies behind cover. It deals a maximum of 10% health damage to targets within 5 meters of the impact site, tapering off to 1% damage to targets within 10 meters. This damage ignores all cover except reinforced concrete (aka bunkers) or to targets under the dirt (aka foxholes or trenches)
*Mortars build up smoke over time. Each shell creates a small puff that disperses over 60 seconds. If you keep firing bombs, the smoke trail will build up in height to the point where it becomes visible–leaving camping mortar teams vulnerable to snipers, strafing runs, and counter-artillery
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This should hopefully reduce the arty spam, making them much more impactful when they are called down. They ought to make combat more dynamic as well, forcing campers to prepare an exit lest they get bombed to oblivion.
Mortars will also work the same way, though to a much lesser degree. They can whittle down hard campers who absolutely refuse to leave their positions, softening them up for or finishing them off after a big artillery strike.