Howitzer or High Velocity

[iain666]

Fire power, ammo, weight, metal cost are all the same - high velocity costs a bit more IP.

What's the difference?

[MavenCole]

Hi Iain,

Howitzer is more effective against soft targets and high velocity is more effective against hard targets

[iain666]

Is it a big enough difference that it's worth having a mix available or is high velocity good enough against soft targets (or vice versa, but that feels less likely)?

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: iain666

Is it a big enough difference that it's worth having a mix available or is high velocity good enough against soft targets (or vice versa, but that feels less likely)?

By midgame I have mechanized quad MG which fulfills the anti-soft role really well.

However, early game (especially if your not familiar with the research tree) Light Tanks with Howitzers faceroll Free Folk militia trash and most Minor Regime Troops.

It's important to figure out what your facing. Get eyes on to know if the alien life forms around you require Anti-Tank weapons to bring down, or if they count as soft targets. Click their subunit icon to figure out if they are hard or soft.

If you look around on the forum here, the aliens can get absurd modifiers on higher difficulties.

[MavenCole]

This is right, use the best equipment for the enemy you are facing.
My current opponent does not field much armour so I prefer the soft attack backed up with RPGs and some air-force with precision bombs (precision bomb for hard attack, bomb hatch for soft attack).

I use the Secret Service council to land spy's everywhere so I can see (reports >> Regimes) their order of battle summary and the fog of war is removed letting me see their deployment.

[KarisFraMauro]

I assumed hard / soft target was the distinction, but this feels important enough to be emphasized in the game. Or at least mentioned in the description.

[mahaniok]

ORIGINAL: KarisFraMauro

I assumed hard / soft target was the distinction, but this feels important enough to be emphasized in the game. Or at least mentioned in the description.

yes, the game shouldn't use just "firepower". it should use "soft firepower" and "hard firepower" in the model design UI.

[KarisFraMauro]

How do lasers factor into the equation for that matter? Or other weapon types? I think at some point there's plasma...

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: iain666

Fire power, ammo, weight, metal cost are all the same - high velocity costs a bit more IP.

What's the difference?

High Velocity is to fight heavy armor. It has much better Hard Attack.
Howitzer is for fighting infantry. It has much better Soft Attack.

If you do equip the HV gun, make sure you got a high callibre as well. Outherwise the Callibre Calculation will kill your damage output.

That means the most common tanks are:
- light with howitzer and some armor to kill infantry
- the heaviest tank you got with the biggest HV gun to kill enemy tanks

[DTurtle]

ORIGINAL: iain666

Fire power, ammo, weight, metal cost are all the same - high velocity costs a bit more IP.

What's the difference?

As you can see, howitzer guns get a reduction of 50% against hard targets, while high velocity guns have a reduction of 75% against soft targets.

So howitzers are very good against soft targets and usable against hard targets. while high velocity guns are very good against hard targets and very bad against soft targets. Laser, beam, and plasma guns are very good against hard targets and usable against soft targets.

[Uemon]

Howitzers are general purpose weapons.

High velocity are specific purpose weapons.


When you first unlock tanks, most enemies you will encounter will be infantry based. For those, you need tanks that will stomp them, and that means howitzers, little armor and best engine that you can afford (mobility).

When you start encountering other tanks (major AIs) you need to start introducing tanks with high velocity guns and more armor.

Usually your light tanks should be howitzer, and then when you unlock armor (medium or main battle tank) and assault guns/tank destroyers you can start mixing things up with a little bit of high velocity.

Just keep couple of things in mind:
-independent tank battalions is horribly OP in early game, you will literally stomp stuff with outright frontal assaults. If you mix them with motorized infantry you can encircle and destroy army groups.
-tanks built to be useful tend to be horribly expensive fuel wise - so getting a source of fuel is extremely important, if you wanna play a tank game, it needs to be a developmental focus.
-tanks only work in plains, for anything else they are nearly useless, and there are terrain types they cant enter at all - a very important fact depending on the world you play.

With all that in mind, i personally find that focusing on tanks early on is a powerful strategy, however rushing walkers, and spamming walkers instead is MUCH, MUCH better because walkers are much more versatile and powerful platform.

[KarisFraMauro]

Switching to electric engines makes a huge difference for supply compared to fuel I find. And agree about tanks being super scary in the right circumstances. Haven't really had much of an opportunity to play with walkers yet, they sound fun

[Uemon]

ORIGINAL: KarisFraMauro

Switching to electric engines makes a huge difference for supply compared to fuel I find. And agree about tanks being super scary in the right circumstances. Haven't really had much of an opportunity to play with walkers yet, they sound fun

This is complicated. In order to switch from oil to electric engines, you need additional research and additional infrastructure. By default, the storage size for electric power is the lowest one, and the building that increases it is 1.) limited to city only and 2.) its very heavy in rare material costs (especially later upgrades). If you dont build the storage building, whats going to happen is, you will build a couple of tanks, move them, and essentially run out of electricity (which then starts messing with other things). Whereas if you prepare for this, and build both electricity generation and electricity storage (as necessary buffer), it will be very expensive (depending on rare deposits availability) and it will take a bunch of turns to properly set up. Note that this is absolutely doable, and you should do it mid to late game, absolutely.

On the other hand, rushing economic council in order to unlock fuel buildings, is fairly easy and straightforward, fuel is easier to store from the get go, the fuel storage building is easier to build and if you run out of fuel youre in less of a problem over all.

The walkers are absolutely insane; 6 of them (an independent battalion) can simply massacre massed infantry, rarely taking any damage. Once you put polymer armor and laser weapons on, major AIs wont stand any chance. And the best part is, its not even that difficult to tech rush them.

[KarisFraMauro]

Hmm, nothing is ever simple I guess... I've only built one walker so far, heavy, but I think it needs some friends to be really useful. Or I could try that trick I've heard about with automated turrets on trucks

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: KarisFraMauro

Switching to electric engines makes a huge difference for supply compared to fuel I find. And agree about tanks being super scary in the right circumstances. Haven't really had much of an opportunity to play with walkers yet, they sound fun

For the electric engine, see what Uemon said.
Note that Fuel and Energy seems only freely delivered to assets, not Units AFAIK.

Walkers are just bigger infantry/vehicles with infantry movement. If you look at the terrain modifiers:
Walkers move at the better between Wheel and Infantry speeds in most areas (stuff like Marsches are the exception).
Walkers got half the automatic and maximum entrenchment of infantry, way ahead of Tanks.
And in direct combat modifiers they are also better in the direction of Infantry or Vehicles.