Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

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Delta66
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Delta66 »

soldier wrote:
Considering that some of your units are very expensive in terms of calculated prestige cost (your Fallschirmjäger are more then 1200 pp each,
How exactly do you come up with a calculated prestige cost that has fallschirmjagers valued at 1200 pp ? How much is a King Tiger worth ?
Note that I'm playing with Deducter's units revision mod

edit:
also the units are overstrength, so the overstrength might be factore din the final price.
Kirby
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Kirby »

Impossible. Even with deducter's mod (and 15 overstrength) fallschirmjaeger cannot cost that much. Only Tigers and beyond cost that much AFAIR.
ThvN
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by ThvN »

OK, it looks like I have to expose my fraudulent bookkeeping... First of all, I was trying to determine if Delta66's core (as in his saved file) was so expensive as to trigger the softcap, which would explain his low prestige income. As I was expecting, some units were very expensive, but this is amplified by the way deducter has set up the transports. As his mod is not yet adjusted for all these later changes, it makes for some interesting numbers. But don't blame him, it's just an interesting showcase what can happen when a balanced system suddenly gets a new variable designed for a different system. The softcap is adjustable, or can be switched off, so modders and users can breathe easily.

OK, some info about the softcap, it looks at the value of the deployed core (excluding bonus/SE) units, and calculates the average value of the units. If the average is higher than 400pp per core slot, than prestige income is gradually reduced (from 100%), up until it reaches 20% and levels out. This last point is reached when average value is 800pp or higher. I wanted to see if Delta66's core could have been worth 800pp average per slot, to see if the softcap was limiting his prestige, as I was expecting.

But we are talking about the prestige value of the units, not their purchase cost. Value is derived from is strength, and cost must be adjusted by the OS costs. There are three OS cost modifiers, I will use only two, as the first one is the difference in cost when purchasing between scenarios (cheaper) or reinforcing during battles (very expensive).

So if I assume the softcap mechanism uses the base cost in between scenarios, this leaves a base OS modifier 'OverstrengthCost' and a modifier 'OverstrengthCostPerPoint' which depends on which OS step is being valued. The OS step from 11 to 12 is a lot cheaper than from 14 to 15. These modifiers have to be multiplied to get the total value.

The basic numbers, pulled from 1.21beta:
Base OS cost modifier is 200%
OS step cost modifier for OS strength 11 is 100%
OS step cost modifier for OS strength 12 is 150%
OS step cost modifier for OS strength 13 is 200%
OS step cost modifier for OS strength 14 is 250%
OS step cost modifier for OS strength 15 is 300%

So remember, a single OS step is already worth twice the pp of a single strength point, and that is before we multiply it with the step modifier!

First off, an easy example: Delta66's core has a number of units, let's start with a Panzer IV F1, strength 12.
With deducters mod, this puppy costs 300pp, a nice round number. As this Pz4 at 10str costs 300, a single strength point is worth 30pp (10 % of 300), right?

If you wanted to get this Panzer from strength 10 to strength 11, what would you have to pay? You'd have to multiply 30pp by 200%, so 30 x 2 =60pp, and then again multiply this by 100%, so step 1 (OS 11) total is x (30 x 2) x 1 = 60pp.

To go from strength 11 to 12, you'd have to pay 200% of 30pp (=60pp) but this time OS multiplier is 150%, and total cost for this step is (30 x 2) x 1.5 = 90pp

So what is the value of a 12 strength Panzer IV F1 in deducters mod? 300 + 60 + 90 = 450pp. A little over the treshold for the softcap, but nothing shocking.


Next up, Delta66 has a 13-strength Focke-Wulf 190 A. In deducters mod, this costs 651pp (step cost = 65.1) . What it worth in total?
OS step 1 = (65,1 x 2) x 1 = 130.2
OS step 2 = (65,1 x 2) x 1.5 = 195.3
OS step 3 = (65,1 x 2) x 2 = 260.4
Total value: 651 + 130.2 + 195.3 + 260.4 = 1236.9 (rounded to 1237). Well, that's way over the softcap limit, and remember it should average the unit values, so the two units looked at so far have an average value of (450 + 1236.9)/2 = 843.45pp. So although the Pz4 is cheap, these two units together will exceed the softcap upper threshold. So to get that down again, the other units would have to be substantially cheaper than 800pp.

Surely the feeble infantry, which costs next to nothing, will make for a lower average? :?:

Nope. Because you have to include the value of their transports as well. And in deducters mod, these can get rather expensive. :mrgreen:
Delta66's 13-strength Fallschirmjäger are quite expensive already in deducters mod, they cost 355pp. Their transport, which Delta66 bought for them, is the shiny, top-of-the-range SdKfz 250 half-track. And these cost a modded 300pp, to represent their rarity. Shall we make a another trip to numberland?

Base cost 355 + 300 = 655pp (step cost 65.5pp)
OS step 1 = (65,5 x 2) x 1 = 131
OS step 2 = (65,5 x 2) x 1.5 = 196.5
OS step 3 = (65,5 x 2) x 2 = 262
Total value: 655 + 131 + 196.5 + 262 = 1244.5 (rounded to 1245). Now, I'm very bad at math, but if my calculations are correct I think having another two units valued over 1200pp will not lower the average. :wink:

And some other units look quite expensive as well, so I concluded Delta66 had firmly hit the softcap upper limit, so his prestige income was always going to be 20% from what he expected. But after some comments, I thought that maybe showing my calculations will help people understand better, so here they are. BTW, I personally use a simple Excel spreadsheet where I just have to plug in the base unit cost, which saves me from a lot of miscalculations.
Delta66
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Delta66 »

Thanks ThvN,
Very informative,
For Soft Cap, Is the average value per core slot fixed for all the campaign from 39 to 45? Or do the limit increase every year?
ThvN
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by ThvN »

Delta66 wrote:For Soft Cap, Is the average value per core slot fixed for all the campaign from 39 to 45? Or do the limit increase every year?
Right now, it is fixed for all campaigns. But it is possible to change/mod the Grand Campaign settings separately, for each DLC.
You can set the lower and upper thresholds for the Softcap, and also the maximum rate of prestige reduction. (now 400pp, 800pp and 20% respectively)
Kamerer
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Kamerer »

a) Re: comment above about wrong transport, I played some more and found it consistent in putting infantry units in the "wrong" transport. E.g.: D-day, a US paratroop unit was loaded into a Horsa glider instead of the available C-47's.

I don't recall this is 1.20, but then didn't use it frequently enough to notice, but the logic seems switched here.

Edit, just noticed another thing:

b) Enemy ground units can spot aircraft during sandstorms. I don't recall this from 1.20 or earlier, but perhaps it was. E.g.-

During 1st movement turn of sandstorm, I positioned tac air over enemy armor. They spotted them (during their turn, still sandstorm) and moved away. Stands to reason if you can see the ground, the ground can't see you. Either it's a flaw in 1.21 with sandstorms like the mines, or something for future fix.
ThvN
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by ThvN »

Kamerer wrote:a) Re: comment above about wrong transport, I played some more and found it consistent in putting infantry units in the "wrong" transport. E.g.: D-day, a US paratroop unit was loaded into a Horsa glider instead of the available C-47's.

I don't recall this is 1.20, but then didn't use it frequently enough to notice, but the logic seems switched here.
Kamerer, I may have some information about that. I recall one of the devs saying that the unit gets assigned the first suitable transport. Both the Horsa and the C-47 can carry the infantry unit, and during D-Day the Horsa is listed first when you hover your mouse over the 'embark' button. This would mean the Horsa will get used first instead of the C-47. If all the Horsa transports are taken it assigns the next suitable one from the list, the C-47.

I just used the scenario editor to reverse the order of the C-47 and the Horsa, so that the C-47 is listed first, and it seems to work; now the C-47 gets assigned. So it seems that the scenario designers need to be very careful which transport type they list first under the available transports.

I've noticed a similar issue with the GC'41 naval invasion of Crete (it's also noticable during the airborne version as well). If I want to deploy a Fallschirmjäger in a Ju-52, it won't work and defaults to a sea transport instead. Even switching the air/ground toggle won't help. The issue here (I think) seems to be that all deployment hexes are over water, so a transport has to be assigned, and it defaults to the sea transport.

b) Enemy ground units can spot aircraft during sandstorms. I don't recall this from 1.20 or earlier, but perhaps it was. E.g.-

During 1st movement turn of sandstorm, I positioned tac air over enemy armor. They spotted them (during their turn, still sandstorm) and moved away. Stands to reason if you can see the ground, the ground can't see you. Either it's a flaw in 1.21 with sandstorms like the mines, or something for future fix.
I think this behaviour was there already, but I'm not 100% sure. Although the air units can't spot, the ground units still have a spotting of 1, so logically they should be able to see the airplanes I guess. But the ground units can't shoot at them (I tried). Which is a good thing, otherwise this could be really annoying. So for me it's not an issue, I just pretend the ground units have such good hearing that they can establish what type and number of aircraft is flying near them :wink: .
Kamerer
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Kamerer »

I've noticed a similar issue with the GC'41 naval invasion of Crete (it's also noticable during the airborne version as well). If I want to deploy a Fallschirmjäger in a Ju-52, it won't work and defaults to a sea transport instead. Even switching the air/ground toggle won't help.
I think I recall running into that, too. So the listing is the problem. It gets to be a little bit of an issue with big mutli-unit/transport scenarios like D-Day, etc. Maybe work out some better rules in a future revision.

As to the planes/sandstorms, it's not a big issue. The explanation of "hearing them" is good enough for me!
panzercorpsfan
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by panzercorpsfan »

panzercorpsfan wrote:Hi,
I´m playing the GC of Panzer Corps using the 1.21 public beta version.
I don´t know if it is a bug or if it is by intension, but using the classical rule setup (1.14) I cannot receive any hero with initiative +3. I thought that this limitation is exclusively for 1.20?! Can anyone please clarify or comment this odd behaviour!
Thanks a lot
Any idea ??!!
ThvN
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by ThvN »

panzercorpsfan wrote:Hi, I´m playing the GC of Panzer Corps using the 1.21 public beta version.
I don´t know if it is a bug or if it is by intension, but using the classical rule setup (1.14) I cannot receive any hero with initiative +3. I thought that this limitation is exclusively for 1.20?! Can anyone please clarify or comment this odd behaviour!
Thanks a lot
Hello panzercorpsfan, I think using the v1.14 ruleset does not change which type of heroes will be awarded. For 1.20, the initiative heroes were limited to a maximum of +1, and I believe this is independant of which ruleset you use. The option to choose between 1.14 or 1.20 rules is for players that don't want to use the soft cap (prestige limiter) and new experience/overstrength rules.

The change for the initiative heroes was also added for 1.20, but not part of the new ruleset, just a balancing tweak. So it is working as designed.
Magic1111
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Magic1111 »

ThvN wrote: The change for the initiative heroes was also added for 1.20, but not part of the new ruleset, just a balancing tweak. So it is working as designed.
Is the change for the initiative heroes "hardcoded" (e.g. in the .exe File), or is it possible to turn this Feature off? And when yes, how (with v1.20)?
ThvN
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by ThvN »

Magic1111 wrote:Is the change for the initiative heroes "hardcoded" (e.g. in the .exe File), or is it possible to turn this Feature off? And when yes, how (with v1.20)?
I think it's hardcoded, at least I didn't see any references to it in any moddable files.
Magic1111
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Magic1111 »

ThvN wrote: I think it's hardcoded, at least I didn't see any references to it in any moddable files.
Okay, is it than possible to implement the feature (initiative heroes were limited to a maximum of +1) in the forthcoming patch 1.21 e.g. in the gamerules.pzdat file for turn on/off?
Magic1111
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Magic1111 »

Magic1111 wrote: Okay, is it than possible to implement the feature (initiative heroes were limited to a maximum of +1) in the forthcoming patch 1.21 e.g. in the gamerules.pzdat file for turn on/off?
Anyone? :?:
Delta66
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Delta66 »

IainMcNeil wrote: - Fixed advaced options in GC
- Fixed the issue with too generous hero assignment in GC

- Fixed default game layout: if the patch is installed on PzC Wehrmacht, UI will not default o Allied skin after install.
- Kamikaze units (like V weapons) no longer get to reform list.
- Fixed AK intro movie - should play correctly now if AK expansion is activated.
- When starting GC, UI skin should switch to german, unless Allies in the only installed expansion.
- Disbanding 0-strength no longer gives prestige. Disbanding understrength units (e. g. 1-strength) gives proportionally less prestige.
- The game should now display an error in case it fails to save the game (bad file name etc.)
- Replays no longer display danger dots when moving airplanes.

Other changes:

- If "Custom difficulty" checkbox is not checked, difficulty sliders are updated to reflect the currently selected difficulty level.


- Unlocked a few more experimental options which were used in the Allies beta, available via gamerules.pzdat file.
- Fixed advaced options in GC
- Fixed the issue with too generous hero assignment in GC
- Disbanding 0-strength no longer gives prestige. Disbanding understrength units (e. g. 1-strength) gives proportionally less prestige.
- If "Custom difficulty" checkbox is not checked, difficulty sliders are updated to reflect the currently selected difficulty level.

Having played through GC West 42/43, with various custom difficulty settings, as far as I can tell, the above points seems to work correctly.
Heroes distribution was normal both in numbers and types and similar to what I experienced in previous GC with older game version.
(However the Spotting heroes for Artillery units still seems weird and useles to me as artillery are behind the line most of the time).
I checked disbanding for every possible steps number, it gives 10% of the price per step from 1 to 10, and no extra pp for overstrength steps.

*************************************************************

Though it is not related to the above, I noticed than in GC west 2/43 scenario Messina, the DV condition read:
"Bring at least 18 GROUND units to the Italian mainland to the East AND hold at least fivre objectives".
Actually it seems that you can count in the 18 ground units the two Fort and the two Flakvierling that are already on Italian mainland, as a result you only need to "bring" fourteen more axis ground units across the strait.

**************************************************************
The briefing for the Syracuse[/b ] and both Etna line scenarios mention that "any auxilliary units escorted off map will be available for future scenarios".
Additionaly a in scenario message add "any Italian auxilliary unitsyou wish to preserve for future use in this campaign must be moved to evacuation hexes".

I found this misleading, as actually all Italian auxilliary units are gone for good after the Messina scenario.
What is not clear is:
1/ that you might needs some of those units to make a DV for the Messina scenario to reach the 18 units in mainland Italia.
2/ You could as well disband any extra units no needed for point 1/ above, to gain extra prestige, as they are actually not available for the rest of the campaign
fliegenderstaub
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by fliegenderstaub »

IainMcNeil wrote:...

- If "Custom difficulty" checkbox is not checked, difficulty sliders are updated to reflect the currently selected difficulty level.

...
If "Custom difficulty" checkbox is not checked, the AI standard value below the sliders is "1". Are you sure, that this one does NOT affect the AI. I was playing on FM and I had the impression the AI was weaker. After changing the AI level from "1" to "2", the AI seems to be more aggressive (remember the "custom difficulty" checkbox is still unchecked).

Am I wrong? Is it just a strong imagination? ;)

Thanks in advance! :)
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up on a poo-poo platter in the Tikki Hut of life! -Al Bundy -
Kamerer
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Kamerer »

I wondered about this, too. I have been playing Rommel/Montgomery and the AI does not seem aggressive.

However, when I dangle weaker units in front of them,they do come out. So I think they are just doing the math and not being suicidal. however, it is VERY easy with the newer, more agressive AI to lure them out of solid, deep entrenchement by showing a weak unit at the edge of their spotting, and with artillery behind it out of sight. They come out and give up 8 entrenchement when defensive - not good. Also, they'll do it repeatedly. Meaning, one unit will move out, get clobbered (thus revealing my artillery trap). A second unit will do the same despite having realized the arty was there. However it's still out of that unit's vision so it acts as if it learned nothing from watching prior play in the turn.
Delta66
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Delta66 »

With custom difficulty on, and AI at level 2, the AI seems to works as what I was used to.
As pointd above this may be related to non custom difficulty level defulating to AI level 1, if you choose Sergeant or Lieutnant AI level is still at 1 in the advanced tab.
Delta66
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Delta66 »

Playing GC West 42/43 Messina.

To get a DV:
The briefing says:you must bring a total of 18 ground units on the Italian mainland,

However you must do this one turn before the last turn, otherwise you only get a MV and loose the two bonus aircrafts.
And as I previously mentioned, you can count the 2 Forts and the 2 Flakvierling allready on the Italian mainland.

It would be nice if you could clarify the victory conditions. It is quite frustrating to carefully time your evacuation, trying to capture the most prestige hexs on Sicily as possible, and then realize you only get a MV because the victory conditions were not clear.
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Re: Download the Panzer Corps 1.21 Public Beta

Post by Resolute »

I was playing half way through Modlin today and noticed I was not getting any of the special heroes. The custom difficulty settings were working as intended though. Just tried to load up a new game to see if I can reproduce that weird behaviour but I got a message the beta version has expired.

Has there been a change regarding those special heroes I was not aware of?
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