If you do not feel like checking it yourself, you can watch this very long video with somewhat questionable conclusions, ha-ha.
Yesterday, right before the devbranch patch, I did a long small arms test, but it is no longer relevant. After the Gunner's Breastplate nerf, should I redo it?
There is a lot more there too, take a look at the tank balance!
64 Branch Dev Release
!!! This post is no longer relevant because the devbranch patch is out. !!!
The first row shows the approximate firing range. The table shows how many hits it takes to knock the target down.
| Weapon | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catara | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | |||
| Argenti | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2-4 | 5 | 3-9 |
| Fuscina | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3-4 | 6-7 | |
| Catena | 9 | 9 | 9 | 7-8 | 8-9 | 13 |
| Cometa | 2 | 2 | 5 | |||
| Dusk | 12 | 9-10 | 12-13 | |||
| Lionclaw | 15 | 14 | 12 | |||
| Pitch gun | 19 | |||||
| Dragonfly | 6-7 | 6 | 6 | |||
| Pillory | 7 |
Some of the numbers look a bit odd, so I suggest watching the video for the full results.
After some testing on devbranch and from my own experience in-game, I want to say that the fire and firefighting system needs urgent balancing.
Disclaimer: English is not my first language. I used machine translation to help write this post, so I hope the wording still reflects what I meant. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
For context, I suggest watching a couple of videos:
10k BMats Gone in Minutes… (Dadamage)
FSR and bucket extinguishing test
1. Flamethrowers suppress Rifle and MG Garrisons almost instantly
Anti-infantry AI has basically no chance against even 2+ partisans with flamethrowers. A couple of smoke grenades are enough.
Once a meta bunker piece is set on fire, it stops firing until it is fully extinguished. That means partisans can move freely into the bunker base and destroy the fire truck, leaving the defenders with no real way to put the fire out.
2. Fire trucks are the only effective way to deal with high-tier fires, but they are always in short supply
You cannot just build a fire truck straight from a Garage. On top of that, upgrading an Ambulance into a fire truck requires AM2, which may not even be available. There may be no power, and a Small Assembly Station is not always nearby either.
3. Water buckets are terrible against max-tier fire
To put out just one meta bunker piece, you need 40-42 water buckets. Just one piece. And usually 3-10 pieces are burning at the same time.
There is basically no realistic way to put out that many burning meta pieces with buckets. Preparing 400 filled buckets in advance is not realistic. Filling 42 buckets takes more than 2 minutes, and while you are putting out one piece, the rest will most likely burn down anyway.
You also cannot store filled buckets inside a bunker base. Storing them in a storage box is not safe either, because alts can just throw them on the ground.
Water access in the game is also awkward, and one bucket requires 100 liters of water. That means filling 42 buckets takes 84 water cans.
So in practice, buckets are completely unsuitable for fighting high-tier fires.
4. Fire Suppression Rooms still do not solve the problem
Fire Suppression Rooms require 15-25 buckets of water to extinguish a high-tier fire. That is less, but even then, 100-125 buckets for 4-5 burning meta pieces is still insane.
FSRs do not stop garrisons from being suppressed by fire. Partisans are not really risking anything when they light up a meta bunker covered by Rifle Garrisons.
What FSRs do is save some water during firefighting, slightly increase the fuel needed to start the fire, and slow down how fast the meta burns.
In other words, FSRs do not solve the problem. The worst part is that you cannot automatically refill them from a nearby water tanker.
Just imagine having to supply water to every FSR in your base. Say you have 10 FSRs requiring 400 water cans. You can only refill them manually or with pipes.
Getting and delivering enough pipes is its own problem. Designing a base around pipes is also annoying. On top of that, msup consumption goes up a lot. The water cost is huge, and refilling FSRs is extremely inconvenient.
That is how massive bases costing around 12000 bmats end up burning down in about 15 minutes. Putting them out with buckets is basically impossible. Fire trucks are hard to get, and partisans can destroy them very easily.
I made this post to highlight the current fire and firefighting balance, and hopefully get more players talking about it with the devs.
There are plenty of ways to fix this. These are just a few examples:
I also have test videos showing firefighting at different fire tiers, with different numbers of FSRs in the bunker, and meta pieces being ignited in freezing conditions.
I did not post this in the official Discord, because I do not think the devs would take me seriously given my English.