OWB 5.0.6 Tech, Equipment and Unit Balance Changes

# 5.0.6 Tech and Units Balance Changelog


General Changes:

	Base Hourly Fuel Gain and Hourly Fuel Gain per excess Energy reduced from 0.28 to 0.25

		(Dev Note: This change effectively reduces all natural fuel generation by slightly over 10%. Generally in OWB, fuel is not very hard to come by for many of the nations that may use it, but we've been wary of changing this too much in order to make sure outliers aren't too negatively affected. We're now fairly confident that this is a safe and desirable change to make.)



Infantry Changes:

	Energy Weapons Defense 9/10/13.5/15 -> 11/13/15/17, Soft Attack 4/5.5/7.5/10 -> 5/7/9/11
	Ballistic Weapons Defense 6/8.5/11.5/14.5/17 -> 8/10.5/14/16.5/19, Soft Attack 2/4/6.5/8.5/11.5 -> 2.5/5/7.5/10/12.5
	Melee Weapons Defense 5/7/9/11 -> 7/9/11/13, Soft Attack 2/4/6/8 -> 2.5/5/7.5/10

	Plasma Weapons Defense 16/17 -> 17/18, Soft Attack 14/16 -> 15/17
	Gauss Weapons Defense 17/19 -> 18/20, Soft Attack 11/13.5 -> 12/14.5

		(Dev Note: In the patch notes for 5.0.3, we mentioned that we were eyeing some fairly large infantry equipment changes. These unilateral buffs to Defense and Soft Attack are the first result of that, but they probably won't be the last. As we continue to examine the fundamentals of OWB's gameplay for flaws, the dramatic gap between lower and higher-tier infantry equipment--particularly in Defense--always comes back up. Aside from this, though, Infantry continues to perform worse as a holding unit than we would like.

		Now there are a lot of concerns that these sorts of changes can bring, and we want to address them and talk about the solutions we're working on- in this patch and beyond.

		For one, many wars in the mod already have too sluggish a pace in the hands of the AI, so won't this just exacerbate that further? This is a complicated subject, but here are a couple of important points to keep in mind: higher defense for both sides in a conflict doesn't necessarily slow the war down because higher defense also helps an attacker hold their captured provinces against a counterattack, many of the problems with these stalemates are due more to flaws we're continuing to work on in the AI's division design and frontline behavior rather than in balance, many slower wars have been made faster this update as seen in the main patch notes, and more resilient infantry allows us to consider raising the offensive stats of units like Fireteams and Demolitions to values closer to base game Artillery in exchange for some of their Defense and Breakthrough. We also expect the Soft Attack changes to be more impactful than they may seem, and they should help offset the higher Defense slightly.

		We're also keenly aware of how several other units that use Infantry equipment benefit from this, and how units that don't use Infantry equipment are made weaker by having stronger competition. Because the change is proportionally smaller for all the units which include Infantry equipment alongside their own unique equipment, we're going to refrain from any compensatory nerfs at this time. We'll still keep an eye on outlier units like Special Forces to make sure we aren't mistaken, though.)

	Pipe Guns Production Cost increased from 1.5 to 1.75
	Basic Melee Production Cost increased from 1.5 to 1.75
	Energy Weapon Reliability decreased from 80% to 75%
	Ballistic Weapon Reliability decreased from 85% to 80% (Except Pipe Guns, which was already 80%)
	Melee Weapon Reliability decreased from 90% to 85% (Except Basic Melee, which was already 85%)

		(Dev Note: These changes exist to offset the bonuses to Infantry Equipment just slightly by raising production demand. Doing so with Reliability is preferable for now due to several factors. Firstly, this is less of a barrier for nations getting units out into the field and more of a barrier for sustaining their equipment demands. Secondly, changing Reliability is less impactful than production cost for natively produced equipment, but in exchange also impacts captured equipment, equipment received for free from places like events and foci, and equipment from the organizations market, among other sources.

		Pipe Guns and Basic Melee are the exceptions to this rule because we want to keep Reliability standard from now on and also prevent the amount of bulk low-tier weapons which repeated annexations can build up in a nation's stockpile. In the longer term, we're hoping to move the lowest and highest costs on Infantry Equipment closer together.

		We expect Infantry Equipment to require further assessment following these changes, and these Reliability adjustments may not even last for good, but we're confident that this will be a step in the right direction for OWB's gameplay loop even if it requires refinement.)



Unique Unit Changes:

	Behemoth first upgrade tech Armor and Hardness modifers swapped with the second upgrade tech's Recovery Rate and Speed modifiers
	Behemoth first upgrade tech Defense +20% -> +25%
	Behemoth second upgrade tech Breakthrough +20% -> +25%, Armor +20% -> +40%

		(Dev Note: As Behemoths are one of the only special forces units to not use infantry equipment, we wanted to give them a very slight power boost to help keep them in the running. In addition to the 5% extra Defense and Breakthrough to help with taking increased soft attack, we've also swapped the order in which certain stats are upgraded by these techs. This is firstly because we feel the utility of the Hardness and Armor doesn't come into play as soon, but also because delaying the Armor increase allows us to make it more substantial with less risk, as Piercing climbs throughout the game.

		It's highly possible that Behemoths may need further improvements to their progression into the mid and late game, but we want to take a conservative approach for now until we see the wider effects of the infantry equipment changes and make any necessary adjustments there.)