Missile Submarine
1) Reworked the attack completely, now launches a single slow-moving homing missile from very far away instead of two non-seeking rockets at medium speed and pretty far range.
2) Now very vulnerable, HP down from 400 to just 90. Self-repairs quickly up to 100% HP.
3) Movement speed up from 42 to 71, turn speed up from 3 to 4. Now exactly the same as a regular Submarine.
4) Line-of-sight down from 6 cells to 4 cells. Detection of other submarines down from 4 cells to 3 cells.
5) Takes a little while to submerge for the first time (InitialDelay from 0 to 25).
6) The missile is launched two seconds after the submarine has gone up to the surface.
7) Takes a whole lot longer to resubmerge after surfacing (CloakDelay from 100 to 350).
Motivations:
1) This changes the unit from bombardment to being pin-point accurate. I did this not only because the Missile Sub was intruding on the "uniqueness" of the Cruiser role as the prime bombardment unit in the game but also because to be honest I'm not a fan of missiles that are not homing... It works for V2 because that's a big rocket but to give non-tracking missiles to a Missile Sub, it's weird.
Instead of changing the current weapon's projectile to ballistics and renaming the unit to "Catapult Sub"
I did some testing with a more exclusive type of missile and in the end I think the unit turned out better because of it. The projectile is so slow-moving that it won't really work against moving aircraft but it exceeds against sneak attacks on any idle unit. Being sneaky is just what I want a submarine to be. The new missile has its own distinct launch sound, which should warn alert enemy players about what is about to happen.
In overhaul the sub has just one armament instead of two (has one for air and one for ground in vanilla). So there's no problem with being able to fire at the ground and then immediately fire at the air (though that could be solved in vanilla with an ammo pool that is self-reloading). But isn't it a little odd that the air attack is homing while the ground attack is not?
Vanilla's Missile Sub is better against moving aircrafts (if it manages to point towards them so it can launch) but overhaul's Missile Sub is more effective against idle groups of them. Personally I don't think Soviet really need a strong naval air defense, especially in overhaul where the regular Submarines stay submerged during attacks. I get that vanilla's Missile Sub is intended to work a bit like Destroyer in their anti-air capabilities, though Soviet has Mobile Flak and I think good anti-air is Allies "thing" - if that makes sense? What I mean is the two sides don't need to perfectly represent each other's benefits in all matters.
2) This balances against its new powerful weapon. The Missile Sub should not be close enough so that an enemy can attack back. Keep it secret, keep it safe.
The repair is so that if you actually manage to escape any close-call situations the sub will be able to resubmerge again after a while (can't submerge at red HP). It also makes it less vulnerable against single units while surfaced, thanks to self-repair the Missile Sub takes 5 attacks from 1 Gunboat and 3 attacks from 1 Destroyer (buying it extra time to resubmerge or maybe even defend itself). It will immediately die against 4 Gunboats or 2 Destroyers though.
3) I've said it before but nothing matters as much as movement speed in a RTS game, vanilla's 42 is crippling. Especially if you think about the maps that have water around the edges and land in the middle. I don't think vanilla Missile Sub is so strong that it deserves to be the slowest unit to deploy in the game, as a result nobody produces it. A regular sub is already slow enough, so that's how it is in overhaul. Its long submerge delay, attack delay and low HP is enough to balance its new armament.
4) The Missile Sub falls into the lesser group when it comes to both sub detection and vision. It needs support to be able to use its weapon, either by another Submarine scouting next to the shore or by your land troops.
5) Same as for the standard submarine, it gives the enemy player a chance to see what has been produced if he has vision over the Sub Pen.
6) This gives the enemy a window of opportunity to destroy the sub before it attacks and removes the possibility to attack next to a guarded beach (four Rocket Soldiers is enough to instantly kill the Missile Sub as soon as it shows itself).
7) From surfacing it takes 16 seconds before the sub is under water again (2 sec due to the attack delay and 14 sec due to the cloak delay). This is why it's important to be smart about the usage of the unit, if you aren't sneaky the enemy has a lot of time to send air units your way.
The unit will not submerge between shots btw (unless you micromanage it). The reload time is a whopping 27 seconds and the 14 sec cloak delay starts only when the sub stops trying to attack, this means a long potential exposure time without micro (remember it only stops trying to attack once the target is dead and it takes ~9.5 sec for the slow missile to reach its target at max range, more if the target is moving). Since buildings can repair a lot in 27 sec you see how the Missile Sub works best in expensive groups that can burst down targets with a single combined attack.
So why all these delays and slow moving missiles? It's to balance the 20 cell attack range and 25 cell follow range of the missile. By comparison the Cruiser has an attack range of 16 cells. It of course has its own strengths while even further range and better accuracy is the Missile Sub's business.
The pin-point accuracy is so pin-point that it will only kill 1 infantry in a group of 5. So the attack is best spent on large strategic targets, preferably immobile ones to make sure they will hit. However, against aircraft its a different story. A single missile is capable of taking out a group of air units all at once, even when exploding nearby them. Even when exploding on the ground, so you can kill two (or more) birds with one stone by targeting the building below the idle aircrafts.
Of course if the enemy notice any incoming missile(s) it's easy for him to dodge them. There should even be enough time to sell off the targeted building if needed. Also, since the Missile Sub's missiles are now homing it's possible to counter them by building a Radar Jammer if you are playing an Allied faction.
Damage examples, missiles it takes to destroy...
[tab]...any infantry: 1
[tab]...any aircraft: 1
[tab]...any defense structure: 2
[tab]...Transport (naval): 2
[tab]...Gunboat: 1
[tab]...Destroyer: 2
[tab]...Cruiser: 5
[tab]...Sub Pen / Shipyard: 4
[tab]...V2 Rocket: 1
[tab]...Light Tank: 1
[tab]...Medium Tank: 2
[tab]...Heavy Tank: 3
[tab]...Mammoth Tank: 4
[tab]...MAD Tank (undeployed): 5
[tab]...Ore Truck: 3
[tab]...MCV: 3
[tab]...Power Plant: 2
[tab]...Advanced Power Plant: 3
[tab]...Tech Center: 3
[tab]...Missile Silo: 4
[tab]...War Factory: 6
[tab]...Construction Yard: 6
These numbers are if the attacks happens all at once, a single Missile Sub would for example need 3 attacks to destroy a Power Plant if it is repairing. Likewise a Missile Submarine needs 14 attacks to destroy a repairing Construction Yard by itself. The six Missile Subs needed to perform a sufficient burst attack is an investment of 12 thousand credits (not to mention actual production time and what's needed to reach max tech level) and they form a very vulnerable group, especially in overhaul where Depth Charges has been buffed.