OpenRA

Btw, reducing shockies price to $300? Isn't it a bit overbuff for them? That makes them the same price as rockets and flamers...

Speaking about flamers, I'm sad to see 2 flamers not being able to kill a prone infantry with 1 salvo.

Shockies: You forgot the versus damage changes and the HP. Regardless, the end result was very satisfying.

@SoScared : not gonna lie ... but having nerfed artys that takes them longer to bring down buildings (aka you need more of them or it just takes longer) combined with buffed soviet-support-powers such as parabombs -1 minute smells really hard like an exclusion of the arty-gameplay. or "another" step towards that ...
im not teasing here, its just the combination of nerfs and buffs that show the emphasis.

@MicroBit: I have absolutely no opinion one way or another on how the Artillery should adjust to the new hits hitshapes. I pitched some numbers in just days before the first playtest with the crossing-fingers emoji in the PR and begged people to look over the AoE vs buildings long before even the first playtest came out. If you or anyone else have an alternative solution, have at it.

ok, I've run a simple enough test between 20170527 release, playtest and latest bleed: max range arty shooting at war factory, 3 runs.

Results (number of hits to destroy a building): Impressions:
Release version had actually smaller inaccuracy than playtest, but due to spot-only hit shape damage was much more random (hence the "25" for the 3rd run). Bleed version (that has SoScared's balance patch from OP) has the lowest inaccuracy and thus higher consistency of damage. Overall results are quite similar, but I think I'd like to see SoScared's changes in the final release. The test actually shows that arty damage is still higher in bleed than in release (contrary to @JOo), but a tad lower than in the current playtest.

will update with other buildings/ranges

Extensive arty testing.
Max 12cell range, 7cell range (actually something like 11.5 and 7.5 cell for 6cell buildings (Radar Dome and Allied Barracks) because new shapes calculate a hit point above their center)
Actors tested: War Factory, Advanced Power Plant, Radar Dome, Allied Barracks, Pillbox, Light Tank, Mobile Flak.
Given number is average number of shots to kill an actor (3 iterations per test).

Full results
Observations:

1. Damage ratio is almost the same for 1cell actors: on half-range it's a bit better (because damage is higher), on full range it's lower (due to increased inaccuracy; although low damage for pillbox in bleed could be due to insufficient shot count for the correct statistics)
2. Playtest 240 shell damage one-shots Mobile Flak on direct hit which wasn't the case in release
3. Damage ratio seems to be lower than release for multi-cell structures, this difference is more obvious on half-range (War Factory takes 1.5 times more shots to kill).

I've tried to tweak damage against wood to 50%. This way long-range damage became greater than in release (WF goes down in 15 shots, RD 10.6), 7cell range damage is close to release (7 shots for APP, 9 shots for RD) or a bit lower (14 shots for WF).

So, if we decide to give arties a long-range damage boost then Wood 45-50 is the way to go. Current 35 value is a nerf for mid-range damage to buildings.

Well, we just have to dive into that then ... hitshape-update and consequences

The link is updated with additional tests on bleed changes with modified Wood damage (42 and 45).

Results for Wood 45: This gives a slightly increased damage for long-range juicy targets, but still a bit of a nerf otherwise. That 10% decreased damage on infantry is an nerf too, because damage is only increased from 220 to 230 and hitshapes are of no matter for infantry (220x0.9 = 198, 230x0.8 = 184)

my comment from Discord chat:

"+20% damage rate vs WF/Con.Yard feels a bit like an overreach on vs wood 45. I understand your reasoning with regards to defending basepushing but imo it'd be worse boosting max.range artillery sieges as that topic finally dropped below boiling point with the last two releases. The most infamous unit in OpenRA histroy"

I bravely retained the end typo.

Agreed on the infantry nerfing. Was poor calculation by me. The inaccuracy increase (vs release) is enough a nerf in and of itself in relation to the overall damage increase.

I can see that Milestones list is drying up fast. Made a quick PR to address the above asap.

https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/13877

If people want bring on higher values for the Artillery that's fine with me but this is as far as I'd feel comfortable with support.

As has become custom, I'll do a point by point breakdown of my concerns and objections. There are a couple things I love in these changes. The neutral structures in particular are great, as they will provide map makers more 'official' ways to add flavor to their creations.

Concerns:
Artillery changes: I understand arty accuracy concerning hit shapes, but this will buff artillery significantly in gps counterbattery situations. (A solution to this would be to NERF GPS) Also, the nerfs don't make much sense in the face of the superior V2 on the other side of the aisle.
Tanya and Mammoth Tank stealth changes: The phase transport is an already underused unit, I don't see a reason to nerf it more. Also, this is not the way to address Mammoth Tanks if you want to see more of them.
Production time reductions for multiple T3 units: The solution to undersued units is to make them more desirable to build, not quicker. In the case of most of these units, especially the MIG, these changes will see players sink more money into terrible units more quickly. Also, the longbow being on this list makes no sense, as it is an amazing unit that should be built by every allied player who makes it to T3.
War Factory: Build-time reduction caps at 50% with 4 structures.I still believe this change is overclocked. I get what you want to do here, but perhaps use 5 WFs to reach 50%, or don't front-load the reduction time.

Outright oppose: These need to not happen imo
Parabombs Chargetime: 5 min, down from 6 min. More paratroopers and spy planes I get, but Parabombs have no business being buffed. Though RNG in if they work or not, parabombs have the power to decide a game on their own. It's a free ability that has no equal. Also, ever since Orb popularized the tech rush, parabombs are showing up in game even earlier than before. Having your army wiped by a free ability shortly after 10 minutes is a little silly.
Barracks Cost: $500. The defense stance change already nerfs barracks. I don't see the reason to nerf them more, unless you're trying to nerf infantry scaling, which I also oppose.
Shock Trooper changes: I get trying to make shockies specialize, but 40% less damage vs armor isn't going to make them less of the incarnation of the A-move that they are. And more spammability for such a unit isn't going to help, especially with the defense stance change buffing the A-move.
$700 Camo Pillbox with less HP. We do not need more pillboxes, especially ones that are invisible.

@Smitty: I see your concerns but I don't share them. Not at all in fact. Please understand, as with every one of my past balance PRs, they're based on the experience with the map playtests - not opinions. The whole point of sampling vast amounts of mathces is to uncover potential pitfalls and to make sure the changes do exactly what they intend to do.

This is also the reason why I've been able to waive off without exception every single concern raised on my previous PR tickets - not because I'm smarter but because I put in the appropriate leg work to the point that the experience derived from the map playtesting inevitably translates over to what is experienced in the following release. I'm not making an exaggerated claim here, you can look up my full history on Github.

As for your specific list - to answer them all briefly, your concerns never manifested themselves with the playtest maps. As the answer to why I'd suggest the Phase Transport have better stealth opportunities with all base defenses' cloak detection streamlined down to 6c0 range and the detection from both SAM and AAGun has been pulled. The War Factory cap and T3 Speedup was an unequivocal success and I'm a bit baffled on your claim of the WF cap being overclocked when the opposite was making itself fact just days after it first was introduced. The combination of these two availed a new sphere of strategy for the late-game and often help to kill off long, dry drawn-out matches. You can certainly focus on making the units better as well, I'm sure that will happen eventually but as with the past Mammoth and Light tank buffs you need to first pull them out of its utter obscurity. The playtest maps made a big step in that direction.

I could go on but at the end of the day the balance PRs rests on whether or not I'm able to make an objective judgement on how these changes perform and work together in the overall picture. Seldom do I agree with everyone on the changes themselves but I'd hope my track record would at least merit the fact that I've been honest and objective in my observations and up until this point delivered precisely on what was claimed for them to do. The last thing I'd want to do is to start mutilating the deliberate constellation of balance changes last-minute, shipping unpredictable gameplay tweaks to the release.

When it comes to the balance changes that intersect with the hitshapes and unit stances I'll off course be more lenient but so far I haven't seen any warning signals that would suggest the changes jeopardize the gameplay in any significant way.

As for the AoE vs hitshape changes, like with the Artillery, I've repeatedly pleaded for everyone to look these up themselves, test them and suggest changes here as necessary. These values were obviously not present in the playtest maps. So far @netnazgul is the only one who has put some work to the task.