I think infantry could fit perfectly in the game ONLY if the troops remain as AI units.
For a long time, we’ve had many vehicles that are little more than soft targets but if we get infantry, we get a huge gameplay sandbox. Just about every vehicle type and nation in the game would benefit from the addition.
Tanks get an additional use for machine guns, and HE rounds
SPAA can do more than target aircraft and light vehicles
Light tanks (APCs/IFVs) can gain points for the actions that their infantry completes, for example “Enemy aircraft destroyed” or “objective captured”
Utility and transport helicopters can get points for the actions of the infantry that they deploy and have an additional use for rockets, and machine guns.
Planes would gain additional use for most of its air-to-ground weapons
New game modes could be added centered around infantry support.
How do we balance the infantry mechanics?
Spoiler
Cap their accuracy at 70% so they don’t instantly destroy players
Give them a limited ammo capacity
Give them reload times
Give them different speed values
Give them different detection values. For example, Rifleman having a lower spotting range than recon.
Limit their spotting to only 2 enemies every 30-45 seconds (For recon)
Limit the effective range of units
How to add them the easy way:
Spoiler
Just give vehicles with a carrying capacity the ability to deploy troops (Spawn them near you) and give the troops basic pathfinding. Each squad would be equipped rifleman and have a set number of troops through all vehicles across every nation
Have a generic base for all the infantry BR-specific skins with no sign of alliance with real nations
How to add it the complicated but awesome way?
Spoiler
Give players the ability to choose their infantry squad variations before spawning, similarly to the weapon loadout option we already have.
Give players the ability to upgrade the squad’s stats like the crew stats we have now. This would increase stats like accuracy, movement speed, line of sight, reload speed, range etc.
Give players the ability to upgrade infantry weapons; all players start out with riflemen and have the ability to research different weapons, infantry types, and gadgets. For example, recon getting Lazer designator or anti-tank units upgrading from unguided AT weapons to ATGMs.
Add infantry skins that players can buy or unlock; historical or fictional
Animations for infantry entering and exiting vehicles.
If you think it would ruin the game modes we have now, this could always be a separate game mode.
They also said they wouldn’t add missiles and do all sorts of things they backtracked on, literally no one is playing only a single tree anyways and that’s stupid design.
I’d rather see this as a teaser for more modern Enlisted content than for infantry in WT.
The devs have always said that WT would remain a pure vehicle game to maintain its low age restriction.
Wonder if it would be possible to kinda splice those games together sense iirc cuisine was able to have alot more damage options and weapons while enlisted focused on more of an a.i. portions and be a “realistic” fps.
There are plenty of ways to ensure that A.I infantry won’t be overpowered. The Infantry we had in the WWI event worked just fine and took like 1 or 2 shots to kill. The only “unkillable god” AI I’ve encountered were tanks in assault arcade and that’s because the devs choose to use tanks with the best frontal armor values and aimbot accuracy (which makes the game mode near unplayable btw). The AI convoys in heli PvE are buggy because the maps are absolutely massive, and the pathfinding nodes don’t match the terrain in some places. AI planes crash cus they’re just kinda dumb.
They don’t need to build a tech tree around it. They could just make the weapons/cosmetics match the BR and give the appropriate vehicles the option to spawn with them. They’d be more like modifications and weapon loadouts for vehicles rather than an entirely new tech tree.
Another thing to add, theoretically with the addition of A.I infantry, we get a HUGE selection of vehicles that would be useful in the game. Gaijin could take a break from adding top tier vehicles before we run out and start adding these instead.
Seen below is just small example of what could be added to the US tech tree alone for ground vehicles.
Lighter vehicles would be used for scouting and transporting troops and/or supplies using their extreme speed and agility, reaching parts of the map well before other vehicles. Some may even have a limited anti-tank capability. These vehicles could battle each other using machine guns, grenade launchers or even the dismounted infantry, giving players a niche but fun alternative to the current gameplay loop.
There are tons of helicopters from all countries that could be added, many of which wouldn’t even need to be full modeled, since a few of the airframes already exist in the game. For example, the MH-60L DAP being used as a base for the UH-60 or AH-6M being used for the MH-6. The unarmed versions could exist in a folder before the armed counterpart, meaning that players must grind by completing infantry support objectives before being able to use attack variants. Though unarmed, dedicated transport helis like the MH-53 “Pave Low” or SA 321 “Super Frelon” would benefit from their huge carrying capacity, being able to complete multiple infantry support objectives during a single sortie, like capturing objectives, resupplying friendly infantry, resupplying vehicles, CASEVAC, or any other theoretical objectives. This playstyle would be high risk, high reward, and tons of fun.
The size of EC maps would make those extremely useful. Especially in helicopter PvE.
As far as for the for the tech tree thing, I really hope they don’t make an FPS type thing. At that point I’d have to agree with the people saying to just play enlisted. Playable infantry 100% does not belong in war thunder.
