Supply Yard-like Upgrade for Soviets

Personally, I don't post here unless I truly think an idea is good.  Frankly, I think a lot of the suggestions are retarded, like the unlimited KT, explosive dog ones for example.

Here it is: Give the Soviets an upkeep reducing upgrade and/or some kind of manpower income increase or unit cost reduction upgrade.  The upgrade should be expensive, like the USA supply yard one.

Logic: Just like the Americans, the Soviets won not with skill, but with sheer numbers, and in some cases, superior technology.  The Soviets had even more men to expend and their tank horde was even more lethal than the US tank horde.

Before the Flaming Dogs Bark: I know I know, balance before realism, and I'd be the first person to agree, but it's just weird that late game USA can spam more riflemen than Soviets can spam Strelky, etc.

Implementation: Give this powerful upgrade option(s), further reduce Soviet veterancy bonuses to compensate balance-wise.  As long as the sniper team and more importantly the Katushka are nerfed sufficiently (these 2 units basically defy the quantity > quality mentality of the Soviet army, and from what I see in the future 1.310 log, the sniper nerfs are nowhere near sufficient, the katyshas need a CP increase or a simple switch with GoW in the tree to address the root problem that they come too early), I feel that with this powerful upgrade option for the Soviets, we'll see a lot more intense / 50-50 balanced in-game action featuring battles that are really close.

Conclusion: I feel that the Soviet faction design should be based around cheap mass infantry / cheap mass tanks.  Not by having 1-2 infantry units, 3 sniper teams, and 3 Katyshas as their entire (OP) army kicking the crap out of anything Axis has to offer.  If 3 sniper teams are making the backbone of your army instead of infantry like Strelky, there is something terribly wrong.  Watch the 1.302 replays before you bark.

Really think hard about this before sitting down in your armchair and typing on your keyboard.

Last edited February 21, 2011 at 10:17 AM by Chancellor

^This.

I agree.  In fact, I agree wholeheartedly. I also agree with your logic and possible implementation of this idea.  I can only say that I hope that others see the reasoning behind this as well.

You, sir, have +1 internets.

I actually think the SU blob can be larger and angrier than US blobs already. It's just that the sniper is so damn OP at the moment that good players recognise this is the way to go. Also, there is always the point that focusing micro on a few good units is easier than focusing on lots of units which makes this even more prevalent.

Way back when the mod was newly released I suggested something similar to this. I believe it makes perfect sense for the Soviets to have some sort of income boost upgrades in the late game. You could simply call the upgrades Ural reinforcements and Far East reinforcements or something. Currently, late game Soviets are only powerful because of their fantastic tanks. Guards are good but not as good as knights cross for example. At the moment, Soviet strategy is a little linear since you should get snipers midgame and then tech for tanks when you can. Command squad vet only makes infantry builds slightly more attractive.

We have to see the effect of the sniper nerfs next patch before we can judge. While they don't look sufficient on paper, maybe ingame the effect will be larger than we can tell so far. We should jump on the sandbox Chancellor and test them out sometime.

I had a similar idea ages ago for the Soviets to upgrade an 'Ammo Dump' from the Armoury which reduces Muni upkeep slightly. However, if this was implemented, there are some further changes to the Soviets that I think should be implemented in order to stop them becoming overpowered late game, like an overhaul of the Propaganda doctrine.

Sandbox test of the sniper would be a good idea. I haven't tested the latest version on the Devbox, I seem to keep getting my ass handed to me by AI, maybe I should start looking for humans to test with :P

Last edited February 21, 2011 at 1:32 PM by BurroDiablo

Shadowmetroid wrote:
^This.

I agree.  In fact, I agree wholeheartedly. I also agree with your logic and possible implementation of this idea.  I can only say that I hope that others see the reasoning behind this as well.

You, sir, have +1 internets.

This is right what i think as well. Cancellor is kinda right and im really happy to see other ppl facing and also realizing these problems. Also, this would add a lot more feeling. The statement about the sniper is correct as well. Something really has to be changes about these guys. atm, still, they are rediculously overpowered. That wont be changed by any little easing, meanwhile im absolutly sure about that. Something has to happen with these guys.

BurroDiablo wrote:
I had a similar idea ages ago for the Soviets to upgrade an 'Ammo Dump' from the Armoury which reduces Muni upkeep slightly. However, if this was implemented, there are some further changes to the Soviets that I think should be implemented in order to stop them becoming overpowered late game, like an overhaul of the Propaganda doctrine.
[...]

+1. (Keep) the balance!



Regards

Last edited February 21, 2011 at 3:43 PM by Venoxxis

@Chancellor
woof woof :P!! I like your idea... there is an unused text "Petrolium Refinery" that could be used for that :D!! Unless someone comes up with a better name.

The Refinery idea was something that was to replace OPs before we decided Outposts were to take that role. There's still a few squares free in the Armoury, we should just use those... plus, saves us time when it comes to adding in our own buildings :P

BurroDiablo wrote:
The Refinery idea was something that was to replace OPs before we decided Outposts were to take that role. There's still a few squares free in the Armoury, we should just use those... plus, saves us time when it comes to adding in our own buildings :P

Absolutely, i didn't think of it as a different and new building xD, i thought of it as an upgrade(i must say, i didn't think where could be placed) and i remember that unused text, so i proposed it as name xD... don't know if it fits.

Last edited February 21, 2011 at 6:51 PM by blackbishop

Sorry if I'm breaking the rules of secrecy agreement, but this is the major issue I'm talking about in the coming 1.310 patch.

- Enemy snipers will automatically target the Sharpshooter over the Observer, unless specified to do otherwise.

If I click the sniper team (even the spotter) in the few seconds the sharpshooter reveals himself from cover or moves back, you can be damned sure I want to kill the sharpshooter, not the spotter.  In the heat of battle, I'm not going to have the sweet time of zooming in and figuring out who's who.  I'm guessing its hard to implement (code) with the 2 man team function, but it really must be done, or if it really becomes too hard to balance, then I highly recommend the single sniper like Wehr US ones instead

As for sniper team vs bike, I'm told EACH member of the sniper team gets the same amount of health as the US sniper.  So in effect, the team has 2x more health than a normal sniper.  This might be justified back in the days where Soviets could not retreat, but as of now I think the 2 members COLLECTIVE health needs to be the same as 1 US sniper's health.

For the Katyshas, they are not OP, but they simply come too early and make Wehr T2 and PE Pgrens useless when Axis is still heavily dependent on infantry.  There's a reason why Callipope, Hummel, and Priest come at the end of their respective doctrine trees.  Since GoW seems to be a medicore ability at best, I suggest switching it with Katyshas.

Last edited February 21, 2011 at 7:02 PM by Chancellor

"flaming dogs bark"...
(Note: no smileys added, so this doesn't seem to be a joke)

I feel a whole lot of respect from you going that way.

On the sniper issue, I do agree that "specify" thing looks more than doubtful, but, after all, what good are you, if you can't kill the right man, when you want to.
I wonder, if the simple limitation of no more than two teams at the field at a time would do. It pretty much should, since for a comparable price you could get three wehrmaht snipers (that vet along with mgs) that would most definitely counter their soviet counterparts any day of the week, if used properly.

Last edited February 22, 2011 at 1:32 AM by IJoe

I don't know how much hp they got before but imho they could get 1.5(or something like that) times the sniper health instead of two(due to are two man squad). The health of an US sniper for the two soviets guys seems not enough :-\. I think giving them 100HP would be enough.

Also, i'm just curious, why do you bring this here and not in the balance subforum created for these subjects?

blackbishop wrote:
I don't know how much hp they got before but imho they could get 1.5(or something like that) times the sniper health instead of two(due to are two man squad). The health of an US sniper for the two soviets guys seems not enough :-\. I think giving them 100HP would be enough.

Also, i'm just curious, why do you bring this here and not in the balance subforum created for these subjects?

Because my last thread there got locked by...you know who  :P

If that thread wasn't locked, I would have posted there instead.  I don't want to keep starting new topics there and spamming the place.

I think it needs to be 1x normal sniper's health or its unfair to the bike and other small arms fire, etc.

But yea if we put it at 1x then one of the team members will probably be really weak and consistently die, needing manpower to reenforce all the time.  This is why 2 man sniper teams are so hard to balance, and why I recommend to just fall back to the standard 1 man sniper.

Last edited February 21, 2011 at 7:18 PM by Chancellor

Indeed, but making them one man is not an option. Perhaps it should get 1.2 more health(90hp, less than two rifles).

Chancellor wrote:
Since GoW seems to be a medicore ability at best, I suggest switching it with Katyshas.

I like it.

GodlikeDennis wrote:
I actually think the SU blob can be larger and angrier than US blobs already.

I liked the idea of Soviet supply upgrade before, but now SU has Command Squad vet witch works like Wehrmacht global vet. They shouldnt have both supply center upgrade and global vet.
As for a muni upkeep reduction upgrade... just build an outposton a muni point. ;)

Paciat wrote:

Chancellor wrote:
Since GoW seems to be a medicore ability at best, I suggest switching it with Katyshas.

I like it.

GodlikeDennis wrote:
I actually think the SU blob can be larger and angrier than US blobs already.

I liked the idea of Soviet supply upgrade before, but now SU has Command Squad vet witch works like Wehrmacht global vet. They shouldnt have both supply center upgrade and global vet.
As for a muni upkeep reduction upgrade... just build an outposton a muni point. ;)

xD!!! I don't think that's enough to gain some extra munis :).

Please check your PM(i just sent you one).

Paciat wrote:

Chancellor wrote:
Since GoW seems to be a medicore ability at best, I suggest switching it with Katyshas.

I like it.

GodlikeDennis wrote:
I actually think the SU blob can be larger and angrier than US blobs already.

I liked the idea of Soviet supply upgrade before, but now SU has Command Squad vet witch works like Wehrmacht global vet. They shouldnt have both supply center upgrade and global vet.
As for a muni upkeep reduction upgrade... just build an outposton a muni point. ;)

As mentioned, if this supply yard idea were to be implemented, I recommended further lowering the global and individual vet bonuses in order to compensate.

Petroleum Refinery - Reduces munitions upkeep of vehicles by 25% (50 mun, 50 fuel)
Expanded Petroleum Refinery - Further reduces munitions upkeep by 10% (of base)(75 mun, 50 fuel)

Reduce Command Squad bonus to 5% -  5% - 10% = 20%

Guards unsupressable at Vet 2

Reduce outpost buildbox!! Can't build on some maps

I play EF in cheatmod, simply waiting it out untill the Ostheer is implimented and the balance kinks are ironed out. So, from playing in cheatmod: The Command Squad's bonuses are not the be all and end all of the faction. Triple Off Vet CS don't readily affect Guards/Stekly/Riflemen/Volks etc (I've tested the effects of the aura with every individual infantry unit in every faction, off vet doesnt seem to do much more than reduce cooldowns and offer mediocre accuracy increases, def vet seems to reduce received accuracy (barely) and offer ~.10 received damage at vet3. I don't know the stats so it's just a guestimation). Snipers: 'Damn OP' doesnt cut it. Vasily and Ivan need a health nerf. When in cover, the spotter seems to get some sort of Falshirmjager-like bonus, the little bastard acts as a psudo sniper in his own right. And yeah, the spotter get's autotargeted; he's higher in the target tables than even the ami/wehr snipers when facing eachother/ami vs ami/wehr vs whr. He even takes more fire than a jeep (I beleeive). 90-96 (53 HP/man) should do nicely. And for petes sake, the Mosin Nagant is statistically OP. Its a garand+grenadier k98k. Make a version for the ingenery, conscripts, and ove for strekly. Guards--they have 6 G43s, in essance. 1x DP-28, 2x SVT40, 3x Mosin and an upgrade (in-field, in likeness to a flamer/mp40 etc) for two more?

TheVolskinator wrote:
I play EF in cheatmod, simply waiting it out untill the Ostheer is implimented and the balance kinks are ironed out. So, from playing in cheatmod: The Command Squad's bonuses are not the be all and end all of the faction. Triple Off Vet CS don't readily affect Guards/Stekly/Riflemen/Volks etc (I've tested the effects of the aura with every individual infantry unit in every faction, off vet doesnt seem to do much more than reduce cooldowns and offer mediocre accuracy increases, def vet seems to reduce received accuracy (barely) and offer ~.10 received damage at vet3. I don't know the stats so it's just a guestimation). Snipers: 'Damn OP' doesnt cut it. Vasily and Ivan need a health nerf. When in cover, the spotter seems to get some sort of Falshirmjager-like bonus, the little bastard acts as a psudo sniper in his own right. And yeah, the spotter get's autotargeted; he's higher in the target tables than even the ami/wehr snipers when facing eachother/ami vs ami/wehr vs whr. He even takes more fire than a jeep (I beleeive). 90-96 (53 HP/man) should do nicely. And for petes sake, the Mosin Nagant is statistically OP. Its a garand+grenadier k98k. Make a version for the ingenery, conscripts, and ove for strekly. Guards--they have 6 G43s, in essance. 1x DP-28, 2x SVT40, 3x Mosin and an upgrade (in-field, in likeness to a flamer/mp40 etc) for two more?

There are 4 types of Mosins.
Squad    members x dmg  acc long/medium/short
Constript        4x10  0.8/0.25/0.2
Upgraded con.  7x7    0.8/0.25/0.2
Strelky            7x12  0.75/0.55/0.5
Spotter          1x15  0.9/0.66/0.42

As you can see Constripts are really weak a long range combat but Strelky are better at long range and do more dmg than Grens and US Rifles. Their squad HP is only a little lower than other infantry.
(US - 330, Volks - 325, Grens - 320, Strelky -315).
I never understood why spotter and tank hunters got so powerfull rifles nor why is Mosin more accurate than Gren k98. Grens dont get acc bonuses from vet so their base acc should be the highest ingame.

Command squad vet gives +10% damage or -10% received damage I believe. This equates to upping a mosin nagant to 13.2/14.5/16 damage from 12 or decreasing incoming damage from gren K98s from 15 to 13.5/12.2/10.9. Comparing the defensive bonus to gren vet, grens reduce the damage of mosins from 12 to:
vet1  12  no defensive change
vet2  9.6  elite armour effect (0.8 received dmg, also 0.75 received acc - not factored)
vet3  7.7  gren +30% health = 0.8 received damage

According to 1.30 patchnotes, strelky vet gives:
- Veterancy 1:Armour changed to Airborne (0.75 received dmg, 0.75 received acc while moving - not factored)
- Veterancy 2:1.2 accuracy modifier
- Veterancy 3:1.2 Damage modifier
vet requirements: 6/12/18

So only a vet 1 strelky squad with vet 3 def command squad will take 5.8 damage from grens, down from 15. While vet 3 grens only reduce the damage of strelky to 7.7 from 12. *Strelky only need to kill 3 grens/weapons crew members or 6 volks/pios to get vet 1.

If offensive vet is obtained, strelky 13.2/14.5/16dmg is mitigated to 10.6/11.6/12.8 and 8.4/9.3/10.2dmg by gren vet 2 and 3, while grens are mitigated to 11.3dmg by strelky vet 1.

Comparing without the command squad:
Accuracy table
K98_elite vs Strelky (strelky airborne armour change noted in brackets *only while moving)
L              0.45 (0.34)
M            0.65 (0.49)
S            0.85 (0.64)

Mosin_nagant vs Grens (vet 2 strelky (1.2acc) in brackets)
Strelky            vs infantry armour      vs elite armour (vet2 grens)
L                    0.5 (0.6)                  0.38 (0.45)
M                  0.55 (0.66)              0.41 (0.5)
S                  0.75 (0.9)                0.56 (0.68)

Damage table
K98_elite vs infantry armour            15
vs airborne armour (vet1 strelky)      11.3

Mosin_nagant vs grens (vet3 strelky 1.2dmg in brackets)
vs vet0/1 infantry armour                12 (14.4)
vs vet2 elite armour                      9.6 (11.5)
vs vet3 health bonus                      7.7 (9.2)

Vet 2 and 3 grens cost the wehr player 400MP (+100 for KKC) 80FU and 700MP (+100 for KKC) 150FU. Whereas vet 3 command squads take 7/14/32 xp to vet and strelky take 6/12/18. A volk/pio is worth 1xp and grens/weapon crews are worth 2xp. Also note that command squads get the vet from units they kill with their arty callin they get at vet1. Wehr vet is permanent once researched whereas Soviet vet is lost with the unit, though the command squad vet is global.

All this is assuming the patchnotes are correct of course, since I can't actually find vet bonuses in corsix. By this analysis though, the problem clearly lies in Strelky vet 1 airborne armour. It allows comparable damage mitigation to elite armour and is also better on the move, leading to the prevalence of choosing PPShs over DP-28s. The command squad vet stacked with this armour leads to further problems. Also, the bonus from the command squad gives too much, seeing as a vet 3 offensive aura is more powerful than vet 3 grens (not taking into account accuracy) on top of the strelky vet that is available.

Interesting as the discussion is, snipers rifles, and doctrinal trees seem to be a bit off topic guys!

Supply yard building or supply yard upgrade; that is the question.

The v601 mp maintenance costs pose a real burden for tech development/ OB deployable unit quantities, for the Soviets on low-cap mp maps. The Cottbus map is a perfect example. Eight low mp points on the map; Hold six of them, outpost five of these. Field an ambulance,three Katushkya's, one support unit, one or two tanks. You will find you are receiving 0 - 5 mps per minute. At the same time withn one fuel point outosted I've seen a fuel pool of over 2000 FP! Heaven help you if you haven't placed all your mines and made all the mp related tech upgrades prior to this because you will not be getting any more unless you kamikazi your OB; in which case good luck holding on to even 3 MPs.  AI players and non-Soviet Human players meanwhile can have 3 - 4 Tanks/ATGs, 2 ACs, 3 - 4 support units before they reach the pop cap limits.  In spite of this lo-cap munitions maps are fun to play.

The armory T5, has two available slots and the building roster has the T3 slot available. Personally I would like to see a 76.2 mm ATG in the armory and a BT series AC, (although ACs should probably go to T4).

The T3 building slot is probably this best approach. The two tiered US style supply yard could be imported easily enough. It would be worth it even without the veterancy buffs. Upgrades could include two or three unlocking steps and a series of one shot applications trading off population/munitions/fuel, directly or as done in the Blitzkrieg Doctrine production blitz. Suggested titles include "The heroic struggle of the Proletariat  to resupply Leningrad over the ice of Lake Ladoga" "Urals industrial relocation completed" "Lend Lease trucks carry munitions to the front". The slots are there and the coding would mostly duplicate existing capability.

Rejoining the off topic discussion: the Sharpshooter Squad is the most fun of all the CoH TO&E. The impact of multiple snipers could be nerfed by (a).  Increasing the base maintenance munitions cost/tick. (b). Logarhthymically increasing the base maintenance munitions cost/tick for each additional squad after the first.

Slightly off topic: Soviet outposts are excellent but why a one unit garrison and a ten pop cap?

+1^^ I like the upkeep cost' reduction ideas, and the sharpshooters' logarithmic (=progressive) upkeep increase.

I love how EF makes you feel like a complete idiot and a jackass--and yet you can't stop writing down all the statistics you just learned  :D lawl, at least someone paid attention to what I posted. Again; I run off of what goes on in-game, not the nitty-gritty statistics themselves.

+1 I like the idea because after all it was the soviet industrial war machine/huge manpower reserves that gave the soviets their overwhelming advantage

they had the most infantry men and produced the most tanks, for fractions of the cost of competing militarys! with even more of an emphasis on this than the US so it makes perfect sense to me and a lot of intelligent others