Breakthrough Doctrine- Mechanics

While they can be useful because of their advanced repair, I'm just not seeing a good reason to justify their cost which, while cheap, may not necessarily be worth it. Unless in some dire situation, I would always go for 2 extra ingenery which can repair almost as fast as a mechanic team and offers considerably more firepower than 4 pistols which are practically useless in combat. Luftwaffe ground forces at least have 5 rifles and the ability to construct unique flakvierlings right off the bat but I just am not seeing the position of mechanics in a practical situation. Maybe give them Mosins or maybe give them the sapper's "Expert Engineers" upgrade to boot, letting them overrepair things?

i would still get them, even if they arent as good. they look beast.

They can speed up tank stuff :P. Although thats not too helpful is it? I think the mechanics lack something special but unfortunately I don't think they are being changed :(.

And IMO they dont look that great. They are mechanics after all :P.

whaaat? those tan berets?? the pistols??

Mechanics are as good as they are. They aren't supposed to fight, but repair or speed up building tanks. That's enough. 2 squads of Ingenery cost 8 pop cap, while mechanics only 4 popcap. They also are very good in repairing tanks fast.

Building field defenses is also a plus

They repair almost ridicalous fast?

is their repair rate equivalent to an advanced repair Panzer Grenadier?
And I agree with the population cap, but as of now I would compare them to vCoH Wehr officers. And, while maybe late-game the population cap could matter, they are not really needed early game as two ingenery which are only IIRC 40 more manpower than one mechanic squad can split up and build field defenses twice as fast. I know they shouldn't fight, but I feel that 260 manpower tied up in a non-fighting/repair/increased production/field defense constructor leaves something to be desired with its impact on the battlefield. I can't see situations where mechanics end up turning the tide of a battle...

bopokippo wrote:
I can't see situations where mechanics end up turning the tide of a battle...

If you have no more ingynery as they are useless to build unless you have Sturmovie, need a Mine detector, or you need to build a firebase. Mechanics help with a mobile army and help immensly with armor rushes like T3 T70-T90.

They're like Luftwaffe Ground Infantry. They are utter shit in combat (unless you grab a Shreck or LMG) but their practicality in other fields like advanced repair and building emplacements and speeding production in the tank hall can greatly benefit an armored-warfare player.

As for me, I know personally that I have decent infantry micro until mid-late game, where I tend to have to blob as when I play with a mousepad I can find it difficult to manage and maintain large armies of multipurpose infantry. However I have stellar tank micro (Or at least try to) because those are more valuable investments, and mechanics help my mobile army quite enough.

Also, it can be noted getting that T-34, KV, or IS-2 with longer build times out on the field faster can tip the battle.

+the upgrades needed to get the tanks in the first place can be sped up which imo is a great help.

They're extremely useful, whenever I play breakthrough I get one of these, they repair soviet tanks at a much faster rate than ingeneries. Which makes my enemies cry because the ISU 152 gets to full health much faster than his King Tiger :]

I think they're worthless. Ingenery do just fine. The mechanics can't even build any new stuff, unlike the Luftwaffe. Speeding up tank production is meh. I don't think I've ever really needed the increased production.

I think they should be taken out in favor of something else. I never use them, and when I used to, they never changed anything. Why not just replace them with increased vehicle production and advanced repair? Doesn't have to be the first thing you get either. I mean, that's all people use them for anyway. Why make people spend manpower and have them be killable when you can just make it passive and maybe make it cost 1 command point more? Something like...

"Advanced Ingenery"

"Decrease the production time of all vehicles by x%, and enables Ingenery to repair vehicles at an increased rate."

Or they could just do something like the Americans have with Field Repairs (or whatever it was called) where you spend munitions to repair your tanks. Mechanics are slow, frail, and inconvenient.

Last edited March 11, 2012 at 4:00 AM by vikingsteve

^This. This is 100% true.

Agreed, mechanics are worthless. I would love to see lend-lease return maybe a Valentine, Churchill, Stuart, or white scout car call in.

Giving a new tank call-in to a doctrine already filled with tank call-ins is not what I'd call good idea ;).

and even if that was a good idea what kind of tank would be filled in given that all the practical tanks have been implemented already? Mechanics are not meant to fight since the pistols are more for fending off kettenkrads rather than actually contributing to the fight. Although i would not mind if they showed up in a halftrack or something so that they can get to where i need them to be alot sooner than they do when they hoof it.

Yes, I had the same idea in the past :). Don't suggested it before because we don't have any soviet vehicle that can be used as transport.

jdogg wrote:
Mechanics are not meant to fight since the pistols are more for fending off kettenkrads

LOL even this statement is too much IMO :P. Their pistols are complete crap. ;D

Mechanics are now 260 MP so they are comparable to LGF. LGF gets to build things like Flak 38s and 88s while Mechanics get to speed up tanks. I think its a good trade off. Its not the best trade off but looking at the doctrine as a whole, its okay considering how all the other abilities are like ridiculously powerful :P. And you must remember not all abilities are amazing  ::). And Mechanics can pick up weapons :P.

ive been watching this thread, and imo, mechanics do not need a buff or any other abilities/reward tanks. breakthrough is already a very strong doc, so if you dont like mechanics, dont get them. players shouldn't be doctrine reliant as is.

Mechanics are useful in utility but Breakthrough lacks a munitions sink other than the existing two abilities and cage armor.

Cranialwizard wrote:
Mechanics are useful in utility but Breakthrough lacks a munitions sink other than the existing two abilities

Whats the other ability? Inspiring Speech? How much muni does that cost ???

Inspiring Speech-50
Cage Armor-75
IL2-200

I wouldn't call IL2 strike a munitions sink because it is a late game ability that cost quite a bit of munitions that can't be used often.

IL-2 is a beast though. 1 use, 1 own.

Not necessarily, if you are using Wehr, you can get Ostwind and blow them out of the sky. As amis use Quad 50 to rip the Sturmoviks apart.

hmm. fair enough. but then it will just land on the ostwind. still owned.

why would quad 50 friendly fire?

stealthattack1 wrote:
hmm. fair enough. but then it will just land on the ostwind. still owned.

You realize how unlikely this is :P. Not only is COH AA inaccurate but the plane rarley hits anywhere you want. If this ever happens let me know :P

stealthattack1 wrote:
why would quad 50 friendly fire?

He is referring to the US SU matchup which has no standing here :P

I agree with Cat Fishy the  Breakthrough Doctrine is fine as is.

Should a different call-in be required for this Doctrine I suggest a BA-64 Armored Car.

Use mechanics to build base defenses, outposts, and Staging areas-Zis Good Humor Truck. In moving between these areas build defences to channalize enemy attacks.

@ Cranial: If you are looking for muni-sink from a Balancer/developer POV play around with the recharge/cooldown times to increase use of the global sprint ability. Question: Does the Rate of Fire increase when sprint is energized? I think it reduces suppression too?

BTW I saw a Stormovik attack on the Kursk map once. 2 wirbelwinds were adjacent to Sov Base. I am not sure what sector was targeted. I stopped to watch. Stormovics crashed all around. The Sov base was destroyed by the falling planes. The Wirbelwinds sustained little or no damage. It was glorious.

Last edited March 27, 2012 at 9:45 PM by Otto 213

Otto wrote:
BTW I saw a Stormovik attack on the Kursk map once. 2 wirbelwinds were adjacent to Sov Base. I am not sure what sector was targeted. I stopped to watch. Stormovics crashed all around. The Sov base was destroyed by the falling planes. The Wirbelwinds sustained little or no damage. It was glorious.

see? this stuff does happen.  :D i was joking anyway though.

Does anyone know How much a mechanic/Wehr Officer speeds production? It will probably be in the form of a number, that is less than 1.
Does vet change this number?

its a 25% increase IIRC. And I dont think vet helps :(

Yes and the Wher officer has great abilites, in addition to the production buff.

The Officer ability gives +100% more speed for research and unit training. Everything will be done twice as fast.

vikingsteve wrote:
I think they're worthless. Ingenery do just fine. The mechanics can't even build any new stuff, unlike the Luftwaffe. Speeding up tank production is meh. I don't think I've ever really needed the increased production.

I think they should be taken out in favor of something else. I never use them, and when I used to, they never changed anything. Why not just replace them with increased vehicle production and advanced repair? Doesn't have to be the first thing you get either. I mean, that's all people use them for anyway. Why make people spend manpower and have them be killable when you can just make it passive and maybe make it cost 1 command point more? Something like...

"Advanced Ingenery"

"Decrease the production time of all vehicles by x%, and enables Ingenery to repair vehicles at an increased rate."

Or they could just do something like the Americans have with Field Repairs (or whatever it was called) where you spend munitions to repair your tanks. Mechanics are slow, frail, and inconvenient.

Cranialwizard wrote:
Mechanics are useful in utility but Breakthrough lacks a munitions sink other than the existing two abilities and cage armor.

I don't have a problem with Mechanics. If Mechanics must be replaced I suggest an anti-tank mine. (Presuming the Sovs had them). Kill two birds with one stone. (Sounds like something Sun Tzu would say). :P

*Cough* Men against tanks *Cough*

Tankbuster wrote:
*Cough* Men against tanks *Cough*

qft

qft means what?

QFT = Quoted For Truth

If mechanics get a new ability it should be support, i.e. Over-repair, Stat Buff. They are meant to support assaults not shore up a defense.

MBJrP36 wrote:
If mechanics get a new ability it should be support, i.e. Over-repair, Stat Buff. They are meant to support assaults not shore up a defense.

I don't understand your position. Mechanics are support troops, a new support ability is fine; although Over-repair is not attractive to me. Yes Mechanics repair tanks but they are not frontline troops, if they were they would be armed with submachineguns or rifles. They already have defencing abilities; but minelaying is not one of them. I am happy with Mechanics as is, although rifles would be nice to deal with base raids and infiltrators.

I would be less than honest if I didn't tell you I was suggesting anti-tank mines as a replacement for Mechanic Squads. But now that you mention it I like the Idea of giving Mechanics an anti-tank mine.

With men against tanks TH have that ability already.

Oops! :P

thats why i quoted tankbuster, for truth ;)

Granted I didn't think about "men against tanks". My bad, but why not allow Mechanics an AT mine . NI get molotovs, but only after an upgrade. If Molotovs are not OP for NI, AT mines would make Mechanics OP?

We are talking about two things here. Players kvetching about how pathetic Mechanics are. Balancers are Kvetching about having a munitions sink.

i dont think anyone said AT mines for mechanics were OP, just that they were unneeded because men against tanks.

IL-2 seems muni sink enough for me.

I am with you brother. As I indicated before I don't have a problem with mechanics. Sure they could have more utility, but The defencing abilities meet my needs pretty well. It would be useful if they could cut wire though.

I mostly save my munis for sturmovic runs too. Perhaps we are missing a bet here. When engaged in a compstomp vs Sovs the AI seems to activate "inspiring Speech" wether attacking or withdrawing. I don't understand all the mechanics of using this ability. I believe it to be the "Fire up" ability on a global scale. the increased speed and reduced suppression are helpful especially since all my infantry gets the advantage for all more munis than focus fire. Since defensive vet increases the speed and effectiveness of PG/ST44s when making attack moves. It may work the same way with Stormovie, CS and or Tank Rider style Guards. It doesn't improve Strelky/SMGs. I'm uncertain that Stormovie is improved with use of the inspired speech. any comments?

As far as I'm aware, the only effect of inspired speech is getting +1 speed (3 becomes 4 in most cases) and you can't move and fire. There should be no suppression resistance or any other effect.

Thanks Dennis.

Hey I don't think people know how to use the new boards in the S&T section. People are viewing and responding to my posts. But no-one else has posted on any of the Boards. I know Sunday, Monday I guess for you; is the busiest day of the week, if there is no action at all you'all might review the concept. I know JoeLong has created a new PE S&T thread but He's a new member and can't be expected to grasp the all the doo-dads right away.

Otto

As I've said before Mechanics are pretty useless, but believe it or not they're more effective in combat than ingineery... of course I'd rather have two squads of ingineery than the one squad of Mechanics for about the same price... unless you're playing in a pop capped game and don't have the population for ingineery.

They used to be good when they could build defenses and stuff, you could call them in at the start of the game to block bridges and build MG nests.

Increased production was always worthless, 3 squads of mechanics wont speed up tank production as much as a Wehrmacht officer... so you could spend the 780 manpower on three squads of mechanics or just 200 manpower and 50 fuel on a second tank hall which would effectively double your production speed.

...just another overzealously nerfed soviet unit really.

Personally I'd say get rid of the increased tank production and give them an actually useful ability like repairing tank wrecks as a bergetiger does, then they'd be a good unit.

Yhcrana wrote:
As I've said before Mechanics are pretty useless, but believe it or not they're more effective in combat than ingineery... of course I'd rather have two squads of ingineery than the one squad of Mechanics for about the same price... unless you're playing in a pop capped game and don't have the population for ingineery.

They used to be good when they could build defenses and stuff, you could call them in at the start of the game to block bridges and build MG nests.

On which map is that useful?

Yhcrana wrote:
Increased production was always worthless, 3 squads of mechanics wont speed up tank production as much as a Wehrmacht officer... so you could spend the 780 manpower on three squads of mechanics or just 200 manpower and 50 fuel on a second tank hall which would effectively double your production speed.

...just another overzealously nerfed soviet unit really.

several squads of mechanics will not multiplice production. One mechanics squad improves production speed as same as a officer. I guess you lost several games using your taktik.

Yhcrana wrote:
Personally I'd say get rid of the increased tank production and give them an actually useful ability like repairing tank wrecks as a bergetiger does, then they'd be a good unit.

yeah and expremely OP

Killar wrote:

Yhcrana wrote:
They used to be good when they could build defenses and stuff, you could call them in at the start of the game to block bridges and build MG nests.

On which map is that useful?

id say the man has a point.