true - but it changes nothing. One will prefer universal hidden mines and demo charges. Somebody else will love to use visible minefields and hidden tellers. It does not mean that pios are better because of those mines. The are just different. No price difference is justified because of that.
Well, it is the preference of a player but I like universal mines more. And signs are really helpful in making such minefields a munition sink, contrary to tripwire or regular mines. The sign posts mean that any careful player will simply avoid them. You have to be a few times better than your opponent to make them work well or simply be lucky and count on your opponent's not paying attention. You can place a few regular mines next to each other and have similar results as Soviets. Similarly, 50 muni for a teller may be easily lost because of the sweeper. If a teller is spotted you lose more muni than when a regular mine is spotted. Tellers usually give a player more time to spot them as infantry don't trigger them. Also tellers cripple mediums and other heavier vehicles just like regular mines (just more hp damage). The crippled engine is just the same. And it is the crippled engine that will cost you the vehicle most often and regular mines do that just fine. I'm not saying that tellers are worse. They are just different and do not justify the claim that pios are better at mining. I prefer Soviet universal mines and demos simply more than minefields and tellers. Definitely no price difference is justified between the engineers here.
The powers lies in the fact that is can be spammed and placed in many different places, which will stop any advance inflicting losses much more efficiently than 50muni teller or minefields that can be avoided more easily. Once again you should understand that it is really easy to accompany your t70 with a 170mp engineer and sweep. Your opponent will lose 50 munitions easily this way. Soviet universal mines will cripple the engine and you will finish such vehicles easily. There is usually only one t70 on the field so keeping a sweeper close is not a problem. You don't need another sweeper as a)minefields are visible b)tellers won't kill your infantry. When you confront Soviet universal mines you are at risk on any part of the map because mines will kill anything that walks over them and they are not visible. And usually this one pio (200 manpower) with sweeper can't be everywhere, so either you advance only on one side of the map or you risk loses. Soviets don't need to risk that much and can sidecap more easily.
Just place them using rotate camera function behind a building or other sight blocker and watch the fireworks. It is easier to spot ost minefiled than a well placed demo. You are sort of contradicting youself here - a minefiled with signs is good and signs make it not abusive while a small, less visible demo is bad? Minefield is easier to spot than the a demo! U also have much more time to react when you walk into a minefiled. Also the minefield is more expensive and thus more likely to become a muni sink. Demos are cheaper than minefields and can wipe the whole squad, even inside the building. If people can make minefields wipe squads a demo can be used even more easily.
But the sight radius is not that great on its own and shouldn't justify the 30mp price difference. It is not worth 30 extra manpower. It was also introduced only to make mg42 work as its setup and tear down times are very slow and it was vulnerable to flanks too much. UKF mgs just spot for themselves and they don't need pios next to them, for example, which is a bigger advantage. So basically pios have another function - to babysit mgs. IMO it is a disadvantage as they should lose extra sight and this extra sight should probably be given to mg42 arc after setup in a way similar to SU85 focus sight - less side sight and more forward sight. It is again a story similar to sandbags. Instead of givig them to grens (supposedly OP) they were given to pios. Yet, sections and conscripts have them. It is just incredible how someone can make access to sandbags more limited by not giving them to infantry. They give them to engineers instead, and then people say that pios are better. No they are not. It is better to build sandbags with cons while CEs can wire them. A much better combo. Again sandbags don't make pios worth 30mp more. If you feel pios should be more expensive because of sandbags you should advocate making conscripts more expensive than grens.
Only marginally better presence. When you drop a model you have to retreat anyway. The problem is that merge makes you not waste manpower. Healing costs munitions and you already paid munitions at the base to build a healing structure. So again you sink munitions using it. To make healing work again you need to be a better player and possibly combine it with a halftrack. Merge is simple and much more effective. Flares are basically better than healig, especially vs 4 men squads. Losing 30 manpower (gren model) or more (pzrgren) to 10 muni investment basically means an immediate retreat or taking high risk fighting with 3 men squad. Merge gives you more field presence and it is free and, most importantly, can be used in combat. With healing you have to pay munitions and still possibly retreat, which again makes it a munition sink.
It is not mental gymnastics. It is just trying to make you aware that Soviets at the moment have quite a few cheaper units that actually don't perform worse than more expensive counterparts on the other side. 180 mp pios and 170 manpower engineers would be just better for balance imo (especially if mg42 was made 10mp more expensive at the same time). Alternatively, they could be made cheaper to 170manpower after the last battlephase building is set up to make sure they can be replaced as effectively as soviet engies when wiped.
If pio,s only had one of these points over ce's you would be right that a single thing does not warrent 30mp price difference.
But the fact is pio,s have a lot more they give to or do for the faction then ce,s justifying 30 mp difference. You just dont want to see it.
Merge does not make you waste mp? So are you saying merging is free and without risk or drawback?
Healing in the field is less risky, merge is a tranfer of models to keep stuff on the field at the cost of another squads field presence.
Soviet spamming mines just delays the enemy. It does not wipe anything reliably. It also costs a conciderable higher amout of muni wich soviets dont have lying armore like in the old days. Placing 2 mines closely and having it wipe 4 models requires a really big amount of luck. Its not reliable to get that to work. You will almost always waste the second mine.
Conscripts have sandbags because they lack nades long range dps and ai upgrades that other main lines have. They also require the most expensive side tech. They are the only main line that should have them next to sections if they are supposed to hug cover every game all game.
If you care to share with me those units you think are on par but are cheaper. I cant think of one tbh.