Caches, Soviet merge, Fuel drops...

In team games, you can help your teammates by giving them resources, most commonly done through,

Fuel and muni - Building caches or call in fuel drops

But there is no way you could give 'manpower', imagine you have alot of manpower that you can spare some for your teammates? Make Soviet's cons merge ability universal! This mean they should be possible to merge into all allied frontline units in the game (with a few exceptions ofc like call-ins).

Firstly, I'm not entirely sure if this is possible, from a technical standpoint.

Secondly, this would be incredibly gimmicky, and would open up so many bizarre team-game strategies, most of which I think would be game breaking.

What happens if your targeted teammate is at pop-cap? Does this allow them to go over infinitely if you keep merging into 1-model squads? What happens if my teammate has 100 1-model squads? The "supplying" player only needs one squad, so their MP upkeep would stay high, and the "receiving" player doesn't need to spend MP to reinforce, so the 'over pop-cap' MP drain wouldn't matter.

Wiping vetted squads would become nigh-impossible with a coordinated team. Is my Vet 3, Double Bren IS squad about to be wiped? My Sov teammate can merge and save the weapons AND vet.

What happens when two (or more) soviet players play together? Wipe 5/6 models in one squad and a teammate can instantly restore the squad to full - meaning the first squad wouldn't need to retreat. The second squad could essentially act as a "model mule" for another teammate. That first player would then, as a result, gain vet much faster (as their squads are constantly in combat) while also floating tons of MP, meaning they could call in more squads...

Look Ivan, I'm Amerikan now.

wow this gun go PING! when is out of bullets Cyka.

Look Ivan, I'm Amerikan now.

wow this gun go PING! when is out of bullets Cyka.

+1

Look Ivan, I'm Amerikan now.
wow this gun go PING! when is out of bullets Cyka.

And Ivan could also be a brit tea sapper too

Firstly, I'm not entirely sure if this is possible, from a technical standpoint.

Secondly, this would be incredibly gimmicky, and would open up so many bizarre team-game strategies, most of which I think would be game breaking.

What happens if your targeted teammate is at pop-cap? Does this allow them to go over infinitely if you keep merging into 1-model squads? What happens if my teammate has 100 1-model squads? The "supplying" player only needs one squad, so their MP upkeep would stay high, and the "receiving" player doesn't need to spend MP to reinforce, so the 'over pop-cap' MP drain wouldn't matter.

Wiping vetted squads would become nigh-impossible with a coordinated team. Is my Vet 3, Double Bren IS squad about to be wiped? My Sov teammate can merge and save the weapons AND vet.

What happens when two (or more) soviet players play together? Wipe 5/6 models in one squad and a teammate can instantly restore the squad to full - meaning the first squad wouldn't need to retreat. The second squad could essentially act as a "model mule" for another teammate. That first player would then, as a result, gain vet much faster (as their squads are constantly in combat) while also floating tons of MP, meaning they could call in more squads...

Well, it will open up alot of strategies that would be fun too but if you insist that it will be OP then just let Ostrupen have the same ability too.

I like the spirit but hard no

If you have lots of manpower to spare, it would be the right time to stop camping and push.

Outside of possible bugs and imbalanced it could bring, i think this would just be a mess of "T pose" or no weapon animation conscript models.

I voted no

Related question, would it be OP if all squads could merge with a squad of the exact same type? (not across players, just within your own army)

So grens can merge with grens, obers with obers, guards with guards, etc.

I voted no

Related question, would it be OP if all squads could merge with a squad of the exact same type? (not across players, just within your own army)

So grens can merge with grens, obers with obers, guards with guards, etc.

I think with how buggy merge is anything less than a 6 man squad would just be a problem waiting to happen. Hell even 6 men it's problematic if rng wills it. Keep in mind also the trade off for merge is a larger target size and no on field medical. I think it would be buggy and bad for balance

Related question, would it be OP if all squads could merge with a squad of the exact same type? (not across players, just within your own army)

So grens can merge with grens, obers with obers, guards with guards, etc.

Outside of the issues 'thedarkarmadillo' mentioned, it really comes down to the question of:

Do we want instantaneous reinforcement in the game?

That's really what this discussion turns into. Take two gren squads, for example; one is Vet 3 w/ an LMG, but is down to one model, and the other is a freshly built squad (vet 0, full HP/Models). Merging the Vet 0 squad with the Vet 3 squad brings the much more powerful and expensive squad back to full size (i.e. models) instnantly, essentially letting you transfer the "this squad must retreat" status to a less 'expensive' unit. Additionally, since they are the same squad types, there's no downside.

The only way this could work (IMO) is if the 'merging' squad was objectively worse. This way, while the 'target squad' is instantly restored to full model count, the quality of those models is far worse than if it had retreated and reinforced normally. For example, I don't think letting pioneers merge with anything would be too OP; a gren squad consisting of a normal gren model w/ LMG and 3 pioneers would be pretty terrible.

Outside of the issues 'thedarkarmadillo' mentioned, it really comes down to the question of:

Do we want instantaneous reinforcement in the game?

That's really what this discussion turns into. Take two gren squads, for example; one is Vet 3 w/ an LMG, but is down to one model, and the other is a freshly built squad (vet 0, full HP/Models). Merging the Vet 0 squad with the Vet 3 squad brings the much more powerful and expensive squad back to full size (i.e. models) instnantly, essentially letting you transfer the "this squad must retreat" status to a less 'expensive' unit. Additionally, since they are the same squad types, there's no downside.

The only way this could work (IMO) is if the 'merging' squad was objectively worse. This way, while the 'target squad' is instantly restored to full model count, the quality of those models is far worse than if it had retreated and reinforced normally. For example, I don't think letting pioneers merge with anything would be too OP; a gren squad consisting of a normal gren model w/ LMG and 3 pioneers would be pretty terrible.

I was under the impression that the models that get "transferred" kept their stats, including the veterancy of the squad they were originally in? Then when they die and get reinforced normally they have the same vet as the squad. I thought they only got the weapon of the squad they merged with

I could be 100% wrong about that. And i guess even if it somehow didnt cause balance issues, it's bound to cause too many bugs to be worth it like armadillo said

I was under the impression that the models that get "transferred" kept their stats, including the veterancy of the squad they were originally in? Then when they die and get reinforced normally they have the same vet as the squad. I thought they only got the weapon of the squad they merged with

I could be 100% wrong about that. And i guess even if it somehow didnt cause balance issues, it's bound to cause too many bugs to be worth it like armadillo said

Merge transfers model stats. Health, target size, armour. Everything else is at a squad level. Guns, vet modifiers, abilities ect are based off the mergee. For example you could have an entire squad of guards that is essentially a guard squad in every way, but all the models are conscripts. They will have button and nade ect but be easier to hit.

Look Ivan, I'm Amerikan now.

wow this gun go PING! when is out of bullets Cyka.

+1111111111

I would like this feature implemented to aid other SU players. It should work around most if not all situations.

True communism in the frontlines! Its OUR war after all! (read it comically please)

So i voted Yes.

As everyone said to aid other allied factions is just going to wake up a pandoras box of exploits and bugs

I was under the impression that the models that get "transferred" kept their stats, including the veterancy of the squad they were originally in? Then when they die and get reinforced normally they have the same vet as the squad. I thought they only got the weapon of the squad they merged with

I could be 100% wrong about that. And i guess even if it somehow didnt cause balance issues, it's bound to cause too many bugs to be worth it like armadillo said

As Armadillo pointed out, merged squad members keep their base stats - so HP, Armor (if any), target size/RA, and so on, but they gain the vet bonuses and weapons of the target squad.

For example, merging a vet 0 'no upgrades' con squad with a 1-model vet 3 PPSH con squad results in that vet 3 squad having the exact same stats as if it had instead reinforced normally, since the base models are identical. The downsides come when merging with squads that normally have "better" models; so merging cons with Shocks, for example, results in the 'con models' being easier to hit and (iirc) having less armor.


While adding 'merge' to more squads would be interesting, I don't think it could be implemented well into CoH2. Perhaps in CoH3, it will be possible keep vet and other stats at a per model level, so that merging would have more trade-offs. "Weapon Proficiency" would also be an interesting stat to have, to give trade-offs when merging with weapon crews (why would a gren be trained to use an AT gun or Allied rocket arty?).

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Ahh okay, I thought they only got the weapon of the new squad. Thanks for clarifying guys

Ahh okay, I thought they only got the weapon of the new squad. Thanks for clarifying guys

Happy to help!

While adding 'merge' to more squads would be interesting, I don't think it could be implemented well into CoH2. Perhaps in CoH3, it will be possible keep vet and other stats at a per model level, so that merging would have more trade-offs. "Weapon Proficiency" would also be an interesting stat to have, to give trade-offs when merging with weapon crews (why would a gren be trained to use an AT gun or Allied rocket arty?).

I would add that im a big fan of the weapon proficiency idea. Stolen/re-crewed weapons being less efficient would be an interesting feature. Maybe return the default "proficiency" of a re-crewed weapon after they return to base or pay a small cost or something