Tiger Ace Resource Penalty

Some allies players complain that it is not fair when you lose the Tiger right away, you get all the resource back, so it's rewarding "rushing the tiger, rapes everything before it dies".
While some axis players don't like it when the Ace is alive, you get resource penalty, and it doesn't go away after 30 mins.

So how about we bring back the old vCoH King Tiger formula? Call in -> resource penalty for 5 minutes or more -> after that, back to normal. Solves the complains.
The KT call in was 500 manpower as I remember, and manpower rate decrese by 50% for 5 minutes, in that case the King Tiger cost more than 1300 manpower in total

Thoughts?

It would be too good if they reverted to the old system. Also remember that in coh1 all call in tanks did not cost fuel. In coh2 only the tiger ace doesn't cost fuel.

I guess this would destroy the whole gameplay atm :/

They had to increase the manpower costs so heavy then, that nobody would be able to call them in again

I like the resource penalty to apply while the Ace is alive.

Otherwise it would be played very defensively and it would be very hard to deal with, specially in teamgames.

Tiger Ace is an amazing tank (yet it was even more amazing before the nerfs) so it has to be a high risk high reward unit. Especially in 1 v 1 your enemy has to put all his focus to destroy this single tank and that takes time.
Imagine facing of a Tiger Ace as allies covered by hordes of inf.

The current resource penalty works fine. About the only issue with the TA is the total lack of a fuel cost.

It's not a total lack of fuel cost. Fuel drops to zero after you call it in.

It's not a total lack of fuel cost. Fuel drops to zero after you call it in.

Actually, its 90% fuel penalty, you can still pump out 221 and 251 if you're willing to or use elite training.

Also, its not like you will not have a shitload of fuel by the time you can call TA, so 2-3 panzers on field are not rarity if you don't suicide.

Where's the "remove this superhero unit from the game" option?

I take option C.

Give the Tiger Ace a fuel price and take away every drain.

At the current state you get punished if you dont lose the Ace after some time, because the drain never stops.

I have the feeling, balance wise its better to just dont buy the Ace on credit.

Having a formula bound to time would mean the unit gets called in and then people just camp out the timer.
Having it decrease the income as long as it is alive causes people to rush it, kill more with it than it's value.

I still think the second is better. There are a few mechanics in place that make sure that suiciding it is probably not the best way to go.

First of all the price, 800 manpower. Throwing that away in the lategame is really problematic as 800 MP roughly translates into something between 4 and 6 minutes worth of MP income.

Second the drain is mostly fuel. 90% fuel and 25% manpower income. Since the call-in costs no fuel, this part barely matters as you basically get a Tiger on top of your standard mid/lategame tanks. 25% lower manpower income still allows you to play somewhat normal. With full popcap that's 75MP/min instead of 150MP/min, but with a TA you rarely need full popcap as this unit is extremely strong for it's pop. Fielding a 80 / 90 pop army with a TA is similarly strong than a 100 pop normal one. This allows you to softly 'counter' the drain.

Third - The unit has a huge value. 6464 Experience value if killed, a Gren squad for example is worth 480. If you rush it in you often take a lot of unnecessary damage and the fact the enemy gets so much experience from attacking the TA means it's not that hard to come out on top.

Now on to the numbers:
90% fuel / 25% manpower. Since I suggested that to Relic, the thought behind it is that the Tiger Ace should be an elite tank. In the old version it reduced the manpower income to 0, which made the infantry actually feel far more important. As you couldn't replace them or reinforce them, their value got massively inflated due to the TA making it pale a bit in comparison. Now you can still field infantry (though a bit hindered), but tanks are harder to field. This to a degree should really mean infantry is supporting the TA, scouting for it, not just hiding behind it and repairing if damaged.

Concerning your comparison to the vCoH KT:
Comparing vCoH and CoH2 is not that easy, so I wouldn't look at the MP costs. If you want the TA value fully in MP it's ~3k Manpower. Since up front costs are usually more problematic, let's assume 150 MP/min to compensate for that. This would mean you have 800MP up front cost and ~15 minutes with no MP income or 30 minutes with 50% income.

If you have 0 fuel and 0 manpower income it would be (assume 50% of the map captured) 150 + 130, so roughly 8 minutes without income. To be fully honest, I'd rather have unlimited time with -25% MP income and the (barely mattering) fuel decrease than 8 minutes without Manpower.