Ambulance speed

Well it used to be super fast and ridiculous during the alpha, but they got rid of that since it's supposed to be vulnerable.

If relic could simply improve it pathing, because I'm pretty sure to lose my ambulance not because of his inexistent acceleration and speed, but because the driver is drunk all the time.

I see that you have capitalized "pay". Last I checked, I had to pay for an ambulance. The ambulance is not more powerful than other medics. You can't even really quantify the medic cost for OKW, because they get it as a package deal. It's not mobile, but can be put in a good position, no delay on healing, a huge amount of armor and hp, and it's a shot blocker. It's a different cost for a different level of utility.

So ambulance is op, because it can heal more than 3 squads at a time? It doesn't even stay active long enough to fully heal badly damaged troops. The ambulance can only do 1 thing and has limits placed on it's operation, so having a decent amount of acceleration proportional to a real ambulance is not something that will make balance worse. 250/10 is not exactly cheap for something that is going to take up your pop cap and not fight. It's actually pretty close to the cost of half-tracks without the teching cost.

You pay less.



OKW have a 70 munitions 3 pack of medkits to heal individual squads and the Medic truck. (Which cost 40 fuel to upgrade to, and the medics can be killed temporarily/have to walk to the units to heal them.)

Wehrmacht have a 60 munitions upgrade on a bunker, and can only pick EITHER reinforce or heal. They also have single use medkits as vet 1.

"pretty close to the cost of halftracks".

Halftracks are 30 fuel. And you can't fucking discount teching costs. The amount of time and resources it takes to get mobile reinforcement for other factions is much longer, and they can't heal their troops at the same time either. (Healing reduces bleed in future fights, reducing the amount you need to reinforce.)


Anyway I'm not saying ambulance is OP. I'm saying that it shouldn't be able to zip away easily if your army is pushed off because it's such a powerful defensive tool. Kind of like how if you're forced to retreat the enemy can destroy your bunker.

I don't agree that it's less, especially since it "has to be vulnerable" how much are you going to end up paying for medical services against a competent opponent? Basically it looks like the thought process is:

If you are USF and your staging area is reached, you should lose your staging support to minimal fire.

Now the other factions and methods do not suffer this. If you find a wm or soviet players staging area, you are greeted with stiff resistance from possibly injured squads (that will reinforce rapidly) and various effective fire from the support unit itself (quad, mg, flamethrower). The difference in cost being what, 20 fuel? If you run into an okw staging area, you may or may not get fired upon by a nearby schwerer hq, but you will be unable to destroy the support building, unless you've brought penetrating weapons with you. That supply trucks conversion might cost more than ambulance, but it also has more to offer than just field reinforcement and medical services. It also acts a shot-blocker so 1 man squads can run around it until fully reinforced.

You say teching costs can't be fucking ignored? Yea they can. The reason for that, is because you can buy more than 1 of whatever it is. The initial halftrack has a tech cost. It also shares that tech cost with the initial t34, and the initial pak40, along with other essential battle tools. So when considering the cost of a t34 and a halftrack, are you going to tack on the tech costs to both? That makes no sense. The tech costs are more of a function of time rather than resource. USF does not have to spend any time to get ambo, yet it's not very strong or useful in combat. The halftracks are delayed to the battlefield but are VERY useful in combat, especially with upgrades.

For arguments regarding the arrival time of something, I think the tech costs of the initial unit then become valid. Here discussing the general balance of the ambulance, I don't think it's as useful in comparing to other reinforcement vehicles, considering the different strengths and weaknesses of all of them.

I also feel the whole argument (that I guess relic also shares) about the ambulance being too strong if it has the acceleration to get away is just insane. It's beyond troll levels. Relic has put escape mechanics in everything from infantry to light vehicles, to allow them to be used in an aggressive manner. Yet a believable acceleration for a truck is too much? This is so hypocritical! Look at how a panther can zoom in on a massive kill-zone, bounce all the AT shots off it's incredible front armor, the player thinks "oh shit!" in his mind, pops blitz, that causes all the AT to miss entireley, and the panther is out in no time. That's not OP, but giving a little truck acceleration greater than the 2nd heaviest vehicle in the game upsets the balance?! We can still give the little Kubelwagon, which if I understand right literally costs less than the ambulance in mp and fuel (and tech costs? Not sure of that, someone feel free to help me out on that), can zip around with the greatest speed and a respectable acceleration along with being able to eat an anti-tank round and survive! Not only that, but there obviously must be a difference between the target size of the ambo and kubel, because at weapons don't miss the ambo like the do the kubel.

If a 10 fuel ambo is too OP with believable stats, then maybe that needs to change. The unit is way too slow and vulnerable as it is. In most players it's promoting defensive play, which I don't think this community enjoys a lot.

Someone on the forums suggested the following before and I would like to reiterate it. The US medics should have an ability similar to the major, which ties the medics to a point of your choice. They should heal any soldiers that are out of combat in the region but then RETURN to the 'healing point' once they have finished or the receiving unit has walked out of the aura/area. This would stop your medics from romping half way across the map to then be shouted at by you the player, or gunned down

This is brilliant

Damn Vaz DAMN! lol.

To anyone that thinks an Ambulance with better stats would be OP then just increase the cost. Ill pay for it. As it stands Its just almost always a loss. And a loss that hurts.

Take the damn healing off of it unless the Medic is out for all I care. Just make the damn thing something you can preserve at least as easily as a half track.

I dont get the pushback I really dont. It is balanced by all the factors I listed in my previous post. I fail to see how it could be OP with more acceleration. I really dont. Or alternatively if more acceleration is SOOO BAD give it alot more health so it can at least escape 1 Squad. It tends to die to a single non AT squad way too quickly.

Ciez probably got owned in the alpha and the devs listened to him. Remember back then there was a lot of OP american stuff, like the aaht had no counter. Since then USF got nerfed a lot, but these little things stick.

+ Mobile healing and reinforcement point. Use it to zeh max,
- slow as f***

Why even bother to discuss?

If you are USF and your staging area is reached, you should lose your staging support to minimal fire.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

I'm saying if the US is routed (mass retreat of his infantry) then his forward ambulance should be easy pickings, or should have to start leaving before the opponent completely overruns their position.

The whole function of the ambulance is tied to not moving. It's fragile and cannot get away. This makes placement of it absolutely key to proper usage of the unit. It's what makes it interesting. If you remove either of those weaknesses (fragility or ability to escape) then positioning matters less and the extreme benefits of the unit are no longer offset by as much risk.

You should have to micromanage your ambulance. If you want him to stick around, have the medic hop out and go to town with his pistol or something.

you've got one foot in both camps here now. Your saying it should require micromanagement and you should have to start leaving before the opponent overruns you, but then you say what makes it interesting is that it's fragile and can't get away. What is it? If a 222 suddenly arrives where you are reinforcing, you just lost ambulance. PanzerIV shows up, lost ambulance. Tiger shows up, lost ambulance. Falls come out the building behind you, even if you rip them up, your going to lose that ambulance. The way it is right now, it's very exploitable. Yes I know trading 400mp for a 250/10 unit is not a smart trade, but if timed right it puts USF over the slippery slope. Even with good scouting it is a challenge to get the ambulance out of harms way and micro tends to be trumped by how much of the battlefield you can see.

I'm honestly amazed that this is even an argument. The ambulance accelerates slower than a king tiger and that's apparently fine. Well, okay then.

Or you could give it overdrive.



Or blitzkrieg...

Romeo, what do you want?
The Ambulance is the best Support unit in the game, allowing you to do forward reinforcements and free-of-charge simultaneous AoE healing, at Tier 0, for a laughable 10 fuel.
It needs to have some disadvantages.

I think it's fine as it is.
You can place it very tactical and it's meant to be used stationary.
It has 2 abilities that are really strong on the battlefield (free AOE heal for everyone + reinforce), so it's logical that it has a downside = being slow.

I think it's fine as it is.
You can place it very tactical and it's meant to be used stationary.
It has 2 abilities that are really strong on the battlefield (free AOE heal for everyone + reinforce), so it's logical that it has a downside = being slow.

awesome, so your in agreement with a significant armor and hp increase, the removal of the need to be in connected territory, and reducing the cool-down of the healing ability in half. I think we are getting somewhere now.

awesome, so your in agreement with a significant armor and hp increase, the removal of the need to be in connected territory, and reducing the cool-down of the healing ability in half. I think we are getting somewhere now.

Just a question, how does it seem like he's agreeing with armour and hp increase actually? It doesn't seem like that in any way.

He said the ambulance should have a downside, not like 5 of them. So we can get rid of all the other disadvantages and just leave the slow acceleration.

He said the ambulance should have a downside, not like 5 of them. So we can get rid of all the other disadvantages and just leave the slow acceleration.

At this point, Vaz, you're just picking holes in wording. You can win all the forum wars you want with pedantry and twisting of sentences, but you should realize that it won't change the ambulance in-game one iota.

He said the ambulance should have a downside, not like 5 of them. So we can get rid of all the other disadvantages and just leave the slow acceleration.

Sounds like you used what he said to your advantage.


Anyway, I still stand by giving M3A1 scout car overdrive to it. At least spend some ammo if you want to get it away from the front quickly.

Well it's stimulating for me while dealing with the frustration.

awesome, so your in agreement with a significant armor and hp increase, the removal of the need to be in connected territory, and reducing the cool-down of the healing ability in half. I think we are getting somewhere now.

No.