STOM (Soviet Tech Overhaul Minimod) Public Announcement

Hello everyone! That's the old name, it's not just Soviets!

Ostheer Changest

- Assault Grenadiers have the Tactical Advance ability, same as Stormtroopers. Unlocked with Battle Phase 2 and Equipment Cache upgrade.

- Mobile Defense Doctrine has Fragmentation Bombs in place of Coutnerattack Tactics.

- Vet 2 no longer improves Rifle Grenade range on Grenadiers.

- Pioneers can now construct Tank Traps without doctrines.

- Defensive Doctrine and Ostruppen Doctrine Trench power replaced with Forward Supply Station, available at 0 CP for 200 MP and 40 Fuel. The FSS can repair vehicles, reinforce infantry, and it can spawn the new Flammenwerfer 41; an upgrade over Flammenwerfer 35 with less time between bursts and 1.5x times more damage against enemies in cover, at a cost of 80 munitions. You can still build trenches when you're at 2 CP.

- Defensive Doctrine Defensive Fortrifications ability is replaced by Model 24 Smoke Grenades. Panzergrenadiers and Grenadiers will be able to throw them at 2 CP.

- Panzergrenadier Jaeger Infantry Upgrade is now 120 Munitions for the 4 G43 variant and 60 for the 2 G43 variant. Defensive Stance ability added, which halves cooldown time and gives a flat accuracy increase at all ranges (meaning they scale better for longer ranges) while limiting the squad to prone position and making them immobile.

- Panzerwerfer now has 320 health, just like Walking Stuka.

- LeFH cost reduced to 500 MP.

- A lot of upgrades moved to Equipment Cache.

- Equipment Cache requred to build 251 Halftrack.

- Sector Artillery cost reduced to 100 muni. 200 is unrealistic for Ostheer.

- German Scout Car and Halftrack Infantry Awareness ability costs nothing, reduced from 10 munitions.

- Stormtroopers de-capture points 50% faster.

- Armored Vehicle Detection now doesn't cost any munitions, and has a reduced cooldown. (Stormtrooper anti-tank upgrade)

- Break Supply Line replaced by SdKfz 234 "Puma" call-in. Use the superior mobility and excellent anti-tank performance of the Puma to outmaneuver your enemy and then Close the Pocket!

- Panzergrenadiers can repair vehicles once Equipment Cache is researched.

- Stormtroopers now cost 440 MP to deploy, and 50 MP to reinforce. They now use the Obersoldaten Kar98k, take as long to reinforce and have similar base stats.

- Vet 1 is now auto healing outside combat instead of Field Kit. They are supposed to work alone so nobody to heal them.

- Stormtrooper G-43 upgrade added. For 100 munitions, you get two of the same G43s used by Jaeger Light Infantry.

- STG-44 for Stormtroopers now gain unique stats; they have the same base stats as STG44 IR so they perform better against cover. Same damage though.

- Stormtroopers upgrade to 2 Panzerschrecks for 150 munitions. They can put these schreks away and they don't have a chance to drop. It takes time to stow them away or re-equip them and they can't pick up any other weapons.

- Artillery Field Officer now costs 320 manpower. Grenadier bodyguards are equipped with G43 rifles.

- Artillery Field Officer can no longer crew team weapons. This solves multiple problems so really, it's better this way. Unless you wanted 6 Colonel Pack Howitzers?

- Artillery Field Officer now uses an MP40 SMG with identical stats to the Captain's Thompson. The Luger was cute but he's not at his base.

-Wehrmacht infantry medkits now cost 10 munitions to apply.

- StuG G pen profile is now identical to SU-85 (200/190/180)

-Hull Down release hotkey is now Y instead of H. It used to conflict with Hold Fire.

Soviet Changes

- Both IL-2 strikes are significantly stronger.

- PPSh upgrade is now available to Penals as well (a stronger variant) and it is no longer doctrinal; get T3 and/or T4 and you get access to it.

- ZiS-6 Cargo Truck replaces the PPSh upgrade, it is virtually identical to the Opel Blitz Supply Truck.

- Irregulars are replaced with ISU-152 at CP12. That should make Reserve Army a far more enticing choice.

- M-42 Light AT Gun is replaced with ML-20 152mm Howitzer.

- Hit the Dirt is now usable by Penal and Guards Infantry as well.

- Rapid Conscription allows replacement of up to 3 squads now.

- Soviet Defensive gets 2 new abilities in place of Tank Traps and AP mines:

Guards Tank Hunter Battlegroup, 480 MP and 140 fuel. Available at 8 CP, 2 M10 TDs, lendleased, are given to elite guards vehicle crews, who always start at least at vet 1 and have a pretty good chance for 2 and even vet 3. It's the same M10 except their ability is the same toggled APCR as SU-85.

Scorched Earth available at CP12 for 160 munitions. For 45 seconds, rockets fall down on any enemies in friendly territory. It looks rather impressive but isn't all that strong.

- Commissar Squad gets PPShs now, all 6 of them. It's a bit of a unique PPSh, but don't worry, still worse than the Shocks one. They also reinforce faster.

- B-4 direct fire now deals 800 damage, enough to destroy a Panther in one hit.

- KV-2 is now limited to one. KV-2 costs 440 MP and 290 fuel to call in.

- KV-2 main weapon range when deployed is now 100.

- KV-2 Veterancy ability is changed to Smashing Shot. This ability has a cost of 100 munitions and a firing range of 40. After aiming for 5 seconds, the KV-2 will directly fire a single shot at any enemy vehicle. It has a penetration of 200, but will deal 240 damage regardless of whether it penetrates or not. It requires the KV-2 to be deployed in order to be used, and a penetrating hit will result in an immobilization 100% of the time. It has 1000 penetration within 10 range and it can only be used when KV-2 is deployed.

- KV-2's Veterancy 3 will now increase non-deployed and Smashing Shot attack range by 50%. Does not affect deployed mode.

- Combat Engineers can now construct Tank Traps and PMD-6 Anti-Personnel Mines without doctrines.

- KV-2 is now a command tank, and when deployed, it will reduce inbound damage to Allied forces in the same sector as it (regardless of whose sector it is) to 80% of normal amount.

- KV-2 health increased from 800 to 960.

- ML-20 now costs 500 MP.

- Katyusha now has Walking Stuka's 320 health and its armor stats. (11/5,5)

- Hit the Dirt will now make the Conscript Infantry Squad deploy a single DP-28 when active. Once the ability is canceled, the DP-28 is stowed away.

- M42 Light AT Gun now costs 160 MP.

-Tracking now has a cost of 0 munitions but a cooldown of 90 seconds increased from 50.

-Tripwire Flares take 2 seconds to build instead of 6.

-Armored Vehicle Detection now doesn't cost any munitions, but has an increased cooldown.

-Anti-Tank Partisans always spawn with Panzerschrecks.

-Anti-Infantry Partisans always spawn with LMG42; and an unnerfed variant used by Grenadiers. They lose the 1.15x accuracy multiplier they had, however.

-SU-76 Barrage cooldown reduced from 80 seconds to 40 seconds.

-DSHk HMG Armor-Piercing Ammunition now gives an identical firepower bonus to the MG42 Incendiary Rounds. (x9 Penetration, x2 damage, halved reload rate) It doesn't seem to be silly good at killing tanks, which is a good thing.

- BS-3 100mm AT Gun replaces Conscript PTRS, which is in turn merged into the AT Grenade Assault. Meaning, PTRS is available at 2 CP for Tank Hunter Tactics, while at 8 CP, you can build the mostly identical BS-3; with the traditional 6 man crews and Tracking in place of Target Weak Point. The BS-3 uses the Pak43 model and weapon stats. This change aims to give Tank Hunter Tactics a true heavy anti-tank option.

Global Changes

- Elefant, Jagdtiger, King Tiger, IS-2, ISU-152, Tiger and Tiger Ace all recieved a +50% popcap cost increase. This is a measure against the cost effectiveness of heavy vehicles; while they will remain cost effective, they won't be more cost effective than their fellow medium tanks when it comes to population.

- All death crits that don't involve dying in some form is merged into one. What this means is, there is now a 25% chance for a vehicle to be abandoned, and then the game picks between engine damage, engine destruction and main gun destruction on top of the abandon.

- Ostruppen Reserves and Panzer IV Ausf J are far more generous with their veterancy. Ostruppen Reserves also no longer have a chance of spawning with nothing; 40% chance to get 4 MP40s same as those on Pioneers, 40% for 2 Panzerbusches with identical stats and 20% for an LMG42.

- LeFH and ML-20 are now guaranteed to crew-shock vehicles they hit.

- Both Forward HQs now come in at 2 CP and can only be used at friendly territory, but the building gains an additional 2500 health. This does not affect flame based weapons in their fire starting mechanic, so that is still perfectly valid. The cooldown is drastically increased to 5 minutes.

Ostheer Critical Changes

- Battle Phase 1 upgrade research time reduced from 45 seconds to 20 seconds.
- Battle Phase 1 upgrade cost reduced to 120 MP/45 fuel (from 200/45)
- Battle Phase 2 upgrade cost reduced to 120 MP/55 fuel (from 200/55)
- Emergency Fuel Reserves ability added. This upgrade provides 40 fuel for once at no expense to the player. This is actually a workaround for the mod-tool limitations that disallow changing starting resources, so feel free to use it right away as the faction redesign depends on it.
- Equipment Cache upgrade added to HQ at a cost of 80 MP and 40 fuel. This is essentially the same 80 MP shaved off from Battle Phase 1 and the same 40 fuel you get for free in the beginning. It unlocks most munitions-purchased upgrades and abilities, as well as the Panzergrenadier repairs, but Flamethrowers, Panzerfausts and mines are untouched in this regard. (Felt the need to clarify that as I would agree that you shouldn't need an upgrade for Panzerfausting Scout Cars). It takes 25 seconds to be researched.

The point of the Equipment Cache upgrade is to allow a fast T2 start, allowing the player to better utilize units such as Panzergrenadiers and Scout Car. Equipment Cache is required for many things in your faction and you should eventually go back to it, but you do have the option to simply not do so. Consequences of which you will have to see if you can deal with during your game, as I tried to make sure it would be worth 80 MP and 40 fuel in comparison to getting T3 40 fuel earlier, which isn't to say that T3 coming earlier is a bad thing for the game. It's a choice, and now as an Ostheer player, you have more of them.

-T2/T3 buildings both cost 105 MP (from 120/160 respectively). This is a total 70 MP reduction, and coupled with the free 80 MP reduction you get for Battle Phase 2 upgrade, this means Ostheer teching overall is 150 MP cheaper and most of it is reflected in T3. We want you to use T3 obviously! So now that's a more viable choice.

- Command Bunker upgrade for the Bunker can be toggled to be a forward retreat point. It of course requires the Equipment Cache upgrade to be researched and is limited to one. This change is in order to strengthen Ostheer's field presence while adhering to their theme as a generally defense and efficiency oriented faction. It shouldn't be disregarded that the Command Bunker maintains the typical weaknesses of being a... bunker.

Soviet Critical Changes:

Some of this will be familiar to people who played STOM before, while others are quite radical. Without further ado:

- SU-85's veterancy ability, Tracking, is replaced by Load APCR. Load APCR is a toggle-able mode, where SU-85's weapon profile changes from 200/190/180 penetration and 160 damage, to the APCR's 300/270/240 penetration and 100 damage.

What this means is: There is a 50% penetration increase at close range (Panther has 320 armor for reference), but the penetration dropoff is larger over range, as the penetration profile of APCR is as if 200/180/160 got a 1.5x multiplier and not 200/190/180.

Here are some calculations:

A Panther has 320 armor and 800 health. Versus SU-85's 200 penetration at close range, that means on average, SU-85 will need 8 shots to kill, for a target that requires 5 penetrating hits. 300 penetration, let's take 300 Panther armor for the sake of clarity (while in game there is still a minor chance APCR will bounce), and 100 damage versus 800 health, so you need 8 hits, all of which penetrate for sure (again, not the reality, but close). This is the same as SU-85's regular shot. Since penetration drops off sharply for APCR at longer ranges, APCR ends up taking even more hits to kill a Panther than an SU-85.

So what is APCR good for? Well, considering this is a minimod that allows you to build T-34/85 from your base (oops, spoilers!), SU-85 is mostly relegated to the duty of AT support fire, which is really what it is best at, so let him do that! APCR is more consistent penetration, and its damage is as good as any other on a wounded target, limping away. This in effect makes SU-85 an excellent finisher and heavy tank harrasser without meddling with its performance against medium tanks (unless you want to 7 hit kill a Panzer IV with 640 health instead of 4 hit killing it with almost sure penetrations) and not really improving it against heavies in direct combat. Overall this is an ability I believe will be pretty balanced and give SU-85 something nice going for it; in an environment where everything requires fuel (or do they? read more and find out ^^)

- Soviet Tech system is changed quite a bit. T1/T2 prices are halved, T3 price is the same and T4 price is lowered by 1/3rd. However, one unit from each tier (Scout Car, ZiS, T-34/85*, Katyusha) is locked out, and you must pay for an upgrade that costs as much as the discount you recieved in order to be able to unlock those units. T3 price is the same as it was, and you need to buy an upgrade that costs half its cost (120 MP, 60 fuel) in order to be build a T-34/85. Until you do that, you can build T-34/76s like you do in vanilla, same cost, same arrival time, same everything.

- T3/T4 is unlocked not by the T1/T2 buildings but by their upgrades. You need to have an upgraded T1 OR T2 to unlock T3/T4, and they have their own upgrades. Since Katyusha is locked and price isn't kept the same, this means SU-76 and SU-85 are the two Soviet vehicles that come earlier than they did in vanilla, and they come earlier by 30 fuel. Overall, total Soviet teching cost is further increased, but not without good reason.

- Commissar Command Squad is added to the game. Available after building either T3 or T4, he is the answer to Ostheer's retreat allowing Command Bunker. Purchased at 360 MP, the Command Squad has the following qualities:

The Commissar Command Squad is limited to one and each members gets a PPSh.

Rally Point (temporary retreat that blocks Commissar's own retreat) no longer has a cooldown; it is enough penalty that you cannot move the Commissar during it. Vet 2 ability is changed to Directed Assault, giving a flat accuracy bonus which scales better at longer ranges, and faster cooldown, but increased received accuracy to all friendly infantry in the same sector as the Commissar. Vet 3 is passive healing for idle infantry in the same friendly sector as the Commissar. Vet 1 is Halt Retreat.

All Commissar abilities now apply in a sector instead of a fixed radius. Commissar receives shared veterancy from Soviet Infantry.

- T-34/85 call-ins of all kinds have been replaced with the KV-8. No frills, no nothing. I wanted to do an OT-34/85 with a high popcap and resource cost, a flamethrower and a fully functioning 85mm main gun, but the current mod tools don't allow it.

- Assault Guards now spawn without PPShs, and they have a unique SVT with the exact same stats as Panzergrenadier G43s, but half the damage.

- Assault Guards can upgrade to 2 Bazookas OR 2 BARs for 120 munitions.

- Armored Reserves ability added. Remember those T-34/76s you can no longer build after an upgrade? And those upgrades to begin with? If you get them all for a total of 400 fuel, you get access to Armored Reserves, which is obviously a late game ability that gives you 2 T-34/76 at 800 MP? Well how come that's not OP? It comes in very late at a time where Panthers, Pak43s, King Tigers, all those fog of war crawling marathon running tank slayers are running about, a time where T-34/76 is not worth the fuel it costs.

So how come it's not useless? Well, it's not useless, because 370 fuel is the cost of getting a pair of T-34/76s + minimal teching in vanilla. Which means, it's the perfect incentive to fully tech as Soviets and a fair reason to keep them as the highest teching spenders. Of course, they are not Panthers like the CoH1 counterpart of this ability, so you can't spam them with abandon. But whether you're rationing fuel for other vehicles, needing a Katyusha at the time or simply not blessed with all that fuel, you can always call in T-34/76, provided proper previous investment, and while it won't save the day, it will finally give Soviets the numerical advantage with inferior armor units.

USF Changes

- 60mm mortar added to Liutenant Tier. This mortar has a shorter range and can't barrage but it has a faster fire rate and supreme accuracy.

- Rangers added to the Captain Tier. They can throw Cooked grenades or Smoke grenades, and they can swap their Bazookas for Panzerschrecks at a cost of 15 munitions.

- Armor Company now has a Thompson Weapon Rack at CP2. This is the same Thompson used by Paras, for 25 muni. For technical reasons, squads that include Rear Echelon can't pick it up. And Rangers can't either because they start with better Thompsons to begin with. Vehicle crews get a bundle at 60 Muni.

- Weapon Racks are 70 MP cheaper each, and Major is 140 MP more expensive. This should improve the viability of weapon racks while reducing the advantage of going Major over side-teching.

- Cavalry Riflemen now use particularly powerful M1 Carbines instead of Thompsons. Reinforcement cost is reduced to 36 MP. They can upgrade their BAR upgrade with an upgraded BAR (yo dawg) at a cost of 15 munitions. They can also now throw Satchel Charges.

- Stuart health is increased to 400.

- Assault Engineers gain a 5th man at Vet 2, and they gain 3 Thompsons at vet 3.

- Support Paratroopers now heal and can de-crew from vehicles they crewed. The passive healing requires Vet 2, as advertised by the Veterancy tooltip. Both of these were bugs in the original version.

- Paratroopers (Support) at Recon Company will always spawn with 4 Thompsons and 2 Bazookas. No Tactical Assault.

- IR Pathfinders now gain sight radius at each veterancy level. Veterancy level 2 increases artillery call-in range and 3 reduces barrage reload time.

- Pathfinders of all kinds can now spawn from buildings.

- Airborne Company Pathfinders received a new ability: Support Fire.

This ability costs a hefty 40 munitions and requires the squad to wield at least 1 automatic weapon of any kind. It improves burst length, accuracy and range drastically, with a severe recieved accuracy penalty. They won't achieve much on their own except perhaps outside a 1v1 with an undergunned enemy squad, but if the grunts are taking the damage for them, Pathfinders with BARs or captured LMGs will now deal far more damage than their grunt counterparts! Lasts 20 seconds.

- Withdraw and Refit gives full refund.

- Vehicle Crew Thompsons cost 60 munitions.

- M3 Halftrack Assault Group no longer contains Assault Engineers, but Cavalry Riflemen. The ability now costs 600 MP and 30 fuel.

Unique veterancy bonuses are as follows; they also maintain Riflemen veterancy outside of this:

Veterancy 1: Cavalry Riflemen neutralize enemy territory faster. This level has no combat benefit.

Veterancy 2: Cavalry Riflemen receive 2 pilfered Infrared Stg44s. These rifles take no weapon slots so you can still pick other weapons up or buy them at weapon racks and have identical performance to the Panzergrenadier STG-44. They partially ignore cover and garrison bonuses like their Obersoldaten counterpart, but they don't have quite as much DPS. They also provide a camoflauge detection bonus to Cavalry Riflemen. Cooldown bonus for Vet 2 removed.

Veterancy 3 remains the same.

- M10 comes in at 6 CP instead of 7.

- Zooks deal 100 damage now.

- Forward Observers unlocks the Light Recon Package for Riflemen. Removes the two rifle grenades, free weapon slots and makes the squad capture faster, see further, and gives the squad 5 M1 carbines; same as the paratrooper variant except with 8 damage instead of 10 so they have the DPS of 4 paratrooper carbines. With the accompanying reduced long range effectiveness compared to Garand. The AT Rifle Grenade is replaced by a Sprint that lasts 5 seconds at Vet 1.

- Paratrooper-crewed weapons can be reinforced near beacons just like Paratrooper squads themselves.

OKW Changes:

- Command Panther now gains shared veterancy from fellow OKW vehicles.

- Fallschrimjaeger can no longer spawn from buildings. They now cost 400 MP, have their near range at 12 instead of 8, medium range at 24 instead of 18, and their smoke grenade is replaced with the Precision Burst ability. They also don't need any veterancy to cloak and can hold fire.

- Schwerer Panzer Headquarters and the base 20mm Flak Emplacement cannot attack air at all. Free anti-air shouldn't be the case; the Flak AA Halftrack is more than adequate.

- Jagdtiger now deals 400 damage. This change makes it the hardest hitting AT weapon in the game, allowing it to dispose of T-34/85 in two hits. This compensates for the global popcap nerf which was arguably not deserved in the case of JT.

- Pak43 will now properly allow 4 men once it is recrewed.

- 20mm Flak Emplacement provided by Fortrifications and Luftwaffe GF doctrines now costs 320 MP but no fuel.

- Panzer J will come equipped with a free MG42.

On a closing note I would like to clarify that I am not biased towards either faction; I just think they needed some more numerous and more refreshing options while keeping their original ones and their balance intact.

So that's it folks! Check STOM out and let me know what you think! Leave feedback, make a wishlist, critcize changes, whatever, just push STOM forward! Thanks for your time in reading this and hopefully for playing the minimod. Where's the link? My signature!

The primary ability of the squad is the free Directed Assault. For 30 seconds (cooldown of 60), the Commissar is made immobile, but he becomes a retreat point for allied infantry. The commissar himself cannot retreat while the ability is active, and as such, don't use this ability carelessly.

The first level of veterancy provides the Halt Retreat ability, which halts the retreat of allied squads in a large radius for free.

That's a pretty neat way to make the forward retreat point not brainless.

That sounds kinnddddddaaa broken to me unless it's cooldown is also really high.

That's a pretty neat way to make the forward retreat point not brainless.

That sounds kinnddddddaaa broken to me unless it's cooldown is also really high.

Halt Retreat? It's 80 seconds, it was quite arbitrarily decided on my part, so if balance testing proves it to be too low, it can be increased in a jiffy. As I said, this is a proof of concept, fine tuning is up to you guys to decide!

I was thinking about modding a OT-34-85/Croco Sherman myself the other day actually..I was watching and reading about Iwo Jima. Lel. Anyway,

Couldnt you just make the Bow Machine gun fire a modded version of the KV-8 "weapon" instead of the DP it has? I thought the OT34 had the flamethrower in the Bow not the turret anyway.

You should PM Janne the super modder about this if you haven't already.

Highly impressed by the commissar command squad,great initiative.
T-34/85 however will predictably stomp all defenses.If u had to add that tank u should have reduced either AI dmg or health.Coz nothing short of panther will stop it no matter how much u believe p4 is upto the task.

I was thinking about modding a OT-34-85/Croco Sherman myself the other day actually..I was watching and reading about Iwo Jima. Lel. Anyway,

Couldnt you just make the Bow Machine gun fire a modded version of the KV-8 "weapon" instead of the DP it has? I thought the OT34 had the flamethrower in the Bow not the turret anyway.

You should PM Janne the super modder about this if you haven't already.

Did I say turret? It's the hull MG indeed. But yeah, it can't be done. We tried.

Highly impressed by the commissar command squad,great initiative.
T-34/85 however will predictably stomp all defenses.If u had to add that tank u should have reduced either AI dmg or health.Coz nothing short of panther will stop it no matter how much u believe p4 is upto the task.

T-34/85 is pretty fine actually. AT guns usually have no trouble dealing with it, you do need more than one however. T-34/85 comes in at the same time as Panther, roughly, and that's if you rush to it. I don't want to dismiss your concerns but T-34/85 has been a part of the minimod for a long time, and since it doesn't really come much earlier than doctrinal (it's also more expensive since doctrinal means no teching), so in theory it shouldn't be more of a problem than it is in regular CoH2.

I don't geniunely believe that Panzer IV is up to the task of beating T-34/85 unsupported, but that is hardly an important concern considering battles don't happen in a vacuum and Panzer IV has other things going for it. It also comes in far earlier and cheaper since T3 is mostly buffed MP wise.

STOM updated! It's a hotfix.

- Armored Reserves ability now works.
- German Scout Car and Halftrack Infantry Awareness ability costs nothing, reduced from 10 munitions.

I really liked the T-34/85 as standard and not a call-in unit.

I captured just over half of Langres, requisitioned four pio's and built one cache, The PiV @ arrived 8:41. Buff the Ostwind and it could be funny.

In response to the AI, it... may? work? with the mod? I played an easy SOV and it requisitioned 2 penal squads.

I may toy about with the PzGren changes if I can get myself up for it.

Hi Fause. SOmenbjorn and i tested your mod a week or two ago. Did you get a chance to read his comments? It should be posted on the steam workshop

Hi Fause. SOmenbjorn and i tested your mod a week or two ago. Did you get a chance to read his comments? It should be posted on the steam workshop

Hello NinjaWJ. He sent me a CoH2.org PM instead of a Steam workshop comment. His overall impression was that while the idea was nice, the teching was too expensive. Since the alternative is making Soviet teching vastly cheaper as the combined amount they pay is huge, I didn't take that route, but went to incentivise that instead. It's also not that long if you directly go for it, and if it's a T-34/76 you wanted early on, you can now build it, so that should be helpful.

Update!

- Assault Grenadiers have the Tactical Advance ability, same as Stormtroopers. Unlocked with Battle Phase 2 and Equipment Cache upgrade.

- A lot of upgrades moved to Equipment Cache.

- Equipment Cache requred to build 251 Halftrack.

On an unrelated note, I'm looking for ideas to make Stormtroopers distinct from Panzergrenadiers and useful in their own regard, so let me know if you have something.

- Grenadier G43 has the same stats as Panzergrenadier G43. It's a buff.

Update! This time, there are some changes to USF doctrines.

- IR Pathfinders now gain sight radius at each veterancy level. Veterancy level 2 increases artillery call-in range and 3 reduces barrage reload time.

- Pathfinders of all kinds can now spawn from buildings.

- Airborne Company Pathfinders received a new ability: Support Fire.

This ability costs a hefty 40 munitions and requires the squad to wield at least 1 automatic weapon of any kind. It improves burst length, accuracy and range drastically, with a severe recieved accuracy penalty. They won't achieve much on their own except perhaps outside a 1v1 with an undergunned enemy squad, but if the grunts are taking the damage for them, Pathfinders with BARs or captured LMGs will now deal far more damage than their grunt counterparts! Lasts 20 seconds.

- Withdraw and Refit gives full refund.

- Vehicle Crew Thompsons cost 20 munitions.

- M3 Halftrack Assault Group no longer contains Assault Engineers, but Cavalry Riflemen. The ability now costs 600 MP and 30 fuel.

Cavalry Riflemen are Riflemen equipped with Thompson SMGs. Their only ability is the frag grenade, usable after being upgraded at the base.

The Thompson SMGs are identical to Panzergrenadier STG44's, except they have 4 damage instead of 5. Meaning, the squad equals a Panzergrenadier squad in weapon performance, while they are more durable as a result of having 5 men in the squadron. They also have similar base accuracy and received accuracy to Panzergrenadiers. They are a bit lacking at the ability front right now and I didn't want to give them satchel charges, so feel free to make suggestions. They cost 400 MP on their own; giving them a reinforce cost of 40 MP per man.

Unique veterancy bonuses are as follows; they also maintain Riflemen veterancy outside of this:

Veterancy 1: Cavalry Riflemen neutralize enemy territory faster. This level has no combat benefit.

Veterancy 2: Cavalry Riflemen receive 2 pilfered Infrared Stg44s. These rifles take no weapon slots so you can still pick other weapons up or buy them at weapon racks and have identical performance to the Thompsons, except with 5 damage instead of 4; a 20% DPS increase compared to the Thompson. They partially ignore cover and garrison bonuses like their Obersoldaten counterpart, but they don't have quite as much DPS. They also provide a camoflauge detection bonus to Cavalry Riflemen. Since only two members receive these rifles, the actual DPS increase for the squad is actually just 10%, but they gain the aforementioned benefits as well. Cooldown bonus for Vet 2 removed.

Veterancy 3 remains the same.

Way, way, waaaay too many drastic changes for my liking(basically whole new game you've made there), but one thing I like-the pop cap change for heavies, that is a spot on change making people think twice before going for heavies.

Way, way, waaaay too many drastic changes for my liking(basically whole new game you've made there), but one thing I like-the pop cap change for heavies, that is a spot on change making people think twice before going for heavies.

Well in the games we played, gameplay flows pretty similarly. You just get more options, your old options aren't made worse at all. What's too drastic?

Let me know about this:

Grenadier G43 has the same stats as the Panzergrenadier G43. It's a buff.

G43 on Pgrens are better then on grens? What's different? Someone could show?

Let me know about this:

G43 on Pgrens are better then on grens? What's different? Someone could show?

More accuracy on the former

Thought id give you feedback after playing this.

I tried the cav rifle call in. The halftrack still sucks and is made of paper and it still costs an arm and a leg to access both units.

Thought id give you feedback after playing this.

I tried the cav rifle call in. The halftrack still sucks and is made of paper and it still costs an arm and a leg to access both units.

Well I considered giving them the repair aura ability from Ardennes Assault but then I felt it might be a bit overpowered or even just overlap with the vehicle crew repairs.

I'm not sure what to do for it, is it less survivable than the Soviet M5? Because it allows units to fire from inside it and that's a huge part of what makes Cavalry Riflemen so good.

Minor update, some more doctrinal USF changes:

- M10 comes in at 6 CP instead of 7.
- Forward Observers unlocks the Light Recon Package for Riflemen. Removes the two rifle grenades, free weapon slots and makes the squad capture faster, see further, and gives the squad 5 M1 carbines; same as the paratrooper variant except with 8 damage instead of 10 so they have the DPS of 4 paratrooper carbines. With the accompanying reduced long range effectiveness compared to Garand. The AT Rifle Grenade is replaced by a Sprint that lasts 5 seconds at Vet 1.

- G43 buff for Grenadiers reverted.