The benefits of being able to disembark vehicle crew

Since some people seem to have trouble appreciating the value disembarking I started this thread to explain some of them.

USF vehicles, accept Pershing/Calliope/Priest, have the option to disembark their crews, that gives USF crews a number of benefits:

1) Allows them lower Upkeep for unused vehicles.
Since crews have a pop of 4 and vehicles have more one can lower his upkeep by disembarking the crew. For instance if ones has build a M36 but currently there are no vehicles around one can lower his upkeep by 10 simply by disembarking that requires very little micro.

One can even use this to exceed the pop limit.

2) Transfer veteran crew.
One can change crew so that the vehicles he needs at moment have higher veterancy. For instance if one has managed to get veterancy in his early vehicle like the mortar HT one can then swamp crews with his new M36 to make the most out of it.

Especially when it comes to unit that can vet relatively safe one can even use the vehicles to vet his infantry.

3) Repairs.
With the latest nerfs to other factions repairs speed USF crews have an even advantage since they have faster repair speed, access to the "repair critical" ability, great repair speed vet bonuses and they vet allot easier than standard engineers since the damage comes from the vehicles and not the crew.
In addition one does not have to move engineer or the vehicle since one carriers the engineer with him.

4)Vehicle transfer.
One can even use the ability to give or lend vehicles to teammates. For instance a USF player can disembark a ambulance and give it to a Soviet player who is using a t2 start to have his support weapons healed and reinforced.

To conclude disembark is great ability available to USF crews with a number of benefits.

1. Is Exploity so to speak.

2. Doesn't make much sense because vehicle crews vet up fast anyhow.

Plus putting another unit inside just to vet it up is also pretty risky.

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2. Doesn't make much sense because vehicle crews vet up fast anyhow.

Plus putting another unit inside just to vet it up is also pretty risky.

Well if ones have m15a1 vetted crew and green m36 crew and his opponent just made tank swapping crews makes allot of sense.

If one wants his RE to get the great vet 1 bonus putting them in mortar HT is any easy and rather safe way to do it.

Yes, all is well and nice and a wonderful mechanic which allows diverse gameplay.

1. Yes, it's a bit of an exploit that will never be fixed. Consider it a feature. It is the only instance in CoH2 where a player has any interaction with pop cap. It's not like it's tied to territory or anything, and there's no global upgrades or anything (except I guess Bolster Squads) that impacts it in any way. And matches where players reach 100 pop cap are more exceptions than the norm, at least for USF. Only times I can recall using it to my advantage is in 4v4s where I've got like multiple Calliopes.

2. It is a benefit. And to be honest, a particularly cool one. It's a unique little component of the faction that is worth preserving. I'd say it's way better than say, merge, but it's similarly rather fun without being game breaking.

3. I'd agree that looking at repairs, USF has an advantage. But it's rather slim and acceptable for the faction. But it's apart of the greater pattern with USF and RE's roles being partially filled by every other unit. Repair critical is nice, but in my experiences if you're able to get to a position to use it, you probably don't need to use it. Unless you're recrewing an RNG abandon, which USF is totally better at if they got a vehicle crew handy.

4. I'd rather there be more instances of this in CoH2 than fewer. I'd love to be able to abandon a team weapon for an ally and such. And (for instance) while the British weapon drop halftrack has all sorts of issues, I only find this strategy to be worthwhile in 3v3+ where units and factions pale in comparison to teamwork. And that's an environment where the game is fundamentally unbalanced for that exact reason.

To conclude disembark is great ability available to USF crews with a number of benefits.

Well, duh. It's a core feature of the entire faction.

To be honest, I wish this were a more prominent feature of the game. It would have been quite interesting to be able to decrew all team weapons and vehicles. The value of preserving the original crew and their vet would've been worth exploring. I could never could get it to work properly in tuning packs.

in 3v3+ where units and factions pale in comparison to teamwork. And that's an environment where the game is fundamentally unbalanced for that exact reason.

But da allied fangays tell me dat JT/Ele couldn't be beat with teamwork? :thinking: Someone is confusing me

But da allied fangays tell me dat JT/Ele couldn't be beat with teamwork? :thinking: Someone is confusing me

Definition of teamwork is quite relative. It's the difference between able to time a recon pass and an offmap ability between two players and fighting a series of 2v1s.

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This should however be locked out for the AI, though.
Having a teammate drop after pushing opponents up to their base and then, minutes before victory, getting overrun by two shermans and a jackson backed up by two ostwinds is really not very beneficial.

- Decrew/Recrew is very beneficial. But it's the USF perk. If you give
everyone USF's perks while giving them nothing for it is like giving
allies (even Stuart!) the health and armor and AP punch for a Panther,
but the Panther keeping it's pop, costs when it's advantage was taken
away.

If decrew is taken from USF, then you'd see 4x Shermans fighting
vs 4x Panthers because riflemen take way too many pop. USF and Germans
having tank parity is major bad news for the USF.

Supposed to be Germans Quality. USF Quantity.
If Germans get both quality and quantity vs USF having neither
quality nor quantity, would you call this balanced?

Some folks seem to be overlooking that this thread is posted in lobby and not balance subforum.

5. Escape the doomed vehicle.
If the player notices the vehicle health is low in combat, you can order the crew to bail out. Takes about three seconds, though more often than not it is enough time if done just as the enemy tanks or AT is reloading. It even works should the tank begin to become a fiery tomb rather than outright exploding. If the tank survives long enough for the crew to jump out, further cannon shots may destroy the vehicle that was shielding the engineers, denying it to the enemy. The crew may then fall back but return to the battle for light combat support and vehicle repairs.

4)Vehicle transfer.
One can even use the ability to give or lend vehicles to teammates. For instance a USF player can disembark a ambulance and give it to a Soviet player who is using a t2 start to have his support weapons healed and reinforced.

Has anyone done this? Seems OP. For instance you are USF and your mate is USF. He caps out at 100 but has 3 or 4 sets of REs around. You dump all your tanks to him. Now he is at pop cap of like 120? Then you build more tanks for yourself.

Curious what the max pop cap one can hit is?

I recall doing this in vCOH by mortaring my arty pieces and building more. I think I hit like 134 pop cap?

Has anyone done this? Seems OP. For instance you are USF and your mate is USF. He caps out at 100 but has 3 or 4 sets of REs around. You dump all your tanks to him. Now he is at pop cap of like 120? Then you build more tanks for yourself.

Curious what the max pop cap one can hit is?

I recall doing this in vCOH by mortaring my arty pieces and building more. I think I hit like 134 pop cap?

I did ambu transfer literally once.
Its pointless, because if you have a game good enough to be able to transfer anything, sov will be pop capped anyway.

Has anyone done this? Seems OP. For instance you are USF and your mate is USF. He caps out at 100 but has 3 or 4 sets of REs around. You dump all your tanks to him. Now he is at pop cap of like 120? Then you build more tanks for yourself.

Curious what the max pop cap one can hit is?

I recall doing this in vCOH by mortaring my arty pieces and building more. I think I hit like 134 pop cap?

Transferring vehicle to an ally that normally does not not have access to those units can be extremely powerful.

For instance:
A Soviet player going t2 can be given a ambulance to heal and reinforce his maxim making maxim spam much more powerful.

A UKF player can be given a MHT giving him indirect fire support fixing one of the weakness of his faction

A UKF player can be given a m3/m5 for mobile reinforcement or aggressive HT play.

A USF player going T2 can be given a AAHT for a suppression tool.

In many 4vs4 games I had USF allied friend provide me with M36.

In large modes it used to be very common for USF players to give Priest or Calliopes to their allies and that is part of the reason it was patched.