Pios, Combat Engineers and Flamethrowers

Hey guys. I've seen this brought up a couple of times before but I was just wondering, now that the pio/combat engineer match up has been normalized a bit with pios winning up close and engineers winning at range, do you guys feel as though the 240mp cost for the engineers is still justified? The only reason I can think of as to why Relic may want to keep the cost on the engineers higher is that the soviets tend to float munis a bit more and Relic may be leary of a return of pio (engi) spam 2.0. Without global vet and med bunkers though, and with the engi flamer tank's likely hood of exploding, it seems to me that such an engi spam strat would be much less viable or cheesy and it would be nice to have a 200mp repair unit later in the game.

This brings me to my second topic: Flamers. As of the last patch, I've been messing around a little with a 4 pio, muni cache into T2 opening as the Germans and I have noticed that it seems as though the pio flame tanks explode less frequently when under focus fire than their Russian counterparts. Is this true? It feels as though the combat engineers have a medium to high chance for their tank to explode when focus fired, pios a medium to low chance and penal battalions a low to very low chance. Could someone who is a little more stat savvy dig into the game files and actually come up real values for the chance for flamer tanks to explode please as I would love to know if there is a real difference or if it's just an rng observation. Thanks.

what endeav was way too lazy to type out is, there is no difference at all. all infantry have identical chances for all crits. so any squad, regardless of type, will have a 33% chance to blow up if it has a flamer.

Thank you guys for the responses. According to that chart it does look like the chance is equal so it must just be rng and sample size accounting for my observations. What do you think about combat engi costs being reduced to 200mp?

I feel like it'd have the potential to mess with the early game by encouraging engi/pio spam.

what endeav was way too lazy to type out is, there is no difference at all. all infantry have identical chances for all crits. so any squad, regardless of type, will have a 33% chance to blow up if it has a flamer.

I'm on mobile, eat me.


Pioneers winning at close range is not a sure thing; combat engineers are basically equivalent to conscripts man for man. They compliment conscripts a bit better than pios do for grens, as the pios will force you to move your grens up as well.

Funny I asked myself this same question yesterday but was reluctant to make it into a forum topic. With my rise in playing Soviets with the new T34s post patch I been looking at Soviets a lot more.

The only reason I think the Combat Engi's should stay at 240 is their ability to plant explosives (very underused ability) and their very strong ability to flame from the scout car. The German counterpart has nothing of the sort. And I agree with Endeav, its seems the CE complitment cons a lot better than the engis do grens.

I will say its tough losing a Combat Engineer squad, much worse than losing pios.

theres one pretty big difference that isnt quite as obvious when just looking at their dps. pioneers fire 27-45 shots per reload with worse accuracy. engis fire 5 shots with better accuracy. their accuracy is indentical only when within 10m. the higher rate of fire makes the pioneers damage a bit more consistent, while the engis is more similar to burst damage. if the engis get a few lucky hits in a row (at 16 damage each hit compared to 2.3 for pios) they instantly gain the advantage.

this may not be relics reasoning, but thats how i see engi vs pio fights play out. if the engi is lucky, it wins. if its unlucky, it can be anyones fight. pioneers dps is much more stable.

@Woof: With the caveat of having to be in close range, which requires soaking rifle fire on the approach during which the CEs are dominant.

@Woof: With the caveat of having to be in close range, which requires soaking rifle fire on the approach during which the CEs are dominant.

They always seem really good at soaking up that rifle fire i tend to hate these early game as there so good at what they do.

They always seem really good at soaking up that rifle fire i tend to hate these early game as there so good at what they do.

Perhaps cos its only 4 shitty rifles with shitty accuracy. Not a lot of shots.

Whereas when the Pios close in, as Woof pointed out, they burst relatively hard, ignore cover when close and generally spray and prey.

Frankly, Ive never understood why CEs are 4 man for their cost.

CE have the same guns as conscripts.