Recon Support this patch

With the earlier timing of Recon Support units, I think cost adjustments are in order. The commander seems to be simply a better and cheaper Airborne now.

I&R Pathfinders
These units are not worse than normal pathfinders, while being much cheaper (250 vs 290 manpower). They trade 1 of their sniper rifles for a carbine, improving their short range dps, but slightly decreasing their damage over long range. This is useful because they can't be bullied around at short range like normal pathfinders, while still having superior long range damage over early Axis units. IR's also drop their slot weapons less often and can call-in arty. IMO, both pathfinder variants should be 270-280 manpower.

Airdropped Combat Group
I assume 2 CP is a mistake, because 3 CP was mentioned in the patchnotes. Still, it's much cheaper than getting the same two things with Airborne (325 mp + 80 muni vs 505 mp + 60 muni). The support paratroopers are also arguably more useful with their mines instead of a timed demo. IMO, the drop should cost more manpower while costing a bit less munitions. This prevents USF from getting too much of a unit advantage if they had a favorable early game (where munitions matter less). I was thinking 385-405 mp + 60 muni. In addition, the cost for paratroopers on Airborne could be decreased slightly from 380 to 360 mp.

Greyhound
I think the cost for this unit is fine. Others might disagree with me.

Let me know what you think.

I agree. It would be nice if these commanders were really looked into rather than just buffed CP-wise.

I think that supply drop costs should also be normalized.

Absolutly disagree. First off, if you look at top players builds most of them dont even go for i&r pathfinders. Good example is Noggano in KotH since everyone wants to nerf usf based on his performance in this tourney. He didnt go pathfinders once. What you described is more a reason to drop price on airborn pathfinders to the level of recon ones.

Second, you are right that AT drop should be at 3cp, 2cp is a mistake that should be fixed. But trying to adjust the cost of this ability based on doctrine that was changed in minimal ways as a bonus to commander revamps simply because it was so bad (airborn) is a mistake. The cost on recons AT drop was like this for more then a year now and it never caused any problems.

Third, good to see that you understand unit that is all around weaker than luchs, cost the same fuel AND arrives later shouldnt cost more. Agree here.

Airborne and Reckon commander where designed to bypass the USF tech restriction.

The restriction no longer apply and the Commander need to be redesigned not buffed.

Airborne and Reckon commander where designed to bypass the USF tech restriction.

The restriction no longer apply and the Commander need to be redesigned not buffed.

You still need to use fuel to get MG/AT-gun the only difference is the lower price. And the built time of the officer units is pretty long so dropping in an MG/at-gun is still a good thing.

Team weapon drops still have pretty great use in team games, giving ATG to T1 soviet does make a difference.
Its rest of the doctrine that doesn't really do much.

Wow. A logical thread that isn't just raging about a balance change, what a pleasant surprise lol. I think your suggestions are reasonable. I do agree that I&R are probably undercosted a bit for how much utility they offer while still being fairly effective combat units. I think 270 is a fair amount given their (presumably) worse combat performance vs. Airborne Pathfinders. People already try to spam Airborne Pathfinders - reducing their cost would be madness.

The Combat Group is a tricky question - comparing it to Airborne is hard because Airborne gives you the flexibility to call in separate units which has it's perks. In general I think shifting the Group's cost towards MP is a good idea - Recon is VERY munitions hungry where upgrading Paratroopers, affording Greyhound pintle, and other munitions uses etc. is hard and adjusting the cost would help that along with better reflecting the MP cost of the reason why people usually get the Combat group at first (the paratroopers). I would be wary of making the MP cost too high or else it'll be too hard to find into your build order again like the old version.

I don't think that necessarily means your need to change Airborne's Paratrooper cost - it just means that Recon's are slightly discounted in MP due to the inflexibility of the AT Gun bundle. I would also consider the fact that you have to spend MP to recrew the AT Gun- so there is some hidden cost there.

I'm also fine with Greyhound cost given it's limited window of dominance and highly specialized AI role.

Not counting the likely unintended change from CP4 to CP2 of the bundle group.

I don't see anything wrong with RS this patch, IRs can be good, but even at their price people will likely want less infantry in their army, so they skip them. If anything Airborne Pathfinders cost waaaaay too much MP upfront for how much of a support unit they are.

Greyhound is fine, specially since they reduced it's AT power from 60 to 40, it should have never been CP4 after that nerf.

Munitions keep this Commander in check, let's assume you want to call in the Bundle and give Paras LMGs, 200 munitions already. If you use the IR arty once, it's 140 munitions, if you buy a Greyhound, using it's .50 cal and canister shots, then that's even more munitions. Uncle Sam forbid you use Raid or put Mines with your Paratroopers.

Honestly just make the Greyhound 5 CP again or fix the bug with the Airdropped Combat Group being 2 CP. Otherwise I am fine with the rest of the commander and it's nice to see something other than Heavy Cavalry at least in 1's.

Recon is fine, fixing Recon group bug CP is only thing we need.
IR path is really good for team game, not 1v1
Greyhound is M20 with 37mm at 4CP, that all. I dont know why ppl get mad as it,

I rarely make more than 1 single IR pathfinder per game, and its main use is sighting for jacksons / sighting MGs. Recon is so ammo intensive that I rarely have time to upgrade BARs on anything too, especially if you plan on using the butterfly bombs against MGs / AT guns

That said, a price increase wouldn't bother me too much, as long as it's not 290mp like regular pathfinders because that would be awful.

I agree that the Paradrop / AT gun comes too early at 2 CP, it should be 3CP.

The greyhound was changed to 4CP for a reason, it came out way too late at 5CP and I think 4CP is a good place. I think players will adjust to counter it, the patch has only been out for a week. Either that, or adjust the greyhound so that it requires you build it instead of being a call in, other than that I don't know what you could do, you have to pay 60 munitions right out the gate to make it useful and its AT ability is very weak.

All of the above said, I love Recon, I've been using it since the last time it was balanced as my primary commander well before the current hotfix and I loved using it then, and love it even more now. I like that I can mix in an IR pathfinder as my first / second unit after a riflemen or 2nd RE squad, it opens up so many different build orders and I've even experimented with Riflemen-less builds relying on vetting RE, a Captain and IR Pathfinders mixed with Airborne, and it's worked pretty well in team games, though lacking a snare is the main weakness.

Cp5 grayhound will be useless again so adapt guys, pathfinders are fine just recon group need cp fix thats it or what u guys think about 75mm howitzer from captain tier in that drop why u need at gun when tech is cheap. Recon and light arty sounds better.

Before CP lowering commander even after revamp was uncommon so the change is highly welcome.

As DerbyHat said - Airdropped Combat Group sounds really cheap, maybe too cheap but it's hard to predict with current CP bug. Ammo cost is good though. The whole commander has a lot of micro ammo expensive abilities and upgrades that you can invest. Therefore it blocks you from spamming for example pathfinders call-in arty and in same time has double paratroopers with LMG.

I wouldn't complain about Greyhound. It comes around 7-10 min of a game and it's barely win vs 222 and cost way more (with 50cal upgrade - another ammo investment). People has a problem vs this strat becouse it good synergy with Airdropped Combat Group so greyhound is covered by AT gun without earlier T2 tech. Doesn't sound overpowered to me.

Some people say that IR pathfinders shouldn't be increased in price, so I decided to do some extra testing. I made 8 test ranges between ranges 0-35 with increments of 5. I let the IR pathfinders fight with grens 3 times over. It seems either squad can win at any range against the other squad, so it mostly comes down to which squad loses a model first. I can make the following observations however:

- Grens seem to have a slight advantage at ranges 0-5, because the scoped rifle of IR's has bad short range performance. The IR's trade well until they drop to 1 model.
- Ranges 10-25 seem to be quite even.
- IR's have a slight advantage at ranges 30-35, because the scoped rifle of IR's has good long range performance and the crit becomes more impactful once dps drops off.
- IR's vet around 30% faster than grens.
- Grens have slightly better scaling with veterancy with 40% more accuracy against 20%. IR's get a relatively better RA reduction and 5 more weapon (!) range instead.
- If both squads are in green cover, this favours IR's, because the crit bonus of their sniper rifle ignores the damage reduction of green cover, saving 1-2 extra shots.

After this test, I see little reason as to why a USF player wouldn't want to get an IR squad in their composition, considering the following:

- They often perform as well as rifles, while being 30 manpower cheaper and having 1 less model to reinforce.
- They come instantly at the start.
- The 50 sight (55 with vet 1) is huge. It makes playing around team weapons much easier and helps with positioning.
- It gives USF another option to fight snipers. They come with camouflage, which gets upgraded to commando camouflage at vet 3.
- The instant arty is very good against team weapons. It forces the opponent to reposition within 3 seconds, which can be hard if he is busy elsewhere. The decoy arty should also be taken seriously. If the opponent waits until he hears the shells, it's already too late for his team weapon to pack up.
- Their beacons allow paratroopers and paratrooper manned team weapons to reinforce on the field and detect units on the minimap within 35 range.
- The performance of their sniper rifle increases further when supported with another squad, making the crit happen more often.

Considering they come at 0 CP now and are only 10 mp more expensive than grens, I still think they're slightly too cheap (and Airborne paths too expensive). Noggano is the only top player that I haven't seen making them.


With that said: it's mostly the combination of the "cheap" AT-gun drop combined with the early m8 that makes this doctrine so strong.

...
- Grens have slightly better scaling with veterancy with 40% more accuracy against 20%. IR's get a relatively better RA reduction and 5 more weapon (!) range instead.
...

+5 range increase accuracy by around 14% so it more like 40% vs 34%...

Can you confirm that? Or does the dps/accuracy between 35 and 40 stay linear like coh2db.com/stats shows?

So this commander is op or not? Whats the point of this thread.

Can you confirm that? Or does the dps/accuracy between 35 and 40 stay linear like coh2db.com/stats shows?

The ability "range weapon modifier" is described as % since the accuracy value far would apply to the new range is should increase DPS from mid to far by around 14%.

Unless they have a rather weird way to apply the new range to only max range and the weapon fire at max range with the values of far.

Unless they have a rather weird way to apply the new range to only max range and the weapon fire at max range with the values of far.

If its like aoe, then that would be the case. Like for the ST the AOE is 14 (I think). The far aoe is 8. This means that theres the standard linear falloff from the mid (forgot the number) aoe distance to the far aoe distance of 8. From 8-14, the far aoe distance values are used. It just so happens that for most explosives, the aoe distance and the far aoe distance are the same.

So yeah, if raw range works the same way (with a general range value, in addition to the close, mid, and far range values) and the vet bonus only applies to the general range value, then derbyhat would be correct. Cruzz's DPS spreadsheet, at least, claims that this is how the range increase is implemented.

So this commander is op or not? Whats the point of this thread.

The point of this thread is to discuss if earlier timing should come with higher prices for Recon Support.