Ostruppen seriously

I also think that removing the faust is the wrong approach.
I guess making them cost a bit more mp could solve the problem.

Note that the bonus accuracy on this unit applies on an individual entity basis, the graphics do not clearly reflect this.

good, but the problems are quite different

Note that the bonus accuracy on this unit applies on an individual entity basis, the graphics do not clearly reflect this.

That's interesting. Thanks!

Can you please also tell us something about suppression vs. units in cover?
We had a discussion about that in a recent HMG42 thread.
How does cover (per entity or squad-wide?) work for suppression (e.g. 0.5 modifier for HMG42 vs. units in light cover)? Because suppression seems pretty inconsistent when there are lots of small light cover spots (bushes, craters) around.

Note that the bonus accuracy on this unit applies on an individual entity basis, the graphics do not clearly reflect this.

So in effect you are telling us that if people put them more into cover they'd be even more op than they appear to be now?

So in effect you are telling us that if people put them more into cover they'd be even more op than they appear to be now?

It means that not each of the men receives the accuracy increase even if the squad has the (+) symbol. To get the symbol it is enough for one/few men to be in cover but cover is often not big enough for all 6 men to receive it properly.

Thus, yes, if people could put them into cover correctly (pretty hard because of unit AI/formation), they'd be stronger compared to 2-4 of them currently receiving the bonus and the others not receiving it.

This makes bunkers, houses with many windows and long/big sections of cover (e.g. walls in Semois centre) pretty good for them.

i think the ostruppen need a massive change on it's concept. currently, it's cheap cannon fodder unit that can't kill anything, as it dies quickly to engineer squads apparently. the damn thing dies to easily, not a good sight to look at.

it needs to be more similar to volksgrenadiers, cheap squads but at least can be used effectively instead of just capping around. 200 manpower units, 5 man squad and each squad member being an equivalent to a conscript squad.

so without the abilities, and one less squad member the ostruppen squad would still be inferior than the conscript squad but at least they are not just stupid cannon fodder.

The problem isn't somuch the ostruppen spam, the problem is 4 or less ostuppen into tech. It isn't hard to use the cheap and quick ostruppen to cap a good portion of the map and then fast tech to t2 or t1. If t1 you can just get support weapons like mgs and snipers and still have m3 protection with your ostruppen, for half the cost of a gren sqaud. If they go t2 they can easily get pgrens and and vechiles.

Fast teir t2 used to be balanced by the fact that cons could easily attack the cut offs and deny resources, but ostruppen are so cheap that you can get a bunch of them, cap most of the map, and still get a fuel cache, a la sageofthesix's ostruppen fast t2.

If you as soviets attempt to tech up your self your looking at long wait times. 50 seconds just to get t1 or t2 and then another 50 for snipers, penals, or atgs (which your opponent can easily already have counters for) or 30 seconds (I believe, not sure for maxims, mortars and atgs build time.) That is almost two minutes to get anything out of t1 other then the m3 and the m3 is already countered by ostruppen. And a little less then a minute and a half for stuff out of t2.

If they go t1 after a few ostruppen they suffer barely any penalty I think it takes like 10 maybe 20 seconds to build t1.

The problem with ostruppen is that they mess up the balance of early game capping. Soviets only have two unit choices at the start of the game or long taking tech for units that are at best equal to their german counter parts and in most cases weaker, in every area besides survivaliblty.

However what soviets do have is slightly faster capping due to not having to build any buildings early. From the germans side this is balanced by having more tools to chose from, so while soviets maybe able to get to points faster and get units out slightly quicker they have less options.

Ostruppen completely negate this advantage and their only disadvantage is that they aren't the super soldiers that grens are, but they are cheaper so you can have 4 for the price of 2 grens.

The key problem that soviets have is they have no unit that costs less then 240. If engineers were lowered in price to 200 this would balance things out a bit more. (along with a slight ostruppen price increase) This way you could some what keep up with capping as soviets but trade that off with a unit that later on won't be as good at fighting as cons, but can still fight ostruppen. engineers are no better then pio's except at range and pio's even have more abilities then engi's. This would help in two ways, one lower cost of soviet tech builds that get a second engi and two give soviets a capping unit that can deal with ostruppen early till german tech comes, all with not messing with the current balance of the game ouside of ostruppen pretty much at all.

Also remove pfausts from ostruppen and the ability to build bunkers.

Totally agree with OP'ness.

I was watching Hans play last night with ostruppen and he literally spammed like 30 trenches filled them with squads all getting crazy buffs he could build trenches faster than katyusha's tanks and mortars could destroy them. Obviously free to build trenches anywhere on map is silly. Also I remember reading somewhere they give better cover bonuses than heavy cover? not sure if that's true but if so it makes them way to powerful. (then again can you do the same with sandbags?)

Other problems imo are that they re-enforce too quickly/cheaply and are hence impossible to kill as you can only shoot at so many at once so there low HP isn't as much of an issue, especially when there in cover. Meanwhile there dishing out decent damage considering there is usually a 3-1 ratio. Finally they get vet very quickly, not sure what bonuses this gives but they seemed way to hardy. Vetting on a call in weak non trained infantry seems silly tbh but w/e.

Also I thought the whole way relic was going was soviets spam weak infantry, what happened there? what's next a 50 MP call in army of 30 soviet farmers with pitchforks!

On the counter side con spam does seem strong also atm.

Yeah I just finished playing 3 games in a row against catclaw. The first two were very nice. The third was on kharkov and he used the osstruppens plus sniper start. There was nothing I could do because osstruppens where EVERYWHERE fausting my scout cars and garrisoning all the buildings. I just had to quite in disgust.

just had a 2v2 with both germans using the ostruppen on road to kharkov. amazing how they could pump out 4 ostruppens each plus mgs and pgranadiers. not to mention halftracks and scoutcars. so i thought "they cant possibly get p4 on time for my t34. nope. this build apparently dont hinder them from getting p4 early. whenever i face germans who know how to use ostruppen, i feel pretty powerless.

just had a 2v2 with both germans using the ostruppen on road to kharkov. amazing how they could pump out 4 ostruppens each plus mgs and pgranadiers. not to mention halftracks and scoutcars. so i thought "they cant possibly get p4 on time for my t34. nope. this build apparently dont hinder them from getting p4 early. whenever i face germans who know how to use ostruppen, i feel pretty powerless.

The low manpower cost leaves lots of room for other units (like MG42) or fuel caches (hence the fast P4 and the fast T2 strategy).

On topic, I think they should start out with a ~20-30 second cooldown at the beginning of the match, so if you choose them directly, you have to wait a little before you can call in the first ones. This offsets their lack of a build time and makes them flood the map slightly later. If you'd pick the commander after that time, that initial cooldown would already be decayed.
Maybe that cooldown could also just be applied to the ability of picking any commander instead. As in having to wait those 20-30 seconds before being able to choose any commander.

The cooldown between call-ins should also be longer. I also think a longer cooldown between call-ins would be appropriate. Maybe make the cooldown decrease when you have gained a few CPs if this is possible ingame.

how long does it take to call an ostruppen, and how long does it take to build a soviet engineer?

Someone from Relic please tell me that trench capping is a bug. You cannot be serious if not. What I mean by trench capping, is units in a trench on a point, can cap that point.

Units in houses can also cap points, which is/was only the case on one map, though.

Someone from Relic please tell me that trench capping is a bug. You cannot be serious if not. What I mean by trench capping, is units in a trench on a point, can cap that point.

it makes me wonder if you can hold a point with a unit in a bunker.

on a side note. russians can totally sandbagcap

Note that the bonus accuracy on this unit applies on an individual entity basis, the graphics do not clearly reflect this.

Your game sucks, sorry.

russians can totally sandbagcap

I think the fundamental difference between trenches and sandbags is that if one unit is occupying a trench the other unit cannot occupy it as well. Sandbags are just walls that units can stand on either side of.

Units in houses can also cap points, which is/was only the case on one map, though.

You must be thinking 1v1 then?

The option is also available on several larger maps (like Oka River)

Anyway: Interesting thread. It's the first I've seen that strongly calls for a significant nerf of anything on the german side. It's usually the other way around.

Your game sucks, sorry.

Dave so constructive.