Soviet General Faction Changes - New cmdr mod 5.0

How about instead of just veterancy gain, give the conscript upgrade some slightly increased accuracy or other offensive stat?

TLDR the replies
but i really like the changes in my limited testing.the quad felt consistent, it will be a good rear line rapid responce unit, the su76 is more clearly aimed at lights, which is good, the con changes felt nice, really pushes them to line holders and mobile reenforcment and it also ups their dps a bit so thats cool.

If they keep trying to make it "utility" they might as well reduce the cost of AT nades and molotovs, increase throw speed and make them alot more spammable.

remove received accuracy debuff to make merge more enticing.

As usual nothing but useless changes that will not reflect onto the actual meta.

1)ptrs conscript lost their unique ability from the tank hunter commander after this upgrade
2)may consider conscript upgrade change cocktail to grenade (of cos have to tech up first)

Bug Report Prioritize Vehicle on SU-76 no longer works.

I liked the con buff, but I wonder if pushing it a bit further would be a good idea? Like making cons 8 man squad and reduce more the reinforce cost to absurd 13 (because it's a prime number). I thought this because newly trained cons squads need to stand vetted enemies and already fielded ones pushed back early push potential for better late game holding power

1)ptrs conscript lost their unique ability from the tank hunter commander after this upgrade

Why does they?Explain plz. They still have acsess to volley-nades and veichle detection. But now they do trow 1 more grenade

My idea is: the “Rearmament” ability — when the conscripts were urgently mobilized, the industry was in a catastrophic situations (T0) and didn’t get the best weapon, but over time the industry could eliminate the need for armament (T4):
- replace rifles with an old barrel and a rusty bolt with new rifles with a chrome-plated barrel (improve accuracy) and a smooth bolt (increases the rate of fire)
- replaces Molotov with a grenade
- replace the AT grenade with a on the VKG-40 rifle AT grenade (It was put into service in 1944), increases the radius of the ability.
Show Spoiler

My idea is: the “Rearmament” ability — when the conscripts were urgently mobilized, the industry was in a catastrophic situations (T0) and didn’t get the best weapon, but over time the industry could eliminate the need for armament (T4):
- replace rifles with an old barrel and a rusty bolt with new rifles with a chrome-plated barrel (improve accuracy) and a smooth bolt (increases the rate of fire)
- replaces Molotov with a grenade
- replace the AT grenade with a on the VKG-40 rifle AT grenade (It was put into service in 1944), increases the radius of the ability.

+1

I've stopped to think about this in more detail, now that we're finally seing somebody willing to address the fact that conscripts are so very, very bad. So bad. And I think the problem with conscripts has officially been left so long that the infection has spread to the entirity of ths soviet army.

If you want to cure conscripts, you're going to have to do some serious surgery on the Soviets, otherwise nothing you do to them is going to make them appealing. Gonna try explain.


Conscripts have been bad for a long time now. Outside some brief meme resurgence under the ppsh and hit the dirt releases, they are not good infantry. They have been so bad for so long that all the soviet alternatives have had to become viable completely on their own.

And now that builds of nothing but the alternatives are viable, you'd need to make conscripts so good that they stand alone in order for them to be appealing.

An army of penals without cons had to be viable, so penals are a solid mainline with an AT upgrade package.

An army of Guards had to be viable without conscripts, so guards are an AI force with their own snare alternative and light AT out of the door.

Now that those two units are so good, conscripts having a high target size and directly nerfing any squad they merge into is basically a necessity. Otherwise cons are just a cheap way to have better mainline elite infantry that also reinforce at 17mp.

If conscripts had been good enough years ago to justify their use on the battlefield, I think a lot of things would have developed differently. Imagine is conscripts were able to buy a non-doc 3x SVT or 2xPPSH upgrade, and their target size was normal... back when the faction overhaul was happening. They're still not going to be better than grenadiers or volks even with the upgrade unless you jump a gren squad point blank, but they have utility and their utility can be tailored for your army composition and build. No need to make their vet accuracy so good it breaks stolen weapons, so they can come with two weapon slots and buy one of their own. Flexible, sort of useful conscripts.

Penals could have been made into shock infantry, not the backbone of an army. They could be a mobile squad with a cheap, conscript-or-worse PPSH designed for demolition duties. You could keep the AT package to make them a dedicated AT squad with three or four slightly slower firing PTRS rifles. Congrats, T1 builds are now a mix of utility and mainline conscripts and the penals being assault troops or AT squad.

Guards could have been given a dedicated long range role and had their short range firepower kept low, to give the conscripts a place where they can shine. Merging into them is no longer a nerf to the guards, but it also has the trade off of removing some actually sort of useful conscript models. They could keep the button but lose the PTRS so they're not an option to almost solo kill enemy light vehicles unless they have smoke.

tl;dr: Conscripts have been so bad for so long that everything else had to become a replacement for them, rather than have a unique role. So far down the line, unless units become more specialized, the only way to make cons more appealing is to make them so good they can compete with the elites, because the elites have no drawbacks for picking them.

A tangent on grenade unlocks and why it holds back conscripts as a utility unit:
Show Spoiler

I am glad the m-42 is finally being addressed the unit is absolutely broken at the current range it has.

On another note if conscripts are being buffed why not grenadiers as well? let them build sandbags for example.

Honestly with the barrage costing muni the SU-76 is kind of a meh unit no matter what you do. If anything I'd rather it see a deploy/hunker down mode that turns it into a semi howitzer similar to the pack howi than just an AT gun on wheels.

This is a really interesting idea +1

Conscripts
To improve the performance of Conscripts, while retaining their role as utility infantry that excel at shielding and supporting other units, we have added an upgrade to help them scale into the late game. The extra man and reduced reinforce cost will allow them to more effectively trade against opposing infantry while the veterancy bonus will help fresh Conscript squads gain veterancy.
- New squad upgrade available after the Mechanized Armor Kampaneya is deployed.
- Mobilized Reserves: Increases squad size by 1, reduces squad reinforce cost to 17 and increases veterancy gain by 20%. Takes up one weapon slot. Costs 50 munitions.

Conscript AT Grenade Package
- Fuel cost from 25 to 10.

I like this change thematically, but like many here I think it might not be sufficient for the lategame. I was wondering if it was possible to add a small accuracy buff to mid/near for cons? It would synergize with their design/role, and at least reward them more when getting into their ideal range and provide more substantial change along with the extra man lategame.

The problem I often find is that even if I get into ideal range with them, while they deal decent damage but is negated by their accuarcy being rather lackluster, so their performance is either a fantastic volley or, most of the time they do ok to subpar. This is not good enough when having to risk closing in or risk losing out in cover to cover. I feel their dps is too rng, especially when other factions mainlines deal quite stable long range dps by the endgame. You are simply not rewarded for using them well. Due to these problems Cons also has a hard time finishing off squads compared to their counterparts or penals. Im fine with cons doing less dps and have more staying power but their dps need to be more consistent. Having them being heavy rng makes them also alot harder to balance.

Of course I do see problems with this kind of buff in synergy with aura/com abilities like for mother russia, FHQ or weapon pickups. But I think solving the mainlines role takes priority and the abilities should be adjuested if they are too strong. Is it possible to give a squad a slight debuff upon picking up a weapon? I'm no modder so little knowledge on the limitations of the engine an such.

Maybe it would be best to add this into veterancy as so not to upsett the early game. Just a thought apart from giving them a dp or ppsh. I think trying to solve the problem without giving them a weapon complicates things alot more. But thought I'd try and chime in to the change already on the table.

double post

I've stopped to think about this in more detail, now that we're finally seing somebody willing to address the fact that conscripts are so very, very bad. So bad....

Conscripts are simply not that bad.

On another note at first glance I don't like the changes to conscripts and I will once more suggest the following changes:

Conscripts target size to 1
Conscript vet 1 ability "hit the ground" scales with veterancy
Remove ourah
molotov replaced by normal grenade
increase range of At grenade

if they need anything else xp value reduction 3% for every building +11 for all 4 for a total of 20%.


This will changes will solidify them as a defensive infatry.

Su-76
If they unit is going to be touched it need its XP value to be increased currently it vet way too fast.

With new accuracy values at vet 2 Su-76 has
0.05/0.04/0.0375 0.065/0.052/0.04875 which translates 100% chance to hit a PzIV at range 60 which is simply too high. Chance to hit and penetrate a Ostheer PzIV at that range would be 89%.

The unit must simply be balanced at all vet levels.

Su-76
If they unit is going to be touched it need its XP value to be increased currently it vet way too fast.

With new accuracy values at vet 2 Su-76 has
0.05/0.04/0.0375 0.065/0.052/0.04875 which translates 100% chance to hit a PzIV at range 60 which is simply too high. Chance to hit and penetrate a Ostheer PzIV at that range would be 89%.

The unit must simply be balanced at all vet levels.

If the SU-76 isn't good against mediums, what's it for?

Its casemate design makes it suck against lights (which'll just circle-strafe it) and it's too small to fight heavies.

Don't you really think that 30 range on canister shot is way too short? I can't imagine situation when I'm moving up m42 to shoot canister shot at the grenade/molotov range.

On the other hand I agree that 50 range m42 canister shot blobs were too effective.

Wouldn't 40 range be just rigt?

Honestly with the barrage costing muni the SU-76 is kind of a meh unit no matter what you do. If anything I'd rather it see a deploy/hunker down mode that turns it into a semi howitzer similar to the pack howi than just an AT gun on wheels.

Is there a chance this could be tested, either within the balance team via a seperate mod, or in the next update? It's a really great idea and well worth testing imo.