Profile of Olekman

Interesting!

Making it less all or nothing would definitely make it more consistent and usable.
I still don’t think how it makes losses less punishing fits in to company of heroes, like one of the big changes to heavy tanks was making losing one hurt more.

It would be less punishing simply because you would get Manpower back for each dead model in form of Conscripts you can Merge. Conscripts are extremely cost efficient when Merged into elite infantry, especially long range squads like Guards or Airborne Guards. Yes, they will die more easily, but the penalty you get in effective health points is greatly outweighed by the exceptionally low cost and reinforcement speed.

Losing a tank is a huge blow - not only you're losing your entire investment, but also veterancy it gained along the way. Losing models - NOT entire squads - is much, much less impactful. Yes, it should be avoided when possible, but it's inevitable - otherwise we wouldn't have reinforcements as a mechanic.

Side note -
I am not sure, but am I the only one who doesn’t really want more squads late game? The extra squads usually over tax my micro, or cause too much manpower bleed, and in the end I feel like I would have been better off without the squad and spending the munitions on grenades

You're not alone. In general, when you finish your "infantry build" for a given match, you don't want any new squads - they strain your economy, take valuable popcap, and bring diminishing returns. However, when you lose a squad in the late game, you face a choice - should I rebuild it (or some other more late-game capable squad) and keep my capping presence or should I build something that will have immediate impact on the field (e.g. a tank)?
That's the idea behind my rework - the player decides when they want to call-in Conscripts from reserve. You lose a squad in the late game? Call-in a "free" Conscript squad to plug the hole in your infantry build. Want to reinforce some squads but lack Manpower? Call-in a "free" Conscript squad and fully merge it into existing squads to avoid clogging your Population.

Because any type of ability that has a multiplicative damage is going to eat through it like it doesnt have DR right? So it seems like we traded being weaker against stuff like Mark Target for a faster repair speed? And even if thats not the case, the reason pershing was underperforming and needed help was because it wasnt effective at any one thing. It couldn't soak shots, its not the AI machine it used to be, its AT is l0l worthy, there is just no place for it in your army. This unit won't see any more play than previously with these changes and if that is indeed the case, this was a bad change as it didnt accomplish its goal.

Received damage is multiplicative, not additive.

If you have 800 HP tank with 0.84 received damage modifier, it has effectively aprox. 941 HP.
There is an ability that makes target takes 20% extra damage, which means that it gives the target 1.2 received damage modifier.

For a tank that has 800 HP and 0.84 received damage modifier you get:
800/(0.84 * 1.2) = 793 effective HP (aprox.) when targeted by said ability.

For a that has 960 HP and no modifiers to received damage, you get:
960/1.2 = 800 effective HP when targeted by said ability.

From what I know, in Company of Heroes 2 there's nothing that ignores received damage modifiers. It's a straight buff that makes the tank just as durable, but 16% faster to repair.

True, and I suppose Grens are ideally used at max range (When they're following their LMG upgrade path). I guess the issue is, as you say, them being very susceptible to being forced off the field. Four-man squads with substandard survivability can't afford to hang around till the last model. Osttruppen and Cons get around it by their squads being 50% larger. I don't know if you're really benefiting all that much in the long term, unless the squads you're rushing back onto the field are doing little but capturing territory (Or are team weapon crews).

It also may as well not even be an option for Panzergrenadiers, they ABSOLUTELY can't afford to have Osttruppen models in their squad, even if they are very cheap.

To be honest, I think for Ostheer the ability might be better/more fitting if you just got Gren models (or 1.0/0.95RA Ostruppen models) for a smaller (or no) "discount". The main benefit being that you can get your squads back onto the field faster through merging with the "replacements" squad, rather than being able to really save MP. In effect you're just "paying forward" for reinforcements.

"Cheap models into 'expensive' squad" works better for Soviet, it's already a factional trait, and their larger squad sizes make the individually weaker members less impactful. (Merging into Shocks is still an awful idea though)

Yes, hypothetical merging into Panzergrenadiers or Assault Grenadiers wouldn't be recommended as they require to close-in to the enemy to be effective, likely dropping models in the process. However, I believe that getting over 20% Health on the field per Manpower spent AND getting it to the field in almost half the time would definitely be worth it, just not in every situation.

Also, funny thing - just yesterday I finished a short write-up on Conscript's merge, analysing how cost efficient it is for different squads and what are optimal ways of using it. In general I'm surprised that merge isn't used more often in both low and higher ranks, but then again - I'm no pro.

Is there any way the conscript merge logic could be abused? Like maybe the squad could have a nominal loadout of 5 models, but reinforce is limited to only 4 models?

That's impossible. There's no way to artificially block reinforcement, and the only way you can modify a squad's loadout is by adding more entities to it - you cannot remove anything from it.

Buildings could then just 'hold' x number of ostruppen models and issue merge commands to any squad in range until they exhaust their pool of models.

I haven't tried making a "building squad" consisting of building entity and infantry entities, which could merge with other squads, but I bet it would have a wacky outcome. Plus, it sounds like just adding Merge ability to Ostruppen, but making them unable to move out of HQ sector or making their off-brand Merge only work in HQ sector...

Having typed that out, perhaps giving Ostruppen Merge ability that can only work in HQ sectors wouldn't a bad way of reworking Relief Infantry. It would be roughly as cost efficient as Conscript Merge (about 1.21 Health-to-Manpower ratio for Grenadiers), but not be possible on the field (so no "tactical merge" to win an engagement).

Presumably models can be added to the queue as I suggested though?

I've never payed close enough attention to be sure, but mixed squads like the USF captain will queue an officer model if it's missing right?

Every squad has a set "loadout" of entities. It's defined by entity blueprint and number of specific entity blueprint. For example, Conscript squad's loadout is 6 Conscripts (I can't be bothered to look up the exact blueprint name). When they get the Mobilize Reserves upgrade, the "Conscript sergeant" entity gets permanently added to their loadout.

I don't remember the details, but I think that in cases where the loadout entities have different costs (e.g. Officer models in Major, Lieutenant and Captain squad at WFA release) the cheaper ones get priority. You can't decide "I want to reinforce with this specific model", because they get reinforced from squad's loadout. Once you add an entity to the loadout, it's treated as permanent squad member, so if you just add Ostruppen entities to loadouts of those squads, it would be possible to reinforce those squads to 8+ models.