Profile of Volsky

The issue is with a lot of Soviet things not working as well as they should/could. Let me elaborate.

Conscripts are...okay, but with PPSh-41s being re-skinned spears and the Molotov being ineffective against blobs (short range and the need for the enemy to stand in the damn thing to really feel the hurt) means that rifles-only is the way to go. The problem is, Cons with rifles only, even with vet, are meh (compared to the rest of the rifles and infantry in-game).

Penals aren't much better; yes, they can crap out some superior DPS at times (in numbers, yes, they are generally better, but in game I usually see little difference) but lack any utility whatsoever, have no viable AT options, and must close the distance with the enemy to be effective.

The Maxim's lack of area-suppression means that A-move blobs of LMG'd grenadiers can simply riflenade you to death or DPS the gunners one at a time. You can build more Maxims and even some Quads if you like, but that won't pin the enemy blob before his Grens/PGs wreck you. Hell, even Volks are scary; I was facing off against vet 3-4 Volks with maybe 10-12 kills a piece--that's damn scary considering they auto heal, get shrecks, and can throw nades around in addition to being 5 men and having the ability to pick up other weapons.

The 120mm mortar is not, contrary to what the tooltip says, good against static emplacements, or anything really. Yes, precision shots are pretty good, but there's the issue that they are exactly identical to the one used by the 82mm mortar (iirc). Even if I'm wrong in that regard, the 120mm has ridiculous spread; assuming the enemy reacts, re-positions his mortar, and counter-barrages yours, you lose.

The DShK is simply less effective than the maxim. It does not suppress enemy infantry as quickly, it does not damage them as quickly, and it costs more, both in manpower and population.

The ZiS, as has been stated, is not up to the task of dealing with armor in the way the PaK is. Yes, you have the utility of using the barrage, but the barrage is only useful in the face of incompetence.

My tl;dr issue with Soviets in team games is, they can't thin out the Axis blobs without a retarded amount of MGs or artillery (that is overshadowed by the non-doctrinal Stuka in every capacity, sans maximum range). Your infantry, short of snipers, are nowhere near up to the task of wiping out the enemy (Shocks, on very urban maps and used en masse, are very useful, however), be they Cons, Guards, Penals, or Engineers. The T-34/76 is worse than the Panzer IV in every capacity, and with the current patch is *nearly* the same cost.

In a game where infantry blobs are the status quo, the Soviets get the (very) short end of the stick.

Basically what Inverse said; they dumbed down the system to facilitate the easy addition of DLC.

Modders, such as myself, and others, get to pay for it when (IF) modding support is (re-)enabled.

I like it overall, however, I fail to see how a two-SVT upgrade would make a significant change to Conscripts--I would personally just opt to get Penals and have a ROKS flamethrower and satchels as icing on the cake.

Your German Infanterie Doctrine changes are good (I'd play that all day erry day myself), but adding both G43s (that are a no brainer and fantastic) AND a muni-to-fuel or vice versa dump seems a tad much.

The SU-76M, I think, doesn't need to be a Soviet Scott; I quite like it being a PaK on Kettenkrad treads (or, in this case, a ZiS on Kettenkrad treads). The issue is the plethora of very long ranged, very lethal German AT that renders its own long range a null advantage versus facing armies of StuGs and Pz IVs--if it was an Allied Marder and this was vCoH, per se, it would be a great unit. I think it honestly needs to go into T3 and give that building viable AT options (the T-34 obr 1942 is okay, but doesn't have the punch I'd like ). The SU-76M's barrage is also good at the moment, it just needs a barrage cooldown reduction with vet.

Seeing as very few of you have a good idea of how projectiles work and exist in Company of Heroes, let me give you a simple explanation.

There are several different collision types used among the projectiles to define how they interact with the game engine. These include tp_homing (the standard for vCoH tank shells and HHAT rockets—this is why you’d see them turn on a dime and round a building corner to smack their target), tp_artillery (will not home onto the target, but will hit their target directly if a hit is registered by the engine, ASSUMING THE TARGET DOES NOT MOVE--basically, a hit rolled by the engine removed all scatter from the equation, per se), tp_thrown (phases through buildings and shot blockers—grenades, stickies, and PIATs), and some others that weren’t too commonly seen.

There is no way to modify the collision types of the projectiles during their flight from the barrel marker of the weapon that fired them into their target of choice. Projectiles can be made to phase through certain object types such as environmental objects, infantry, and vehicles (this is why the Puma was sucha bitch to hit and kill in vCoH, especially with RRs—no hitbox and an object type that most projectiles were set to phase through unless a hit was rolled by the weapon targeting it). However, bear in mind, this is over the projectiles entire flight path, and will define it's behavior versus every last target of that type in the game.

If projectiles were made to ignore shot blockers, the ground, and buildings etc, we would have a mass of auto-firing stickies, if you will. Remember how annoying it was to have a vet2 rifle squad nail a sticky into the ass of your Tiger from 40m away, through a building? That will be every tank shell, flak shell, and HHAT rocket. Now, there is a setting under a given weapon’s behavior extension called artillery_force_obey_los that essentially prevents the weapon from targeting any object behind a shot blocker (tp_artillery and tp_thrown are hardcoded within the CoH engine to act as artillery, targeting anything within range of the weapon, ignoring whatever objects lie in between the weapon and the target—eg., why the StuH would constantly fire aimlessly into buildings if there was an enemy target visible on the other side). This would prevent that by default. However.

The game would then devolve into a ground-targeting free for all, with everyone and their dog hiding behind shot blockers at max range and spamming the ground attack command at enemy units with their new phase-shifting shells. It would be non-sensical, a ridiculous new level of micro strain, and even if you ignored shot blockers—fight out in the open—we’d still have really retarded crap going on, like ISU-152s launching phase-shift nukes through a mountainside to whack your blob of vetted Grenadiere in the nuts—that doesn’t sound fun for anyone, now does it?

The other issue is if Relic forgets to put this behavior into effect for even one weapon, it will be a massive balance pain in the ass until hotpached.

Tl;dr, my vote is no. As a coder, and as a player who’s not a part of the ubermensch 1v1 auto mustard race, this would make the game absolutely frustrating and no fun whatsoever for the average joe—e.g., the other 90% of the playerbase.

EDIT: Fix'd to be Mr. Nicetyniceynicepantsguy. Remember, help your local forum--don't be a Vetlolcake!

Replace Elite Riflemen with Rangers--ridiculously expensive, but the same old two-zooks-by-default-and-four-thompsons-for-100-MU that we all came to love (or hate, as the Axis). Something on the order of 440 MP per call in. Rename the company to a Ranger Company or a Heavy Infantry Company.

GG no re.

I'm all for reduced Soviet weapon team sizes--so long as the support weapons themselves get a little better.