Royal Engineers are broken

They are WAY too powerful for 210 manpower. They can move into static pioneers in the heavy cover and annihilate them. Not only that but also they can move into static grenadiers from max range and win. And that's even without bolster. I mean who even needs infantry sections when you have those little bastards?

I'll have to test that when get home.

I think royal engineers should be pioneers because they are at T1 and not T0 so they do have a pay wall behind them so they can not be really be used in the early game unless there are less infantry section. Additionally royal engineers need to be tougher to help protect the positions they have built.

Royal engineers dps (far/near): 0.36 / 7.73
Pioneers dps (far/ near): 0.57 / 6.30

source:
http://www.stat.coh2.hu/squad.php?filename=sapper_squad_mp
http://www.stat.coh2.hu/squad.php?filename=pioneer_squad_mp

They do beat pios handily, provided you get into the cover with them to use the RE's bonus. Otherwise it was fairly even with RE being slightly more powerful.

Couldn't find a situation where they even came close against grens though.

on my test. sapper is very strong because of very high received accuracy bonus( 20% OMG!!!!! )

don't forget that they have a lot of super fighting vet bonus such as extra cover bonus(it's almost op) and 34% additional received accuracy bonus and -50% reinforcement cost.

Great, now compare them to Sturms, and no, I need to pay ammo for them to become long range Sturms and if I lose a single squad equipped with 2 or 3 weapons (5 with the flamethrowers) that's a huge ammo loss, 210 manpower and 60 ammo for a bren/vickers each already out-weights 300 man power.

Great, now compare them to Sturms, and no, I need to pay ammo for them to become long range Sturms and if I lose a single squad equipped with 2 or 3 weapons (5 with the flamethrowers) that's a huge ammo loss, 210 manpower and 60 ammo for a bren/vickers each already out-weights 300 man power.

I don't really see the point of comparison. Brens are better on sections since they are already long-ranged troops. Without brens the price difference is too big to compare them (though I'm pretty sure that 3 sapper squads will easily outgun 2 sturm squads).

Royal Engineers indeed overperform for their cost.

Royal engineers equiped with worst SMG of WWII - STEN, Assault grenadeers equiped with not-worst SMG of WWII - MP-40. Do your bets, folks, who will win? Mine for Royals, lol.

I see 2 problems here:

1. While engineers of all other factions are zeros in combat, those engineers fights not worse that Sturmpios (which I still belive are OP). It's not fair and wrong. Let them be good in combat only with Anvil upgrades.

2. STEN. That SMG in CoH 2 looks like "Terminator gun". Even Thompson is not so badass, but it's pretty cool too. I know, that CoH 2 is not about history, but... Worst SMG of WWII is way better, than Best SMG of WWII - PPSH-41 (IRL it was PPS-43, but they won't add it, lol). Something should be done about it also.

2.5 BUFF MP-40!!!! Ass grens sux, ostheer engineers sux, MP-40 sux! Fix it already, nobody want's to play with assgrens because of it.

But it's not how weapons work in coh2. Same weapon can deal different dps that depends on the squad. For example both rear echelons and rangers have m1 carbine but their dps is very different.

Well Royal engineers are ok imo. After struggling against ostheer sniper and overwhelming volks,sturms and kubel , engineers providing some help. Besides brits dont have non commander close range unit think about that too..

Once they vet up and get brens they are really good but they can easly wiped out with indirect fire and panzer shots so idk its ok for me.

Royal engineers equiped with worst SMG of WWII - STEN, Assault grenadeers equiped with not-worst SMG of WWII - MP-40. Do your bets, folks, who will win? Mine for Royals, lol.

I see 2 problems here:

1. While engineers of all other factions are zeros in combat, those engineers fights not worse that Sturmpios (which I still belive are OP). It's not fair and wrong. Let them be good in combat only with Anvil upgrades.

2. STEN. That SMG in CoH 2 looks like "Terminator gun". Even Thompson is not so badass, but it's pretty cool too. I know, that CoH 2 is not about history, but... Worst SMG of WWII is way better, than Best SMG of WWII - PPSH-41 (IRL it was PPS-43, but they won't add it, lol). Something should be done about it also.

2.5 BUFF MP-40!!!! Ass grens sux, ostheer engineers sux, MP-40 sux! Fix it already, nobody want's to play with assgrens because of it.

1. First all engi can fight and bring DPS to a fight, MP40 on wehr engi are not so bad if you can be in cover, and i do'nt know if you heard about flamers too


2. Rofl plz play the game before saying idiot things like this, thompson is far better, sten gun is ok with a slow ROF, and for an history point it's not the worst SMG of WW2, germans did a copy of this gun and give it to their boys

3. Ass grens only sucks if you rush toward rangers and Shocks troops, it's funny to see players still picking that doc even if you tell "it sucks"


On topic, sappers perfom in relation of how many munitions you want to sunk into them, 190 muni to get an 2 armor 5 five men squad is not cheap

Royal engineer are currently over-performing. Even if one forgets the fact the fact that they are extremely cheap their vet ability is bugged and it is providing them with a huge bonus...

I also agreed with the point made in another thread that engineer types units should either scale as repair/building units or as fighting units but not as both...Having units that can do everything is bad for the game.

https://www.coh2.org/topic/46004/the-op-utility-of-engineers

Royal engineers equiped with worst SMG of WWII - STEN, Assault grenadeers equiped with not-worst SMG of WWII - MP-40. Do your bets, folks, who will win? Mine for Royals, lol.

I see 2 problems here:

1. While engineers of all other factions are zeros in combat, those engineers fights not worse that Sturmpios (which I still belive are OP). It's not fair and wrong. Let them be good in combat only with Anvil upgrades.

2. STEN. That SMG in CoH 2 looks like "Terminator gun". Even Thompson is not so badass, but it's pretty cool too. I know, that CoH 2 is not about history, but... Worst SMG of WWII is way better, than Best SMG of WWII - PPSH-41 (IRL it was PPS-43, but they won't add it, lol). Something should be done about it also.

2.5 BUFF MP-40!!!! Ass grens sux, ostheer engineers sux, MP-40 sux! Fix it already, nobody want's to play with assgrens because of it.

The ppsh having the highest capacity magazine doesn't make it the best, plus it's copied from a finish weapon, like anything else Soviet that's actually good.

Which SMG was the best is very arguable, for instance the best damage dealing one was the Thompson because of it's .45 caliber bullet, couple it with the 50 round drum magazine and you're holding a very dangerous SMG right there, if you wanted accuracy there was the MP40 which also had the option for dual magazines, while the Sten was perfect when silenced for covert operations behind enemy lines, which was the Commandos' job basically.

And I only compared them to the sturms because the OP compared them to the pioneers which are again, arguably the worst engineer unit in the game right now. While the RE need to be upgraded in order to be combat effective, the sturms have that right off the bat. In the end different units show different results in different situations, but yes, I would say that both the Sturms and Suppers are the more useful engineer units in the game which I enjoy using.

Broken? Not really. (has REs spam become a thing, now, and I missed the memo?)

Overperforming for their cost? Definitely. However we need to make the following distinction:
- Their call-in cost is cheap for a 4-man squad, and dirt-cheap for a 5-man squad
- Their reinforcement cost is OK-ish (compare to other line infantry for instance)
- They cost the same-or-more popcap as other line infantry

However, before we go ahead and balance the only non-underperforming infantry of the Brits let's have a look at the bigger picture.

Spamming Tommies doesn't work; Tommies are a bit meh for their cost, and you will bleed heavily.

Spamming Sappers doesn't work either; sure, on 1v1 with other infantry, they are cost efficient. However, they have a very low range and can be cattle-prodded with MGs very easily.

You are meant to use both of them at the same time so that each unit's advantages covers the other unit's disadvantages.

Tommies

Tommies cost 280MP, and are probably priced with their 5-man version in mind.

For a 4-man squad, Tommies are extremely overpriced at 280MP. Part of that call-in premium goes towards:
- Tommies' received accuracy at Vet0 (-20%)
- Is probably meant to be recuperated by more cost-efficient units (Sappers).

Tommies, however, suffer from the following:
- Cover penalty
- Severe moving accuracy penalty
- Their Vet3 penalty bug (weapon pinatas)
- They scale well, but not as well as other infantry in the game (if you compare the bonuses)
- Part of the reason behind this scalability lag is that they already get some of the benefits at Vet0
- Unless you plan on blobbing your entire army, the faction design forces UKF to have at least 2 Tommies so that they get access to healing

I will leave it up to you to decide whether 280MP is a fair price for a 5-man Tommy squad.

Sappers

Sappers are very generously priced for a 4-man unit. Of course, this cost becomes insanely low considering that Sappers can become 5-man squads.

Their Vet0 reinforcement cost is not that bad. They cost 7/8 popcap and are meant to act as line infantry to cover up for Tommies' weaknesses.

The combat bonuses they get are at:
- Vet0 (0.8 reinforcement cost)
- Vet1 (Stens fire faster when in cover -- currently it's bugged and affects ALL weapons)
- Vet3 (Additional received accuracy bonus, Halved reinforcement cost)

Now:
1. Sappers cost equal/more popcap than other line infantry.
2. The Vet3 Reinforcement cost bonus is outright OP and needs to be thrown out immediately IMO (or moved to Conscripts)
3. The call-in cost could be adjusted to be fair. However, it would also be fair to adjust the Tommies' callin cost at the same time.
4. I don't know if one of the received accuracy bonuses needs to be reduced.
5. Alternatively, their Vet0 received accuracy bonus could be tied to a specific Veterancy tier.
6. However, this unit receives no offensive vet bonuses at all (apart from the recent bug).

Overall, as a line-infantry, Sappers get very tanky-kind-of veterancy. That, coupled with the Heavy Engineer upgrade makes them extremely difficult to eradicate. That is, until you figure out that you should be using grenades against them.

(Excluding the recent bug), none of the bonuses affects their offensive capability with equipped weapons. This means that you need Tommies to dish out the damage, and it probably makes sense to have Sappers to soak up the damage.

That's right. No matter how much munitions you sink into Sappers, Tommies will still be able to deal more damage with equal (or less) amount of munitions invested.

Provided that this is balanced, I think that's good design (as opposed to spamming Rifle-Rifle-Rifle or Volks-Volks-Volks)

Weapon teams

If we nerf Sappers, UKF will lack a low-reinforcement utility-only unit to reman weapon teams.

Currently, we have:
- USF has RE for 25MP-a-pop (a bit overnerfed) -- no special utility
- Soviets have Conscripts for 20-a-pop -- no special utility
- OKW has Volks for 25-a-pop -- no special utility
- OST has Pioneers (25-a-pop) or Osttruppen (20-a-pop) -- Pioneers have a passive sight bonus. Osttruppen reinforce very very very fast
- UKF has Sappers for 26-a-pop -- Sappers have a 0.8 received accuracy

(Btw, Vickers is also overpriced at 280MP. Shouldn't we also fix that too?)

Conclusions

1. The Sappers Vet3 reinforcement cost bonus (13MP) is ridiculously OP and needs to go.
2. Don't fix Sappers further unless you also plan on fixing Tommies too.
3. Otherwise, don't come here to complain when UKF starts spamming nothing but snipers and emplacements as their line infantry.

Sappers are the TRUE mainline infantry for the British Empire, since Tommies are really really terribad.

2. Rofl plz play the game before saying idiot things like this, thompson is far better, sten gun is ok with a slow ROF, and for an history point it's not the worst SMG of WW2, germans did a copy of this gun and give it to their boys

It will bring us into history discussion, but still - compare how much costed production of 1 Thompson and 1 PPSH/PPS, and you will see, why Thompson was bad for real war, and PPS became the best. Tommy costed too much, even after they tried to make it cheaper (but made it worse also), it still was overpriced as weapon for army needs. So, they made M3 instead of Tommygun.

Weapon for massive war and massive army suppoused to be cheap and easy to construct before everything. Using that logic USSR made PPSH and PPS, Britans made STEN, which was really awful, a lot of weapon-fans agree with that, M3 Grease Gun was more popualr in US army than Thompson for same reason - cheaper and easier to make.

- lower the cost of infantry sections from 280 to 260 MP
- increase infantry sections received accuracy at vet2 from 23% to 33%.
- lower the cost of the Vickers HMG from 280 to 260 MP
- increase the mp cost of royal engineers from 210 to 240 MP
- change the vet3 on royal engineers from reinforcement cost to reinforcement speed and the -33% received accuracy to -23% received accuracy.
- also change it so royal engineers no longer benefit from the +1 man upgrade.

There is a way you can reinforce Sappers for 6MP a pop.. Which I'm not going to defend!

Sappers do need to be combat capable, though having the choice between builder unit and combat would be nice ( mine sweeper upgrade could be used to differentiate). I'm not convinced they overperform at Vet 0, 1 or 2 and we should bear in mind that the UKF late game is supposed by design to be powerful.

Also worth noting that Sappers make up the UKF's infantry AT, and are awful at it, though merely less crap than Tommies.

They are the de facto close assault infantry so could do with area denial grenades, would happily trade this for the Vet 3 reinforcement.

vetted Royal engineers can sometimes beat a SPIO. that says it all