Profile of Mr. Someguy

Huh, I'm a couple hours from there. I should check it out some time.

If helmets are OP then why do Soviet Gun Crews have helmets but Guards Rifle Infantry do not?

Are you going to tell me that my AT Gun Crew is better at their job than Guards?

Edit:
If helmets are OP then why doesn't the cop in my avatar have one? Are you calling him weak?

Why not just allow the Penals to upgrade with 6x PPSH when you have the PPSH upgrade ability in your commander (there is a fair few of them). In soviet airborne they work as well but there they are overshadowed by SVT Cons.

My suggestion comes from the fact that Soviet has a plethora of infatry so some of these units need to have different play styles. So in my suggestion Penal are the cheap offensive infatry and conscripts are the defensive infatry.

Personally, the portrayal of the Red Army being a force comprised mostly of Conscripts and Convicts never felt right to be, it feels strange and possibly even a bit insulting. I'd like to see units that are not Conscripts or Convicts available to them as a regular part of their forces.

As for allowing Penals the upgrade if you have the PPSh upgrade in your Commander, well what if you don't have a Commander with it? You're stuck with regular Penals. Not to mention PPSh's are 2CP, by which point the PTRS sidegrade is more desirable because 222/251 Flammen/Luches will be hitting the field, and you've still got a bit to go until T-70.

And Vipper, Penals are not all that cheap or cost effective as offensive infantry, they cost slightly more than US Riflemen but perform slightly worse and cannot be given BAR's. Plus while Grenadiers and Volksgrenadiers bolster their anti-infantry firepower, Penals reduce theirs for AT Rifles to help you hold off until T-70. Back in the day when Penals got 2 Flamethrowers your statement would make perfect sense, but those days are long gone.

If the T-70 is to be reduced in strength, then Soviets will need something to bridge the gap during mid-game if you haven't selected Shock Troops/Guards/PPSh Cons. Many years ago Soviets were designed to rely entirely on doctrines early on and even now the current design reflects this, but that's a poor design and the last vestiges of it need to be brushed away.

My concept for Soviet Assault Troops, a new stock unit available at base once T1 or T2 has been constructed. As this is conceptual the requirements are far from set in stone, but Assault Grenadiers and Assault Sections are available at minute zero, so it should be fine.

Goal here is to fill in a perceived gap in the faction: if Conscripts are only meant for utility and thus do not get weapons, and you do not go for Shocks or Guards, then all they have to support are Penals or Maxims. Conscripts and Penals alike struggle against Gren LMG 42's and Volk StG's, and the Maxim is a weird one because the implication is that Maxims should be used in larger numbers as a frontline unit which has been heavily discouraged by Relic (the dreaded Maxim spam).

It is this shortcoming that leaves the Soviets banking on the T-70 as a make-it-or-break-it unit mid-game, in fact you could say that the T-70 is Soviet mid-game. If that is to ever change, and Conscripts are conceptually prohibited from having their own weapon upgrade, then Soviets will need something else to work with.

A further conceptual fault with the Soviet Faction is that of all 5 factions, they ironically have one of the lowest numbers of SMG's or units with SMG's. This actually was not an issue in the campaign, which granted you SMG Conscripts (often free iirc) on most levels. So I would like to see that rectified.

That is why I believe Soviets would be well served by a new unit. This unit could be given PPSh's that are slightly weaker than Conscript PPSh's, so that they do not make Assault Grenadiers irrelevant. Maybe at T4 they could be given Conscript PPSh's or even Shock Troop PPSh's so they stay relevant into the late game.

Live concept art courtesy of Cheat Mod.

2 bugs to report:

Conscript Assault Package has some interesting side-effects if you merge a Conscript squad fully into another squad, any squad. That squad inherits the PPSh's, for most units that means gaining 3 PPSh's, this isn't a big deal as it is extremely inefficient, requiring you to waste a squad for it. The strongest legitimate thing you can do is merge PPSh Conscripts together to get 6 PPSh's in a squad, but at that point you've sacrificed a 480 manpower and 120 munitions for Soviet Assault Grens/inferior Shock Troops.

But things get weird if you do this to Weapon Crews. With a ZiS-3 AT Gun, the crew gained 1 PPSh. With a Mortar, the crew gained nothing, but the squad still displayed the PPSh icon. With a Maxim, the squad gained 1 PPSh and the gunner was broken rendering the weapon useless. Also, because AT/Mortar/MG Crewmen were never meant to use PPSh's, if they end up holding one, the PPSh is invisible but still appears to fire, I did not manage to capture this in any screenshots.






But the ML-20 had the funniest result, the gunner and loader gained PPSh's and their firing animation was replaced with them firing PPSh's, and their loading animation was replaced with them reloading the PPSh's (while the ML-20 fired and reloaded itself); the third PPSh was held by a crewman. Unfortunately this one I actually forgot to take a picture of, and I don't have the time to go do it now.

Edit: SVT Conscripts seem to have identical problems as above.

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The second bug is just a map bug. On Nexus, the #4 Flak position on the right side as OKW (pictured below) is broken. It does not fire at anything. I took the picture too late, it was supposed to show my stolen Flak shooting the broken Flak, but Sturmpioneers decrewed it too fast.