...The other thought that struck me was giving Ingenery the M1939C by default, rather then their (after checking corsix) pitiful current weapons. Yes yes, "4 man squads with decent rifles?!". 32.5 HP/Man.... the Strekly Mosin looks good in corsix. It struck me as a Stormtrooper K98k with 12 damage as opposed to 15. I know you guys tweaked everything to be painstakingly balanced, but .45 long range and ?.65 medium range accuracy is on par with Grenadiers for a comparitively lower cost and more health in a squad on squad fight. Was there a reason that vanilla Strekly rifles are so good?Your argument is very cogent. The wide variety of Soviet Rifles in the EF mod is bewildering. Granting the one-shot kill to snipers as an exception it seems to me the Mosin "M1939C" should be the default infantry rifle for all Soviet infantry Squads. Other differences in performance should be handled by the Squad statistics. When balancing for game play one less variable need be considered and buffs and nerfs to the different mosin types in game just makes future balancing efforts more difficult. What started as three types of Mosins plus two generic rifles is probably up to more than ten types by now. This can only lead to inconsistancies and poor quality control for the mod.
If they didn't win when they flank then the game would heavily favour Wehr. Not to mention that very strong weapons are needed once the MGs go away and elite armour spam appears.
It's infinitely easier to balance the game with every rifle being different than a globally identical weapon. A matchup can be balanced on the premise of Strelky vs Infantry armour in a vacuum as opposed to Ingenery, Strelky, Command Squad, Conscripts, Weapon Crews, Guards, Partisans vs Infantry armour all at once. The balancing process is much more specific and doesn't cause collateral damage. Ingame, you don't even get a massive readout of stats while playing; you just see the effects. As long as it performs OK ingame, that's all people should be worried about, not the specifics of its statistical makeup.
Cranial I don't argue that different factions shouldn't have different weapons or rifle types. When there is reason like between the M3 grease gun and the Thompson SMG it makes sense. Two or more types of Shrek models for german factions or two PTRD models for the same weapon in the same faction is what doesn't make sense to me as a designer and modder, (not as a player). IIRC in EF the CS, ing, cons, Strelky, Guards, Tankhunters, naval infantry, NKVD and partizan all stared out with some version of the soviet wwii rifle which we call the mosin. As near as I can tell two type of mosins and two generic rifles were originally used. IE nine sets of bookeeping became (2x1) + 7x2) = 16 sets ofweapons with IDK say10 variable stats each; > say 160 possible variables to keep track of, and then the process of buff/nerf for balance begins. This is a lot of work. If only 2 types of Mosin are considered, (maybe 3 if the Guards ST40 isn't a Mosin), the variables are reduced. and maybe only 3-4 of the 10 weapons stats whoud be different for the weapons. I believe the process of implementing balance changes would be much faster and maybe easier.
Case closed, this system will not be changed because it's a lot more simpler and easier to make new weapons than try to give the same weapon to all squad types. This is also why we try to limit the amount of Armor types we make, but occasionally we make new ones like with Sturmovie.
The only thing missing is a scope for the SVT-40, but I'm sure Robotnik or Walki can make it :D!
Then the Sniper will use a Scoped SVT40 and the sniper ace a Scoped Mosin.