GAS GAS GAS GOTTA STEP ON THE GAS

Fix 1. Increasing the Call in Cost to better reflect the tanks value.
Pro's: Higher cost makes the ability less spammable. Tanks dont come out as early. More demanding of OKW player to focus on achieving this valuable ability within a time frame.
Con's: Pushes survivability of OKW to the limit, restricts vehicle and defensive structure use. Every drop of gas saved could be invested on the field for value. Boring. Doesnt come out fast enough to compete with other armor. Doesnt come out early enough to gain veterancy. Stored gas of 280 could be a king tiger or heavier tank.

Simply increasing the cost of the call in delays the power fo the tanks to much. Simply put, not spending you gas until you have ~300 is simply boring and suicidal. Giving everybody time to field whatever they want and win the game. You would have to already be winning by a wide margin in order to save 300 gas, and if you can do that you dont need ausif IV battlegroup. The call in is "the calvary" which saves you from being overwhelmed. If it doesnt come at the right time in the match it becomes basically useless except as a cheaper building. Devaluing the playability of the commander. Any increase to the cost needs to take the stockpiling of resoruces into account as a loss in value. But it is the most direct way to balance the ability. verterancy could be awarded for the later arrival (they were mopping up elsewhere) which could make them stronger threats as a call in EVEN LATER in the game. But its still less tank play = probably already dead.

Fix 1a. Increase the bullitins consistantcy in stealing gas by improving Scout battalion call in.
Pro's: Early game strategy provided by call in focuses on syphoning gas from opponent. Increased gas production offsets increased gas call in cost. Focuses on using vehicles to accomplish early game objectives.
Con's: Scout car gets disabled by 1 panzerfaust then shot to hell as it trys to limp away. The vehicle isnt able to get behind enemy lines to set up. the panzerfusiliers are uniniteresting rifle units with little to offer.

Syphoning gas from an opponent fits extremely well with increasing the ausif IV gas price. Denying your opponent gas and speeding up your own gas gains allows adjestment of the time frame that the battlegroup can arrive, speeding it up with good scout car placement and outplay and slowing it down when those cars dont get value on the call in. The panzer fussilier unit is also lacking, as its simply a straight forwards rifle unit with a 90 munition buy in, and lackluster grenades. The Scout Battalion call in could become the dark horse of this post.

Scout Car. Simply put, dies like a peice of wet paper. A single panzerfaust and the car is limping away asking for sweet mercy of death. The car shouldnt dominate the battlefield, but it could become a very interesting sapper unit. A "move casutiously" ability like the light tank hunter gets at Vet1 could be used to provide the scout car a safer way to sneak around the opponents back line. Sliding up to a point and then switching to sap mode. When enemies come calling it could switch back and slowly sneak away. This would also provide it bonus damage on first strike upon breaking cover from this mode (not syphon mode) so that the car can bait squads to coming to its part of the map, and then either escape or engage if it can actually survive more then 2 clicks. This could be a payable upgrade on the scout car alongside the radio equipment, so that a munitions cost is needed rather then a VET1. It also means that loosing the vehicle is a loss of many munitions and valuable gas opportunity. Considering its fragility this is a risk worth taking for Ausif IV's tho. Additionally the scout car auto cannon should return, but be an upgrade independent of radio equipment. Ambushing cannon scout cars sounds like OKW Elite armor doctrine.

Panzerfussiliers. A simple straight forward unite that doesnt do any scouting. Sure they are good at long range but dont pack enough punch to scare off bum rushing infantry. If they had ambush training, gaining concealment in cover. they could easily capture a point, hide, and wait for an opponent to come get the point oppening up with a sneak attack on those upgraded rifles. This could give them the burst damage to win small scale skirmishes and assist the scout car in doing what it does best. Awarding carefull play, best at fighting small engagements then slipping away before the larger force can confront them.

Fix 1-1a Conclusion. Increasing Ausif IV cost makes the commander weaker, requiring larger stockpiles of gas. But improving the scout battalions ability to steal gas by providing more stealth to the units means they can spread out and play an early game of cat and mouse. This tactic rewards good play with "earlier" tanks. Adjusting the window your opponent can field tanks and quicking your own tank response. It preserves the power of the call in, just makes more demands on the player to utilize its efficiency as quickly as possible.

NOW LETS TAKE A LOOK UP THOSE ARMOR SKIRTS

Fix 2. decrease the tanks value to better reflect the cost. Without changing their attributes.
Pro's: More vunerable tanks means better opportunities for opponent to trade. Great resource investment provides degree's of choice, slowing down the power through upgrade timers. Tanks still arrive early. Provides multiple options for employing tanks.
Con's: Greatly drains munitions depriving player of using tanks varius abilities. Tanks dont look as Iconic.

Armor skirts take the already durable and thick skinned Ausif IV and make it near impenatrable. The removal of this free upgrade would be a straight nerf to the call in, and would dig deeply into the pockets of the player for their munitions. Considering that the bullitin doesnt have any munitions call it could be said that its ok to let the player invest those munitions in these tanks. The ausif IV's have more ways to spend your bullets then any other vehicle however. They have coaxil, panzer commander, panzer commander artillery strike, HEAT shells, critical repairs, and battle manuevers. All of these things increase the utility and power of the tank and are very powerful upgrades. AS it stands, panzer commanders are a must buy immediatly as it makes the shortsighted tank open its damn eyes and hit every time. But if you had to choose between armor skirts, or a panzer commander and a HEAT shell in the next fight. I would be hard pressed. With two tanks however, customizing them differently could be viable. And How and when I spend my munitions on them would be a larger choice.
The delay from upgrading armor skirts would also curb the immediate power, especially when spamming the ability right after the first wave of tanks dies and my opponents are weakened. Now my tanks would be immediatly less upgraded and if they rush out to battle, much more likely to suffer losses then if I reinvest munitions into them.

Fix 2a. Perhaps the tank skirts arent garenteed, but rather a random upgrade is applied or/veterency. Perhaps one comes vanilla and another with a random upgrade. This proves inconsistancy which Im not a big fan of but are simply considerable ways of reducing the value/consistant value of the call in. I think at the very least, 1 panzer commander and 1 vanilla ausif would be the lowest I would recomend allowing them to come in with upgrades. Since panzer commanders are a part of the bullitin.

Fix 2b. The tanks come vanilla, and armor skirts are an upgrade on the AntiAir Heavy supply Truck. Replace the skin changer button, and put armor skirts for the tanks there. That way it costs gas to unlock (or just put it on the bullitin?) and requires investment in the structure. meaning that it probably wont happen until later in the match from when the tanks arrive. This allows the tanks to improve deeper into the game, incentivises the player to spend gas elsewhere then on more tanks, and requires continued investment into new tanks decreasing the power of spamming the ability as free skirts arent included! it allows the tanks to arrive as early as they can to be effective, but makes the entire strategy more risky and delicate to counter. Needing to switch into late game tech to follow up.

Fix 2-ab Conclusion.
Removing the armor skirts reduced the value the tanks hit the field with, delaying them through upgrade and equipment time, and ensuring that they will have to choose how to spend munitions on the tanks. It softens them up ensuring that heavy tanks have a chance of cracking these mediums before they outclass them, and it increased casualties to early game tank fights. Fully equiping the tanks is now a serious munnitions investment that takes just as much bullets as it did gas to summon them. Losses hit harder, making the ability less able to wage a war of attrition.

BONUS ROUND DADDY CAN I HAVE THIS MINISKIRT?

simply add the 160 munnitions cost of the skirts to the call in price. This means players need to pile ammo and gas to activate this powerful call in, futher demanding control over their economy. Has all the benefits, except when players loose their mind over paying munitions for tanks. Weird UI but effective? doesnt leave oppenings to ambush "unarmored" tanks, doesnt provide choice to player about what to spend on either. But is straightforwards to test value.

ON THE FIRST LIGHT OF THE THIRD DAY

Fix 3. Prevent the ability from being used repeatably but tuning the cooldown on the call in to longer then it takes to recharge the gas.
Pro's The ability cannot be used to blindly create tanks, limiting the number of times the ability can be used in a match. This encourages diversity of gas spending, and still provide the initial boost to armor OKW needs, The armor can be as valuable, because its not as easily remade. Less ability to snowball.
Con's The armor is still strong, Its still efficient. It still comes out early, but demands that the player use the ability ASAP or loose lots of value.

The timer is curently a none factor on this ability. It can be used back to back to summon 4 tanks in under a minute if you have the gas to do it. This encourages fielding the tanks at the last possible moment because their are no limits to when they can be called. If the charge time is longer then the time to recharge gas players will be left with extra gas they cannot spend of the ability, pushing them to spend the gas elsewhere to gain its value. Forcing them to seek other forms of armor production but still leaving room in the economy to pursue these technologies alongside the Ausif IV battlegroup.

I would set the timer betwee 8-10 minutes. longer then it takes to gain 180 gas on a 1v1 map. So that players are always waiting to call them in as soon as possible. The sooner the player can use the ability the sooner its back out. This clogs their field with man power demaning tanks, and opens them up to counters. Its allows the ability to hit early, but not keep hitting as theirs a long window before another battlegroup will arrive. This essentially deny's snowballing through battlegroup spam. If the players want a more consistant output for their tanks, a building will become appealing to them when they are in need and are stairing down 5 more minutes of cool down. This shifts the ability from a war of attrition to a war of survival. making the OKW due with a few good men, which is what an ELITE ARMOR DOCTRINE should be doing.

Fix 3 conclusion.
Cannot spam and snowball an ability that takes so long to cool down. Eventually you will want to spend the gas before the ability comes back, but it preserves the first early tank rush to give the OKW a shot of pwerful armor. then forces them to keep it alive while they transition into a better production pattern. Opponent doesnt feel overwhealmed by the constant arrival of ausif IV battlegroups every 6 minutes. But the player still gainst the benefits and immediate kick to their economy they need to play with the OKW's costly toys.

IN THE END IT DIDNT EVEN MATTER

I personally think all of the changes would be healthy. Implementing a slightly higher gas cost of around 200 gas, increasing the cooldown time to 10 minutes so it isnt spammable, and playing around with armor skirts so that theirs a great munition demand to unlock the full power.

I really like the incentive armor skirts on the heavy building provides, as well as the gas surplus from the cooldown. I want to use this call in. But I also dont want it dominating the entire game both my side and my opponents. It saddens me to see the skirts go, but Its overpowered to have to much for so little with no restriction. Its simply to easy to abuse. I want to run elite armor, and actually have a reason to make other tanks.

The scout battalion call in was my favorite change last patch, but they simply arent units that survive long enough to be worth using and just end up feeding my opponent, the scout car particularly but panzer fussiliers only get good with rifles and vet 3+, rarely can they achieve that level with their low power, and easy to gib squad. Improved stealth abilities fufils the theme of scouting, increases their survivability, and has the potential to allow them to trade better at key situations before escaping a prolonged engagement. Enabling the OKW in the early game by boosting gas thats otherwise uncontrollable and delaying their opponent with distraction's and syphons.

I really hope you enjoyed reading my ideas for fixing this part of the game, and my thoughts on improving the level of play for the bullitin.

Thank you for your time
Your Fan David

To all you who read my post thank you and I look forwards to your comments and ideas about the ELITE ARMOR DOCTRINE bullitine and your experiences using battlegroup ausif. Did yuo find the ability to powerful? Was it countered by something I'm missing? How does it compare to other abilities that call in tanks in the game right now? Im no expert, I just know that my playgroup is on their wits end and want to ban the damn thing, myself regretably included.

TL:DR Go spam battlegroup ausif IV tanks with armor skirts against literally any other tank and see what happens. Now imagine they cost 90 gas, no building.

This is the most detailed feedback I've ever seen, I like it!

The commander is quite munitions heavy, it has Emergency Repairs and Heat Rounds which are high consumables. And the tank commander unlock arti which also costs ammo. Therefore I think increasing the fuel/gas costs would fit best for this commander. Call-in abilities are known for the fact that they are not tight to the tier structures and I'd like to keep it that way. Increasing the cooldown time a bit would solve that hopefully.

Thank you for your consideration and transparency. I whole heartedly agree that a minor tweek to gas cost and a lengthening of the cooldown is the most straightforward and elegant solution to tuning the commander.

I eagerly anticipate the next patch notes!

P.S. This whole ordeal has me looking into the attribute moding tools. Is their a Community contered around this mod like a discord? Where private matches can be set up and gameplay can more fluidly be discussed?

A community member recently created a page just for this mod: https://discord.gg/JZqPGsR