The problem with dogs?

[Doomsday]

If dogs were reliably able to survive one rifle hit, it would make them more forgiving to use. Currently it is very easy to lose your dog even if you are spending 100% of your concentration on microing the dog. If you are moving towards rifleman and he is moving towards you, room for pulling your dog is really small. This can be even more of a problem because of lag. In addition to minor HP buff, I think faster turn speed should also be considered.

[zinc]

"Medics are better than the vision bonus"


I hadn't thought of that. However, it's still an advantage because of course the enemy will not always have medics.

Actually I found myself in that situation today, where I had a vision advantage from a dog and the enemy had a medic. I think I killed a troop or two and they retreated. I'm not saying it's always like that as there may be various factors like exact troop positions and number of troops that come into play.

From noticing more encounters, I doubt that medics really are better than the dog vision advantage. Or not when it comes to very early game encounters anyway. Perhaps medics are more useful throughout the game but that's a different thing.

Of course as soon as allies get a ranger your dog vision advantage is gone.

[af]

If dogs were reliably able to survive one rifle hit, it would make them more forgiving to use. Currently it is very easy to lose your dog even if you are spending 100% of your concentration on microing the dog. If you are moving towards rifleman and he is moving towards you, room for pulling your dog is really small.

+1, I think a HP buff is the best short-term fix for dogs. I'd love to see a minor vision increase as well, since they're basically the only scouting unit soviets have early (besides the considerably more expensive APC)

[noobmapmaker]

When you zoom in on two OpenRA dogs fighting eachother

[Clockwork]

"Medics are better than the vision bonus"


I hadn't thought of that. However, it's still an advantage because of course the enemy will not always have medics.

Actually I found myself in that situation today, where I had a vision advantage from a dog and the enemy had a medic. I think I killed a troop or two and they retreated. I'm not saying it's always like that as there may be various factors like exact troop positions and number of troops that come into play.

From noticing more encounters, I doubt that medics really are better than the dog vision advantage. Or not when it comes to very early game encounters anyway. Perhaps medics are more useful throughout the game but that's a different thing.

Of course as soon as allies get a ranger your dog vision advantage is gone.

I'd rather have a medic than a dog any day. The dog gets 1 cell more range than a rifle, if i just a-move where i'm getting shot from your dog will die. If I have 3 medics well then i now have a human tank in your face so i will probably win the engagement.

[Blackened]

"Medics are better than the vision bonus"


I hadn't thought of that. However, it's still an advantage because of course the enemy will not always have medics.

Actually I found myself in that situation today, where I had a vision advantage from a dog and the enemy had a medic. I think I killed a troop or two and they retreated. I'm not saying it's always like that as there may be various factors like exact troop positions and number of troops that come into play.

From noticing more encounters, I doubt that medics really are better than the dog vision advantage. Or not when it comes to very early game encounters anyway. Perhaps medics are more useful throughout the game but that's a different thing.

Of course as soon as allies get a ranger your dog vision advantage is gone.

I'd rather have a medic than a dog any day. The dog gets 1 cell more range than a rifle, if i just a-move where i'm getting shot from your dog will die. If I have 3 medics well then i now have a human tank in your face so i will probably win the engagement.

This. Dog vision is the same range that a rifle can shoot. Let the medic tank and just force fire into the fog. Its not a ranger where you can have 20+ infantry firing safely. A dog can support 4ish riflemen before they won't be safe.

[Doomsday]

I think current dog has two major design flaws.

1) Very unforgiving unit because of tiny amount of health.
2) Dog tends to either kill nothing or occasionally murder a large blob of infantry worth 1000 or more.

Because of these two traits cost 200 is very bleh. 95% of the time it's a bad deal for 200 but 5% of the time you get blowout dog plays that are just crazy sick. I'm very much not a fan of units that this much variance in their performance. I would prefer to have units with more reliable performance.


Having said that, I propose two changes to dogs:

1) Reduce dog's combat power drastically. Dog's point should be about vision and maybe sniping something like an engineer.
2) Lower cost to something like 100.

Cheap cost would allow soviets to use dogs as scouting tools in midgame where they really lack in terms of vision game. Allies would still be kings of vision with their ranger but cheap spammable dogs would let soviet player to do checks like "has he expanded to this area" or "does he have something in this area".

[Blackened]

1) Reduce dog's combat power drastically. Dog's point should be about vision and maybe sniping something like an engineer.
2) Lower cost to something like 100.

Cheap cost would allow soviets to use dogs as scouting tools in midgame where they really lack in terms of vision game. Allies would still be kings of vision with their ranger but cheap spammable dogs would let soviet player to do checks like "has he expanded to this area" or "does he have something in this area".

I was wondering if giving them one more cell of vision would make a difference. Now they wouldn't blindly wander into enemy fire as they could see further than a rifle could shoot. Rangers would still have superior vision and could shadow armies but now allies couldn't mass a sizeable infantry force and safely attack a soviet player. With a dog mixed into a soviet players group both sides would be able to fire at each other.

This would make light tanks/apcs a bit more important for tanking in the early game and maybe force people into an earlier investment in rockets.