A lot of player has asked for this before but didn’t suggest on how to do it. So my solution is to add the Engineer and AT Gunner slot to the squads and let players change the class themselves
Add the class slots to the squads, players can continue with this loadout or change the soldier’s class.
Players can open the perk screen and click on the “Change Class” button. This button only appears on older event/premium riflemen. Once the player picked an AT Gunner and an Engineer, this button will be gone.
When the player clicks on the button, a dialogue will appear and ask which class would the player like to change this soldier to. Once they pick one, add a backpack slot to the soldier if they don’t have one already.
If the player has secondary weapons, they need to remove them first. This is so that the player is aware where their weapons will go as Engineers and AT Gunner has their own option for secondary weapon.
So this way:
The squads are still capped at 9 men.
The players can decide which soldier to change, so no need to change the player’s data.
Perks shouldn’t be a problem as riflemen perks are universal so there won’t be a problem when the class is changed to engineer or AT gunner.
yeah, I want a 6th soldier for engineer squads, a radio operator or even better, one flametrooper (HA since most flamethrowers were used by assault engineers during ww2).
Honestly, this would be a really innovative design. Logically, the 9-man elite squads should be equipped with both engineers and AT soldiers.
Let’s think back to two years ago, when the Chinese General Liu squad came out. That 9-man squad had demolition specialists and engineers, though sadly no machine gunner.
It would’ve been perfect if they’d added one.
Back then, everyone was really hyped about that layout. It was one of the very few times DF actually did right by the Chinese faction. After that, they completely lost that considerate attitude.
I remember forum staff clearly stated they would never swap AT troops or engineers in elite squads.
But looking back, many old 5-man and 6-man elite squads already came with AT soldiers and engineers. It should’ve been simple and straightforward to swap two regular infantry slots in the 9-man teams for those roles.
The only logical explanation is their messy code and limited workload just won’t let them bother with small quality-of-life changes.
They feel putting in effort for these minor tweaks is pointless, and they’d rather focus their energy on making paid content instead.
It’s just like the long-standing player request for destructible buildings — letting airstrikes collapse entire buildings. No matter how much the community asks, DF simply lacks the technical ability to pull it off. They just avoid the topic or straight-up reject it.
I think the 9-man squad situation is exactly the same. They’re technically incapable of adding AT soldiers and engineers to them, no matter how reasonable the idea is. It’s such a shame.
This game is clearly stuck in the same spaghetti code mess as War Thunder. Not long ago, they even admitted they couldn’t fix the simple issue of machine gunners having lower AI priority than loaders and tank gunners.
Maybe it’s simply because new content is far easier to design from scratch, while old content is a whole different story.
Programmers care most about the underlying code. The game’s codebase is probably such a tangled mess now that some small issues would take them half a year just to fix.
this can actually make old Legacy squads usefull such as the Volkssturm with Lebel which i currently have and they been sitting on my stock for quite a while, and this wont change their main weapon as well so gg
My only problem with this solution is that you’re forced to take the backpack slot because if you take the secondary weapon slot you’re engineer and AT gunner get locked out of using backpacks.
I think Premium squads should be customizable like standard squads.
Another idea, I have suggested for Riflemen squads in particular that their size be increased to their historical sizes. So the devs wouldn’t have to mess with any duct taped code to switch classes back and fourth, just add more slots to those squads to fill
In addition to adding the two professions of engineer and anti-tank soldier, it is also necessary to include three other professions in the nine-person infantry squad: sniper, machine gunner, and radio operator
I think Engineers and AT Gunners can only have backpack slot like the tech tree squads. This made me realize the process needs to add a backpack slot for the Engineer or AT Gunner if they don’t have one or some people might end up without a backpack slot lol
I support the change but they already have a way to change it. This change was retro actively applied to older squads just not all of them. Look at the G41 (w) squad, still a 9 man rifleman squad without a engineer something that can be fixed.
I’m just saying, Engineers were not integral to the standard infantry squad of every nation. They usually were in their own separate units. Of coarse one can extrapolate and say the MG’s assistant and ammo bearer can maybe count as an Engineer but that’s your debate
I try to be a little immersive however I can. I’m more of an add a MG to every Riflemen squads kind of player
Overall I have suggested some changes to the Riflemen squad.
Personally I’m fine with them being just Riflemen, but I think they should be customizable so if you want to add whatever class to the squad
Yep, their implementation was adding the specialist slots and let the players add it themselves which was a great idea. Almost all squads were changed except riflemen, because the max number of squad is 9-men, so there’s a bit of a dilemma:
If they do the same thing and add the slots, you’ll end up with an 11-men squad which would break balance.
Another approach is to edit the player’s data and change the soldier to an engineer and AT gunner so it keeps the squad size at 9-men. This might sound easy, but it can easily break the player’s data and would be time consuming to execute to my understanding. Questions that would come up are: Which soldier should they change? What to do if the soldier has a secondary weapon?
You can delete 2-soldiers and make it work, but players might be angry and the same question as point 2 comes up.
So I completely understand why they never bother to change it. Hopefully some devs see this and consider this option
We have already seen this though, a few squads that were 6 man squads lost 2 unique soldiers and weapons only to be replaced by generic ones you can obtain from TT leveling.
Let’s look at the AT-44 squad, they let the engineer keep his AR but the AT soldier they added was your pick and you had to supply the weapon. Other squads similar to this have had 2 soldiers replaced with the same outcome just larger scale. They could keep the coding of previous engineers the same if they coded it with an engineer before launch. Something they claim they can’t do after it’s already public and live leading to our current solution, leading to AT gunners to replace a soldier that was previously on the squad and you losing the rare weapon they had. Similar situations with the rocket Artillery squads for the event. They took a soldier and a TT weapon that was supplied with him so you can change the soldier to AT.
As you stated, rifleman squads were the only squads they refused to touch, and after getting over the irritation of losing a BR IV TT gun or one of the more rare premium weapons I was alright with replacing them.
Bottom line of what I’m trying to say is if they had a 9 man rifleman squad And cut two them down to 7 riflemen I would be fine with it even if I paid real money for it. The only way I wouldn’t get upset over it would be if it was 7 riflemen with each squad and +1 engineer you supply with a +1 engineer/AT slot choice You would supply everything that’s not The rifleman or weapon. If it’s a premium weapon only The rifleman would obtain it and if it’s a TT weapon then you would be able to use the TT weapon on the additional soldiers. Same logic for event squads.
It’s understandable that it’s spaghetti code and a nightmare, but it doesn’t mean that they should avoid it entirely. They should at least make an attempt.
