Build 56 changelog

[pip]

Build 56 changelog

Hotfix for Janus and artilleries issues in build 55.
T2 Naval yard buildtime adjusted to FAF value.

[Brute51]

Any thoughts on the balance in recent builds? Pip and me are taking silence as a silent approval, meaning balance is quite good!

[Ithilis_Quo]

noone want to play nomads with me, so i dont test it only w8 cca 4-5hour on empty game loby :/

from the text ti looks good. I would rather see torp and torp defense on railgun carrier for make similar role as cooper and better fill the place, but its design decision and maybe this work good enought. Need to test it, but that is a biggest pain. its ridiculous hard to found a player. no one want to play nomads, maybe some noobs but thay dont join on 1800rating host

cravler mass cost rise was good, 18K was too low, dont know how t2 bomber work in reality. so rather im silent about something that i dont test yet. yeah yeah beamer accident.

[Exotic_Retard]

De Ithilis made me play nomads heres what i think:

acu capacitor is not obvious, i had to ask ithilis to explain it to me - would be better if it appeared on the top hotbar thingy as i kept forgetting it existed and should have used it a lot more. i still dont know by which mechanics it works and such

maybe would be cool if it was a really cheap upgrade or sth

the way to use intel boost is not very obvious, i wasnt sure if it was working a couple of times at the start
a simple flash of the green radar range thing would help when its activated i think - really i just dont know how how it works other than it boosts radar range :\

would be much better if it was a toggle on radars - make it consume much more energy but give longer range or regular consumption but regular range - like:
regular:-15 energy 90 range, boosted: -100 energy 115 range or w.e.
function just like cybran t1 aa toggle and not just extra clicking work - every minute you must remember to click boost - thats just annoying

also bug related to it: you can boost intel of field engy with this; when you do that it loses all build orders it had, and stops building if it was.

not sure if this is related or not - seems gazui doesnt play well with this mod, maybe i need nomads version or sth but templates dont work, and buildpower of units isnt visible

not really a balance thing but - some units look kinda ugly
(t1scout t1tankdestroyer t3arty t3heavytank acu)

hope this helps. also note that silence isnt a great use of approval here as not many people play nomads

[Ithilis_Quo]

I really like how T3 mobile arty looks like:) but agree with others that retard say.

Another thing i was test and its see here. First bug take me on head apofenas, that speed is op and i was not understand why it can be op. Here is a replay: Acu with speed upgrade is imune to die against T2 units. thay only kite and t2 dont kill him because have no enought speed. Only way how to kill nomad speed acu is with hover units, or with gunships. T2 bomber can be doged with this speed. That make it not good choice because its uncomorable with everithing others that others fraction have.

Capacitator is too complicate. tokyto play about 50+ nomads game and understand it only now when i was saing him what it do. I cant be on another nomads game to say ppl what game stuff do. And when you dont say me what exaktli capacitator do i would also dont know it. :/

[Ithilis_Quo]

Another things after long discusion, what is still not in end.

Crawled function that allow EMP experimental is op. When its combinet with other units this is ultimate support. Stun against army is pretty nice. on Exp its too strong, doesnt mather that its only for 0,1sec exp dont move and spider dont atack.
number or missile can be probably take a litle down. for easyr counter base with tmd and shield. Dont let make it ultimate anti base wepon.
also range 150 would be in comunity more familiar as 175. speed2 say that 150 is insine op, not 175 how crawler already have.

here is replay

[Brute51]

Sako, thanks for trying the mod! I'll see if I can address the issues you mentioned but I'll leave the balancing up to Pip. If you have any ideas for getting more people to play Nomads, we're all ears (working on the issues you mentioned aside). And please try the mod again soon!

Pretty much all units need to be retextured and some minor model work done (mainly to remove excess polies but also making the model more "pretty"). I"m afraid that the looks of the models is very subjective, as it evident from Ithilis' last message already. But maybe doing the work on the models will change it for the better. Currently I have a new model for the T1 scout and T1 tank destroyer. They just need a texture - something I'm working on.

The next part is not criticism towards you guys, it's a general annoyance that I have. Part of the problem of not knowing how stuff works is that people can't be bothered to read anything. I'm a bit reluctant to force a tutorial game when you first play Nomads but it may come down to that. Perhaps I can create a video that explains some of the stuff. Can you please list everything that isn't clear or took a while to figure out?

[pip]

SAKO, thanks a lot for your feedback. It's globally similar with many players new to the Nomads. the GAZUI that is integrated in FAF should work with Nomads. It's not normal not to have templates etc, it works for me with just FAF.
As Brute51 wrote, I guess some userfriendly improvements can be made here and there, but overall, it's the kind of things that can only be learnt over time, when familiarity with the faction is reached. I remember having a very hard time playing with Seraphim at the release of FA, because I couldn't tell which unit was which, looking so weird. Now it's fine, because we are all used to them, it's similar with Nomads abilities. Once you used them in a couple of games, they will feel more natural.

Question : which one of the heavy T3 tank do you dislike like ? There are two. It's very important for us to know what you feel about them because one is old style nomads (from previous team) and one is current style nomads, and that style is planned to be applied on other units.
T3 arty model looks good in my opinion, it's rather that the texture is ugly, same as many other units, so hopefully, when Brute51 really tackles the texture overhaul that he has in mind, the "feeling of ugliness" that you are not the only one to feel, should be reduced. Don't hesitate to point out other units you don't like.
(PS: I actually like, if not love the Nomad ACU model, despite its flaws, so as Brute51 says, it's indeed difficult to please everyone with such subjective matters as scifi video game unit design

Speed upgrade goal is precisely to make ACU harder to kill without more HP. It's a bit like Stealth upgrade for Cybran, but more expensive because stronger. You can still kill it with fast t2 land units, t2 air units. In fact, ACU speed is only 2.55, same as Ilshavoh/Obsidians, so you can also kill it with pretty much every t2 unit that is faster than Ilshavoh and Obsidians, and also slow it down with t1 units. But your micro sucks. Of course you should not manually target the ACU with the t2 units, or t3, because they will stop to shoot and ACU can retreat, so they will only shoot at him once. You have to use move order, that's super basic knowledge of the game... Besides, if you use overcharge to kill the t2 units, you stop moving, this allows t2 units to close in significantly.
It's probably harder to do with Aeon when you have gun upgrade, because auroras are slow, and Obsidians have low range, but Blazes spam / Gunsip / Mercies ACU with range upgrade should work fine. Only when you have both gun upgrade + speed then, it's really strong at t2, but you have to invest 1500 mass for this, and a significant amount of energy, and lot of attention to micro your ACU. It's certainly not as easy to abuse as you make it look like in your replay. Check mine where I used move order instead of manual target, and you'll see t2 units have no issue catching up with the Nomad ACU, especially if he uses overcharge, which is the only way he can deal with t2 efficiently.

But post game replays where it's used, it's possible to tune down the speed buff to 140% instead of 150% if it's really too strong.
Also, it seems to affect not only speed, but other parameters like turn rate, which is very important for ACU. I have to talk with Brute about this, because I'm not sure that's intended, and that's maybe why it feels OP.

Capacitor is not complicated, it's just that people don't know what the button does because they don't read tooltips. It's not more complicated than overcharge : for new players, they have no idea how overcharge works, will not even know how you can have it because you need 5000 energy storage and there is no tooltip explaining this on the overcharge Icon, but once they know, it's straightforward. Capacitor just makes ACU stronger with its weapon, buildpower and regen for a limited time, and fills up with excess energy. That's it. How can it be hard to understand if it can be explained in one sentence? There is a tooltip for it, that people don't take the time to read when they are playing against an opponent (that's very normal), but if they take the time to launch a couple test games where they read Nomads tooltips, they can read : "Capacitor Toggle : Boost unit temporarily (firepower, buildpower, regeneration)".

Crawler Experimental Stun : please post replays that show that it's OP. Keep in mind that the stunning missiles do half damages to Experimentals (= 240 DPS, it's less DPS than Monkeylord long range weapon = 428 DPS), so you need lot of other units to kill the experimental coming your way. So yes, that's a great support unit, but it's not good at killing experimentals on its own, except maybe monkeylord because of low HP and low range, but it is normal since Monkeylord costs 19 K mass and Crawler 24 K. The more expensive unit is stronger than cheaper ones, like Megalith is stronger than GC. You can also use Loyalist to stun Experimentals and counter and it costs way less than a Crawler.
As for Range of Crawler : it's 175 only for the non homing missiles that can be countered by a couple TMDs and is completely useless against moving targets, except UEF battleship, and it's precisely the reason why it outranges UEF battleship. It needs to have such long range for its naval role (Torrent ships have 200 range). When you use the homing EMP missiles, range is only 110. When you use bombard mode, EMP missiles range is 150, but Crawler cannot move at all and is sitting duck, and very vulnerable by TMD snipe. And all Crawler missiles can be countered by TMD.
There was a game by Apofenas in which he had a lot of Crawlers, total map control, and it took him a very long time to crack a UEF base covered with TMD (UEF TMD are the worst). I'll post replay here so you can learn how to counter a 24k mass unit with lot of 280 mass defenses.
So please post replays showing Crawler being OP against people who actually build TMD, because most of the time, they just don't know TMD counter it.

[Ithilis_Quo]

I start with replay:

first :speed is not op when use move order instead of manual targeting.

- when balancing need something that its unstandard behavior then it is bad balance, because player would not accept it because its not standart. When you want to kill acu, and only move, your units can attack on other units too adn you waste your shot. when you want to kill something then put attack on taht units, and not move. Yes integrate Dominos priority maker would help here a lot, but already it is not here and this behhavior in game dont occur.

Also all this is not import on that replay, because you go too close, dont use your range advantage, dont try to miss a units you go on same way as tanks, and stop and let then catch you. only speed is not as op as is speed with gun. you have only speed upgrade, that mean you must be on close range with gun you can from save OC everithing as you see on my replay, tanks are not faster when only move instead of manual targeting.

tanks are then cca as fast as your acu but imediatly as go on range you oc them and have a lot of time to get recharge anothr OC when come another tanks to range.

Missile exp tank
Good replay, tmd and shield for price are good defense against. number of missile and also range are ok.
Stay only stun on experimental. you can see it on my replay, what i play with sako. he fire with crawper to ML or sera chicken and chicken would be able to kill at least gatboy and half of army when would not be stunned. Wih another exp and crawler in base it is too strong. I is not as crawler is too strong against other eperimental isnt, but with anothr exp or army crawler what is safe in base make that army too strong against experimental.

Monkeylord costs 19 K mass and Crawler 24 K. The more expensive unit is stronger than cheaper ones, like Megalith is stronger than GC. You can also use

this doesnt work, for example ML is stronger as fatboy that cost much more, when go on laser range. check my replay on forus on first ml emp behavior and chicken agaisnt fateboy.

radar intel boost sako have good point about it. change how radar boost work, from clicing all time to take radar boost and prewent sniping transport etc.., allow radar change range for significant more energy consume.
Example: normal nomad radar have 90range instead of 115 and consume -20e but aftter radar boost, have 140range and consume -100energy not sure about number, but point is make radar boost pernament for bigger energy consumption.
To be honest have something that give me for while more radar range is not so important, because i need that units all time, i can have all posible radar range in head.

on capacitator question all my throught was already sayed. It is too compliced, and it have lot of invisible function. especialy on sacu. new player dont take a time to study nomads unit, thay will not play them again. how to solve 2 problem with one change is remove speed upgrade and take more simply and buffed capacitator instead of it.

[pip]

There is no replay with Crawler, you posted 2 times the same replay.

Speed + gun upgrade is 1500 mass. Go ahead, show me competitive 1v1 games where you win due to it.
Your replay is not enough and proves nothing. Everybody knows you need to micro units to swarm the slower ACU before you manually target it otherwise, you will have your units all bunched up together and ready for OC. Speed upgrade has nothing to do with this, you can do the same thing without speed, with any other ACU with gun and say : gun upgrage is OP, my t2 and t3 units cannot catch it. Please do exactly the same tests, with Aeon ACU and double guns, or with UEF ACU + engy suit (that's 1500 mass too), and see if you can survive the attack of a dozen t2 units using manual target and using overcharge with your ACU. Then post the replay.

Capacitor is not mandatory to play Nomads, same as Intel boost (Nomads is supposed to have worse intel than other factions). If new players don't take the time to read the tooltips, and don't use optional features so what? We will not dumb down our features just because people want to play Nomads like UEF. It's like Aeon chrono dampener, Omni Sensor or Sera resto field. These features are there, but people don't use them. That's their choice, but other players occasionnally do, and some players use Nomads features just fine, so I guess it's not that complicated. Only competitive players will invest enough time to take the maximum benefit of Nomads features, and that's fine if casual players don't use them to the max before they are fully used to them. If you could play Nomads exactly the same way you play other factions, with no subtleties, what would be the point of a new faction?