engy Redesign mod

[Zock]

To keep this thread tidy and open for different suggestions we (Rienzilla and me) want to introduce and discuss the engy redesign mod in this Thread.




tl;dr version


(thanks to Anti-Distinctly for the picture)


-We make multiple t2/t3 factories and t2/t3 engies to build and assist cost efficient instead of only t1 engies to each build and assist as it currently is.
-you can still play the old way and assist/build with t1 engies.
-The normal factory is rennamed to t2/t3 factory Headquater
-if you have at least one Headquster you can also make new cheap factories, but if you lose all Headquaters, this factories can make only t1 units until you make a new one.
-This changes are complicated and need some carefull changes, but in the game, you won't notice that, it will be simpler while also beeing more strategic (and less lag) then the current balance.
-its a featured mod and you can easy test it and tell us your experience!


last changelog:

Code: Select all


Engymod version 90 has just been uploaded. It has various fixes:

- Re-adjusted buildpower of SCU
- adjust buildtimes of ACU/SCU upgrades to reflect increased buildpower
- adjusted buildrates of all upgradeable buildings (mexes, shields, radars etc) to reflect their buildtime increase
- nerfed mex adjacency to compensate for factories with more bp (t1 mex 7.5%, t2 mex 10%, t3 mex 12.5%)
- fix buildtime of HQs according their buildpower increase
- fixed cost of aeon t3 slave airfac



to do list and problems


Prio high:
- Crash when canceling t3 upgrade in factory queue while t2 upgrade is building (crashes when t2 fac finished building)
- UEF models missing

Prio medium
- Separate unit buildmenu icons for HQ's
- Cybran t2 air factory has broken low-res texture
- Aeon t3 land factory is too bright

Prio low
- spawning a hq with cheat menu doesnt unlock supportfacs
- Add unitnames for credits
- UI does not indicate correct upgrade cost for a queued upgrade (so in a t1 building, cost indication for t2 upgrade is correct, but for subsequent t3 it is not)



old changelogs:

Spoiler: show

Changelog for Version 84:

-Remove of Techbuilding
-The normal (FAF) factory gets rennamed into t2/t3 Factory Headquater, all stats stay same, and you upgrade it the normal way
-If you have at least one Headquater, a cheap factory upgrade gets enabled (that work/cost like the previous engymod factories)
-This support factories (just called factory in mod) can't make any t2/t3 units without a Headquater (works like techbuilding before)
-added new models for cybran t2 and t3 land Factory Headquater
-other Headquaters Models are not done yet and will use normal factory model, but different strategic icon so far

Version 43 of engymod is now uploaded. It contains various fixes and some balance changes:

- Naval activators are now killable by torpedoes
- Seraphim air activators are no longer treated as a unit
- t1 land and air factory hitpoints decreased
- t3 factories build power and cost increased (land: 50%, air, navy: 100%)


Changeset from FAF 3621 to engymod v37:

Game mechanic changes:

- Added build restriction for tier 2 and tier 3 units and factories on game start
- Added Tech 2 Land, Air and Naval Activators. These are buildings that, once built, remove the build restriction on Tech 2 Land, Air and Naval Factories and units respectively. The buildrestriction is reinstated once the last Activator is killed, destroyed, or given away.
- A tech 2 activator can be upgraded to tech 3. This removes build restrictions on both tech 2 and tech 3 factories and units.

Unit stats changes:

- Buffed buildpower for t2 and t3 engineer
- Buffed buildpower and reduced cost for kennels and hives
- Buffed buildpower of t2 (42) and t3 (126) ACU engineering suite
- Buffed buildpower of SCU (84) and its engineering enhancement (126)
- Decreased cost of all t2 and t3 factories
- The cost decrease of the factories is the cost of the Activators
- Increased buildtimes of t2 and t3 structures (low buildtime units have a large increase, high buildtime units a negligible increase)

The complete list of unit stats adjustments can be found here: http://sinas.rename-it.nl/~rien/unitstats-v90.pdf
Page 1 and 2 are original stats, pages 3 and further list the new unit stats. Stats with an orange background are different than in faf. The second lettes in the unit code indicates the faction (A=Aeon, E=UEF, R=Cybran, S=Seraphim). Factories with codes Z?B9?0? (For example ZAB9602) are the support factories. Factories with code Z?B9?1? (for example ZAB9611) are the factories that can be built from scratch. From scratch building is not implemented yet, so you can ignore them for now.

tl version

What is it about?

Right now it is not efficient to make more then one higher tech factory (i use the t2 factory as example from now, but the same applies for t3 all the time), instead it is more cost efficient to make t1 engies and assist one single t2 factory until you struggle over pathfinding problems.

Also, it is not efficient to build structures with t2/t3 (i will aswell use t2 engies as example from now) engies, it is only cost efficient to make only one t2 engy, and then assist with t1 ones.

This problems are there since Vanilla, and got adressed by GPG in FA, yet they didn't manage to solve them. We are working on a mod that solves this problems and replace them with a solution that allows more strategy, is more intuitive for new players, less annoying to play with due to less pathfinding problems and less lag producing.

The goals

Primary:
-Make multiple factories cost efficient and no mistake to build
-Make higher tech engies as build and assist unit efficient

Secondary:
-Keep the current flow of the game as much as possible
-The solution should be intuitive and easy to understand
-Make assisting not useless

What the mod does to archive the goals

Now, there are many different solutions submitted to adress this problems. Some are older then FA, and most of them won't work for simple reasons, other may work but will have a huge impact on the gameplay, as it is very hard to change engies/factories, and keep the current gameplay as it is.

So we did a combination of changes, first the ones that were needed to fulfill the main goals:

-Increase the buildpower of t2 engies to make them as efficient as t1 engies mass/buildpower
-Split the cost for a t2 factory into a reseach and a buildpower part (that are both currently there, but combined in the upgrade). The buildpower part is the new t2 factory, and mass/buildpower as efficient as t1 engies.

To solve problems that are caused by this change alone, additional changes were:

-The now split reseach costs for t2 are outsourced into a new building. It is also possible to have them as another upgrade, we decided for a building for the reasons that it should be destroyable (and upgrade wouldn't be) and that it easier to understand for new players then 2 upgrades of one factory.

-The new t2 engies (that are equal masswise to t1 engies) would be able to build defence (and others) structures much faster then t1 engies, because they suffer less pathfinding issues. The time to make a building is currently "time to get there + time to build it". With t1 engies, the time to get there is quite high compared to the actualy buildtime, because all the bumping, that t2 engies don't got so much. Now thats not enough, but the %, the "time to get there" takes on the overall buildtime, is much higher for buildings with low buildtime (i.e. , if you make a t2 PD, the time to get there will propably be 50% of the overall buildtime with 10 t1 engies, if you make a nuke, it will be like 0,1%)

So we want to buff the t2 engy, but not that much that it can build faster then now, while we make it equal to t1 engies at building/assisting. All that without touching the t1 engy, because that would break the t1 stage.

The solution for this is to increase the buildtime of all t2 buildings. With this way, we can keep the overall buildtime (walking + building) the same compared to before.
As welcome side effect, t1 engies will be slightly less efficient at assiting t2 buildings. It is still well doable, but it will be better to use t2 engies. Because low buildtime structures need more buildtime increase then high buildtime structures, as stated above, we use the following formula to calculate the new buildtime: oldbt*(1+0.75/(1.5**oldbt/400))

This makes t2 engies not as good at assisting as t1 engies (but still close, much better then now, where they are useless), but you will be more flexible with t2 engies and can build structures better.

-to make the game more intuitive and more comfortable, t2 engies can now build t2 factories. (temporary removed due to technical issues)

The exact changes are in the attached pdf. A changed unit stat compared to faf3621 is highlighted in orange.

known results

-Multiple factories are no mistake to do and an alternative to assisting a single factory.
-The old way of assisting a single t2 (keep in mind that all applies also to t3) factory with lots of t1 engies is still viable.
-This assisting can be done with t1 or t2 (still same for t3) engies, each got advantages and disadvantages, but it is excepted that you will have more higher tech engies compared to t1 as longer the game goes (just like with any other unit type)
-Making t2 buildings is a little slower then before if you use many t1 engies to assist, but still good doable, it is about the same as before when you use t2 engies.
-Sniping the enemy techbuilding is rewarding.

-making t1 buildings with higher tech engies (and ACU suit, SCUs..) is a lot faster now. We are working on this problem.


how to get/play this mod?

Its a featured mod in FAF. Just host a game with it and tell us your experience with it. I'd appreciate if anyone who got (always welcome) critic or suggestions to the mod could at least test the mod on his concerns once before.


why don't you just... instead of all that changes

-Increase buildpower of t2/t3 engies
As written above it would make tower creeps OP and it gets too easy to react on any threat with a few t3 engies in seconds

-Increase factory buildpower
This would be a huge buff to t2/t3, as you could produce a lot more units early.

-Reduce assisting power of t1 engies
This would slow the game down, as you would lack the cheap buildpower and end up with less units

-Limit the amount of engies a factory can have
Hard limits are almost always a worse idea then a dynamic solution.

Alternatives we considered:

Make the first factory expensive, all following cheap. This will be bad gamedesign. Things shoulnd't suddenly change costs in the game. It wouldn't be destroyable aswell.

[stalewee]

This would have so many ramifications. Off the top of my head:

1. What if I'm playing navy on setons and I need to switch to air quickly. Currently I can move my t1 engineer hoard from my naval factory to an air factory. Instead, I would have to build a whole bunch of t3 factories which will take a lot longer. I can't rapidly switch strategies as required by the flow of the game.

2. What if I'm playing sludge and I've only got room for 2 factories and a radar?

[Zock]

This would have so many ramifications. Off the top of my head:

1. What if I'm playing navy on setons and I need to switch to air quickly. Currently I can move my t1 engineer hoard from my naval factory to an air factory. Instead, I would have to build a whole bunch of t3 factories which will take a lot longer. I can't rapidly switch strategies as required by the flow of the game.

2. What if I'm playing sludge and I've only got room for 2 factories and a radar?

1. If you want flexibility, you will still use t1, and now also t2 and t3 engies to assist and not multiple factories. We didn't make assisting in any way more expensive.

2. Afaik sludge got enough room to make a few more buildings then just 2 factories, and the navy tech building is made on water.

[Lu_Xun_17]

As i said yesterday in the chat, i think this mod is dangerous, even if some points are good.
We can't quantify all the undirectly consequences to the game balance.
The first point that make me a little cold with this mod, is that i actually don't see a major problem with the current FA.


I will give you some game situations that makes me affraid

T3 navy fights:
Instead of producing 1 battleship every 3min for exemple, you'll produce 3 at the same time every 9min. For the dynamism of the game it's pretty bad to get a break of 9min in the action (ofc the dude won't attack before finishing his 3 battleships)

factories reclaim farming:
this one is probably not the biggest problem, but if you get T2 then T3 factories for nearly free, then once the research is made, it might give more mass to reclaim the factory than its build cost. An other point : once you think you have enough factories, you have to reclaim the tech building. This is a weird mechanic to distroy his own tech.

tower battle
As it becomes really easy to produce an army of T2 or T3 engies, some factions will easly discover that tower push is becoming even stronger than it already is. (I know buildtime of T2 structures has been increased, but 20 engies still do the job compared to a T3 acu buildrate)

the heavy T3 land spam
brick and percy spam is currently a really strong strat compared to T4 land. I'm affraid of this mod to encourage T3 land spam even more, making aeon and sera way weak before their first T4.



Then last point is this research building that i dislike. Splitting the tech upgrades is one thing, getting 3 buildings in an other that doesn't fit well in supcom gameplay imo.
And next month will have a research to gain discounts on mex upgrades, radar upgrades, shild upgrades.

I'm not totally against the ideas of the mod, but for the moment it's far from being fine to be patched.

[Zock]

Thanks for your opinion. Allow me to comment that

T3 navy fights:
Instead of producing 1 battleship every 3min for exemple, you'll produce 3 at the same time every 9min. For the dynamism of the game it's pretty bad to get a break of 9min in the action (ofc the dude won't attack before finishing his 3 battleships)

You can still have a battleship every 3 min with engies. For units like battleship, this is propably the way its almost always going to be. This matters mostly in the early t3 navy stage, later it propably won't matter much. It will be also risky to make 3 battleships at once, until they are done you will be pretty vulnerable.

factories reclaim farming:
this one is probably not the biggest problem, but if you get T2 then T3 factories for nearly free, then once the research is made, it might give more mass to reclaim the factory than its build cost. An other point : once you think you have enough factories, you have to reclaim the tech building. This is a weird mechanic to distroy his own tech.

The first is no problem. You will never get more reclaim of a building then it costs. (You will be better of in making a new t2 factory instead of upgrading one currently, but we are adressing that)

Reclaiming the reseach buildiung will have advantages and disadvantages. It will be a decicion. I think its still much better then the current solution: Once you are t3, you should reclaim all your t1 factories and make only engies that assist the t3 factory. This is more or less the same, just that it is no decicion, it will not give you disadvantages to do so, and it is much more work to reclaim them all.

tower battle
As it becomes really easy to produce an army of T2 or T3 engies, some factions will easly discover that tower push is becoming even stronger than it already is. (I know buildtime of T2 structures has been increased, but 20 engies still do the job compared to a T3 acu buildrate)

This is indeed the biggest problem of all engy changes that buff the t2/t3 engies. However i think we found a very good solution, and we just need to find the correct values for the new buildtime of buildings now. If this problem is proven in any replays, we won't suggest to implement the mod until it is solved. (Don't mistake that as promise to make tower creeps useless)

the heavy T3 land spam
brick and percy spam is currently a really strong strat compared to T4 land. I'm affraid of this mod to encourage T3 land spam even more, making aeon and sera way weak before their first T4.

That is possible. A very frequen critic on FA was however, that in lategame, you don't use t3, you use only EXPs that you send against each other, with very little strategy compared to all the unit movement that you need to do on t1/t2. You'll propably see less lonley EXPs, but EXPs in a group with t3 bots.

Then last point is this research building that i dislike. Splitting the tech upgrades is one thing, getting 3 buildings in an other that doesn't fit well in supcom gameplay imo.
And next month will have a research to gain discounts on mex upgrades, radar upgrades, shild upgrades.

I don't think you will have theese. The reseach building (or upgrade) is something that is already there, like explained above. Something like a discount on mex, radar or shields is not and does indeed not fit into the FA gameplay.

[Lu_Xun_17]

I'll be up for some more tests as soon as the buildings will be placed somewhere else in the interface

[pip]

I think the separate building ("research building", or "Tech 2 Center", maybe this name reminds less of Supcom2) is the most elegant solution. I also think that Lu Xun has to play the mod more to really get used to it and see the benefits rather than the annoyance of his habits being changed (it's easier to get pissed by something new in a competitive situation).

I want to point out 2 issues reported here: adjacency bonus and feared supremacy of Bricks and Percivals. Lu Xun is probably right about the later but it's important to explain that these issues are linked because of higher mass consuimption of these units.

Current t3 adjacency will probably have to be recuced to 20% (from 25%) so that the bonus for 4 t3 fac surrounding a t3 mex is equivalent to t3 + storage.
Example : t3 mex surrounded by mass storage = +9 "free" mass per tick, very flexible / 4 t3 factories producing Loyalists with 20% adjacency bonus = +10 "free" mass but with rolloff times, it's less, and it's not flexible.

However, it becomes a small problem with Bricks and Percivals that consume -16 mass, meaning the discount will always be higher for these units, giving UEF and Cybran some extra advantage. This issue can be adressed by increasing slightly the buildtime of these units so that they consume less mass per tick (-14 like Harbingers and Othuums would be good IMO). Since it will be easier to produce them, maybe it'll be a good idea to adjust these advancec t3 units buildtimes a bit anyway, to adress Lu Xun's fear that they will become too strong. I just want to point out that it would also adress the adjacency discrepancy between factions.

[Zock]

Adjacency is on the to do list.

A solution would be to increase the cost for all higher tech units a little, in relation to their mass drain per second. (what you suggested to percies/bricks, just a more complete and fair solution) This would make the adjancency not OP anymore (IF it is, that needs yet to be seen). However, making factories without a mex next to it, would be bad now. That is again unintuitive and working against our goal.

So my solution would be to remove/change the adjancency on the mex in a bigger way. The goal would be to get rid of another big problem of FA, the mass storages, that are never used as storage, but always as t2,5 mex, just that it needs 4 clicks. Replacing them with a t2,5 mex upgrade, adjust their cost so they are buildable just as mass storage, in combination with remove the mass storage capacity on all other buildings/units.

Then it is possible to cut the adjacency down to, lets say 5%, but the value has yet to be find of course. Factories will still be a little better when making next to a mex, but it won't make a huge difference anymore. As trade for this fix, you get another fix, as you don't need 4 clicks for your t2,5 upgrade anymore. (or more, when you accidently misplace your template, and have to readjust the position of any storage..)

I know that for some to me unexplainable reason, people look at such a change like on a reseach building (IT BECOMES SUPCOM2!!!!), but our (or at least mine) goal is to make a good mod over a mod that will be easy accepted by everyone.

[Rocksteady]

Is this just going to be a fun mod people can play or are you planning on it being used in ladder games and fully replacing the current way things work?

so that the current game just becomes a mod like vanilla and this one takes the default slot.

[BLITZ_Molloy]

I should imagine that'll depend on wether people think the game is better with the new engineers. They're not going to force it on people.