Phantom-X v1.6

[Duck_42]

Based on some of the suggestions on the forums, I've started working on some gameplay changes to Phantom-X. Since these changes may affect the overall balance of Phantom games, they need some play testing before they are deployed for everyone. This thread is the place to post all commentary (likes, dislikes, bugs, suggestions, etc) about these proposed changes.

Changes in v1.6:
1: Reduced Phantom bonus while at war.

New bonus table (old values in parentheses)

Code: Select all

Phantom Count   Allied      Mixed       Enemies
-------------------------------------------------
      1          20%       24% (25%)    28% (30%)
      2          10%       14% (15%)    18% (20%)
      3           8%       10%          14% (15%)
-------------------------------------------------


2: Changed mod code so that when one Phantom dies, the new number of Phantoms will be used for calculating bonuses. For example, if there were three Phantoms and all were at war with all innocents then their bonus would be 14% (see above table). If one is killed, the remaining two Phantoms will now receive an 18% bonus (see above table). If a second Phantom is killed, the remaining Phantom will receive a 28% bonus.

3: At assignment, Phantoms now receive a special mass and energy storage building. The building stores 100,000 mass and 500,000 energy. The building is spawned off of the map, so it should not be possible to see it or attack it. If anyone finds or knows of a way to exploit the existence of this structure (i.e. to determine who the Phantoms are), please let me know.

I wanted play testing to be available within FAF, so this is not an SCD mod. As such, there are no lobby options available for it. I've set a fixed reveal time of 35 minutes for all Phantoms (i.e. all of them will be revealed at that time) in this mod.

I'll try to find some time this weekend to do some play testing myself, but that may not happen. Feel free to try it out without me.

Now, with all that out of the way, here it is.

EDIT: Removed this version. Latest testing version is 1.6c.
http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1559&p=16253#p16253

[mead]

Cool. Thanks for your work, i'll see if i can get people to test it out today.

Of all changes, the very slight reduction in mixed bonus probably will have the least effect on gameplay.

Recalculating after one phantom dies will be MAJOR, and will force innos to adopt a different playstyle - a mostly disabled phantom with destroyed base being vastly preferable to a dead one, as long as a second phant is still alive.

One concern i have regarding the massive storage is the possibility for very rapid telemazor. Of course it'll have to be tested, but I think having all the usual power surplus stored will shave off several minutes of the time needed to get tele/mazor for cybrans, and make it harder to detect. If I'm not mistaken about this, I'd prefer the special storage to be for mass only if we need it at all. Tbh, i dont like the storage - it allows the phantoms to completely neglect and not manage their own eco with hardly a drawback. While this is certainly a significant buff to not-so-great phantom players, I dont see a need for it.
As it is, innos are already too weak in the typical 2v4 setup. No reason in my opinion to buff phants further.

[Duck_42]

The storage could potentially speed up a telemazer rush, but probably not by much. Tele + Mazer requires 1,500,000 energy. Storage isn't really going to help any with generating that kind of power early on.

The main point of the extra storage is to give Phantoms the option to hide for a period while still preparing for an assault later on.

It may need some tweaking, so try it out and we'll see how well it works.

[mead]

I don't want to theorize further without having tested it. Rapid Telemazor will be one of the first things I'll test out. But having so much in storage WILL speed it up immensely.

Edit: Same goes for billy.

[mead]

Alright, I've had 2 games on roanoke with 6 players and one on commlinks 9 player map. I was inno all times, so i can't say anything about the storage issue. However, in the 9 player game with 3 phantoms, there were a lot of bugs: It started with some strange UI issues (the "xxx voted for y phantoms" appeared twice for each player, then the timer to reveal was screwed up - two different timers overlapping each other), and then a completely fucked up reveal. Some innocent players were named phantoms etc., one guy said he was getting phant bonus even though he was inno, etc. Maybe for some reason the entire phant selection routine ran twice?

Edit: One major issue with the storage is that a bombed-out phantom can bounce back far too quickly. Getting your base nuked means little, all your eco and phant bonus just goes into storage for a few minutes instead of being wasted, allowing the phant to continue far too easily. This issue, too, could be partly solved by removing the energy storage.

Edit 2: I think i accidentally hosted with both regular phant x and new phant x during the 9 player game, causing all those bugs. So no bugs in the new version.

[Plasma_Wolf]

I'm currently watching a livereplay of one of mead's games (roanoke) and it seems to me that the storage is completely redundant. It takes a very, very long time to build up, especially at the start. At later times, it could be useful to have so much in storage for constinuous building but then you already have a lot of mass and even more than a lot of energy as steady income.

This makes Estorage redundant because your income is too high and Mstorage redundant because you already have something like 40 storage buildings around mexes.

On the topic of an early telemazer, I don't think it's going to be so much sooner than normal. You do have an added energy income and that steadily builds storage but I think it simply goes too slow at first. Upgrading for telemazer at that point will still drain energy at an instantaneous rate.

[Duck_42]

If you spot any bugs, please post the game log file. That will help me immensely with tracking down problems.

One other note...DO NOT play this with the phantom-x custom game option. You must use Forged Alliance Forever custom game option and then select this as a mod.

Edit: Just saw that your comment at the end Mead. You beat me to it.

[Duck_42]

I think I'm going to have to nerf the Phantom bonus some more. So far, Phantoms have won every game I've played with this version.

[Plasma_Wolf]

My first question is this: what were the bonuses for in the original phantom X mod? Those games were pretty balanced I think. Additionally, the game with me in it was won mostly because the innocent players were not experienced enough to mount a proper attack. The most damage done to my base was your Soul Ripper and that was only because I forgot to build SAMs on the north side of my island.

I managed to play against Gray so well because the response was way too late. At some point you started building Torpedo bombers which had all the time in the world to deal with my Tempests, which were the only thing that really managed to hurt Gray.

Now Green had a very good air force but I did not. So you only have to put up one strong group of ASFs against green, which were yours + the ASFs from blue, even only the ASFs from blue: min 41: Gray sends Restorers to kill stuff but Green helps me out. At that moment, Green had about 80 ASFs, blue had 120.

If that happened, I would've had a lot more trouble killing BMT, if it didn't go the other way around.

I also made some mistakes by myself: I submerged Tempests to prevent PDs from hitting them as they went around BMT's island to kill the second SMD, while there were no T2 PDs at the north side. I tried to nuke you while you were already teleporting away (even if you teleported at the moment you heard the warning, you would've been out in time). This luckily damaged a Soul Ripper. I also didn't actively reclaim lost islands.

In short: the innocents really have to communicate with each other. Who is going to do what and when does someone need help. Phantoms have less need for this since they use their resources to cover every front (air, naval and land), or at least try to. The game you lost against me is more a problem of tactics rather than economy.

There is a small change of opinion I have about the storage bonus. I no longer think it is redundant. I'm a player who simply can't put all resources to use as a phantom (I really have no idea why I'm unable to get the build power available to me or if I manage to build enough engineers and SCUs, to use the build power), so mass was just building up in my storage.

When I noticed blue was building a T3 artillery, I could easily put all stored mass (The T3 arty drains mass so fast that you always go negative no matter how low your build power is) into one of my own. The build speed improved a lot at that point.

However, I still think it's a bad idea, just because of this. A phantom can too easily rush something when he has the problem of build power sorted out. If he never has a problem of too few engies, then the storage is always empty.

[Duck_42]

Agreed. Lack of coordination really hurt us (the innocents) in that game. I'm just saying, I haven't seen the innocents win a game with this version of the mod yet.

Edit: Ok, now the innocents won a few games.

So far it's:
Phantoms: 4
Innocents: 2

Edit: The original bonus values are in the table in the first post of this thread.