FAF 2 - the sequel of your dreams

[AdmiralZeech]

Hah. Let's say I suddenly inherited $50 billion USD from a dead oil magnate grandfather or something. With part of the money, I decide to buy the all the rights and source code to everything SupCom 1 and FAF related. I then hire a crack team of programmers to work on the project.

Of course, all the obvious tech and infrastructure stuff will be fixed. 64bit, cross platform, DX12 / Vulcan, online functionality etc etc. More importantly, let's talk about balance and gameplay.

- I've made the executive decision, no new factions. No new units "just for fun", there has to be a balance purpose.
- For some reason, I've appointed you, YES YOU, as the head of gameplay and balance. You have virtually unlimited budget (well, a couple billion anyways).

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What would you choose to do?
Do you think existing FAF is almost perfect, and you'll just tweak some stuff, fix some problems?
Or would you scrap everything and start it all from scratch?
Or just officially implement Equilibrium mod?

[biass]

no new factions. No new units "just for fun"

why bother?

[dstojkov]

well ... I already did that ...



GPGUNLEASHED for the win !!!

[Hawkei]

I would move away from the HQ model of factory upgrades and remove the HQ requirement from all factories. Instead, I would meet the needs for barrier to entry and cost effective build power by giving all factories two parallel upgrade streams. One for Tech, and another for Build power. With the progression as follows:

T1 > T2
T2 > T2B2, or T3
T2B2 > T3B2
T3 > T3B2
T3B2 > T3B3

This system would make the upgrade process a little more intuitive, and remove "Tech teleporting" and "HQ sniping" dynamics which were introduced with the EngeMod system. Yet it would provide both the barrier to entry, and the means for cost effective production using factory build power. The T2 and T3 factories contain the cost of tech, and the T2B2, T3B2 and T3B3 type factories would essentially be heavier versions of the existing factory, the cost being invested into increased build power. No factory would be dependant on a HQ.

I would then make unit balance changes as follows.

Rebalance Selen to 75% of LAB values across all statistics.
Set the Mechmarine default arm position to horizontal to minimise firing delay.
Reduce the hitbox size for Mechmarine, Hunter, Flare, and Selen.

-Rebalance all T1 tanks to 50 mass. It does not make sense that the most effective T1 tanks are also the cheapest.
-Introduced a selectable ground attack mode for the Seraphim T1 MAA. With a zero damage lightning attack which stuns T1 ground units for short duration.
-Change T1 bombers to the specification provided in the current alpha patch.
-Keep the current UEF ACU Nano regen upgrade statistics. With an added 3000 HP bonus.

-Change all MML to have a non-tracking predictive firing solution.
-Change all Torpeedos to do 200% damage with a non-tracking predictive projectile. Such that torpeedos are more devastating, but, can be avoided by altering course.
-Give all submarines sonar stealth.
-Increase sonar and underwater vision for Destroyers.
-Reduce sonar and remove underwater vision from Cruisers.
-Remove underwater vision from battleships, carriers, missile ships, shield, and stealth boats.
-Give Cybran a T3 minelayer submarine, which is able to build cloaked underwater mines.
-Give missile submarines the option to build tactical missiles as well as nukes. With the limitation being that the submarine can have only one type of missile in it's inventory.

-I would change the Aircraft carriers to include 10 ASF, 20 Torpeedo Bombers, and 10 T2 Gunships straight out of the factory. With the cost of air units added to the unit cost and pro-rata build time.
-The Atlantis and CZAR would be constructed with a complement of 10 ASF and 10 T3 Gunships, with the cost added to unit construction, and pro-rata build time.
-10% increase to Atlantis movement speed when submerged.
- Give Atlantis twin side mounted riot guns for close in defence against hover when surfaced.
- Give all carrier type units a toggled intercept mode. Allowing the carrier to automatically deploy it's inventory of planes to kill targets within it's intercept radius. Planes complete their kill missions and they automatically dock with the carrier.
- Change the UI Docking overlay for all carriers and transports with more than 6 of any unit type to group those units with a single icon and number. Clicking on this icon would select all of the docked units of that type. This would allow the easy deployment of particular unit types to meet particular threats.
-I would allow the Mercy to have a self-regenerating fuel reserve. Allowing it to land on the ground and replenish it's fuel reserve.
-Change the fire beetle docking clamp requirements to that of a standard T2 unit.
-Increase Titan range to 23 and turret yaw rate to 190 deg./s
I would modify the behaviour of Land factories and shipyard to function as docking facilities for Land and Naval units when idle. They could repair these units at reduced cost, in exactly the same manner as air staging platforms do for air units.
-Increase the Yathotha (Chicken Bot) resistance to the lightning storm, and cause the lighting to come into effect even if the chicken is reclaimed.

[AdmiralZeech]

no new factions. No new units "just for fun"

why bother?

Because this is secretly a thought experiment to talk about what we want out of FAF. Rather than a conversation about SupCom 3, which could end up anywhere from SupCom 2 to Planetary Annihilation.

[AdmiralZeech]

well ... I already did that ...
GPGUNLEASHED for the win !!!

Heheh, you're a fellow who knows exactly what he wants and sticks to it.

[AdmiralZeech]

I would move away from the HQ model of factory upgrades and remove the HQ requirement from all factories. Instead, I would meet the needs for barrier to entry and cost effective build power by giving all factories two parallel upgrade streams. One for Tech, and another for Build power. With the progression as follows:

That's interesting. I don't think that would be more intuitive though, and I feel that it's really important to have snipe targets other than the ACU.

My own take on this, is to get tech upgrades via special Tech Centre buildings you construct, like most other RTS games. They don't act as factories, they are purely passive structures that unlock tech. They are expensive and fragile.

ie. Build a T2 HQ, this allows you to upgrade factories to T2 and construct T2 units. If you lose all of your T2 HQs, then you cannot upgrade any factories to T2, nor can you build new T2 units, until you build another HQ.

I feel this is the most intuitive since many other RTS games follow the same pattern. Light factory > Tech Centre > Heavy Factory etc.

[Zock]

I would move away from the HQ model of factory upgrades and remove the HQ requirement from all factories. Instead, I would meet the needs for barrier to entry and cost effective build power by giving all factories two parallel upgrade streams. One for Tech, and another for Build power. With the progression as follows:

That's interesting. I don't think that would be more intuitive though, and I feel that it's really important to have snipe targets other than the ACU.

My own take on this, is to get tech upgrades via special Tech Centre buildings you construct, like most other RTS games. They don't act as factories, they are purely passive structures that unlock tech. They are expensive and fragile.

ie. Build a T2 HQ, this allows you to upgrade factories to T2 and construct T2 units. If you lose all of your T2 HQs, then you cannot upgrade any factories to T2, nor can you build new T2 units, until you build another HQ.

I feel this is the most intuitive since many other RTS games follow the same pattern. Light factory > Tech Centre > Heavy Factory etc.

That was the original implementation of engy mod too, but too many people did not like it. Maybe now where people understand and like the concept more, it's possible to give it another go, but everyone is used to the hq system now and the tech buildings are more clear and Intuitive in in my opinion but don't provide any great advantage otherwise.

HQs are just a tech building with an built in factory after all.

I can do a poll at some point if there is more support for tech buildings now than before, since people could see that a tech uilding does not mean it's gonna be like supcom 2

[Hawkei]

Well the HQ system works perfectly until the HQ gets sniped. As most players prefer to save resources and often don't have inbuilt redundancy to deal with this scenario. The problem exists when I have already upgraded all the available factories down the support factory path and they are incapable of upgrading into a HQ. So it is required to build an engineer (if I don't have one), build a T1 factory, and then take right through the HQ upgrades. What I'd like to do instead is have the option to select the nearest support factory, and tell it to upgrade into it's HQ equivalent.

The penalty in game for loosing a HQ is very high. Such that I am often tempted to have a T2 HQ in addition to the T3 HQ, or have redundant HQ's. Simply so that I can recover from the HQ snipe faster.

As for the Build Power upgrade concept. With T2B2, T3B2, and T3B3 factories. The idea is simply to internalise the assisting engineers within the factory as a single unit. Disadvantage is that you are still paying for the Tech every time you build a factory - and this is necessary because every factory is self contained for tech access. But with the BP upgrades it would work out to be mass effective. As every T3B3 factory would be equivalent to having a T3 HQ and 30 T1 engineers assisting it. Saving unit camp, and making games easier on computer resources. Not to mention providing powerful adjacency bonuses as well.

[AdmiralZeech]

That was the original implementation of engy mod too, but too many people did not like it. Maybe now where people understand and like the concept more, it's possible to give it another go, but everyone is used to the hq system now and the tech buildings are more clear and Intuitive in in my opinion but don't provide any great advantage otherwise.

HQs are just a tech building with an built in factory after all.

I can do a poll at some point if there is more support for tech buildings now than before, since people could see that a tech uilding does not mean it's gonna be like supcom 2

Ah k. I guess the difference to me is, that a Tech Building can be expensive and fragile, and have a unique appearance.

Whereas a Factory HQ intuitively needs to be as tough or tougher than a slave factory, since it's like a more expensive "super factory."

But if everyone is used to the current system, I don't see a huge need to change it.

More important to me, is the relationship between tech tiers and unit roles etc.

If I had those billions of dollars, I'd flatten the entire balance between the techs, to make things less exponential.

T1 = Light raiding, early attack.
T2 = Main combat. The majority of the game stays in this phase.
T3 = Specialised units. These aren't necessarily stronger than T2, they just have something unique.
T4 = Game enders.

For example, for air, each tier has equivalent HP and costs, but unique roles:

T1 Interceptor = Intercepts. Fast, good firepower against slow targets due to short range high DPS cannon.
T2 F/B = Jack of all trades.
T2 Swiftwinds = Dunno, give them a special power or something. Or just make them into a F/B.
T3 ASF = Supremacy, Area Denial. Slow, but has long range homing missiles that can kill other air safely. Weak against ground AA.