IceDreamer Tweak Pack

[IceDreamer]

Serious Tweaks Version 5

Quick Changes:

Code: Select all

Balance
Lobo has slightly bigger AOE and the camera lasts a lot longer
Medusa stun time reduced
Mongoose Gatling MuzzleVelocity increased a tiny bit
Aurora is a tiny bit faster and a tiny bit less accurate while moving
Corsair MuzzleVelocity reduced

Bugs/Gameplay changes/Mistake fixes
Cybran SCU damage exploit fixed
Support Factory costs and storage fixed
SCU on underwater patrol no longer try fruitlessly to shoot ships on the surface, so they reclaim
Continental Shield now protects units inside properly
Selecting multiple SCUs with Shields and building things no longer results in the build not working
Satellite now dies in the process of blocking a nuke. No wreck is dropped
Units can no longer deal splash damage to their own shields
SAMS - Friendly Fire off
Cybran Strategic Sub stealth energy drain now works properly
Cybran Air Factory rolloff time now the same as UEF's
New ingame Unit Descriptions


OK so I think it is about time I opened this thing up. Many people will have seen me in aeolus, and if you have you have probably seen me asking every question under the sun about what people think of certain balance topics. That's because I'm always striving for better, and because I can never really sit still. The purpose of this thread, and the Mod in the Vault by the same name is twofold:

First and foremost, it is to be a place where I can pool together lots of little changes which I think need testing to see if they improve the balance of the game. The game is now so finely tuned that we are at the point where changes are getting smaller and smaller. Some of these changes and ideas will be my own, but because I recognise that I am not great at this game, I pester top players for their much more valuable opinions whenever I can. It probably annoys them a lot, but hey, if that's what it takes to make a perfect game, so be it. Where an idea is purely mine, I will say. If it doesn't say that, it means that I have been pointed to that change by one or more people better than myself. Your arguments against such changes will have to be good! The hope is that I can use this to balance and refine small changes ready for the next balance patch, effectively extending the balance period for those who are bothered about such things.

Serious Tweak Pack

Lobo
CameraLifetime = 20 (From 5)
CameraVisionRadisu = 6 (From 5)
DamageRadius = 1.2 (From 1)

I've had a few people claim that despite the recent buff, the Lobo is still "Useless". I disagree with them, but in light of my noobiness I asked what should be done. No input... So I went back to basics. Seraphim's Artillery has the unique feature of hovering, which is the basis of much of its power. The Medusa has come under heavy fire for its EMP stun recently. The Fervor does lots of Damage and fires fast, a favourable firing cycle. Lobo's unique feature, the camera, leaves a lot to be desired, so I thought "If something needs to be improved, why not make it that?" and this was born. I added the slight DamageRadius increase to allow it to hit more units when they are moving in formation, in case the camera can never be enough. I considered the "205 HP" buff, but that was removed for a reason, and I think it would be far too great a leap in power.

Medusa
T1 Stun Duration = 2.5 (From 3)
T2 Stun Duration = 1.5 (From 2)

Once again, despite a recent nerf, several people think that this unit is STILL too strong. Sticking with the unique abilities side of things (The Damage/Cost/HP/AOE, and similar stats, have a nice spread for T1 Artillery, best not to mess with them if possible) I have nerfed the Stun durations even further. Perhaps this will be enough? You tell me!

Mongoose
MuzzleVelocity = 30 (From 25)

Despite the recent buff, popular opinion is that this is still having trouble being useful. This change puts the Gatling gun closer to the physics of the mighty Ravager (MuzzleVelocity = 32). This should allow the Mongoose to actually connect with a little more of its rather woeful DPS.

Aurora
Speed = 3 (From 2.9)
FiringRandomnessWhileMoving = 0.3 (From 0.1)

Post patch, people rightly realised the Aurora was suddenly underpowered, and PilOt made the decision to buff it to a halfway stage. Unfortunately, for some people this change was the wrong one. It seems to have led to the Aurora being OP on smaller maps, especially those with water, where the Range and Hover come to the foreground. However, move onto the larger maps and the huge Speed penalty begins to hit home hard, as well as the larger numbers in engagements making the micro less effective. These changes attempt to keep the power of the unit where it is now but get rid of this extreme map behaviour. The combat ability in all cases is decreased. The increased Speed makes no difference on a small map, not compensating for the worse combat, but on a larger map I hope it will give the Aurora a fighting chance again.

Corsair
MuzzleVelocity = 30 (From 35)

This is to mitigate an issue unforseen from the last patch, whereby the shorter range has meant the Missiles are un-dodgable now. This is the same % reduction to MuzzleVelocity as was done to Range, so reaction time is now the same.


Bug Fixing and Gameplay Tweaks

Cybran SCU
Fixed glitch allowing you to accumulate infinite damage on the main weapon

Aeon T3 Support Air Factory
God knows why, but this unit was half the price of the others and had 1600 Energy Storage that shouldn't have been there. Prices corrected and storage removed.

Cybran T3 Support Naval Factory
Unit had longer buildtime than the others, again god knows why.

SCU Weapons
Main SCU cannon no longer attempts to fire when the SCU is on the seabed, preventing it from hopelessly aiming at boats instead of reclaiming while on patrol underwater.

Continental Shield
Units loaded onto the Continental are now invincible providing that the Shield is up and running, working around the messed up hitboxes.

Multi-Drain Fix
Half-Fixed units with multiple Energy drains (Such as UEF Shielded SCUs) being unable to initiate group build projects (Thanks Crotalus). This fix is WIP and may be ruled to be impossible. Unfortunately the bug is caused by the fix for a severe exploit, so it may be that we have to have either the exploit or this bug. Set to check for fraction>0.2, and we hope this doesn't re-enable the exploit.

Mavor
The Explosion FX is a bit small for the DamageRadius, and always has been. So I made it a bit bigger. Why not hey?

Novax Satellite
Now takes damage from Nukes

Redid the method behind this fix. It now only takes damage from units with the 'NUKE' category. When it dies by this method, it leaves no wreckage so no damage is done to the thing underneath. Yep, this was designed to prevent this being used to block nukes indefinitely. I like the simulated engine, I like the fact that you can block a nuke with a Satellite, but the fact that 28000 Mass could do so infinitely was just stupid really. Now, in an emergency, you can still use this tactic to buy time to get real defences online, but it is not sustainable.

Shields
A pet peeve of mine, this one. Thanks to the splash damage, any time Fatboy goes anywhere near a hillock or cliff, it ends up blowing up its own shield with its cannons. The Damage from those cannons is so high that it takes mere seconds to deplete the Shield entirely, so it can easily happen before you notice. This is just plain stupid. Yes OK it no longer has the old element of risk to your own army about it, but in reality I have never seen friendly units harmed in any major fashion by a Fatboy; It is usually firing a long way from anything friendly. This also applies to the UEF SCU when it has Bubble Shield and AOE.

SAMs
DamageFriendly = false

Changed to false the same as all the game's Flack-type units, to stop them killing the shields over your base when attacking Gunships.

Plan B
Now is built with the -200 Energy Drain activated so that you don't get free Stealth.

ZLO found this was bugging out a bit. It took so much effort and fruitless attempts and in the end three lines of code appears to have fixed it. Let me know...

Cybran Air Factory
A long-standing argument and discrepancy giving Cybran Air Factory a permanent disadvantage as first Factory. In this mod the Animation has been accelerated, and it now has identical Engineer production time to the UEF. Applies to the T1 Factory only. I'm not sure how controversial this will be; In the past an excuse has been that it nerfs early Jester, but Jester was nerfed a little last patch and I don't see this breaking anything. Some people say that even if it does, we should punish the Jester, not First Air strategies.

New Unit Descriptions
The Unit Descriptions ingame were getting out of date and in some cases utterly incorrect, so I have re-written almost every single one. I consider this non-final, and am looking for input regarding tips/tricks which would be good on a unit's description. Things like the fact that the Deceiver works in Transports, or that Selen can block Mass spots, that kind of thing.

[Adraius]

I heartily approve of this idea. I may try this with a few friends.

[Hawkei]

Hello IceDreamer,

I like the ideas you've mentioned. I will download it and test it when I have the time.

IMO The units which are most in need of tweaking are:
- T1 and T2 Submarines all factions, considering their role with regards to destroyers;
- T1 Bombers, all factions, improve handling to reduce pass time and minimise flightpath, as well as increase minimum fire cycle time;
- T2 UEF Mongoose and Cybran Hoplite;
- T3 UEF Titan;
- T2 Riptide, Blaze target selection interfering with manoeuvre;
- Novax Block on T3 and T4 Nukes. If the Sattelite has a collision box, it should receive damage when hit.

My Balance Suggestions for next patch.

Submarine Combat Tweak
The problem with submarine combat in FA is that they currently have no viable role. As Destroyers are too easily capable of killing submarines. Making Destroyers the dominant Surface and Sub-surface combatant. As well as also being the primary shore bombardment unit. the Destroyer is a "one stop shop" naval unit, and submarines are effectively redundant. Further to this, submarines are too easily detectable with sonar platforms, giving them no stealth advantages at all.

To remedy these issues I recommend:
- Increase T1 and T2 Submarine HP by 100%
- Increase T1 and T2 Torpedo Damage by 100%
- Increase T3 and T4 Submarine HP by 25%
- Increase T3 and T4 Submarine Damage by 25%
- Add special ability to all submarines. SonarStealthWhenStationary = True, SonarStealthWhenMoving = False, RadarStealth = False
(cybran submarines still maintain stealth when moving).

Global veterancy change.
IncreasedHitPoints = CurrentHealth% * NewHitPoints. So that the hitpoints received when damaged, due to veterancy, is proportional to the current health of the unit. A full health unit will receive the full veterancy. A nearly dead unit will receive an increase to max HP and regen, but minimal change to current HP. This idea would need to be balanced with an increase to regeneration rates. Making regen the more valuable component of veterancy.

Global Reclaim Nerf.
A global recuction in the reclaim mass value for wrecks. From the current 81% down to something like 70 or 75%. (Actual figure subject to testing).

Mongoose Concept.
I'd like to suggest a new concept which might improve the units effectiveness as an anti-T1 unit. I agree with the Muzzle velocity increase you recommend. My concept for how the Mongoose should operate is as follows.

- 75% increase in Torso turn rate;
- 50% increase in muzzle velocity;
- 20% Increase in firing rate;
- 20% reduction in projectile damage (to maintain DPS);
- Low trajectory ballistic arc;
- Increased firing randomness 15% (So shots are sprayed over a wider area).
- Increase range of gattling cannon by 10% and make primary weapon;
- Reduce range of grenade launcher by 10% and make secondary weapon;
- Add indirect range circle to indicate grenade launcher range;
- Give grenade launcher a high ballistic arc.

Titan Concept.
The main problem with the Titan at the moment is a lack of firing range.

- Increase firing range by 5%.

[Resin_Smoker]

Here I was thinking you were wanting a few small changes to correct some minor issues with game play. However this is now becoming more of a custom unit mod and one that I'm afraid will not be welcomed by most due to the extreme nature of the changes.

I suggest repackaging the "fixes" separately from the balence changes. This way your more likely to have your content taken seriously. That is assuming your wanting to get some of the fixes added into an FAF patch at some point.

Always remember, fixes are just that and should be held apart from tweeks of personal preference.

Resin

[IceDreamer]

Nah I'm going to keep it all in one place. It makes it easier for me to work on and keeps me more motivated.

I've made quite clear which are the "Serious" changes aimed at integration and which are the much more experimental ones. It's up to people watching to be able to read :p

[Resin_Smoker]

Nah I'm going to keep it all in one place. It makes it easier for me to work on and keeps me more motivated.

I've made quite clear which are the "Serious" changes aimed at integration and which are the much more experimental ones. It's up to people watching to be able to read :p

Well that's my point... The "serious" changes will not be taken as such considering the content it's grouped with. Doesn't matter what you write or how "serious" you make it no one will care or give you credit.

Reason being... No one really has the time to pick through your material to figure out what is and is not relevant. It's why I did the hover_bomber fix as a stand alone mode vs integrating it into 4DC.

Resin

[IceDreamer]

I've had plenty of good feedback so far

[Resin_Smoker]

I've had plenty of good feedback so far

Feed back is just fluff most times and that's fine if that's all your after.

Now If you want an "outcome" you've got to tailor your mod to meet the needs of it's intended audience. Otherwise you might as well not release anything.

Note: I'd consider you very successful if a good number of the online matches were using your mod.

Resin

[IceDreamer]

I'll get there.

On another note, I'm going to look at getting some Polls together. Some of the changes it is debatable if they are needed at all. Some people will swear blind they are, some will insist otherwise.

[Sinister]

so does the game need further balance or is it that you cant sit still? i approve of balancing back to the last gpg patch. with less powerful t3 aeon gunships.