Balance Test Mod.

[noms]

*deleted*

[Ze_PilOt]

Also you can beat any AI under 2 min by knowing its weakness.
Playing VS an AI and trying to get a challenge often means that you can't do a lot of stuff it can't handle well.

[pip]

The question of the price of the t3 artilleries is indeed linked to their ability to break shields easily or not. But the AI cannot build an efficient shielding system, as you said, with t2 / t3. What would be interesting to test is if a single t3 artillery is enough to break a heavily shielded base (I doubt it), if 2 can break a heavily shielded base (it's a likely possibility with the shield nerf and their AOE buff in last patch), or if 3 are necessary (that is 100% certain).

If 2 t3 arties are enough to break any base, then the Mavor and Salvation are still overpriced, if 3 t3 arties are necessary, then they are well priced.

There is also the problem of the Scathis : with its limited range, and depending on the map (especiall maps with water), maybe it needs the amphibious ability and some slight speed boost (+0.5) to be usable in most situations.

@Noms: the current colours in the balance testing mod are not optimized, for sure (some are too similar and / or too dark). The problem is that the ones that appear on the forum don't look the same in game.

With Veta and Nom's feedback and colours, I put up an improved version of the colours (best of his colours and tweaked some of mine). Let me know what you think.

EDIT: I did a mistake between 2 green colours and removed a brighter one instead of a darker one, now it's fixed.
2nd EDIt: I belive my previous order looked good but probably was a mistake for ranked play, where each faction should have its colour (and not all be blue and purple...)

[jabwd]

So from the little reading back I did I still assume the half-cost/strength-same-build-time ASFs are still in the test mod? If find these to be quite horrible for the simple reason that players will just build more build capacity. I am not too sure how well this stacks up against t1 / t2 costs and so it might be a good change for the more epic 1v1 games... but I never really have those so can't say much there. ( Assumed from some posts in the latest pages, not going to read 16 since I didn't keep up in the beginning -- )

In the games where it is significantly slown down by someone's PC it is already slow before any real numbers ( > 30 ) of ASFs start showing up, and a much better solution would be adding the CPU measurement feature which is available in the PhantomX lobby. Now this would disallow some players to play huge maps which they might like, but would also give people more 'knowledge' on why it is actually running so slow. Thanks to the recent addition to the ingame HUD this has been made a bit more clear for the 'uniniated' ( where it now shows +0 / -1 or so )

[Ze_PilOt]

So from the little reading back I did I still assume the half-cost/strength-same-build-time ASFs are still in the test mod?

You read back incorrectly.

[Zock]

What are the current colors? The one in the mod, or in your screenshot?

Black and White shouldn't be used or they cause troubles on black/white maps.

And your oranges are both ugly

[pip]

Here is another good colour set, made by Noms. I removed a light pink that looked too similar with his light orange. I also rearranged his order to keep the FA order (with Blue = uef, green= aeon, red = cybran, yellow = sera, and orange = Nomads). I think it is important to keep that order for ranked games (otherwise, players may be blue and light blue, or red and dark red, etc).

The set currently present in the balance testing mod is not optimized (many similar colours) it should be replaced by either the set i posted above, or Noms' (or whoever else will think he has the better taste to paint giant tanks and robots).

I will let Pilot choose the set he prefers (he's an artist, after all). I wasted a lot of time because of different requests for colours, etc. I am done with this. It's impossible to please everyone. As for the white colour, it's not a problem even on maps like the cold place or Winter duel (I checked it in game), it's much more visible than black on a dark map, because the white is whiter than the background and the unit symbols are black and thus clearly visible.

It saddens me that it gets more interest than the balance changes.

[Ze_PilOt]

I really don't care much about the colors, just that the first 6 colors are color-blind friendly for Galactic War.

(I'm not color blind so if someone can tell if it's good or not.. Obviously red/green is probably not a good idea)

[pip]

That's a good concern Zep, I didn't think about that. I switched green with grey so that there is no confusion between green and red and orange among the first 6 colours. I used Noms' colours and added a few extra colours of mine to make the best of both worlds. Hopefully people will be satisfied with it. If they don't like a colour, they can just not play with it.

[skakarn]

The question of the price of the t3 artilleries is indeed linked to their ability to break shields easily or not. But the AI cannot build an efficient shielding system, as you said, with t2 / t3. What would be interesting to test is if a single t3 artillery is enough to break a heavily shielded base (I doubt it), if 2 can break a heavily shielded base (it's a likely possibility with the shield nerf and their AOE buff in last patch), or if 3 are necessary (that is 100% certain).

If 2 t3 arties are enough to break any base, then the Mavor and Salvation are still overpriced, if 3 t3 arties are necessary, then they are well priced.

There is also the problem of the Scathis : with its limited range, and depending on the map (especiall maps with water), maybe it needs the amphibious ability and some slight speed boost (+0.5) to be usable in most situations.

@Noms: the current colours in the balance testing mod are not optimized, for sure (some are too similar and / or too dark). The problem is that the ones that appear on the forum don't look the same in game.

With Veta and Nom's feedback and colours, I put up an improved version of the colours (best of his colours and tweaked some of mine). Let me know what you think.

EDIT: I did a mistake between 2 green colours and removed a brighter one instead of a darker one, now it's fixed.
2nd EDIt: I belive my previous order looked good but probably was a mistake for ranked play, where each faction should have its colour (and not all be blue and purple...)

T2 artillery doesnt break shielded bases : theres lot of counters (hives etc ... ) that get your shielded base very out of harm , the reload rate on most of them doesnt do crap to shields .
Anyway , as turtling is way behind and defenses arent reworked yet , they dont earn the name of alternative strategy as this current build is stuck on " whos rushing the best with best economy " . A Turtle actually isnt competitive exept maybe on very wide maps where logistics comes into account , otherwise , even if t2 arti could be usefull from base to base fire exchanges ( on small maps ) they dont have any niche in large maps because of the fact that they :
-arent precise
-do bad raw damage consideering their dps
-are pricey.

two ways : make them cheap , or make them efficient .

after some extensive testing : ive lot of trouble with new inties , they are all too weak , strategic bombers with aa defenses ,or restorers , fend them off pretty fast .

but i kinda appreciate it even if it opens a new gameplay , instead of halving , why not try 3:4? Cause an half makes jesters then very too powerfull .

I really don't care much about the colors, just that the first 6 colors are color-blind friendly for Galactic War.

(I'm not color blind so if someone can tell if it's good or not.. Obviously red/green is probably not a good idea)

(deuteranopia here) i can tell only the blue is very clear , but as im betwen deuteranopia and tritanopia , cause of degenerative injuries ( sun burns my eyes ) i can tell you that the pink is the only color that is perfectly viable for my case .

colorblidness is often fought on computers playing with color saturation settings .