Test My Mission: ThetaCivilianRescue

[KeyBlue]

More improvements!!!

Spoiler: show

- I adjusted some drop locations, unit compositions,..
- I put in more monkeylord goodness for hard difficulty
- ...
I'm not sure what else, some minor gameplay wise stuff probably.

As usual I put the latest version in this post and in the original one.

I'm sucking pretty hard at the moment so I haven't been able to complete it on hard. Good players required to test it!!
Tell me what is killing you if you find it impossible.

Lastly i'm looking for someone for my UEF voices. I imagine someone with 1st language english would be ideal. ( 2nd but with exceptional speech could be good too.)
So I was hoping someone would offer me their services through forum post or pm.

[Androish]

Maybe link to or write a short guide on how to test coop maps?

[KeyBlue]

Maybe link to or write a short guide on how to test coop maps?

Look first post. Link used to have explanation of how to do it.


Short explanation:
Unzip in your maps folder.
\Documents\My Games\Gas Powered Games\Supreme Commander Forged Alliance\Maps

Set victorycondition to sandbox in normal game lobby. Exit lobby. Host random coop mission. Go to options and switch to my mission.

[Tagada]

I have a problem when i can t lunch the game i setted victory condition to sandbox and set all other options to defualt. when i x up the buttom lunch is still inclickeble.

[Tagada]

It can be problem when you don t have any spawn locations.

[KeyBlue]

Euh. That shouldn't be the case...

I did a quick host with Tagada and saw what was wrong.
Tagada accidently made an extra folder so his scenario file was like this:

Code: Select all

maps/ThetaCivilianRescue/ThetaCivilianRescue/ThetaCivilianRescue_scenario.lua

What he needs to do is remove 1 folder so he gets:

Code: Select all

maps/ThetaCivilianRescue/ThetaCivilianRescue_scenario.lua

You can't have an extra folder, because the files look for other files using their locations in memory.
So they look for "ThetaCivilianRescue_script.lua" in folder "maps/ThetaCivilianRescue/", but if isn't in that exact location, it doesn't work.
Same for all the other files.

[OxideIon]

I played the mission on hard and I liked it quite a bit but there are some things that could be worked on. I didn't get to complete mission as of yet but I'll give it another try soon. The first stage of the mission seems quite well balanced and getting the objective done in the time given (20mins?) can be done with good strategy and play.

Now the second stage seems a bit unbalanced. The moment you complete the objective so the map expands or if you just wait for it to expand you get multiple t2 transports dropping t2 and t3 units in and around your base. Now you can't really kill a significant amount of these t2 transports without insane amounts of t1 aa and mobile flak before they drop which is fine but there are 2 scenarios that are likely to happen at this point. 1. You completed the objective in the given time and most of your units and your acu are in the enemy base so your base gets destroyed by the rhinos and loyalists. 2. You didn't complete the objective in the given time and you have most/all of your units in or close to your base including your acu so you can defend the drops and continue the mission without your base taking too much damage. The scenario 1. is way worse than 2. so there is no real reason to complete the objective since your base will take significant damage or get outright destroyed.

I propose 2 solutions. 1. Succesfully completing the objective would reduce the amount of drops and they wouldn't be in your base but around so you could defend the more vulnerable infrastructure more easily. 2. Give a bit more time to complete the objective so the player can build more units to defend and perhaps retreat the majority of their units that were attacking.

Now the rest of the 2nd phase. The opponent having access to t3 land and t2 air isn't really fair. Pillars lose to rhinos in equal numbers and loyalists are even worse and since the opponent isn't short on mass we don't need to compare mass to mass. Perhaps enabling the titan to be built would help a bit. T2 air isn't as big of a deal since inties and flak do a fine job at keeping them at bay. I wouldn't mind the ability to make some gunships or fighter/bombers.

The mission is focused on assault so I understand why you have disabled defensive t2 structures but at least having the shield would help a great deal against t2 air and a bit against the land forces it would basically just be a better variant of the mobile shield. Stationary flak could also be available since the mobile version is available. The ACUs personal shield upgrade could be made available to help in the 2nd stage but it could make the ACU too good, hard to say.

Edit: Replays only seem to show the first stage of the mission.

[OxideIon]

I played the mission again on hard and managed to complete it but the 2nd stage does need to be changed a bit. The enemy base is extremely well defended with t2 and t3 land, t1 and t2 pds, t2 arty and walls. As I said earlier the cybran land forces are more efficient than the UEF ones so this creates some problems but you can always spam more to fix this issue. My main complaint is that the base is far too well defended to achieve the objective in time before the monkeylord spawns (15mins?). I think the main problem is the t2 artillery because it has great range and splash and when you combine that with everything else that is in the base it's almost like banging your head against a wall. Perhaps only having one arty or at least removing the t1 pgens around them could ease this issue a bit.

Since the time limit is near impossible to achieve you have to deal with the monkeylord that spawns, which is possible with mobile shields and gun ACU overcharging it. Now my biggest complaint here is that it also spawns a megalith (at least on hard it would seem) now this way too much to deal with especially if you have been throwing your armies at the base (the megalith can be killed with tons of pillars and shields but that is hardly optimal). I suggest removing the megalith to avoid frustration and maybe add it into the second experimental spawn instead of a monkeylord.

After you kill the first experimental(s) you get another timer of 5mins to capture the prison before more experimentals spawn. I don't think this amount of time is long enough to rebuild your army and capture the base. I am aware that the monkeylord wreck gives you plenty of mass to make tanks but realistically you probably wont be able to spend it fast enough with all the other reclaim on the map which results in more experimentals being spawned.

[KeyBlue]

Ok i did some quick changes based on OxideIon's comments.

fixed the experimental issue. (don't spawn mega in first exp spawn)
reward grabbing first base, with less drops and none into the back of your base.
more time between experimental spawns.
...

Again i'll add the changed file in the original post.

[Tagada]

i see Oxide had exacly same ideas as mine xD. Add titans, static shields and static flak. Also i didn t see any problem with the drops but it maybe be bcs i had waypoint for units in my base. The thing is that aoe combinated of t2 static arty, t3 mobile and corsairs is too much, so without titans path finding of units is rly a problem.