[WIP] burntcustard's mini balance mods

Discussion in 'Work-In-Progress Mods' started by burntcustard, September 11, 2014.

  1. burntcustard

    burntcustard Post Master General

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    I've been doing a load of random little balance related mods recently, and this is gonna be my thread where I post about them.

    The plan is to make several really tiny mods, that you can pick and choose from (all compatible with one-another).

    So far I've "finished":
    • Commander Explosion Buff - commander death explosion is more scary. (2000 to 5500 damage, slight increase in the radius at which full damage is done).
    • Glorious Grenadiers - Rebalanced grenadiers, good at killing Dox.
    • T1 Pelicans - makes Pelican air transports T1. Also sets their group-preference to back, so that your fighters usually end up in front of them and they're less likely to get killed.
    • Nice Naval - check the long post somewhere in this thread.
    To install:
    1. Get PAMM.
    2. Download this .zip.
    3. Extract .zip to where the rest of your server mods are (probably \AppData\Local\Uber Entertainment\Planetary Annihilation\server_mods).
    4. If you can't find that location, try clicking the teeny little settings button in PAMM and looking at "PA Server Mods Location:".
    5. In PAMM in the server mods mods section, enable any of the three of these things you want to try out.
    I might put this/these on PAMM in the future. Being able to download a "mod pack" like this being supported better by PAMM would be cool.. dunno what the simplest system would be for it. Mebbe I'll just get them all on there individually.

    I've got a load of other really simple stuff I could do, that I've already played with, but not put into a proper mod yet - things like T2 bombers that drop mini-nukes, Booms that pounce from Boom Bot Wars, etc. Making all these separate is a little bit more work for me, but results in a better end user experience because you can pick just the things you want to play with (and downloading/installing/uninstalling from PAMM is crazy simple).
    Last edited: September 17, 2014
  2. tstvortex

    tstvortex New Member

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    Hey burntcustard,

    My buddy and I have been experimenting with modding PA for a few days now.

    He's made a tripod bot model I was going to fashion into an anti-dox bot.

    Trouble is I'm pretty much a script kiddie when it come to programming. I've found creating .papa files via powershell easy enough, but my attempts to alter the damage, range or metal cost of a unit have only changed the client's UI and not the actual value.

    Starting small: How did you change the Commander's Explosion Damage to a way more reasonable number?

    Cheers,
    tstvortex
  3. tstvortex

    tstvortex New Member

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    Personally I think my problem must lie somewhere with me not properly notifying the game to use the mod.
  4. liquius

    liquius Well-Known Member

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    First thing to do is get PAMM (if you don't have it already). Next thing is to download some server mods and see how they do it.
    tstvortex likes this.
  5. tstvortex

    tstvortex New Member

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    Oh I've already got PAMM. And I'm just starting to dig through burntcustard's mods and I'll have a good long look at everyone else's mods.

    Jaisus its 2am. thanks for the advice. I'll get back to you in the morning after I've had a good coffee and played about with some proper modinfo.json files.
  6. stuart98

    stuart98 Post Master General

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    Your mod has to be in the "server_mods" folder, not in the "mods" folder.
    tstvortex likes this.
  7. tstvortex

    tstvortex New Member

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    This was a massive help.

    After some tinkering around today I've learned how simple it is to get factories to build units they aren't supposed to I've got a Bot factory building a Pelican.

    Using burntcustard's mod I saw what he did with the "UNITTYPE_ " attribute and messed around with the classification to make it a Bot instead of Air.

    I've not seen the build.js file before. Now that I have I feel really confident in being able to add pre-existing units like the hover-tank. I'll try it tomorrow.
  8. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    Hover tank is actually just the alpha tank, it was never expanded upon. Which is why it's not in the game... you'll have to work on a custom model and change its .json how you see fit as we did with Statera.
  9. tstvortex

    tstvortex New Member

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    [/QUOTE]
    Hover tank is actually just the alpha tank, it was never expanded upon. Which is why it's not in the game... you'll have to work on a custom model and change its .json how you see fit as we did with Statera.[/QUOTE]

    Damn, that's a pity.

    How did you link the Unit to to it's build bar icon? I've been playing around with trying to change and insert the little thumbnails but I've had no luck yet.

    Incidentally my friend has finished the model.
    TestTripod of Doom.PNG
    Last edited: September 16, 2014
  10. burntcustard

    burntcustard Post Master General

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    Been working on a naval rebalance mod recently.

    @metabolical , @scathis , I summon thee to gaze upon my nautical endeavours.

    Here's an attempt at some kind of feature list:

    Commander:
    • Torpedo launcher range 200 -> 150
    • Torpedo launcher fire rate 2 -> 1 - DPS 500(?!) to 250
    Battleship/Leviathan:
    • HP 4000 -> 9000
    • Move speed 6 -> 10
    • Rate of fire 0.1 -> 0.2
    • Range 400 -> 300
    • Full damage splash radius 2 -> 5
    Destroyer/Orca:
    • HP 1000 -> 1250
    • Guard radius 250 -> 160
    • Move speed 6 -> 10
    • Group preference none -> front (so they go at the front of an army)
    • Sight 150 -> 160
    • Added torpedo fire sound and muzzle flash
    • Cannon range 180 -> 150
    • Cannon damage 40 -> 50
    • Cannon splash radius/full splash radius 0 -> 6/4
    • Torpedo rate of fire 0.25 -> 0.5
    • Torpedo range 180 -> 110
    Fabrication ships:
    • Move speed 10 -> 12
    Frigate/Narwhal:
    • HP 750 -> 1000
    • Guard radius 220 -> 160
    • Move speed 7 -> 12
    • Added correct muzzle flashes & sounds (turrets still point wrong direction, plz fix model Uber?)
    • Made ammo same as destroyer (was.. a mess before)
    • Cannon range 180 -> 100
    • Cannon fire rate 2 -> 1
    • AA rate of fire 1.5 -> 3
    • AA range 100 -> 125
    • AA pitch & yaw rate 180 -> 360 (same as missile defence tower)
    • AA spread fire -> true
    Missile Ship/Stingray:
    • HP 1000 -> 3000
    • Move speed 6 -> 10
    • Guard radius 460 -> 400
    • Removed AA
    • Made missiles come from all 4 holes
    • Removed "broken" fire effect that always came out of the same hole
    • Missile ammo source "infinite" -> "energy". Fire rate is the same, but now there's a little bar showing how long until it next fires. Uses 1000 energy/s.
    • Missile range 180(!?) -> 400
    • Missile damage 500(!?) -> 1500
    • Missile splash radius/full splash radius 0 -> 15/5
    Naval Factory:
    • Rolloff time 8 -> 5
    Sea Scout/Sun Fish:
    • HP 100 -> 120
    • Build metal cost 300 -> 150
    • Added guard radius: 150
    • Added guard layer: "WL_AnySurface"
    • Acceleration/break 200 -> 250
    • Move speed 20 -> 25
    • Added aggressive distance: 50
    • Vision 100(******* scout eh?) -> 200
    • Replaced little gun with little torpedo launcher (range 50, DPS 40) This is in bold because it makes killing Dox underwater so much easier, and is important!
    • Added thruster effect:
    • [​IMG]
    • (Plz fix these effects having lines at the end Uber!) I wanted to make the scout tilt when it turned too, but it seems only orbital and air units can do that. Wish it was a navigation preference.
    Torpedo Launcher:
    • HP 1500 -> 1000
    • Build metal cost 600 -> 450
    • Added energy consumption and energy efficiency requirement: 100 energy/s
    • Radar radius 200 -> 300 and mentioned in description
    • Removed wreckage
    • Guard radius 250 -> 190
    • Range 200 -> 180
    • Uses both barrels instead of just the right
    • Added muzzle flash
    Advanced Torpedo Launcher:
    • Pretty much same as above, but more powerful.
    • Range 210 -> 250 (why was advanced just 5% extra range?)
    There's probably a ton of other stuff I've done and forgotten about, most notably the changed descriptions of units which have made it much clearer what they are and what they do.

    Download (follow instructions in OP to install)
    Last edited: October 10, 2014
  11. mayhemster

    mayhemster Well-Known Member

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  12. Baleur

    Baleur Member

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    Could you please upload it to PAMM (even if its seperate minimods)?
    Or perhaps they are individually small enough to attach in the forum thread?
    Dropbox is hell to try to download from here in China.

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