[REL] Expansionist

Discussion in 'Released Mods' started by cola_colin, October 25, 2014.

  1. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    So this a balance mod that follows my thoughts here: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/of-investments-energy-metal-and-reclaiming.65512/

    Current changes:
    • reduce the metal cost of all t1 buildings to 75% exception: teleporters and turrets
    • reduce price of all t1 fabbers to 75%
    • increase t1 fabber hp to 150
    • reduce the metal build rate of all t1 fabbers to 75%
    • reduce the energy usage of all t1 fabbers to 50%
    • reduce the t1 mex metal income to 5
    • reduce t1 combat fabber price to 100 metal
    • increase t1 combat fabbers hp to 150
    • reduce metal rate of t1 combat fabbers to 20 metal/s
    • teleporters cost 50% more metal: trying to make sure people dont use them too often as they are available from combat fabbers which are expected to be part of normal armies now.
    • enable units to have wrecks again. They do block movement to some degree, can't get rid of that. We'll see how that works out
    • most things drop wrecks with 10 times the health of the unit so it should stay after fights
    Now on pamm - server mods

    EDIT:
    Some test games:

    http://pastats.com/chart?gameId=232883
    http://pastats.com/chart?gameId=232897
    http://pastats.com/chart?gameId=232890
    http://pastats.com/chart?gameId=233378

    in both of them I was limited by metal (apart from some really bad "oh damn I forgot energy" phases) and wrecks were quite tasty.
    Looks promising imho, though 2 games obviously are not enough to say more than that.

    Wrecks and pathfinding do interact ... good imho. Yes big wreck fields can make it harder to attack constantly from the same angle, but I don't see an issue with that. Also wrecks look good from a pure visual standpoint. I like them.
    Last edited: October 27, 2014
  2. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    I like the changes, for the most part. But because it's being played with the screwed up dox balance, it's hard to tell how effective the changes actually are.
  3. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    You're free to combine them with a dox nerf. Though I don't think dox were an issue in that game. Watch the replay and think: "if dox had half the dps and half the hp, would it have been different?" No unprotected engineers still die to them ;) Well maybe my mistake to build dox as my main force would've killed me vs your direct tanks spam. Next game I really need to make sure to have tanks for the direct attack directions, as they are better for that. I lost the game vs custard because of building dox as my main force.

    Also I do think that dox may be a little too strong, but I am not looking into unit to unit balance, I want a better working economy balance first.
    Last edited: October 26, 2014
    xankar likes this.
  4. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    No Colin. Just no.

    These changes are just straight for you lol. Your playstyle is amazing with this. I can't keep up, I haven't played at this level in a while.
  5. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    Well yeah the point is to expand, sorry I seem to be good at that. Though godde is twice as good in general. :p

    Also really watch that replay. Why did you lose that? Not because of dox.
    In the second game I think your infernos were not that goood, they may just be generally a little weak. Additionally your attack gave me wrecks to reclaim to feed my metal starved economy. Your raids (dox :p) were much more painful before that, I might have been in trouble without those wrecks.

    I am quite happy with how the changes affect the game in the way I want them to.
    Last edited: October 26, 2014
  6. burntcustard

    burntcustard Post Master General

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  7. rancor47

    rancor47 Member

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    I like it too. I tried it on a couple of AI's. The start was even faster now :) In my opinion it is better than the standard balance.

    Dox are still strong, but are in less numbers now against buildings when attacking bases. This feels like a right direction. Maybe faster shooting turrets with same DPS? Or EoF damage? Let tanks be the better basekillers. Just an idea.

    I liked the recleaming. During the game I realized I actually needed it, which is nice. One small problem I encountered was when I wanted to build over the wreckages. It took so long to remove them :) If only the wreckages could be pushed aside by the buildings or something. Or we need a new bulldozer unit :p
  8. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    Yeah I noticed this as well. Though I am not sure if it really is that bad. It is different, but imho giving wrecks some influence to the gameplay like that isn't bad at all.
  9. rancor47

    rancor47 Member

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    Wat I also like about the wrecks is that my tanks use them as cover when the front line is destroyed
  10. cptconundrum

    cptconundrum Post Master General

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    This is the first balance mod that I would play over vanilla.
  11. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    The 4th pastats link I added is a testgame on a 900 planet. There it really becomes a game of proxys. I like it a lot. Expanding all over the place, being able to tech up, etc. Having to tech up midgame :)
  12. rancor47

    rancor47 Member

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    I used your mod and added a splash damage of 75 radius 15 to the turret. you should try it. Turrets finally became a bit effective vs boom bots :D And swarms of normal bots ofcourse. formations of tanks are mostly unaffected.

    Another good thing I saw happening with this mod is that bots were beginning to use all the wreckages. Dox could walk between them where the tanks had more difficulty. The grenadier was shooting over the wrecks and used the wrecks as cover themselves. Really infantry like :)

    I am now going to try to use the flame tank as bulldozer.
  13. Schulti

    Schulti Active Member

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    Are there some videos online of that games? Dont have PA on current PC. thx
  14. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    No videos currently, only a handful of games have been played.

    I want to be careful to not buff turrets too much. Strong turtles are not that good for expansion play.
  15. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    Only if siege units aren't up to the task, and are too inaccessible.
  16. philoscience

    philoscience Post Master General

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    Would love to see @ZaphodX stream some games with this mod so we can have a look.
  17. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    Yeah we need to play more games with this and a cast would be nice :)

    True. Though that leads into deep unit to unit balance. My aim here is to look at improvements for the t1 economy first. Imho before the economy system is not working well there is no point in balancing units on top of it.
    websterx01 and igncom1 like this.
  18. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    Of course.

    Im currently looking into balancing the dox unit, while keeping it's utility myself.
  19. lapsedpacifist

    lapsedpacifist Post Master General

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    Headcrab just pointed me to this, really like the look of it. My sneaky proxy moves are the only thing that redeems my many other terrible traits in PA.

    Will have to try a few games with the clan (or anyone who wants to drop into the teamspeak) tonight or next week.
    cola_colin likes this.
  20. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    So lot's of interest, but did anyone play any games with it? Replays, people!

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