Let's Talk about Mods in Competitive Games

I can see I have no choice, to compete on an equal footing I am just gonna have to install pamm. please don't misunderstand me I love mods, I do wish they were integrated into pa like they are in FAF though..

So lets settle on just vanilla without any smurfs and we are all happy.

Could you just elaborate on smurfing, must have missed that thread. Don't want to play in any manner that's considered bad.

You do realise that if you want to play that game and draw that relationship between these two topics, the street goes two ways?

Smurfing, to my knowledge, is making an alt account to practice on against lower tier people, so you don't have to 'tarnish' your main account with losses. At least I think. Frankly, I think it's a crappy thing to do.

I can understand where you're coming from, I really can, I just don't see the argument that UI mods really give any advantage. They just.. don't. The main purpose is just to stop the player from having to fight with the UI itself, or the camera, which really comes down to personal preference, and computer performance.

For example, here are the mods I use:


Out of those, Fast Delete, Gross Econ, Hotbuild2, Missile Command (if I can get it working with ubermap) and Ubermap are the ones that come into competitive play at all.

Gross Econ just represents resource usage differently, in a way I personally find easier to read at a glance (I have a small screen, and small UI)

Hotbuild2 just remaps keys, because default key mapping is clunky and un-intuitive. Again, personal preference. Sure, it increases my APM, but in a game where I think most people que builds, I can't really see that as being important. High APM != good play.

Fast Delete.. Well that literally just cuts out a confirmation screen on deleting. Can't say I really delete things in 1v1 unless it's my Comm anyway.

Missile Command means I don't need to bind every nuke silo to a ctrl group, which is the alternative. It's probably less intuitive actually, since you have to use on screen UI rather than keystrokes, I just prefer it.

And then there's Ubermap, which is an alternative to PiPs, because as mentioned, they eat my resources for some unknown reason. Isn't really much use in a 1v1 due to the size of the maps.

Can you honestly say that any of these give me an advantage against someone who isn't using them? Or, are they just personal preferences, akin to how some people play games on lower graphics settings because they prefer less clutter. I can see, and do have an issue an issue with things that automate aspects of the game, be that managing factories, or auto-controling units, but I don't understand the hoohar about simple UI mods.

Anyway, I'm repeating myself now, I think my position is pretty clear, and goes against the whole "New players won't know about mods" standpoint.

Gordon bennet, just went to mods forum and there's a few different version's of pamm .I'm not sure which one to use is there like a standard version? Or maybe a nice post explaining what the different versions are some one could link me to?

Sorry I'm not good at this sort of thing...

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/pa-mod-manager-pamm-cross-platform.59992/
download link can be found there

don't be sorry, you shouldn't be expected to be good at modding to begin with.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/pa-mod-manager-pamm-cross-platform.59992/

If they don't give you an advantage why do use them?

If your playing against someone who has a similar set up to you (small screen for eg) and does not know about the mod that fixes that then you have the advantage how ever small.

Wow this is one I will be using will save vital seconds when orchestrating a nuke strike. (i'm pretty crap with key's and am much faster on the mouse)

Like I have said, personal preference. I use them, because it makes my life easier for me.

And by that logic, those that don't have a small screen (because apparently the UI was only really meant for widescreen..) automatically have an advantage over me if I don't use the mods, so should everyone have to use the smallest screen to be equal?

Well I mean sure, but I've only had one ranked game where even one nuke was used. So in context, a few seconds, not really all that important, and as I said, I just bound them to control groups before hand, so the amount of time it took made no difference.

Utterly false..? Like, where is your logic behind that? You're calling my experience as a new player, utterly false?
My experience, what happened to me exactly. Is wrong because you deign it so? Despite the fact it is the experience of a new player that only started playing ranked two days ago. But, that's false?

Once again, what are you smoking to make these astounding assertions.

I know it exists because I know PAchat exists, because it's really not as hidden as you seem to think it is. The majority of mods, linked to in peoples signatures, require PAMM. And the sub-forum on Titans for mods is small.

I mean, I didn't even look for it, I stumbled onto PAMM. So if I a new player can stumble onto PAMM and the modding scene. I think most people could.

They COULD potentially stumble across PAMM however new players can not be expected to. Even if they do how long were they playing without knowing about it?

Ranked? I wasn't. I knew about it before even going into ranked. I knew about it before even playing Titans.

So again, you can all state about new players being disadvantaged, but the one case study you have. ME. Goes against this argument. Maybe I'm just a special snowflake, but I have a feeling that anybody who would care enough about ranked would already know about PAMM. After all, how many that are Uber, or Plat, or even Gold are not regulars on PAchat or the forums?

I realize that. And I am telling you: In my opinion I expect new players, once they start to get a grasp on the game, to also learn of how to use UI mods. That is part of being a good player. Since all mods are public and easy to get all players are on the same terms with the same opportunities in the same game. A player that doesnt look up good mods is at a disadvantages just like a player who is not looking up unit statistics or build orders is at a disadvantage.

Programming is all about rationalizing things away into hidden boxes so you stay sane about what actually happens in the machine

You make it sound ridiculous due to constantly using cheats like wallhacks and aimbots in your pictures. Truth is real UI mods are far far far less influential than those hard cheats. Mods give a slight advantage vs opponents that are near your own level. Not more.

A new player might play for a while without knowing of mods. They won't insta lose without them. They also might play for a while without knowing how the economy actually works or how to give area commands.
Once they are interested into getting better and better research of "how to get better" should lead to discussion with other players and looking at the forums. From there mods are easy to notice just like advanced build orders and strategies.
Yes a player who never even looks at the forums or talks to other players likely will not notice mods. They will also miss out on a lot of other things. If you are concerned about such players than propose a way to push the community onto them.
The idea of announcing mods that a player is using at the start of the game is a nice sounding one. Publicity for mods is good.

If they don't give you advantage, why are you using them?

For the record I got no idea how to work area commands. I know they're a thing, but that's it.

Unfortunately there is nothing uber can do about different hardware type's. It's seems silly to me to use that as an argument however you admit that your "mod's make life easier for me" so it's not to much of a stretch to say they might help other's who have similar needs but don't know about pamm and are now at a disadvantage.

I know ranked matches rarely get to the nuke stage, but if one did (say 2 player's equally matched and dug in) it would give you a speed advantage and keep your control groups free for units..

For me, I was thinking more about my ongoing war with sorien's Ai lol

Lot's of people who are on steam don't even come to this forum, and seeing as there is no steam workshop they may assume the game isn't modable.

You don't have to be 'good at modding' in order to install PAMM and enable a few UI mods. If you have the capabilities to install and run PA, you have the capabilities to do that also. Finding it is another matter and probably something we should address.

I am arguing for the inclusion of mods for 1 very specific reason so please let me explain very clearly why we are treading a *very* dangerous path here:
- Currently there is no way to *police* who is using what in terms of UI mods.

- If we make enough fuss, chances are we will force Uber to do something.
- Uber have limited resources. The very reason they've given us so much mod support is that it allows us (the wider community) to create things they don't have the resources for, or that they feel may not be to *everyone's* liking.

- The only possible outcome of this thread is that Uber will be forced to *disable all UI mods* for ranked play. That will include Hotbuild, More Pew Pew, Skybox, PA:Stats, PA:Chat, system sharing and everything that the community currently relies on. This would seriously harm the game as a whole and should be avoided. I do not see Uber will be prepared to put the resources in to create a more complex system so it really boils down to all or nothing.

- Disabling all mods for ranked play basically kills off mods full stop. Why? Well as a reasonable player I can tell you I'm not going to play with a tool that I become reliant upon, if I know I *cannot* use it in a competitive game, because it will seriously hamper my play style in competitive games. No mods in ranked / competitive = no mods at all for me. I'm someone who doesn't use many mods either, but I want to keep the in game chat and so on.

- We have highlighted that PAMM is too difficult for new players to find. THAT is something that is worth addressing. Instead of wielding the ban hammer can we not find a way to better educate newer players to all the excellent work the community has been doing?

- Finally, I accept that it is possible some mods could cross a line from useful UI tool to 'playing the game for you'. That is something we as the community need to manage. Maybe we could create a 3rd section in PAMM as others have suggested and put any questionable UI mods in there as 'unapproved for ranked'. It's still possible people might use them but the clear distinction should help.

Area commands are really simple- hold the mouse button down on a normal command and *drag* For example, area built a load of metal extractors, select your fabber, click metal extractor, click on a metal point (or nearby on the ground), hold down left mouse and drag. A circle will appear, and the fabber will be told to build all metal points within the circle This works for patrol (drag off the edge of the planet to do planet wide), for all types of buildings, attack commands, pretty much everything. You can even give area commands to factories and all units made will inherit the command given. Uber's default UI is actually quite powerful in many respects.

Right I've answered this at least 3 times now, if you're not going to have the decency to read what I put, then why bother posting in the thread. Genuinely close to just sticking you on ignore.

But your argument is the same, I'm using mods, so I must have an advantage. Someone has a bigger screen, so they must have an advantage.

But I am the one that shouldn't be allowed to use mods to ease that problem, despite the fact it makes me life more difficult.

So yeah, sure, people who have shitty little screens like mine might be disadvantaged if they don't know about PAMM. I imagine though, they'd stumble across it pretty quickly when trying to find ways to resize the UI to help them.

The match I'm talking about with nukes, was essentially that scenario, the speed doesn't really come into it. I had it bound to a control group. It would have actually been SLOWER to use Missile Command in that situation.

That is a fair argument, and one of the reasons I would love to see this game get workshop support, or any kind of built in mod support. However, considering how few people actually seem to play ranked compared to the amount of people playing. I don't think this really applies to most of them.

As I stated above, most people that would play ranked seriously, are regulars either here on the forum, or PAchat.

I guess I would argue that if we push Uber to do anything we should push them to fix the game instead. A mod like FreeEnergy always ought to point at a gameplay problem in the game. That should be fixed, making the mod useless. In this specific case though Uber has been constantly ignoring all warning "that is a bad idea and mods will break it" since years. :/

Select for example attack and drag a circle. Same with patrol or building stuff.