[REL] Galactic Annihilation Titans

First of all, I love it and I just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying the mod! I totally get the TA feel, which I think is mostly due to the significantly reduced unit speeds and increased HP (but some planes are a bit slow). In fact the whole thing is very awesome!
(Second, sorry for the wall of text! I tried a bit of formatting. Hopefully it helps.)

I had forgotten how annoying the wreckage was! So much that I'm confident that the commanders would have a solution for this, seriously!
All of the ground units seem to be pretty well balanced. Well done.

Happy to see the Doomsday Machine (AKA Apocalypse Apparatus) is back!
The AI is pretty good, it nuked my Catalyst multiple times, and when I put anti-nukes up it then nuked out of its range to still destroy both, and then Halley'd me LOL!


Some thoughts though.

• The overall build time is pretty on target with TA I think, though I personally feel like a 5%-10% shortening would play better. It can take 10 minutes to get engaging combats now.
• The Lobber is still very powerful for it's cost. 2-3 of these will crush any major push because nothing T1 outranges it (or T2 mobile units?) and by the time the units get to the wall most of them have been thinned so simple turrets make easy work of the attackers. The range seems a bit too long though. On the other hand, I think the Pelter is under-powered (comparatively) even for its lesser cost. IMHO the Pelter's and LOB's ranges should be swapped. Actually the Catapult also falls into this category, as its range is still a good bit less than the Lobber's.
• Pelter Firing Sound: Sounds small and dinky, like slapping the end of a long piece of PVC/Plastic piping. It needs to sound like it is firing traditional shells. In fact I really don't like this sound for most of the units that have it, but it seems to fit the Lobber okay.
• Above Firing Sound: IMHO, everything else with that firing sound seems to need a different sound. For me the sound is so jarringly off that it really hurts my ability to feel imersed in the game. (Sorry, but just my humble thoughts!)
• Above Sound when Selecting Artillery: (I now know this is the default selection sound... ) The sound is used when selecting all the artillery units too (in addition to the normal selection sound). This feels off. Can the piping sound be removed when selecting the units?
• Attack sound for all: (Uber's fault) I hate that short-circuit sound it makes when manually attacking the unit/ground to attack. To me, that sound is a sound indicating I'm trying to do something not allowable, like manually telling artillery to attack outside of its range. I wish it were just the same sound used when using the patrol action, because it always make me wonder if the command actually worked.

Suggestions:

• Pelter: Give Lobber's range. Maybe reduce attacks per second and/or accuracy. Actually it seems to be almost 100% accurate at less than max range (well, only the first two shots deviate). On the other hand, its AOE is too small because it barely its the closest units in a tight formation. IMHO the Pelter needs a complete balance pass on many of it's attributes. The projectile speed is good for defense, but a bit fast for artillery compared to the other projectiles.
• Lobber: Give Pelter's range, which might need a cost reduction. (I know you can't change the damage/AoE because it would affect all Booms.)
• Catapult: Make range at least 20% longer than current Lobber's. There should be something between the pelter and the Holkins...

Glitched stuff: (disabled other mods)

• Holkins: Can't shoot full range on small asteroid. Hmm, it still does this in vanilla Titans... I suspect that the actual range calculator is hidden and accounts for the planet's curvature, while the red range circle calculates distance through the planet in a straight line... Not your fault, just something I noted.
• Pelter: Something is going on with it. With all mods turned off I can shoot 100% of the range? I think it may have something to do with the planet radius. On the smallest asteroid it can barely shoot half of it's range. On a 700 it can shoot 95% of its range, but when you target max range it will sometimes overshoot to the point that the shell literally has the range of a Holkins shot, on a 700R planet, and on small ones will overshoot most of the time so that the shells circumnavigate the thing for a long time. I can understand why this might be okay for the Holkins on an asteroid, but not the Pelter. I suspect that the projectile speed is causing the bug.
• Queller: (Strange, this didn't happen with all mods disabled, including Hotkey.) When I use my Attack hotkey (setup as Cntrl+Shift+A to toggle attack cursor image then I left click) the unit is deselected, but clicking on the command in the GUI works fine.
• Unit HP Bar: (Only tested with most of my mods still enabled.) Many of the units are built with 200%-400% health bars, such that the green line extends beyond the boundaries. Impacted: Fab bot, Adv. Fab bot, Bluehawk, Gil-E, Grenadier, Dox, Spark. I've not looked at other tiers.
• Attack Ranges: (Based on my findings with the Architect below, I suspect this to be an Uber issue, not yours.) Many units' attack behavior is kind of borked. Many are not attacking to their full range unless they are moving. When standing still they only start firing at about 60%-70% range. This also affects the Attack-Move command, making them walk (while shooting) to about 60%-70% of max range before stopping. If baited, they'll of course walk to that range too. Stomper on Attack-Move command walks to 50% range and then takes a few tiny steps even closer.
• (Stitch/Mend repair ranges are affected by the stuff above too, and for some reason they are much more likely to repair nearby units when the stitch/mend unit is moving? If units get bound up then I have to manually give them a move command in a direction they can move before they start repairing again. I wonder if this problem ties into the Architect?)

Architect: The only thing they are 100% reliable for is repairing damage. They're very good at that. Keep it automatic please.
They'll work for the first assist most of the time, but thereafter it is a crap-shoot. Sometimes I can hit Stop and they'll resume their jobs, but others not. Assist doesn't work either. Sometimes when I get them to assist a factory, they stop partially through the first build and become glitched out again.

I figured out one explanation why they stop building early though, and possibly why they seem glitched. If you hover over the factory you can see that the percent complete calculation at the bottom left is wrong for some units, or it could be a bug in the factory attributes itself I guess. It doesn't match up to the purple completion bar on the factory. It reaches 100% way early and they stop the animation. And actually, even during the assist animations, sometimes they aren't actually adding mass to the unit being built. (They didn't add mass to T2 Fab bot, but did add mass to Brutilizer until stopping early.) It looks like they are adding mass when hovering over the factory and looking at the percent at the bottom left, but the purple completion bar is unaffected by them. This seems to only affects factories. Maybe they are somehow trying to update the build stats with the wrong API/Function? Odd that mobile units don't seem affected?

Also, they seem to a bit more reliable ONLY when there is something within range that can be repaired, but they prioritize helping factories over everything else. In fact, I made a line of Architects, with a factory on one end and big unit on other, and started reclaiming the unit at max range of the furthest Architect. After they were all repairing him, I started making something in the factory. The half that were furthest away started assisting the factory instead of still repairing. This makes me wonder if there is something about how the unit is setup that is causing the problems. What is magical about their half-range, and why is it the line of demarcation between repair and factory-assist? Ah, I now see it. It is the difference between the nano-lathe's range versus the distance that the unit will walk to before building.

My guess is that you manually coded it to have a repair radius AND assist radius (though not possible for a person to do an area assist) where the repair distance is half of the assist instead of just patrol, because patrol seems to prioritize reclaiming over repairing/assisting? it isn't using patrol or else it would reclaim stuff before repairing, based on my tests.

How are you getting them to auto-assist when built without a person doing the command first? I wonder if the range thing and/or auto-assist/repair is causing the problems? What happens if you remove auto-assist/repair, give patrol button to the unit (can you do that for stationary things?), and let the user patrol it manually, does the issue persist? (An imperfect solution it seems though. I'd rather keep the auto-repair BTW, but I'm just offering my troubleshooting thoughts.)


Ideas:

• The "Maid"/"Cleaner": A Wrecking Clearing bot that can only reclaim (quickly) with a zero-low energy cost? Could you make something that cannot assist, build, or repair yet can reclaim? That way you could make the unit's energy usage per mass like 0%-5%?
• OR
• "Singularity"/"Black Hole": Unit like a boom, if booms could attack ground, but reclaims an area upon destruction? (Not sure how dangerous a misclick would be with friendly fire enabled...)
• "Singularity"/"Black Hole" Launcher: Launches a shell or "unit" that reclaims a large amount of mass in a moderately sized area? For balance, it might need to charge for 1-4 seconds after landing before exploding?
• "Magnetar": Stationary (ducks his head) building with a long reclaim range but can't assist?

Hey.

Thank you for your feedback!

I might do a slight increase in factory build speeds.

Lobber will receive some combination of:
Lower turret rotation speed
Higher cost
Less splash
Less damage.

I intend for it to be a powerful offensive weapon; if it's too powerful defensively then that shall be taken care of.

I'm mostly happy with where Pelter is ATM; if you see anything it will probably be a combination of damage and HP buffs. I doubt that I can fix the range issue without altering the arc significantly; for now just play on large planets.

Catapult: I'm happy with where this is; it doesn't seem to underperform for it's cost.

Your problem with the Queller and with HP bars sound like another mod is causing them. I didn't think that possible; odd. You're doing skirmish and not Galactic War, right?

No idea about moving and weapon range. Sounds like an Uber bug.

I'm using the same auto-assist code that cfabs use without the part where they can't build stuff. The oddities of its behaviour are about as much of a mystery to me as they are to you.

Both singularity ideas sound impossible. I'll look into implementing a new vehicle for your reclaim unit though, thanks for the suggestion!

Using Skirmish.

Impossible? Launch a zero move unit, with a nano reclaimer, and have their lifetime limited similarly to squals. While alive, they reclaim.

GASP!!! OR have a launcher launch "Nano Mines"! Invisible unless a spotter is nearby, low HP, reclaims armies and their wrecks automatically, persistent or limited lifetime. Crap! Now I need to clear out my workload so I have time to pick up modding...

Lobber -
Rotation speed isn't a big deal when used at choke points, which is the norm.
Splash redux would be good as it currently has a Holkins sized AoE.
Damage redux on Booms launched could work better IMHO.
Inherently, all ranged weapons are equally offensive and defensive by nature, unless they have a minimum range, like nukes, which wouldn't changed much because Lobbers have such a long reload time. Additionally, stationary weapons are a bit more defensive because, once they've cleared an area, enemies must approach them first. I'm skeptical of whether you can make them better offensive weapons than defensive.

I thought they were meant to be anti unit spam, which was a needed role, and they are very good at it. My recommendation is that they should have there damage decreased and function as a T1 one unit spam deterrent that would force your opponent to use more high hit point units to assault your defenses. The bigger the AoE, the better it will be at anti unit spam, unless its damage is so slow that units can move out of the area to avoid significant damage (like area DOT).

Can we get specialized Orbital units?
Like, a cannon-cruiser, a drone-carrier, a ground-bombardment frigate, etc?

v2.25
This will, barring any major bugs that happened because I'm me, be the final version of GA, being released to tie up loose ends etc. Future rework mods by me will bundle in a modified Legion Faction and be amazing so stay tuned for that.

New Unit! Grunt: T1 reclaim tank. Unable to repair, just built for inexpensive reclaim goodness.

Colonel metal income reduced from 5 to 1.
Apocalypse Apparatus top turret should have a slightly easier time rotating to kill things.
Zeus range reduced from 100 to 70 to make it easier to kill with ranged units.
T2 pgens should now chain explode more reliably.

So you are modding a mod? Inception¡¡

Modception! He will mod the mod, so everyone can play a mod while playing a mod!

Not only am I making a mod that remakes a mod while modding a mod, but that mod that remakes a mod while modding a mod will also package other mods! Moar mods!

You took a while to process that message xd

v2.251
This update pushes GA back to the top of the mods list changes the menu backgrounds.

GA is probably the most advertised PA mod ever.

Okay, umm I have a problem with not being able to use any of the new units, the space in the UI is there but they don't show up, the rest of the changes are there (Manhattan isn't actually a nuke etc), sometimes the icons show up but when i click them nothing happens. Any ideas?

Do you have any other server mods installed? GA is incompatible with any other mod that adds units. This includes Aurora Artillery, War Turtle, Orbital Warfare Overhaul, Legion Expansion, etc.

just disabled aurora along with hodgepodge, cheers, it werks
one question is, would there be any possibility of being able to adjust the AI difficulty?

No, I'm too lazy lower AI difficulties act too stupid in GA eco and it's too time consuming to create a smarter AI personality.

Economy multiplier is a superior method of adjusting AI anyway, considering the AI "difficulty" is better adjusted by "how much firepower they have, how fast they spread, what is the maximum distance they spread", all adjusted by economy multiplier. Even Vanilla AI on Easy if given a 6 minute headstart is hard to handle considering how wide an area they hold and how dense their base is packed with defenses and swarming units.

Have you tried Queller? There is a lot that can be done to make AI play more like a human without letting it cheat. It just isn't really an option here because only Quitch is patient enough to fine-tune all the values as well as he does.

Of course, which is why I disregarded it. I have modified "what units AI can use" before, but never "how they choose to use it" to play more like a human. It was a great idea to make one for vanilla, and again, eco-multiplier is a great handicap for either yourself or your AI when playing GA.

Queller is so specific and complex that it also might not be rational to try to wire another mod's units in place of vanilla units and using the exact Queller code.

.