[REL] Enemy Ramp for galactic war 1.1.1

Mixes up the number and strength of Galactic War enemy commanders.

Rather than adding minions independently of difficulty scaling, which creates a difficulty cliff, it tries to create sets of commanders that have a equivalent total difficulty. The formula is somewhat arbitrary and feedback is welcome.

Additionally, difficulty is increased by proximity to boss.

Goes great with Section of Foreign Intelligence.

While it doesn't technically shadow `gw_start`, it punches out enough that it hardly matters.

- https://github.com/JustinLove/gw_ramp
- http://wondible.com/pa/gw_ramp_v1.1.1.zip
- PAMM

## 1.1.1

- Update title and tags

## 1.1.0

- Estimate system number of players based on landing zones, and try to choose appropriate number
- Splits are no longer 100% efficient, because I've found multiple commanders generally harder
- Add mod icon

## 1.0.1

- Use difficulties in forward order so headliner get's best rating

GW Ramp 1.0.1 - Use difficulties in forward order so headliner get's best rating

GW Ramp 1.1.0

- Estimate system number of players based on landing zones, and try to choose appropriate number
- Splits are no longer 100% efficient, because I've found multiple commanders generally harder
- Add mod icon

Missed one

That's odd. I thought I did the ones that already had icons right away.

GW Ramp -> Enemy Ramp for galactic war 1.1.1

- Update title and tags

edit, nevermind

Wondible, I'm using your Challenge Levels and Ramp for GW and notice that I may easily be facing 2.1 strength commanders right out of the box. That is using classic absurd as the difficulty on a medium size GW-campaign.
The Boss may than come with 2 of those 2.1 strength commanders.

Is this a normal(-ish) type of setup? As in is it normal that the opening fights are about ½ strength of the Boss?
(I find the opening fights to be much more difficult to take on, partly cause they are 1 planet maps, compared to the boss-fight which I may take on with little more than full orbital tech simply cause there is an escape route to an other planet.)

Good fun though, trying to take on a 2.1 commander with only basic air tech

Wish I would have earned the rights to an edit-button ....

Forgot the 2nd part of the message. Often when there are multiple commanders, specially so with 3 of them, there is clear difference in power between the commanders. I like the idea, but the range seems a bit big. Very often you can easily spot the weakling early on and take him out before the more competent ones become a problem. E.g. a 1.6 commander with a 0.9 one. The 0.9 one wont last long enough to serve his stronger friend, so the match is pretty much vs a 1.6+ commander. If it would be more like 1.1 + 1.4 there is still the effect of variation yet lessens the easily target-able commander.

The original classic absurd was 2.0 eco with an automatic subcommander and no scaling, so that is pretty much working as intended.

I'd be open to other challenge levels if there is something you'd really like to play.

Well I personally would not mind the Boss to have more umpf than the 2 or 3 2.1 commanders I now get on classic absurd, but at the same time the opening fights vs 1 of those commanders is a bit much on single planet maps.

I'm perfectly content with the mod(s) as is though. If I end up starting a new campaign cause the curve is too steep and there are no alternatives, so be it. I gladly pay that price for a more competitive AI in GW.

I'm not sure if this is caused by this mod, but I noticed that my ally commanders have something weird with their eco.
They build their first factory as usual, than they build the first fabber. However when they start to build other stuff, their build speed is extremely slow. And sometimes their build speed is slow from the start, so they start with 2-3 power and mex instead of factory.

Does any of your GW mods do things like that?

Wondible,
Couple of things I would not mind see altered or added in the form of an extra AI.
-Go orbital real hard when no enemy land presence
-Only build portals 'first' on remote planets instead of basic factories.
-If at all possible make the AI claim gas giants with more than at most a couple of jigs and a very basic presence.

GW does not support server mods, and AI mod is a server mod.

Not intentionally. Note that of the cards can mess up the AI - improved "build speed" for instance makes them think they need to develop more eco to support production, which is right in a sense but not optimal for the very start.

This is theoretically possible with enough javascript changes to push AI files. Models and such may not work in the GW game mode. Sometimes I wonder if it would be possible to rebuild GW on the regular game mode and new dynamic zip stuff, but it would be a pretty major project.

Ok, so here is what I noticed:
2 Minions from loadout do weird stuff, but minion I got from a card behaves normally.
Weird stuff includes, but not limits to:
- Wrong color. They have exactly the same color I have, but they should be white with their secondary color matching my primary one.
- Build speed goes to **** instantly/after first factory. Like building 1 mex/min with commander.
- No mobile units except some fabbers. However sometimes they build some turrets.

At the start of my GW I thought this happens because of lack of techs, but they still do that. And normal minions behave normally. Probably the loadout itself is broken.

Teach me, senpai! Would love to inject Queller (or something like Queller) into GW, but having looked at the JS files I was reminded I know nothing about JS.

Hmm, maybe the minion adjustment is casting too wide a net - though AFAIK loadout and tech minion should be treated the same. Thanks for the report.

ui/main/game/galactic_war/gw_play/gw_referee.js

Circa line 52 it starts munging the AI unit map, which might be a starting place to work from. It's calling into gw_specs, which will have some examples of loading and modifying unit files and the map. Hopefully with the unit map already taken care of, you won't need to munge much, just load and assign into the files object. This code was probably relying on the unit_list.json to find the specs, but api.file.list may solve that problem for AI files.

Personalities are manipulated in referee, although they are set in gw_start (which would conflict with Ramp) and derive from difficulty levels and faction files.

Thanks for the info Wondible.

Now to decide whether to harass you into submission or to just try and get into modding PA myself ...