[WIP] The Realm Community Balance Mod

That could be true if the missiles were all one-shot by Flak. Hopefully we wouldn't have this be the case and different missiles would have different health values as well as speeds and sizes making them difficult to hit in the first place.

Don't worry, we're not proposing a binary counter. We'd like Flak to be a "soft" defence against constant missile barrages.

Well, Uber seem to have just taken steps in the opposite direction to the one this mod is proposing.

I'm using 3ds max, and exporting .FBX files from that. I was under the impresion that this is the way that most of the devs do things themselves. In terms of bones, I have four bones at the origin named "land_barrier_mesh", "Solid", "DiffuseColor" and "bone_root". I assume that this information is still up to date, and that nothing has changed. My experience with bones and animation is limited (my modelling experience is from a cad/engineering background rather than a design background), so if there are other important externalities, then it's possible I've missed something.

*sigh*

I hate how we're already planning to fix the game before it is even released...

Gonna result in a fragmented community, which will hurt the community and the game.

But I just have no interest in playing the game that Uber is building. Ugh.

You really mustn't approach this so negatively - that's not what inspired this mod at all, and I'd hate for this to be viewed negatively by the community or by Uber.

This is just our take on balance. As Scathis himself has said, there is no one right way to do balance, and there will always be things which are considered OP and UP which players will want to change. Look at League of Legends or Dota or indeed any game in ongoing development - the balance of the core game is shifted constantly.

This is a different interpretation to that which Uber are heading for - it doesn't mean theirs is wrong, it doesn't mean we think ours will solve world hunger, but it gives players the option as to which they prefer

I have played several games on the PTE build now and I have to say it feels pretty good. Yes there are still direct upgrade units there that I believe need to be replaced with greater diversity, but the game feels a lot better than it has been feeling. Don't let the Theory out way the experience. Get in the PTE build and play a few games.

Just as a quick aside; we're not saying that what Uber is doing can't work, nothing of the sort. We just would rather prefer something else.

As people have said previously, there are many ways to balance a game. Uber are heading in one direction and we are heading in another. There's no reason why both ways can't be fun and balanced.

The aim of this mod is to take it in a direction that we like best.

I skimmed through the document. I would love to try this balance mod if Uber decides to go the other way.

I liked the swap on bot and vehicle speeds. Legs should NOT be as fast as tracks and wheels. At least that is what my intuition says. Im little concerned that basic tank would be OP as it now has the speed with armor and decent firepower. I think it should have low acceleration, braking and turn speed, so its fast in but slow to retreat and not-so-good for micro maneuvers.

I dont get it why mass storage has to be moved to adv? I do understand that it is not necessary at early game, but when I do need the storage I need to allocate my adv faps, that would better of building important late game stuff.

Edited: Because I realized that I cant outrun a car.

So... running at tops speed you're able to easily outpace a tank going at 42mph? You should apply for the Olympics.
Tanks in the mod are divided into three types; Cruisers which are fast and lightly armoured, Battle Tanks which a bit faster than infantry and have moderate armour and Infantry Tanks which are as slow as infantry and have frankly obscene levels of armour.

Glad you liked the change. We feel it makes a lot more sense this way.

Also, the firepower per-metal-spent is heavily in favour of other units at the moment. On an individual level the Ant is pretty powerful, but it pays a lot for that privilege and it's slightly outmatched by most everything else cost-for-cost, so much so that it's probably better to build other units if you want direct sources of damage. And your concerns on the turnspeed is bang on the money for what we had planned for them. They're good for punching through a tough position and can outflank a much slower "infantry" Bot, but, in a protracted close-combat, their slow turret speed and turn rate will cripple an Ant.

As for your thoughts on Metal Storage and what to do with your advanced Fabs...
That is in fact intentional If you think that Metal Storage is important enough to use then you should have to focus some of your Adv Fabs to work on it.

Remember that all Factories also have a small Metal Storage, so there are multiple ways to increase it (though the Metal Storage structure is far-and-away a more efficient way to increase it).

I derped. I should have reread my post better. I mean legs should not be as fast or faster than tracks and wheels.

Three types of tanks sounds good.

Does factories have storage in current build? I have to check. I have an impression that there is no storage. Im fine with factories and fabricators having a storage as it were in TA and FA (if I remember correctly.) I still don´t see what is so advanced in a box that fills with metal. But its your mod and you can make it what you like. And I usually try not to save metal as it is better spend on more tanks.

Indeed. It may serve very little function on its own other than as a safety net in the balance mod, however other modders may wish to use it, and I certainly want to make it an important consideration in some of the other mods that will comprise The Realm Mod Pack.

The Balance Mod is going to act like a core for our other mods to be built off. It gives us more control that way. If we used the vanilla balance then every change done by Uber would require us to go in and alter all our numbers to compensate.

Haha I love Cyanide and Happiness

I'll spend time helping this mod. Judging from the last live stream, they don't seem interested in no tiered obsolesces.

I'm still curious why they seem intent on finding the pacing of the game. Its difficult to balance around that parameter.

I can kind of see where Uber are coming from since the pacing (or rather timing) of the upgrade-tier structure is a very important point to nail down. If that's the balance path they want to go down then it really is important to have their timings somewhat structured so they can control the pace of the game.

If that is the case however, it seems bizarre to me that they removed the "Build Time" lever from their metaphorical wall of levers. Sure it removes a level of confusion on the part of newer players since now build power isn't variable... but they're still making a game that needs a level of commitment to learning since they're going for tech-timings... which need to be learnt.

It seems like they're removing the learning requirement from one part of the game and then lumping it onto another.

*Shrug* At least that's this Kroot's opinion.

Pssh, I prefer a brace of Hammerheads at my side than a herd of Krootox. For Tau'va!

I have to say, one of the things I really like is the differences in tanks. It's rare to see in an RTS game or modification that I'm aware of (closest you possibly get is Dawn of War, given the adherence to W40k vehicles, but even then they tend to be obscenely slow).

Glad you like it.
They pay through the nose for it though. Tanks aren't the cheap option, but they certainly have hitpoints and speed on their side.

If tanks have speed and hitpoints, what's left to the "infantry" ?

Numbers and very cost efficient DPS
They'll also have a bit more utility, including the Combat Engineer and the Boom! (hopefully a mortar too)