[REL][Server Mod] Statera Balance Mod

I was having trouble paying attention.. I had to play the game and answer a flurry of questions ^^;

Is there any other reason raiding might be a sub-optimal strategy?

There were 2 other people there... and no one tried to do anything before the 10min mark.

No raiding should be great, the bots have some running speed of 14 and can do some nice damage, also the skitter has a weapon, and the hover tank is a pretty nice raiding weapon though a little slower than the Scamper. (Scamper is speed 14 and the hover tanks must be something like 11 or so, and ants are speed 8 I believe.)

Like I said it was a bit difficult to think about how many changes we did on the spot to answer Brian's questions, and play the game at the same time optimally.

And yet...

10 minutes...

Did everyone just forget those units existed?

Well this was Zombiefan564's first go at the balance, so he wasn't used to it, and I wasn't really paying attention too well that game due to the questions.

Working on descriptions right now. By the end of the revamping, this should be the most accessible mod out there.

Also want to get something big into the next release. Not making any promises though.

Have you checked out RCBM recently?

Also is there a list of changes somewhere showing how your mod differs from vanilla?

None currently; going to see about getting a changelog soon.

EDIT: Yes, I just checked your descriptions and I wasn't impressed, especially when I found your stinger said that it was AA only missiles when it could target ground when I last checked.

Example of what I'm doing (For the slasher/spinner):
AA: Anti-Anything missiles. Effective vs air, moderately effective vs land.

We've barely touched the descriptions. It's on the to-do list... after all the changes we'll need to do to update to the newest version.

I'm still disappointed that you haven't got a design document publically available though. I have no idea what your mod does, what it intends to do, what the overall goals and design direction choices are for your many changes, nor individual unit-by-unit breakdowns of intended role, power, cost, strengths or weaknesses, etc. Having to download the mod to find out any information about it at all is frustrating; making it very inaccessible imo.

My apologies, this is my fault, I attempted to give the general idea of our mod on the original post, I should work up a really large and detailed explanation of further plans. Thanks for the feedback!

We are working on it, but does this truly help accessibility all that much? Is the average joe who finds this mod going to look up a big design document to find out everything about the mod or are they going to play to find out what's different? While it does make it more accessible for an experienced player to the average joe it's more important to make descriptions that describe Amazing... the capabilities of each unit.

So... if a technically minded person such as myself who has experience with not only mods in PA, but also am modding it myself, am having problems understanding what your mod is doing... I think your average joe has even less chance.

Very true! I think Stuart's working on a general overview of the mod at the moment, sorry for the lack of changelogs, we've been changing quite a lot- quite fast. Anyway, no need to trade remarks guys, we've both got incomplete mods, with incomplete things within, it's just a process. Neither mod is the "better" mod, we should just look at each other for inspiration and to learn from one another.

Just make sure to keep it civil!

I assume that this is the case in the current version in-game? We are aware of this, that's why I improved the descriptions last night. They won't be live until the next version, which I don't think we'll release until the PTE goes live and preferably until we've finished the big feature.

Generally improving descriptions is more helpful in making the game accessible to the average joe rather than design documents. They're useful, but not solely for accessibility.

Version 0.2.98 released!

Contains a ton of balance changes and adds the T2 ultra-heavy amphibious tank, the Obliterator. Also updates descriptions on all units. We need your feedback about what's good and what needs changing!

Mod is now down to about 2.3 meg after some housecleaning.

Current plans:

0.2.99 will include the bluehawk (finally!) and update the mod for Uber's next PTE. 0.3.0 will add in the mother of all features.

Nop, you are still missing a point 02.98

That would imply this is the second version of a completed mod.

Alright, so I worked up a little thing to try and explain what I wanted to do with this mod, I hope it's of some assistance!

Statera Balance Mod​

Premiss:
The main idea behind Statera is to promote complex unit composition within your armies; armies comprised of one single unit should be wiped out by a equal size (or even smaller size) army of multiple unit types. Units in this mod are mean't to help eachother out, they are often very well off in their own roles, however lack greatly when used in situations out of their base role. The partial exception to this is the basic units, which are slightly more well rounded when it comes to uses, advanced however are mean't to be strictly secondary roles. We're going through quite the trouble to push for diversification among the units and their roles, we've even gone to the depths of changing the roles of each seperate dedicated anti-air unit, all are dedicated anti-air however one is for singular units, another for large groups, and etc...

Relationships between each unit type:
Most units fit into their own group nicely, and each unit type (Bots, tanks, air, and naval) have their own twists and main idea behind them. The idea was to diversify, and yet keep all factories viable as your start. Vehicles are the "tanky" group, they are often very slow and deal heavy alpha damage weapons, their dps is often ironically low compared to other unit groups because of a lot of wasted damage, and a low fire rate. Bots are very dps heavy, they often have low damge, but very high ROF. This makes them exceptional raders, especially with their speed. They can however still deal nice damage when they get close enough because of their high fire rate, they never waste any damage on one single target. Air is very fast and exceptional scouts due to this, they serve a nice support role to your land forces and are fast, heavy damaging, yet very weak and vulnerable units. Naval serves a mainly support role as well, and claiming the seas is great for shoreline bombardment and suprise attacks, they have the longest range of the units but are vulnerable to air based counter attacks.

Relationship between Basic and Advanced:
As stated earlier in the thesis: Basic is the most well rounded of the two, it contains units that are less situational compared to advanced and are normally the bulk of your military force, an example of this is that a couple of them can attack multiple layers as apposed to just one. The Advanced units however are most strictly meant to be very situational and are still seen often in battle, yet of a lower amount than the basic unit group, they are normally meant for support and their roles match as such. Think of advanced as the nails that keep your desk together.

What of orbital?:
Orbital hasn't been mentioned thus far as it's slightly different than the others yet mainly sticks to the same premiss. The "basic" orbital, created in the orbital launcher, are the bulk forces you'll see in orbital, similar to vanilla PA. The basic orbital will be mostly contrived of units such as the orbital fighter, fabricator, and transport, as well as the basic radar. The advanced will be less about combat and more so about reconnaissance, as well as high tier, yet flimsy units. (Such as the orbital laser platform) Orbital units will have very fast speed compared to the other unit types (including air), it will have VERY slow acceleration and deceleration however, making orbital a very different layer compared to the others, where your point and click won't be as useful. (This also gives way for some units to have near circular orbits due to the painfully slow deceleration.)

I'll just put this in the OP and possibly work further into this at some other point, but at least for the moment, this should be of some assistance in giving you information on what we want from this mod, I hope!

First off, its good to know what your actually aiming for.

I don't like this idea. To me, an army consisting of a single unit type should excel at a few things, but end up being useless at everything else. An army consisting of a little bit of everything should fair OK in every situation, but not excel in any specific area.

I am guessing you didn't mean it as I interpreted it, but if you force it so that an army consisting of a little bit of everything always comes out on top, the fun of being able to surprise your enemy with a uncommon units will be removed from the game.

Oh well yes, I didn't really say it in the best way. An army of only one unit would lack many roles, without these roles it'd only perform one task well, this means units that perform another task may have an easier time taking them out, and an army with multiple types of units would often do better. Think of it like this: There's an army of tanks coming, they have the average range, slow turn rate, etc... Well then lets say an army of normal tanks, and bots at the front come running over, well the large tank army would have a lot of health, and damage, but would lack in a real 1v1 fighter at close quarters, whilst the bot in the other army takes that role nicely. More specialized unit armies would still excel at any one role, their role, but as you said: an army of many roles excels at none, yet it's also the most well rounded. The swiss army knife has many uses, but any one of it's knifes/tools aren't as effective as the actual knife/tool alone.