Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

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Eugen
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Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by Eugen »

Hi all!

Many technologies are already obsolete the time you research them. Is it possible to make a redistribution of thechnologies?

- "Bug" should be given in the first mision.
- Scorpion should become available together with Cobra. Mantis together with Python.
- Cyborgs can be opened much earlier. First only machinegunner and flamer - then cannon and lancer when proper technologies have been researched.
- Inferno is weak against the Collective. Give it in Alpha and please increase the flamer ROF!
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Re: Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by alfred007 »

Eugen wrote: 29 Sep 2018, 10:58 Hi all!

Many technologies are already obsolete the time you research them. Is it possible to make a redistribution of thechnologies?
- "Bug" should be given in the first mision.
The Project has to steal all the technologies from their enemies they want to use. Except for the few things they have at the very beginning. And to give an NP technology before you met the NP makes no sense.

- Scorpion should become available together with Cobra. Mantis together with Python.
Hm. I'm not sure if this would be a good idea or not.

- Cyborgs can be opened much earlier. First only machinegunner and flamer - then cannon and lancer when proper technologies have been researched.
Then you have to create a completely new conception for the game. In the video sequences is clearly said that the synaptic link technology is sent to Nexus during alpha 08. In alpha 09 the NP is using cyborgs for the first time. And in alpha 09 you find the synaptic link artifact so you can use it from alpha 10 on. So if you want that the Project is using cyborgs sooner you have to make new video sequences and a new story for the alpha campaign.

- Inferno is weak against the Collective. Give it in Alpha and please increase the flamer ROF!
And again it makes no sense to give the Project a Collective technology before they met the Collective. And generally are flamers no good weapon against heavy armored tanks like you can see in the real life. They are good against cyborgs, buildings and defenses. But they are not planned to be good against tanks. At the moment Berserk Cyborg, Bethrezen and I are testing a new balance for the campaign, though Bethrezen and I are having a little break at active testing. I invite you to join us testing if a higher ROF for flamers would be a good idea.
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Re: Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by Eugen »

alfred007 wrote: 29 Sep 2018, 13:50
Then you have to create a completely new conception for the game. In the video sequences is clearly said that the synaptic link technology is sent to Nexus during alpha 08. In alpha 09 the NP is using cyborgs for the first time. And in alpha 09 you find the synaptic link artifact so you can use it from alpha 10 on. So if you want that the Project is using cyborgs sooner you have to make new video sequences and a new story for the alpha campaign.
Ok, ok. Let them call "Infantry" without composite suits. And when you research the Synaptic Link they will be renamed to Cyborgs.

What I want to say is that we shouldnt stick to 1999 dogmas. I think this was a mistake by the Pumpkin Studio to add Cyborgs that late in Alpha mission. They become useless the time they appear.
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Re: Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by NoQ »

All these ideas you have can be accomplished by tweaking stats. There's no need to break the plot. Eg., buff cyborgs against rockets - the player realizes that lancers are cool, and then bah, a swarm of cyborgs shows up, i believe that pretty much was the intended plot, but they didn't have time to tweak the stats.
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Re: Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by alfred007 »

Eugen wrote:What I want to say is that we shouldnt stick to 1999 dogmas. I think this was a mistake by the Pumpkin Studio to add Cyborgs that late in Alpha mission. They become useless the time they appear.
I never understood for what cyborgs should be good for. The only situation in which I use cyborgs is in alpha 12 to capture the hover artifact in a suicide mission.

Eugen wrote: Let them call "Infantry" without composite suits. And when you research the Synaptic Link they will be renamed to Cyborgs.
If you want to see a difference between "Infantry" and cyborgs it would be necessary to create new templates. So you would need an artist to paint these new templates. And when the "Infantry" is weaker than the cyborgs I still don't see for what they would be good for, even in the earlier levels. So it would be helpful if you become a little bit more detailed that I understand the idea you have. At the moment I see no benefit for the work that needs to be done.

NoQ wrote:All these ideas you have can be accomplished by tweaking stats. There's no need to break the plot. Eg., buff cyborgs against rockets - the player realizes that lancers are cool, and then bah, a swarm of cyborgs shows up, i believe that pretty much was the intended plot, but they didn't have time to tweak the stats.
That's what we already did during testing a new balance. We decreased the damage of the lancer from 160 to 120 and the weaponmodifier for legged units from 75 to 35. Maybe we should set it to the values we have in the mp stats but before the break of active testing we were testing the new stats in alpha 05 so we have no feedback what it looks like for cyborgs.
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Re: Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by Eugen »

alfred007 wrote: 29 Sep 2018, 13:50 The Project has to steal all the technologies from their enemies they want to use. Except for the few things they have at the very beginning. And to give an NP technology before you met the NP makes no sense.
The New Paradigm has been supplying Scavengers with weapons since our arrival - don't you remember? :)

So giving Bug in the first mission (say near the first enemy oil derrick together with MG bullets) will mean that the Project collected the technology from Scavengers who recieved it from the NP.
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Re: Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by alfred007 »

Eugen wrote:
alfred007 wrote: The Project has to steal all the technologies from their enemies they want to use. Except for the few things they have at the very beginning. And to give an NP technology before you met the NP makes no sense.
The New Paradigm has been supplying Scavengers with weapons since our arrival - don't you remember? :)

So giving Bug in the first mission (say near the first enemy oil derrick together with MG bullets) will mean that the Project collected the technology from Scavengers who recieved it from the NP.
This discussion becomes a little bit academic but I like it. Yes, the NP has been supplying Scavengers with weapons, but not all weapons the NP have. If the NP would give the Scavengers the bug body the Scavengers would use it. Because why shouldn't they use a better body in comparison with the bodies they have? It's a logical order. In the first level, the Scavengers have MG damage and ROF upgrades the Project steals from them. In the second level, the Scavengers have the Twin MG the Project steals from them. And so on. In no level the scavengers are using the bug body so it makes no sense to believe that the Scavengers received it from the NP. If it's so important for you to get the bug body as soon as possible we could implement it into alpha 05. But this is the earliest level we can give the bug body to the Project that makes sense for me.
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Re: Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by Eugen »

alfred007 wrote: 07 Oct 2018, 18:18 If the NP would give the Scavengers the bug body the Scavengers would use it. Because why shouldn't they use a better body in comparison with the bodies they have?
I think that Scavengers do not use the Bug body because their factories are not enough technologically advanced (yet) in comparison with the NP factories. They produce their own bodies based on the technolony obtained from the NP. It means they have the Bug technology but are not able to produce the Bug tanks.

In the 5th mission the Bug is already useless. It can only be useful in the first missions before the Cobra appears.
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Re: Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by NoQ »

Even if you give away the Bug body from the start, i doubt it will be useful. In order to make stuff balanced, massive stat changes are necessary. And, at the same time, they are also sufficient, if there is enough of them.

While rebalancing weapons to avoid spamming anti-tank rockets throughout the whole campaign, it'll also be possible to, for example, make bodies of different size be better at carrying different weapons (eg., by changing weapon weights) or be more protected against different enemy weapons (eg., by changing body armor and thermal armor). Which solves, in particular, the problem of Bug being obsoleted by Cobra: they will simply be useful in different situations, so the player would be encouraged to use a mix of bodies or use different bodies on different missions.

Now, the campaign also needs to actually provide different situations. Which makes campaign balance without screwing up the plot harder, but not impossible: levels already provide some variety, and slightly increasing or decreasing the chance of seeing specific weapons on specific missions should do the trick.
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Re: Artifacts/technology redistribution in Campaign.

Post by Bethrezen »

While I think there is some merit in gaining some technologies a bit earlier in the game you have to be careful with this, or you risk unbalancing the game, or braking the plot.

for example you wouldn’t be giving the player hell storm howitzers on alpha campaign, but you could argue that it would be ok to grant pepper pots a bit earlier in the game, because by the time you get them on beta you already have howitzers and ripple rockets so pepper pots are largely useless, so getting the pepper post on say alpha 8 of maybe beta 1 would be ok and would give them some us before being made obsolete by ripple rockets and howitzers

but even in a case like this you still have to rework the tech tree because if I recall correctly you only get pepper pots after assault guns so in order for that to work you would have to grant rotary tech first then give the pepper pot, the assault gun would need to stay on beta though because that would be to overpowered against the new paradigm, you would also have to hold back the mortar upgrades that you don't normally get till beta as well because again that would be to overpowered another issues with this is that if you are granting something like the pepper pot on say alpha 8 then you would also have to give it to the new paradigm from the same point to keep things fair

so you see its not as simple as just giving tech earlier you have to look at the bigger picture and do it within the context of the campaign and do it at points where it makes the most sense, so for example the earliest it makes sense to get the bug would be alpha 5 because that's your first real encounter with them.

with regards to cyborgs they need to be completely reworked because they are largely useless, they are to easy to kill for a start and there weapons are total weak sauce not to mention the fact that cyborgs should really be able to use any weapon you have and not just the handful you are given.

so I should be able to make builder cyborgs, repair cyborgs, commander cyborgs, scanner cyborgs, mortar cyborgs, mini rocket cyborgs etc. which would make cyborgs more useful, as to when you get them well that is dictated by the plot and unfortunately we can't change that or it would brake the plot.
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