Hi.

[Skrim]

Hi...

Again.


I just remembered this game while rummaging through my folders for no particular purpose. I had played through the campaign in summer and described it's ending stages here(as anyone can see above).

Once that was over, I tried some sandbox games and didn't like the AI's messy spammy style, so I played through the campaign once again. I remember that I experimented with NEXUS-style Retribution-HoverTanks with Rail Gun, Pulse Laser and Scourge Missile varieties. Thanks to their amazing performance(WAYYY better than my previous experience with lumbering tracked Tiger tanks) in the last two stages, I decided to post more ultra-long AARs here. But, Summer vacation ended(in early July) and I could never get the time to write it all up and attach screenies and all that. I still have those screenshots somewhere, though.

Once summer ended, I never did get back to this game and moved on to other RTSs and TBSs, and forgot about WZ2100.
So, what's happened here? Last I knew, is that it was a pretty stagnant and sleepy community with the game being slowly updated over the months. But when I got here today, this thread was 5 pages down. So something must have happened.

I'll post those old hover-tank screenshots as soon as I find them and remember what was actually going on in those pics. I'll probably play through the campaign again, but slower, and update the game if there has been any relevant update.

[Zarel]

Well, usually around 20 or so threads get updated per day - not the most active forum in the world, but not the least, either (it beats deviantART's "Programming" section!)

The trunk's (aka 2.2) been massively improved, but a lot of those improvements aren't in 2.1, which still has too many bugs to be released. I'd say trunk is more stable than 2.1 at this point. I have a Warzone Guide that has statistics on weapons, research, etc. I'm in the early stages of fixing the game balance in multiplayer. Elio and Olrox have been making new structure models. One of the devs (EvilGuru? Giel? I can never remember) has been working on a new widget engine, which will make the interface a lot easier to design in the future. The data's slowly being migrated over from CSV to SQLite format.

Major feature additions include: Videos have been added back in.
Major bug fixes include: Loading screen flicker is gone, AI doesn't take over players in multiplayer any more, pathfinding is faster, structures shoot trucks before unfinished buildings.
Bugs still present include: Flamer projectiles going everywhere, units standing still sometimes won't target anything, "invisible" units only some of the players can see in multiplayer can show up (I think it happens when players use different datafiles), units will sporadically stop being repaired by a repair facility in multiplayer (but not in skirmish)
(Most of the feature additions and fixes are only in trunk/2.2 and won't be present in 2.1)

Those are what I've seen that's new since summer. I'm sure others can provide more details.

[themousemaster]

Oh man, I remember this thread...


I gotta tell you this: I've been playing 2.1 beta5, and a few things have changed that dramatically alter this game's playstyle.


The big, major change is that projectiles now use collision detection rather than "calculation at firing time if they hit or not". What this means is that shots that would otherwise hit a target can now bounce off of cliffs, other units, or just miss entirely if the target has moved out of the way.

Major ramifications of this include:

A) Using heavy units in front of lighter, harder-hitting ones is a very valid strat now (collision detection doesn't take your own units into account).

B) AA chainguns are now all but useless against anything moving faster than a HEAP loadout (bad X-Y-Z calculations I guess). SAMs are still good, but... put it this way: during BETA: EVACUATE!, I had over 100 AA guns covering the approach of the enemy VTOLS from the NW of the map to my base. They, on average, only took out 1/2 of the planes. Eek (since you don't have SAMs by this point, it makes light interceptor-fighters invaluable). I actually had to keep all of my units recycled, and only built them to immediately load them onto the transport, to avoid having them killed by the repeated airstrikes.

C) (related to B): Airpower is even MORE powerful now than it was, due to their huge-survivability. Hard to believe, but... yeah. wow.



Other things of note:

Artillery accuracy calculations has improved greatly. It used to be the case that any artillery fired from 3 or more screens away, or at non-cardinal-direction angles, would fall horribly short of their mark. Now, the only times they don't land where you'd expect is when their pre-flight calculations were off (fixed by high EXP and researching the Targetting Computer, of course). Combine this with the "collision detection" hit method above, and all forms of artillery are now insane. More than a few of the old, "harder" stages I can now win with nothing but TRUCKS, setting up careful artillery and CB towers.

A number of endgame weapons do less damage than they used to. It was the case where your first encounter with a Scourge missile was harrowing; now, they aren't much worse than a TankKiller, and in the first few gamma stages (I guess nexus hasn't finished it's own research yet), A TK does MORE damage than a scourge (scourge still out-ranges them though). Heavy groups of AssaultGun Tigers on Tracks, with a couple TK in tow, now dominate Gamma1 nicely ;p. If you were used to using Scourge to decimate buildings... you still can, but it takes a lot more of them. Same with the Pulse Laser.

Nexus's LAS-SAT seems more lethal now than before. It systematically destroyed most of my bottom base at the end of the last gamma stage, and that was after it systematically destroyed the rest of the map, which I easily had 200K worth of structures around. The Nexus SoB even LAS-SATTED some of my aircraft IN FLIGHT, just to torment me. I eventually ended up using a bunch of STUPID-VTOL designs to fly circles at the top center of the map just to draw some fire away from my southern bases. I guess someone wanted that stage to actually be difficult ;p.



I just re-finished the campaign 3 days ago, so it's all fresh on me.

[Zarel]

A number of endgame weapons do less damage than they used to. It was the case where your first encounter with a Scourge missile was harrowing; now, they aren't much worse than a TankKiller, and in the first few gamma stages (I guess nexus hasn't finished it's own research yet), A TK does MORE damage than a scourge (scourge still out-ranges them though). Heavy groups of AssaultGun Tigers on Tracks, with a couple TK in tow, now dominate Gamma1 nicely ;p. If you were used to using Scourge to decimate buildings... you still can, but it takes a lot more of them. Same with the Pulse Laser.

This doesn't make sense. The campaign weapons have not been rebalanced, only the multiplayer weapons. Have you noticed any of the other multiplayer rebalancing that shouldn't affect campaign? (Early-game cannons 2x as powerful, mortars 3x, flamers 25x, assault guns 0.6x, rockets 0.6x, missiles 0.3x, rockets/missiles have ridiculously high survivability, cannons/rails have slightly reduced survivability) Easiest way to tell is generally to see how fast flamer reloads.

[themousemaster]

A number of endgame weapons do less damage than they used to. It was the case where your first encounter with a Scourge missile was harrowing; now, they aren't much worse than a TankKiller, and in the first few gamma stages (I guess nexus hasn't finished it's own research yet), A TK does MORE damage than a scourge (scourge still out-ranges them though). Heavy groups of AssaultGun Tigers on Tracks, with a couple TK in tow, now dominate Gamma1 nicely ;p. If you were used to using Scourge to decimate buildings... you still can, but it takes a lot more of them. Same with the Pulse Laser.

This doesn't make sense. The campaign weapons have not been rebalanced, only the multiplayer weapons. Have you noticed any of the other multiplayer rebalancing that shouldn't affect campaign? (Early-game cannons 2x as powerful, mortars 3x, flamers 25x, assault guns 0.6x, rockets 0.6x, missiles 0.3x, rockets/missiles have ridiculously high survivability, cannons/rails have slightly reduced survivability) Easiest way to tell is generally to see how fast flamer reloads.

I never used the flamer int he campaign. That said, I can say that I noticed the MG units taking much longer to kill scavenger bunkers than they used to... though if that difference is between 2.0 and 2.1, or 1.1 and 2.1, I can't say.


As for rockets, from what it looked like to me, it seems that the Scourge used to be affected by the same upgrade research that the lancer/TK did, but now they are their own research tree. Which, at the end of the scourge upgrades, only had them being about 100 more damage than a TK... which, if your above multipliers are correct, makes sense. Also, in SP, I've noticed their range is lower; I used to get shot at by them from a screen and a half away, now they (while still being the longest range weapon I've seen) are only about 1-2 spaces longer than my HC units. Maybe has to do with that whole sightrange-vs-firingrange thing?

Mortars... well, they are MUCH more significant in the campaign than they used to be, but I just figured that was due to them actually hitting stuff now. Stiff, watching the Pepperpots in gamma6 actually killing the stuff on the plateau (once spotted) was a surprising change.

Assault guns at 0.6? Actually, that sounds about right too. While they still dominate gamma1 and 2, I used to be able to use them straight through Gamma6 effectively, only replacing them when the Pulse Laser came around. Now, I found myself scrambling to update them to Flashlights at first chance.




Please note: even if those changes were supposed to be MP only, I don't think they are all that bad in SP either.

[zedeyejoe]

Just signed up as I came across this group after a Google search. Found my old copy of 2100 in my pile of software and was checking to see if anyone had done anything with it. Downloaded the new game and will report back.

This was one of the all time greats. I liked the design options and the automatic play was good too. Well done to you folks.

[Zarel]

it seems that the Scourge used to be affected by the same upgrade research that the lancer/TK did, but now they are their own research tree.

Nope, Scourge has always been a missile, lancer/TK have always been rockets.

Also, in SP, I've noticed their range is lower; I used to get shot at by them from a screen and a half away, now they (while still being the longest range weapon I've seen) are only about 1-2 spaces longer than my HC units. Maybe has to do with that whole sightrange-vs-firingrange thing?

It's always been like that: weapon range or sensor range, whichever is lower. HC has weapon range 8 squares, Scourge has weapon range 16. Your sensor range is 8 by default, although I think you've researched Sensor Upgrade enough times to push it up to 10. Nexus has sensor range 16, which explains why they can shoot from a screen and a half away (although only their structures ever use it; their unit AI won't notice you until you're within range 9).

Please note: even if those changes were supposed to be MP only, I don't think they are all that bad in SP either.

Really? It sounds rather broken to me. Scourge only 100 damage more than Tank Killer? That makes it completely useless until it's fully upgraded, and it's still not right for a T2 weapon to be nearly as strong as a T3 weapon - weapon progression should at least match armor progression. And don't mention the range - 1-2 squares longer than Heavy Cannon is only 0-1 squares longer than Tank Killer. And considering Scourge used to be the most powerful weapon in the game (4x stronger than Heavy Cannon), balanced by one of the lowest HP in the game, I think it kind of sucks that it's now weaker than HC and has about as much HP. I guess I don't really like it when weapon differentiation gets destroyed.

I guess the other changes aren't all that bad.

[themousemaster]

Nope, Scourge has always been a missile, lancer/TK have always been rockets.

Then I guess it was just it's base damage that changed, making it less devastating, and I noticed it in a different way.

It's always been like that: weapon range or sensor range, whichever is lower. HC has weapon range 8 squares, Scourge has weapon range 16. Your sensor range is 8 by default, although I think you've researched Sensor Upgrade enough times to push it up to 10. Nexus has sensor range 16, which explains why they can shoot from a screen and a half away (although only their structures ever use it; their unit AI won't notice you until you're within range 9).

That explains the units; but even their structures are not firing on me until I am almost within Cannon range of them. There are no interfereing hills or anything either.

Really? It sounds rather broken to me. Scourge only 100 damage more than Tank Killer? That makes it completely useless until it's fully upgraded, and it's still not right for a T2 weapon to be nearly as strong as a T3 weapon - weapon progression should at least match armor progression. And don't mention the range - 1-2 squares longer than Heavy Cannon is only 0-1 squares longer than Tank Killer. And considering Scourge used to be the most powerful weapon in the game (4x stronger than Heavy Cannon), balanced by one of the lowest HP in the game, I think it kind of sucks that it's now weaker than HC and has about as much HP. I guess I don't really like it when weapon differentiation gets destroyed.

I guess the other changes aren't all that bad.

I disagree; while the Scourge aren't as harmful, they are still "long-range" comparatively than the TK, and (in 2.1.beta5 at least), are oneof the few weapons that adjust trajectory to hit a moving opponent. Which brings another point up for me, which I'm sure is a bug, but I've learned to live with it, and it has some reason for this: I'm not sure what the TK's actual range is, but whenever I've played this game (1.X, 2.0.X, 2.1.beta1, all of them) TK's won't actually fire for me unless I am within a range of about 5-6, otherwise they stand there, weapons pointing at the target, not moving, not firing. Thankfully, the same thing happens to the CPU, so the Collective don't rape me... and also, it's not like Nexus still isn't a tough opponent, what with Lasers, Railguns, and their "spiteful" body line, so less powerful scourges for the first few stages just mean that, if I use really heavy tanks, the first one isn't insta-destroyed by 2 rocket salvos.

[Skrim]

The version I was on was 2.0.10. I still have that one, I'll only update to a Beta if it has FMVs. It works fine, why update? Flamers and Mini-pods are useless, but who cares? As far as I'm concerned, they're supposed to be.

Anyway, about those hover-tanks, which I mentioned above.

I did find those pics. Basically, in the experiment, I upgraded all my lumbering Tiger-Tracks to Retribution-Hovers once the Rail Gun and Pulse Laser became available. The Tracks had suffered from traffic jams at cliff-bottlenecks during the attack down the eastern ridge to the Silos, with retreating damaged units collided head-on with repaired returning units or other ground groups that were heading in. According to the pics, this caused some losses. So to avoid further traffic-jammery(which plagues Tracked and Half-Track units), I decided to experiment with NEXUS designs - Retribution-Hovers with Rail Guns and Pulse Lasers.

In Gamma 8, their higher retreat-repair-return frequency meant that Tracks had the advantage in stand-up shoot-outs, although the Hovers seemed to do more damage. In Gamma 9 though, with adapted tactics, they seemed to do much better. The idea was to use their speed, firepower and slippery handling to barge up to an enemy base, shoot up a bunch of things and destroy 'em and immediately beat a retreat back to the nearest Repair Facility. Retaliating NEXUS ground units would also be shot up and sent running.

This hit-&-run Blitzkrieg play style worked a lot better than the slow drudgery of tracked tanks or the suicidal nature of air attacks against NEXUS. The only problem was artillery bombardment(which did a lot of damage), but once I got some of my own artillery working to neutralize it, there was no problem. As far as enemy strike VTOLs were concerned, they got fixated on a few tough tracked SAM units at my base and kept making suicide runs against them(which kept getting repaired). The lakeside base with the factory and the nuclear reactor got utterly annihilated in one fell sweep for no loss on my part(a NEXUS ground group tried to defend it and got torn to ribbons) and the northwestern base fell similarly, but took more attack runs(3 or 4 instead of 1) and air support to KO the Scourge towers. The southeastern one had a heavy compliment of Scourge and Gauss Cannon defenses and I lost one hovertank but exterminated the enemy base in a few slashing hit-&-runs. The VTOL base's defense towers got picked off one at a time, and the lake towers were defeated in a micromanaged head-on charge. This was all made possible with a group of 3 Trucks running around behind the hovertank group and setting up Repair Facilities on the newly captured lands.

The final base took a good dose of artillery bombardment and several attack runs to break the main defenses, after which arty took care of the inner defense ring and the hovertank group moved in to wipe out the surviving ground units and clear the base. The whole mission progressed much faster and more smoothly than my previous goes at it, which involved a long and protracted wild-weasel campaign to kill SAMs and then aerial assault followed by rumbling tanks moving in to clean up the survivors. *yawn* It was the first time I had used Hovers ever since the last Alpha mission, in which Hover-Python Bombards were used to punch a hole in the eastern flank of the Paradigm defense arrangement and allow my tanks to cruise in and completely circumnavigate several layers of defenses.

I'll upload the screenies on request. I think I'll play through the campaign again. It's probably the best campaign I've seen yet, where everything runs in continuity from the start to the end with only a few major upheavals(Beta: Evacuate!), and even those exist only to lower your strength and cause you to rebuild your infrastructure from scratch in new territory. Your technology remains, and you may end up realizing that a truck your using to build arty/AA/repair facilities in the last mission is in fact the same unit that you started with in the very first mission. I guess that's why it's so replayable and, in a way, classic.

[themousemaster]

The version I was on was 2.0.10. I still have that one, I'll only update to a Beta if it has FMVs. It works fine, why update? Flamers and Mini-pods are useless, but who cares? As far as I'm concerned, they're supposed to be.

Anyway, about those hover-tanks, which I mentioned above.

I did find those pics. Basically, in the experiment, I upgraded all my lumbering Tiger-Tracks to Retribution-Hovers once the Rail Gun and Pulse Laser became available. The Tracks had suffered from traffic jams at cliff-bottlenecks during the attack down the eastern ridge to the Silos, with retreating damaged units collided head-on with repaired returning units or other ground groups that were heading in. According to the pics, this caused some losses. So to avoid further traffic-jammery(which plagues Tracked and Half-Track units), I decided to experiment with NEXUS designs - Retribution-Hovers with Rail Guns and Pulse Lasers.

In Gamma 8, their higher retreat-repair-return frequency meant that Tracks had the advantage in stand-up shoot-outs, although the Hovers seemed to do more damage. In Gamma 9 though, with adapted tactics, they seemed to do much better. The idea was to use their speed, firepower and slippery handling to barge up to an enemy base, shoot up a bunch of things and destroy 'em and immediately beat a retreat back to the nearest Repair Facility. Retaliating NEXUS ground units would also be shot up and sent running.

This hit-&-run Blitzkrieg play style worked a lot better than the slow drudgery of tracked tanks or the suicidal nature of air attacks against NEXUS. The only problem was artillery bombardment(which did a lot of damage), but once I got some of my own artillery working to neutralize it, there was no problem. As far as enemy strike VTOLs were concerned, they got fixated on a few tough tracked SAM units at my base and kept making suicide runs against them(which kept getting repaired). The lakeside base with the factory and the nuclear reactor got utterly annihilated in one fell sweep for no loss on my part(a NEXUS ground group tried to defend it and got torn to ribbons) and the northwestern base fell similarly, but took more attack runs(3 or 4 instead of 1) and air support to KO the Scourge towers. The southeastern one had a heavy compliment of Scourge and Gauss Cannon defenses and I lost one hovertank but exterminated the enemy base in a few slashing hit-&-runs. The VTOL base's defense towers got picked off one at a time, and the lake towers were defeated in a micromanaged head-on charge. This was all made possible with a group of 3 Trucks running around behind the hovertank group and setting up Repair Facilities on the newly captured lands.

The final base took a good dose of artillery bombardment and several attack runs to break the main defenses, after which arty took care of the inner defense ring and the hovertank group moved in to wipe out the surviving ground units and clear the base. The whole mission progressed much faster and more smoothly than my previous goes at it, which involved a long and protracted wild-weasel campaign to kill SAMs and then aerial assault followed by rumbling tanks moving in to clean up the survivors. *yawn* It was the first time I had used Hovers ever since the last Alpha mission, in which Hover-Python Bombards were used to punch a hole in the eastern flank of the Paradigm defense arrangement and allow my tanks to cruise in and completely circumnavigate several layers of defenses.

I'll upload the screenies on request. I think I'll play through the campaign again. It's probably the best campaign I've seen yet, where everything runs in continuity from the start to the end with only a few major upheavals(Beta: Evacuate!), and even those exist only to lower your strength and cause you to rebuild your infrastructure from scratch in new territory. Your technology remains, and you may end up realizing that a truck your using to build arty/AA/repair facilities in the last mission is in fact the same unit that you started with in the very first mission. I guess that's why it's so replayable and, in a way, classic.

--- No, the videos are not in 2.1.betaX. I only went and got it because I was interested in seeing some of the new stuff (like the non-auto hit detection). They should be in 2.2 release, however, according to site posts (not that 2.2 will be out soon, but...).

--- Flamers and minipods "supposed to being" useless is a bit harsh, no? why put them in at all? That said, their use is really for what it says in their description now: flamers torch bunkers and infantry, Minipods whoop up on light body vehicles well. Not saying you have to use them, but having them not be useless at least gives them reason for existence

--- If I may ask, how on earth did you manage near-zero casualties? A hover-NexusMediumBody cannot survive a salvo from 2 scourge rockets at once I thought... If I remember the 2.0.10 build, 3 scourge rockets were enough to kill a Tiger-Track, and you are using a design with far fewer hitpoints and comparable armor. Not that a load of really fast, hard-hitting units is a bad strat at all, I'm just curious.

--- Also, as far as the "if it works why update" line... here's one reason: when the videos come out for 2.2, I assume the new 2.1.betaX physics will be in that release as well. Getting to know the new hit physics will prevent a really harsh welcome when you finally play w/videos... BetaBase missions kicked my rear using my old, 2.0-near-flawless-victory methods... lemme tell you, losing almost all of my tenured units on a single away mission (before restarting it for the 20th time trying something completely different) was a major kick to the Project's Pants.

--- And, if you do play through again, one thing I've noted through all versions: for the Alpha-HomeBase missions, you *have* to let the New Paradigm on the map. A few times I've completely secured all their entrances / LZs on the map prior to the incoming mission... and then promptly lost the mission, as the timer counts down to 0 uneventfully. Apparently, the "victory condition" for those times isn't met if you haven't killed at least 1 unit ;p

[Skrim]

--- Flamers and minipods "supposed to being" useless is a bit harsh, no? why put them in at all? That said, their use is really for what it says in their description now: flamers torch bunkers and infantry, Minipods whoop up on light body vehicles well. Not saying you have to use them, but having them not be useless at least gives them reason for existence

Well, there have to be useless little cheap weapons for the Scavengers to use. Their pathetic Mini-Pod bunkers put an emphasis on the fact that "These guys are weaklings".

As for crushing bunkers, artillery weapons like Mortars/Howitzers/Scourge(not indirect, but long-ranged) could be used to do the same, or it could be done even more efficiently by VTOL Bunker-Busters. The Flamer is only useful before you get the Mortar in the first few missions.

--- If I may ask, how on earth did you manage near-zero casualties? A hover-NexusMediumBody cannot survive a salvo from 2 scourge rockets at once I thought... If I remember the 2.0.10 build, 3 scourge rockets were enough to kill a Tiger-Track, and you are using a design with far fewer hitpoints and comparable armor. Not that a load of really fast, hard-hitting units is a bad strat at all, I'm just curious.

The Scourge towers were usually bombed ahead of the main attack by arty. Whenever they weren't, they'd be priority targets that would get destroyed before they could reload. Same with Gauss hardpoints. That's what happened with the SE base, the first hovertank to go in attracted all the Scourge fire and died, but then one of the Scourges and a Gauss hardpoint fell before the other one could reload, and by the time it fired, my hovers were already retreating.

Basically, the attacks would go like this:
1. Send suicidal Bug VTOL to uncover unmapped terrain and structure positions.
2. Select the Hero-level Retribution-Hover commander of the hovertank group.
3. Select a target structure and shift-click 3 or 4 other structures near it, then shift-click a point near the closest Repair Facility.
4. The hovertanks would go in, blast the given targets, and immediately retreat.
5. Pursuing NEXUS units would get shot up and would run away themselves.

They were set to Retreat-at-Medium because the first few units to go in would not survive if they retreated at Heavy.
The speed and firepower of the hovers allowed them to destroy bases in several of the above hit-&-runs in less time than it would take for lumbering tanks.

Basically, the idea was to use NEXUS units and NEXUS shoot-retreat-repair tactics against them.

--- Also, as far as the "if it works why update" line... here's one reason: when the videos come out for 2.2, I assume the new 2.1.betaX physics will be in that release as well. Getting to know the new hit physics will prevent a really harsh welcome when you finally play w/videos... BetaBase missions kicked my rear using my old, 2.0-near-flawless-victory methods... lemme tell you, losing almost all of my tenured units on a single away mission (before restarting it for the 20th time trying something completely different) was a major kick to the Project's Pants.

Good point. I'm guessing you got mauled by VTOLs which you couldn't fend off thanks to the new brand of useless AA with it's idiot trigonometry calculations.

Though I don't see how pre-Scourge fighters would work either, because as far as I remember, Lancer/TK fighters never managed to get a physical hit on the enemy plane - the rockets would explode behind the target as if they had missed, and the target would explode as if it had gotten hit.

--- And, if you do play through again, one thing I've noted through all versions: for the Alpha-HomeBase missions, you *have* to let the New Paradigm on the map. A few times I've completely secured all their entrances / LZs on the map prior to the incoming mission... and then promptly lost the mission, as the timer counts down to 0 uneventfully. Apparently, the "victory condition" for those times isn't met if you haven't killed at least 1 unit ;p

No problem. I always did let the Paradigm on to the map, using defenses to cover choke points and ground groups to defend those behind-the-lines LZs.

[Zarel]

Good point. I'm guessing you got mauled by VTOLs which you couldn't fend off thanks to the new brand of useless AA with it's idiot trigonometry calculations.

I'm wondering how this could be fixed. Bullet velocities on AA-guns have been increased, and they do splash damage (not sure if they've always done it). Does anyone object to simply making them homing weapons? I think gameplay is more important that that minor counter-intuitive behavior.

[Skrim]

I downloaded 2.1 Beta 5 and installed it. It isn't working very well at all. The main menu loads with nothing written on it, and in fact, none of the menus have anything written on them. I managed to blind click my way to the campaign, but after the briefing screens, I was stuck with the Warzone 2100 logo in my face on the screen and no game. What's going on here?

[themousemaster]

I downloaded 2.1 Beta 5 and installed it. It isn't working very well at all. The main menu loads with nothing written on it, and in fact, none of the menus have anything written on them. I managed to blind click my way to the campaign, but after the briefing screens, I was stuck with the Warzone 2100 logo in my face on the screen and no game. What's going on here?

Hrm... my menus don't do that, so i can't say. I'm sure one of the developers will ask for a few files and such ;p.

Good point. I'm guessing you got mauled by VTOLs which you couldn't fend off thanks to the new brand of useless AA with it's idiot trigonometry calculations.

I'm wondering how this could be fixed. Bullet velocities on AA-guns have been increased, and they do splash damage (not sure if they've always done it). Does anyone object to simply making them homing weapons? I think gameplay is more important that that minor counter-intuitive behavior.

I've turned the speed to 0.3, and used many view angles to determine this. It appears that 99% of AA fire only does it's splash damage to the target, because they are exploding way too *low*; their actual aim is fine. Maybe if they just travelled a few extra meters each, they'd actually hit their targets?

And yes, that;s what mauld me. That one away mission where you have to stop the Beta commander before he gets out of the bottom left of the map, but if you attack any of his group, he turns around and retreats into that heavily defended base... it has a regular spawn of 10 TK-planes that will 1-shot any unit they choose. Eventually, I just sent in 10 scrub Lancer hover units, waited for him to try and get off screen, suicided them all on the commander, and killed him with 3 units left.

--- Flamers and minipods "supposed to being" useless is a bit harsh, no? why put them in at all? That said, their use is really for what it says in their description now: flamers torch bunkers and infantry, Minipods whoop up on light body vehicles well. Not saying you have to use them, but having them not be useless at least gives them reason for existence

Well, there have to be useless little cheap weapons for the Scavengers to use. Their pathetic Mini-Pod bunkers put an emphasis on the fact that "These guys are weaklings".

As for crushing bunkers, artillery weapons like Mortars/Howitzers/Scourge(not indirect, but long-ranged) could be used to do the same, or it could be done even more efficiently by VTOL Bunker-Busters. The Flamer is only useful before you get the Mortar in the first few missions.

--- If I may ask, how on earth did you manage near-zero casualties? A hover-NexusMediumBody cannot survive a salvo from 2 scourge rockets at once I thought... If I remember the 2.0.10 build, 3 scourge rockets were enough to kill a Tiger-Track, and you are using a design with far fewer hitpoints and comparable armor. Not that a load of really fast, hard-hitting units is a bad strat at all, I'm just curious.

The Scourge towers were usually bombed ahead of the main attack by arty. Whenever they weren't, they'd be priority targets that would get destroyed before they could reload. Same with Gauss hardpoints. That's what happened with the SE base, the first hovertank to go in attracted all the Scourge fire and died, but then one of the Scourges and a Gauss hardpoint fell before the other one could reload, and by the time it fired, my hovers were already retreating.

Basically, the attacks would go like this:
1. Send suicidal Bug VTOL to uncover unmapped terrain and structure positions.
2. Select the Hero-level Retribution-Hover commander of the hovertank group.
3. Select a target structure and shift-click 3 or 4 other structures near it, then shift-click a point near the closest Repair Facility.
4. The hovertanks would go in, blast the given targets, and immediately retreat.
5. Pursuing NEXUS units would get shot up and would run away themselves.

They were set to Retreat-at-Medium because the first few units to go in would not survive if they retreated at Heavy.
The speed and firepower of the hovers allowed them to destroy bases in several of the above hit-&-runs in less time than it would take for lumbering tanks.

Basically, the idea was to use NEXUS units and NEXUS shoot-retreat-repair tactics against them.

--- Also, as far as the "if it works why update" line... here's one reason: when the videos come out for 2.2, I assume the new 2.1.betaX physics will be in that release as well. Getting to know the new hit physics will prevent a really harsh welcome when you finally play w/videos... BetaBase missions kicked my rear using my old, 2.0-near-flawless-victory methods... lemme tell you, losing almost all of my tenured units on a single away mission (before restarting it for the 20th time trying something completely different) was a major kick to the Project's Pants.

Good point. I'm guessing you got mauled by VTOLs which you couldn't fend off thanks to the new brand of useless AA with it's idiot trigonometry calculations.

Though I don't see how pre-Scourge fighters would work either, because as far as I remember, Lancer/TK fighters never managed to get a physical hit on the enemy plane - the rockets would explode behind the target as if they had missed, and the target would explode as if it had gotten hit.

--- And, if you do play through again, one thing I've noted through all versions: for the Alpha-HomeBase missions, you *have* to let the New Paradigm on the map. A few times I've completely secured all their entrances / LZs on the map prior to the incoming mission... and then promptly lost the mission, as the timer counts down to 0 uneventfully. Apparently, the "victory condition" for those times isn't met if you haven't killed at least 1 unit ;p

No problem. I always did let the Paradigm on to the map, using defenses to cover choke points and ground groups to defend those behind-the-lines LZs.

--- I akways thought that, since they were getting their weapons directly from the NP, that scavenger weapons should be just as powerful as NP versions... it's just that their vehicles and structres weren't comparable, dying in a few hits each. Yes, mortars are generally better since they don't get shot at themselves, but even vs NP, flamers do SERIOUS bunker damage. Not that there are a whole lot of stages with many NP buners to use them on, but... well, lets just say they are quite awesome in small-map skirmishes as well ;p.

--- That strat is sound, but given that 4 total Scourge rockets at once would kill a NexusMediumHover, and even the 1st one would already put it in red health... ah well, I won't bust this issue, if it's working for you, maybe my CPU just hates me ;p.

--- as for the Pre-Scourge fighters, I used a Bug-TK-Lancer on Beta-evacuate. They fired during the head-on approach to the attacking aircraft; the few times they didn't and tried to swing in behind them, you are correct, they tended to miss due to pre-emptive explosion. Like I said, I STILL had to keep all my units recycled and re-build them only to shove them into the escape transport to prevent them all from getting killed, which was nuts. Glad I had 4 factories ready-to-go right next to me LZ before this stage started...

[Skrim]

Hrm... my menus don't do that, so i can't say. I'm sure one of the developers will ask for a few files and such ;p.

If they have a fix, that's great. Until then, I'm on 2.0.10.

I've just completed Alpha 6, with 1 Paradigm sensor tower left standing and 25 minutes of free time on the clock. This mission was a classic, as was Alpha 5.

I've turned the speed to 0.3, and used many view angles to determine this. It appears that 99% of AA fire only does it's splash damage to the target, because they are exploding way too *low*; their actual aim is fine. Maybe if they just travelled a few extra meters each, they'd actually hit their targets?

And yes, that;s what mauld me. That one away mission where you have to stop the Beta commander before he gets out of the bottom left of the map, but if you attack any of his group, he turns around and retreats into that heavily defended base... it has a regular spawn of 10 TK-planes that will 1-shot any unit they choose. Eventually, I just sent in 10 scrub Lancer hover units, waited for him to try and get off screen, suicided them all on the commander, and killed him with 3 units left.

In that case, the Cyclone Flak Turret should've become the best of the AA guns, since it has a fairly large splash explosion. Strange bug, though.

Also, did the TK get some kind of uber-buff? In 2.0.10, a single TK-Leopard VTOL was far from capable of 1-shot-killing a HC-Python-Tracks heavy tank. A switch from calculated accuracy to collision detection could not have caused this much change. Unless they're all focus-firing on one tank, which is a different story.

The last time I played that mission in summer, I got helped by a bit of unexpected luck, which I took a screenshot of. That screenshot sometimes appears in the Pic of The Moment. Another classic mission.

--- I akways thought that, since they were getting their weapons directly from the NP, that scavenger weapons should be just as powerful as NP versions... it's just that their vehicles and structres weren't comparable, dying in a few hits each. Yes, mortars are generally better since they don't get shot at themselves, but even vs NP, flamers do SERIOUS bunker damage. Not that there are a whole lot of stages with many NP buners to use them on, but... well, lets just say they are quite awesome in small-map skirmishes as well ;p.

Really? Scavengers get their weapons from the New Paradigm? I always thought that Scavengers were just humans who survived the Collapse and are somehow trying to survive in the harsh environment of the post-apocalyptic Arizona desert.

I thought that, in the first mission, they only were only trying to attack the Project to get supplies. And once that attack failed, they never try to attack again. Instead, the Project, like some kind of evil overlords, go and bash up several Scavenger settlements over the next couple of missions for(from the Scavenger point of view) no apparent reason.

It's only logical that they allied with the New Paradigm some time between Alpha 2 and Alpha 5 for their own safety, but I thought that the MachineGuns(including Twin and Heavy variants), the Light Cannons, Flamers, and MiniPod rockets were pre-Collapse artifacts that the Scavs had recovered themselves, not hand-downs from the Paradigm. The Paradigm didn't even give them simple Bug vehicle bodies, why should they give them weapons?

--- That strat is sound, but given that 4 total Scourge rockets at once would kill a NexusMediumHover, and even the 1st one would already put it in red health... ah well, I won't bust this issue, if it's working for you, maybe my CPU just hates me ;p.

The hovercraft never get hit by 4 Scourges. The first salvo will send them retreating, and their long gone by the time the Scourge reloads.

--- as for the Pre-Scourge fighters, I used a Bug-TK-Lancer on Beta-evacuate. They fired during the head-on approach to the attacking aircraft; the few times they didn't and tried to swing in behind them, you are correct, they tended to miss due to pre-emptive explosion. Like I said, I STILL had to keep all my units recycled and re-build them only to shove them into the escape transport to prevent them all from getting killed, which was nuts. Glad I had 4 factories ready-to-go right next to me LZ before this stage started...

How is it that the Factories didn't get bombed into oblivion, and the VTOLs only went after your units? The Phosphor and HEAP armed VTOLs tend to go after buildings while the Lancer and TK VTOLs attack units. With your combat units recycled, the strike birds must've begun hitting your trucks and VTOLs and their bombers should have been going after your base structures, including factories. Unless AI has changed too.