Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

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Berserk Cyborg
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

Yep, it's much more fair going against the tanks. Off to Alpha 11.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Hi all

Ok so since Uni didn't work out and I'm back to being unemployed, figured I might try picking this up again starting where I left off at alpha 05.

Question where do I find the latest build of master wanna see if its working with XP yet if not then I'll continue to the old build.

Also need the latest build of the campaign mod
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

Sorry to hear that. The latest camBalance mod can be found on the previous page in one of my posts. I made a zip file containing all the latest master scripts, stats, and map corrections. Can't guarantee all the scripts work on the master version you are using, though (ie. the gamma lassat missions won't work for you).
master.wz
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Sorry to hear that.
Its no biggie i always knew from the start that it was a long shot that had the potential to horribly blow up in my face, its the only thing about being dyslexic, I have some pretty specific requirement around how c lasses are taught, unfortunately due to my particular issues you can't teach me from a text book, I'm a visual/practical learner i learn best by just having a go, but its all good i still have my HND in interactive media and web development.

Any how i digress.

So I just downloaded the latest version of the mod added files from the master.wz and then zipped everything back up and then loaded the mod and i noticed my first glitch it seems as though the new mod simply isn't working at all because i just started again at alpha 1 and the first artefact was hardened machine-gun bullets but we change this in the mod to engineering, plus the scav machine gun towers were using a different sound file in the mod but they aren't now unless you change it back so it seems like something is broken somewhere.

[edit]
Odd when i load the camBalance.wz and master.wz as 2 separate mods everything works as expected but when i combine camBalance.wz and master.wz into a single mod things don't work i wonder why it doesn't work when i do that it did previously and i just checked the files in the master.wz mod aren't overwriting anything in the camBalance.wz mod so there is no reason for things not to work when you do that, hummm... how curious ?!?!

Although thinking about it loading them as 2 separate mods is probably a better way to go, certainly it's less messing around at any rate as i don't need to unzip the mods combine them and then zip them back up as i was doing before.
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Berserk Cyborg
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

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Bethrezen wrote: So I just downloaded the latest version of the mod added files from the master.wz and then zipped everything back up and then loaded the mod and i noticed my first glitch it seems as though the new mod simply isn't working at all because i just started again at alpha 1 and the first artefact was hardened machine-gun bullets but we change this in the mod to engineering, plus the scav machine gun towers were using a different sound file in the mod but they aren't now unless you change it back so it seems like something is broken somewhere.

[edit]
Odd when i load the camBalance.wz and master.wz as 2 separate mods everything works as expected but when i combine camBalance.wz and master.wz into a single mod things don't work i wonder why it doesn't work when i do that it did previously and i just checked the files in the master.wz mod aren't overwriting anything in the camBalance.wz mod so there is no reason for things not to work when you do that, hummm... how curious ?!?!
It sounds like you are overwriting camBalance.wz files with master.wz, if I read that correctly. You want to create a copy of master.wz, rename it, and merge the camBalance.wz folders over said copy.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

It sounds like you are overwriting camBalance.wz files with master.wz, if I read that correctly. You want to create a copy of master.wz, rename it, and merge the camBalance.wz folders over said copy.
that not what i was doing, to be a bit more clear i downloaded and unzipped the camBalance.wz and master.wz each to there own folder I then copied the files from master.wz into the camBalance folder i then open the camBalance folder select everything right click select 7 zip add to archive and then save as camBalance + master.zip I then rename the file to camBalance + master.wz however when i drop that into

Warzone 2100_portable-master\Warzone 2100 master\mods\autoload

while on the game start screen it shows that its seeing the mod the mod doesn't work, it does when I place both the camBalance.wz and master.wz into

Warzone 2100_portable-master\Warzone 2100 master\mods\autoload

separately but when i try to to merge the master.wz into camBalance.wz and then zip it back up again it doesn't not sure why i did previously before i took the brake and I'm not doing anything different then i did before.

Alpha 04
Ok so currently up to alpha 04 and having my mobile repair units destroyed continually is becoming extremely tedious looking in the design screen i see the mobile repair unit only has 130hp, with the adjustments the have been made to the game to make the scav's tougher 130hp isn't anywhere close to enough, so what i would do is give mobile repair units the same health as mobile scanners 330ph which is an increase of 200, I'd also upgrade the health on your builders by 200 as well taking it them 380.

Something else i have noticed is that upgrades that make the repair bay faster don't seem to apply to mobile repair units now at the start of the game that's not such a big problem since your units don't have a lot of health but as your units get stronger this becomes a problem as it takes longer and longer for your mobile repair units to fix your damaged units, so that's something that needs addressing.

now i know that for the time being you can't extend the range of mobile repair units and builders since that's hard coded which is something else that should get sorted in order to address some of the short comings in the game caused by pathing issues, but i don't recall if it was possible to have repair upgrades also apply to mobile repair units so maybe something worth looking at.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Forgon »

Bethrezen wrote: 13 Dec 2018, 16:52 [...] while on the game start screen it shows that its seeing the mod the mod doesn't work [...]
When a mod name is printed in the game screen, this merely means that a file with that name exists in one of your loaded mod directories. Unfortunately, the contents of mods are not checked at all, which often leads to confusion among players.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by montetank »

Hi guys, i stoped to test the campaign at level SUB 1_2s.
The campaign is totally broken. I found at least 4-5 heavy "bugs", or to be more precise: DEFECTS until now.
I played the campaign many times and i know what i am speaking about. The most important work is to do with the save games.
I tested 3.2.3 version april 2017

Best wishes to my old friends here and sorry for my harsh words, but i am very dissapointed
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

montetank wrote: I tested 3.2.3 version april 2017
The issues you encountered are likely fixed. This thread and the efforts it brought started about the time 3.2.3 was released.

Here you can see the current state of the campaign (or warzone in general):
https://github.com/Warzone2100/warzone2 ... ent-builds.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by montetank »

Berserk Cyborg wrote: 15 Dec 2018, 02:00
The issues you encountered are likely fixed. This thread and the efforts it brought started about the time 3.2.3 was released.
aaah-i see. Ok-sorry. New try :)
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by WZ2100ModsFAn »

Berserk Cyborg wrote: 15 Dec 2018, 02:00
montetank wrote: I tested 3.2.3 version april 2017
The issues you encountered are likely fixed. This thread and the efforts it brought started about the time 3.2.3 was released.

Here you can see the current state of the campaign (or warzone in general):
https://github.com/Warzone2100/warzone2 ... ent-builds.
The thread was started before 3.2.3 in february instead of it's release date in april on the year 2017.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

WZ2100ModsFAn wrote: The thread was started before 3.2.3 in february instead of it's release date in april on the year 2017.
It took until late May 2017 for this thread to get reasonable attention. In between then I was more focused with converting the scripts, and, testing was rather modest. Then alfred007, Bethrezen, and a few others came along and starting finding the core issues with the campaign library and mission scripts. Most of which were very conditional but had huge consequences.

Bethrezen wrote: ...so what i would do is give mobile repair units the same health as mobile scanners 330ph which is an increase of 200, I'd also upgrade the health on your builders by 200 as well taking it them 380.
That would be more than a HMG unit and could skew the early missions by abusing high HP units to easily distract a weak group or a few defenses with little repercussions. It's mostly because the Alpha 4 scavengers can be larger in numbers, more frequent, and surprise attack from them are more dangerous than any other mission. Though, I did increase HP of truck to 210 and repair to 230 (viper wheels and no armor upgrades) to help their fragile nature during these early missions.
Bethrezen wrote: Something else i have noticed is that upgrades that make the repair bay faster don't seem to apply to mobile repair units now at the start of the game that's not such a big problem since your units don't have a lot of health but as your units get stronger this becomes a problem as it takes longer and longer for your mobile repair units to fix your damaged units, so that's something that needs addressing.
The research just upgrades the structures so far. Should be possible to improve the unit turrets too.
Bethrezen wrote: now i know that for the time being you can't extend the range of mobile repair units and builders since that's hard coded which is something else that should get sorted in order to address some of the short comings in the game caused by pathing issues, but i don't recall if it was possible to have repair upgrades also apply to mobile repair units so maybe something worth looking at.
I'd rather have a better pathfinding algorithm that prevents unit bunching as much as possible. Otherwise its another workaround.

camBalance.wz
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

That would be more than a HMG unit and could skew the early missions by abusing high HP units to easily distract a weak group or a few defenses with little repercussions. It's mostly because the Alpha 4 scavengers can be larger in numbers, more frequent, and surprise attack from them are more dangerous than any other mission. Though, I did increase HP of truck to 210 and repair to 230 (viper wheels and no armor upgrades) to help their fragile nature during these early missions.
Granted messing with the health of units could skew things but in the case of mobile repair units and builders, I think a small increase is warranted because when you compare the health of builders and mobile repair units to any other unit you can build on alpha 4 they have only around half as much health here is a list of every unit I can build at the start of alpha 04 and as you can see builders and mobile repair units have the least health of any unit and there is no reason for the health of builders and mobile repair units to be that low

Mobile scanner - 330hp
Heavy machinegun unit - 305hp
Twin machinegun unit - 255hp
Flamer unit - 220hp
Machinegun unit - 205hp
Builder unit - 180hp
Mobile repair unit - 130hp

So if you reckon that an increase of 200 for builders and mobile repair units is too much then I would say that an increase of at least 100hp to 150hp to bring the health of builders and mobile repair to at least the 250hp mark is justified, and shouldn’t skew the early missions as even the basic Machinegun unit you get on alpha 1 has 205 health and the twin machine-gun you get on alpha 2 has 255 health

Alpha 05
Talking of adjusting units, just has a look at the health of mortars and when on wheels they only have 135 health so i think they could do with a small health increase as well, i know by alpha 5 you have the option to use half tracks which would give mortars 200 health, the issue there however is that the engine in the viper body is too weak to carry such a heavy turret so building mortars on half tracks results in mortars being far to slow, which more or less forces you to use wheels until at least alpha 06 when you have the cobra medium body which has a much bigger and more powerful engine that can carry the heavy mortar turret on half tracks without reducing there speed to a snails pace.

now there are a number of different ways we could handling this
  • you could give the mortar turret a bit more health
  • you could give the wheels a bit more health
  • you could give the viper body a bit more health
  • you could make the mortar turret a bit lighter so that even on half tracks and viper body mortars can still move at a normal pace
  • you could give the engine upgrade you normally get on alpha 06 on alpha 04 which hopefully would allow you to use mortars on half tracks with out there speed being reduced to a snails pace
  • you could just make the engine of the viper body a bit more powerful by default which should have the same effect
not sure what the best solution to this one is but though I'd mention it so you can have a little experiment and see if you can figure out what would work best.

I'd rather have a better pathfinding algorithm that prevents unit bunching as much as possible. Otherwise its another workaround.
Indeed but implementing a better pathfinding algorithm is no small task and I can't see that happening any time soon so in the mean time un-hard coding the stats for builders and mobile repair units so they can be modified is an acceptable workaround because then you could increase the range on both units from 2 tiles which is too short to say 4 or 6 tiles this way when you have a couple of mobile repair units and say 20 tanks then they would still have enough reach to be able to keep the whole group up despite issues around path finding.

or another example would be when you have several builders working on the same building if other builders are in the way and the ones behind can't get past again due to path finding issues and due to the fact that units that are in the way are to stupid to move over a bit then at least they would still have enough reach so they are not sitting there like lemmings because at the moment both situations require manual intervention by the player and fighting against your own command and control system like that rapidly becomes extremely tedious and frustrating.

so to my mind a change like this is more of a quality of life improvement/workaround until such a time as a better pathfinding algorithm can be implemented or a better solution to irritating situations like the ones i just described can be devised.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote: ... here is a list of every unit I can build at the start of alpha 04 and as you can see builders and mobile repair units have the least health of any unit and there is no reason for the health of builders and mobile repair units to be that low
Bethrezen wrote: ... So if you reckon that an increase of 200 for builders and mobile repair units is too much then I would say that an increase of at least 100hp to 150hp to bring the health of builders and mobile repair to at least the 250hp mark is justified, and shouldn’t skew the early missions as even the basic Machinegun unit you get on alpha 1 has 205 health and the twin machine-gun you get on alpha 2 has 255 health
There are always units with different strength belonging to their function. And support units are usually not as strong as combat units because they shouldn't work in the line of fire. When I remember back to my time in the military the trucks weren't as strong as the tanks like all support vehicles. I think there should be a remarkable difference between the strength of combat and support units. So I think the upgrade of Berserk Cyborg in the latest mod is enough.
Bethrezen wrote: Alpha 05
Talking of adjusting units, just has a look at the health of mortars and when on wheels they only have 135 health so i think they could do with a small health increase as well, i know by alpha 5 you have the option to use half tracks which would give mortars 200 health, the issue there however is that the engine in the viper body is too weak to carry such a heavy turret so building mortars on half tracks results in mortars being far to slow, which more or less forces you to use wheels until at least alpha 06 when you have the cobra medium body which has a much bigger and more powerful engine that can carry the heavy mortar turret on half tracks without reducing there speed to a snails pace.
Mortars are attacking the enemy from a far distance so the health isn't that important. You use them usually in the backfield where they can't get attacked by the enemy. The NP is using artillery only from alpha 06 on so your mortars should be safe during alpha 05 no matter how much health they have.
Bethrezen wrote:now there are a number of different ways we could handling this
  • you could give the mortar turret a bit more health
if you insist on it, but not much
  • you could give the wheels a bit more health
that affects all units so I disagree
  • you could give the viper body a bit more health
that affects all units so I disagree
  • you could make the mortar turret a bit lighter so that even on half tracks and viper body mortars can still move at a normal pace
that's fine for me, I think we could start by decreasing it to 1750 from 2000
  • you could give the engine upgrade you normally get on alpha 06 on alpha 04 which hopefully would allow you to use mortars on half tracks with out there speed being reduced to a snails pace
that affects all units so I disagree
  • you could just make the engine of the viper body a bit more powerful by default which should have the same effect
that affects all units so I disagree

not sure what the best solution to this one is but though I'd mention it so you can have a little experiment and see if you can figure out what would work best.
In general I think you should solve these problems with a good strategy and not by changing the balance or the code. ;)

Bethrezen wrote:
Berserk Cyborg wrote:I'd rather have a better pathfinding algorithm that prevents unit bunching as much as possible. Otherwise its another workaround.
Indeed but implementing a better pathfinding algorithm is no small task and I can't see that happening any time soon so in the mean time un-hard coding the stats for builders and mobile repair units so they can be modified is an acceptable workaround because then you could increase the range on both units from 2 tiles which is too short to say 4 or 6 tiles this way when you have a couple of mobile repair units and say 20 tanks then they would still have enough reach to be able to keep the whole group up despite issues around path finding.

or another example would be when you have several builders working on the same building if other builders are in the way and the ones behind can't get past again due to path finding issues and due to the fact that units that are in the way are to stupid to move over a bit then at least they would still have enough reach so they are not sitting there like lemmings because at the moment both situations require manual intervention by the player and fighting against your own command and control system like that rapidly becomes extremely tedious and frustrating.

so to my mind a change like this is more of a quality of life improvement/workaround until such a time as a better pathfinding algorithm can be implemented or a better solution to irritating situations like the ones i just described can be devised.
6 tiles are way too much. That's the range a Twin MG can shoot. As an interim solution we can increase it to 4, but not more.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

In general I think you should solve these problems with a good strategy and not by changing the balance or the code.
True the issue I have with that though is that mortars as a support unit need to be able to keep up with my other units, which they can't do unless you put them on wheels as they are to slow on half tracks until you get the cobra body and as I see it this is an unintended balancing defect.

While I generally agree that mortars shouldn’t be taking fire the fact is that all units should have a common base line in terms of fire power health speed etc currently mortars on wheels / halftracks don't match the already established base line for all other units if they are on wheels there health is to low if there on haft tracks there speed is to low therefore this should be corrected to bring mortars inline with every other unit that you have at this point in the game, while I agree they should be on the lower end being that they are support weapons I think the current value for hp when on wheels is to low and the speed value when on half tracks is to low and therefore both should be adjusted accordingly

This is no different than reducing the damage for Lancers and Assault Guns because it was to high and increasing the fire power of other weapons such as the flamer because it was to low as long as the changes fall within the currently established range for units that you have at this point in the game I don’t see any major issue in making a small adjustment to mortars

6 tiles are way too much. That's the range a Twin MG can shoot. As an interim solution we can increase it to 4, but not more.
Perhaps but to know that for sure we would need try it out but of course before we can do that it needs to be possible to modify the range vales for these turrets however as far as I'm aware that’s not currently possible as these values are hard coded so at this point its academic until all the hard coded values for these turrets are un-hard coded so there adjustable.

the other thing with this is that if mobile repair units had a longer range value then you wouldn't need as many when you are fielding large groups of units for example say you have a group of 40 units, currently the number of mobile repair units you need to keep all 40 of these units up and running in the field is completely ridicules due to the short range of the turret and patthing issues which stop them for actually getting to every damage unit but with a range of say 6 tiles and a faster repair speed just 4 would be needed to keep all 40 units repaired hell you could probably get away with using just 2 so long as you don't have multiple units all taking damage at the same time where as right now you would probably need double that number easily to make sure that there is always at least 1 repair truck in range of every unit

although personally i would prefair to remove repair trucks completely and simply use auto repair instead that way each unit would repair its self when standing still, i guess as an alternative you could always go for a similar thing that they did in C&C Generals

Propaganda Tower - When purchased, the Overlord was outfitted with a small speaker tower, emboldening and healing nearby allies. This cost $500 per tank.

Battle Drone - This upgrade gives the unit a drone that follows and repairs its parent vehicle. It also fires a small machine gun. This upgrade is on a per-unit basis. Any given unit can only have one of these upgrades at a time. This costs $300 per unit.

so the warzone equivalent of this would be to allow you to upgrade each tank with its own repair turret which would repair the unit it was attach to but of course its probably easier to just eliminate mobile repair units and implement auto repair instead but i can understand why you might not necessary want to do this because from a plot perspective this sort of a thing is a bit to advanced and could be considered some what overpowered although from a quality of life perspective this isn't really that different from having mobile repair units it simply eliminates the headache that is the mobile repair unit.
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