Hello old friend (aka: First impressions in years)

[Emdek]

Stratadrake, not bad, but a bit too "2D".

[Stratadrake]

All I did was fix the timing values on FXSHCanM.pie and mod Weapons.txt so you could place it on a tank; the rest is pure v1.10 .

Next question: Even after I fixed the timing values, railguns still do not display their muzzle flashes, but other weapons do. For example, I wired FXHGauss.pie animation onto the Heavy Cannon and it worked perfectly - but it doesn't work on its originally intended Gauss cannon.

So how exactly do you create a mod for WZ 3.x, besides packaging them into a ZIP format?

[Mysteryem]

Gauss cannon muzzle pie doesn't have any connectors to attach the muzzle flash to, I could've sworn this was fixed a while back, I guess not.

http://developer.wz2100.net/wiki/TxtEditing should provide most of the information on modding.

[Stratadrake]

(You're speaking to the designer of Pie Slicer and WZCK2, I know all about editing TXT files )

Well, it certainly explains why I was getting inconsistent results trying to figure out what was responsible.

[psychopompos]

im confused as to why spreading research across multiple labs would cause imbalance.
surely if the lab time is being used to parallel research a given project, it isnt being used to research another project?

[Iluvalar]

It would not create real imbalance as both team can use it. But it would not create a mixed strategy equilibrium as one might believe.

As a result, there will not be any new option added with that new feature. Only a new constraint. As some research would be 99% of the time better been turbo research and other research would better fit in multiple parallel lab without speed. Always the same from game to game.

Therefore, all it would require is you to remember which is which.

[NoQ]

surely if the lab time is being used to parallel research a given project, it isnt being used to research another project?

Some projects can only utilize one lab. One of the obvious examples. Other projects rely on research in multiple labs. Eg., rocket tech tree can be easily split to multiple labs. With parallel research allowed, the former will get a huge boost over the latter.

[psychopompos]

a 15% time/cost penalty per extra lab on the project would fix that.

[Iluvalar]

a 15% time/cost penalty per extra lab on the project would fix that.

no, you don't listen : some research would worth that penalty and others would not. But it would never be circumstantial, it would directly depends on the research itself.

There would be no real options, no new strategies, just a dull memory game about which research worth that 15% and which not.

[Stratadrake]

I'm now at the start of the final Beta mission. I remember that one -- the constant waves of Collective forces were just. plain. epic.

Almost ran out of mission time on Beta 2-4 - the one where you take out the enemy commander and retrieve his artifact. Taking him out was the easy part, but retrieving the artifact ... with nothing but a logjam of Collective Tank Killers between you and them ... ouch. I lost my entire assault unit there, though the commander himself was lucky enough to escape with "only" 90% damage. I ended up withering them down with Bombard fire, but I had less than two minutes by the time I prevailed.

Was Beta 2-7 (capture NASDA control) always that hard? I do not remember there being Collective sensor towers spotting you the moment you take one step away from your LZ. Had to restart the mission several times because the enemy fire was just too great to fortify my LZ with. And it did not help that about the last artifact I retrieved from Beta 2-5 was VTOL tech so I did not have much time to actually build factories back at base before hitting the transport. Looked it up on the guide and found the winning strategy, using one Mantis Bunker Buster VTOL to nail the artillery sensor (followed not too long after by the CB tower), then I can finally step outside the LZ without getting rained on. Oh, and Ripple Rockets are totally awesome CB weapons, the Collective's AA defenses in that mission can barely even scratch my Mantis VTOLs, and soon I establish both air and artillery superiority.

And then Beta 2-8, where you have to take out the SAM sites, got me into some trouble as well. Focused Collective airstrikes did some definite damage, and it doesn't help that a few Tank Killers take an interest in exploring your LZ not long after. I did nearly lose this mission at one point - commander was arriving via reinforcements rather than on the initial landing, and without him my (relatively) low-level units were having trouble against the Collective's scouts. No time to build a repair facility, LZ is compromised by 1-2 enemy units, I evacuate my truck to the corner of the map and completely wall him up behind Cyclone emplacements here and Lancer hardpoints there. Soon he's the only unit left on the map, reinforcements are still a minute away... good news was that there's only one enemy unit left compromising the LZ and he's already weakened from taking out my group. Awful tension hoping the Collective doesn't call in another airstrike, but the truck wins.

Soon it'll be time to go toe-to-toe with Nexus in the mountains ... made all the worse by the fact that this time, I know precisely all the details of what I'm up against. Not only does every weapon at his disposal have 16sq+ of firing range but (in addition to the nefarious Nexus Link and auto-repair ability) every structure and unit at his disposal has NavGunSensor (i.e: 16sq. sight range) to take full advantage of it. And Vindicators ... I hate Vindicators. Gonna need a few "sacrificial" VTOL's for sure.

[Iluvalar]

The prophetic droids bug make the combat ~40% faster then it should. This mean any missions that rely on timed reinforcement or power production over time will be that harder.

[NoQ]

Stratadrake: i didn't found anything unfamiliar in your story, even though i never really played campaign on 3.1. You can check out how the campaign of 2.3.8 works in my walkthrough. Since that, 2-4 was actually made work more correctly (that is, harder) on the script side, and a few stuck VTOLs were also fixed on the pathfinder side (hopefully), so you will have more VTOL strikes. This doesn't affect your 2-8 though; lancer VTOL strikes were actually powerful for quite some time.

I'm not sure what you mean by "always" though.

If i port my time limit mod to 3.1 (which seems pretty easy, but i need to actually check that it's beatable in the process), i may give a better feedback.

All campaign 3 missions, apart from the 1.5 last missions, can, as usual, be beaten in under 20 minutes with pure Assault Gun Tiger Hover spam, i think.

[Stratadrake]

The prophetic droids bug

?

[Stratadrake]

Well, by now I've made it to the final level. So far, you get 30 minutes to patch up your new base and send a transport off to find Nexus's final base -- doesn't seem to be an actual timer after that, though, which is good. (It could have been nicer if Nexus's main base turned out to be an expansion mission, but anyway.) And there's no Nexus artillery coverage to harass your LZ the way the Collective had in Beta 7.

As for the nuclear codes mission ... well, about half of the artillery fortifications I built were too far north, but I did have the sense to relocate my HQ and a research lab (then a factory or two) at the actual missile silo location rather than relying on the Gamma outpost. Nexus's LasSat strikes were definitely not as accurate as I remember, but that's a good thing because by the end of 45 minutes (3 x 15 minutes for researching the missile codes? Really?) the LasSat was already taking potshots at my factories. Hellstorm/Ground Shaker artillery kept most of Nexus's attack waves at bay, main combat group barely saw any action (partly deliberate, to keep them from drawing LasSat attention. Aside from tanks, the only thing that could survive a direct strike was an upgraded power plant, though it was still left at 99%+ damage).

I did notice a few cases of the omniscient-artillery-bug, a few in Nexus's favor but others in mine. I walled up the Gamma outpost best I could and it survived maybe 3 or 4 assaults before the LasSat finished it off. Other bugs included one corrupted savegame (crashed while saving; good thing I've kept separate save files for each mission), a few of my trucks getting stranded after the game cuts off the northern half of your map, Nexus still firing his LasSat during the five minutes he gives you ... oh, and the game not letting me produce more than 39 total units. (Seriously, "unit limit reached" but Ctrl+U only finds 39 on map).

It's a good thing Nexus's heavy combat units in that mission were only Vengeance Hovers - low HP, vulnerable to artillery. Dreading the thought of having to face down some Vengeance Tracks in the final. Hopefully I can clear the area of AA before going in, though - haven't got much use out of VTOL's since Nexus started using Vindicator defenses. Nexus's own VTOL's take quite a bit of Whirlwind flak to gun down, but they do go down eventually.

[Stratadrake]

Three words describe today: Beat. The. Campaign.

Nice to see no time limit on the final mission. Nexus managed to find my LZ while I was still setting up defenses, VTOLs did some damage, otherwise only harassment raids, reinforcements landed quickly enough too.

Got into a Ripple vs. Archangel artillery war early on, eventually won after about 15 minutes of exchanging salvos and constantly building new pits to counter his strikes.

Didn't get much use out of VTOLs here -- too many Vindicators about the region.

Nexus has plasma cannon and jump cyborgs in the final mission? Never saw the jump cyborgs actually flying, though. Never had to face down the plasma cannon - got taken out in the CB war.

Nexus's weapons are definitely mean by this point - fully upgraded, they fire fast and hit hard. Lost many units several times, almost lost my commander once or twice (but he did ultimately survive), eventually switched him from halftracks to full, though the loss of speed and narrow passageways was a bit of trouble. Why units would fire at will when I tell them to travel but they double back to the commander when I actually target something ... but indirect-fire support definitely comes in handy when half your force is going back for repairs.

Slowly crept across the map, taking out things in short steps of advance/retreat. Three Whirlwind turrets were enough to stop most VTOL raids (only single jets at a time, Nexus what are you thinking...) So many Scourge Missiles and Rail guns ... even Gauss defenses ... assaulting Nexus's HQ on the ground was a major firefight. Especially when there's a group of 3-5 Scourge Hovers all clustered together near the HQ (*memories of Beta 4 with the Collective massing a group of 10+ TK Hovers*).

Didn't actually put many Scourges or Railguns on the field myself ... not much point since they barely get any range over TK's and Nexus can still outrange you by a good four squares. VTOL airfield was the last part of his base to go down. Could've bombed it by air, but more than one Vindicator in the hills is too much trouble for my Mantis jets. Did mop up a stray Scourge cyborg, then realize I forgot about the two Cyborg Factories next to the HQ I just took out.

Mission accomplished, even without using Nexus class chassis for my army. Didn't encounter a glitch, either, but I did beat it in just one session, too.