[mod]Next Research System (NRS) 2.3.9

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Yep, crash to desktop again. I think it's happening when the AI finishes researching something. I was able to successfully research things. Is this meant as a Multiplayer mod? If so, that would explain things.

[Iluvalar]

Oh yeah ! lol. It's a multiplayer mod.

Making such big changes in the campaign would require me to rewrite (more or less) from scratch the entire campaign scripts files.

However if you prefer longer game experience, I guess (never tried) you could deliberatly choose an higher rythm number.

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Hehe, very good. Sorry for the fuss. I don't play Multiplayer, since I'm not really the competitive sort. I believe people should work together rather than against each other.

[Iluvalar]

But... They were the one that started ! Those B's came on A's territory and build their base on our power ! We cant let that happen. Do we hear about the peaceful Hs ? No... it's always the Bs that come and attack every peaceful land !

NRSV02 is out !!

Bug fix :
There was an error in the first step equation. the result value was dependent on the rythm number

changes :
* I finaly decided to change the damage of the lasers (to 1/4) and the railguns (to 1/3). They are no more a superduper god like weapon. Just some of the longest timing weapons. We'll see a lot more of them during the play, not only at the end . That also fit more in the general timings of the weapons branch. There was an hole in the timing which could have leaded to some metagaming.

* I realized that i was really making players pay the big price for each shorter steps. It's not really realistic to make them pay for the whole upgrade each time. You do not send you units in melee at the end of each single upgrade. Yeah i want the players to use (and abuse of) timings but that was becoming ridiculous. From now on, you'll be less penalized by choosing shorter researchs.

* Vtol factory and pads have now their own instant and free research. Players where destabilized by the appearance of the vtol fact at start. And many were driven into building it prior to have the vtol propulsion. I'm sorry to make you do 2 useless click into the lab but apparently there is no optimal solution to that problem.

* Finaly i played again with the timing. In early protos it was 5% during 30 min. Then I changed to 4% in 35min. but now that i played with it i feel like it should go the other way so now it's 7% in 25min. I'm fighting between 2 sides : A) I want the pace of the game to be fun with players changing weapons and adapting to each other. but on the other hand B) I want the game to be able to last the more time possible before you cap your branches.

I hope you'll like those changes

[milo christiansen]

I just get finished testing (and enjoying) the last version and there's a new one out, cool!

The AI is at least a little harder than default but I never played against the hard version so I can't say exactly how hard it can get, one thing I did like is that the AI actually attacked me with more than 2 or 3 tanks at a time I didn't have time to play much but I really like the fact that I can "play the tech tree by ear" so to speak.

Keep up the good work

[milo christiansen]

Just so you know: I just got my but kicked by an easy AI for the first time ever

[Iluvalar]

Thanks for the good comments Milo.

The Ai is a bit wiser but that's also because of the price scaling : The power cheating for the AI stayed the same. So i'd see the difficulty setting is medium, hard and nightmare for the first 3 position everything over that should be considerer for multiple player vs one single AI.


NRSV03 is out !

There is only one thing new here : I packed a new "60M" version that should make the game last a lot longer before you hit the end of the tree. I dont think it's a good idea for multiplayer, but might be interesting for hard core single player gamers. .

The main reason why i pack a new V03 is because the autobalance script changed a lot and so the game should be more equilibrated then ever.

Remember that, as any other games, that mod benifit from having less desynch and a working line of sight found in the "2.3-ilu1" release. The autobalance already take into account the straight fire of the MRA.
get your own free copy here : viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8292

[Iluvalar]

ok i came to the conclusion that players like the "pewh pewh" sound of lasers ^^ . So many players try to make that jump while there is so much more possibilities...

the V04 is close from release. I'm open to late suggestion. I'll also be very happy to talk about strategy here. If someone have any question.

[Arreon]

NRS crashes every time I click on the building limits button or start a game, giving me a "Mk1" template/string error.

[Skirmisher44]

ok i came to the conclusion that players like the "pewh pewh" sound of lasers ^^ . So many players try to make that jump while there is so much more possibilities...

I like the fast projectile speed and thermal antipersonnel, I don't know about you guys

[Iluvalar]

Arreon was trying to launch in master. I talked to him on IRC.

@Skirmisher44 : all the weapons are evaluated and calibrated to be fair. All the weapon branches should receive the same attention theorically. But in practice, my team and the opponent team always end up pretty fast with laser. Not the rail, not the electronique branch or the "missile arty" branch. it's alway lasers ^^.

NRSV04 is out !

*Repair line lenght 1/2 => 1/3 (of 25 minutes) : the repair is not realy so strong without the repair upgrade that goes with it anyway.
*Light and heavy bodies micro-line longer but also a lot more boosted : What i try to achieve is players that are willing to make a detour to those dead end research.
*Propulsion upgrade scale 140% => 130% : was getting a bit too much around IV
*Reduced the HP main upgrade (composite armor etc...) scale 100%=>80% it is too much versatile. It work on every design.
*Fix : Vtol fact and pad.
*Fix : The spy turret was doing 0 damage after going trought the "adaptator". He was expecting an armor.
*Wall upgrade 100 => 110%

I'm starting to check for a potential "NRS+" with some way to import from NTW and 2120 mod ( other suggestions ?) the cool stuffs (more weapons, bodies...). I'm affraid it will turn the mod too heavy to map pack, but could make real nice result ! it worth some experiment at least...

[Iluvalar]

I'm starting to check for a potential "NRS+" with some way to import from NTW and 2120 mod ( other suggestions ?) the cool stuffs (more weapons, bodies...). I'm affraid it will turn the mod too heavy to map pack, but could make real nice result ! it worth some experiment at least...

Good news : it still packable
Bad news : there is only the space for somes ~40 more components.

The NRS+ is pretty much in it late prototypal phase, you'll see it around already. Since I only import a small amount of thing and I dont affect that much the feel of the game, i think that i'll keep just NRS+ up to date a quit the original NRS developpement. Dont forget to read the initial post as i keep it up to date pretty much.

In NRS+ there is 2 1/2 more body set : the baboons and the dolphin from NTW and half of the "drake" serie from 2120

"chimps" "african" "brown" : Fast can support a lot and high flame resistance
"fishs" "european" "blue" : high hp and high fire resistance
"lizards" "super??" "silver/red" : Ultimate bodies. Remember that lizard , wyvern and dragon are now 3 egal evolution of the drake. (light, heavy, double)

+2 Flamers : Hellfire and Hellraiser (from 2120)
+1 Missile arty : Supernova (from 2120). If you hate the archangels, you'll rage on this one.
+2 rail guns : Particle Gun and Rail Cannon (2120)
+2 AA : Skysweeper and Duster (2120). The last is actually a versatile weapon (ground and air). A vtol player that really push another at using a lot of AA will end up with a problem a the end
+1 laser : Hyper Fire Laser (ntw) the coolest laser of all !
+5 "Pulsing" weaponss : This is a whole new anti tank line. Pulse Gun, Mass Driver Cannon, Plasma Gun, Hadron Cannon,Quark Cannon (all from 2120 again)

I believe this filled all the remaining gaps in the game. All the lines have at least 5 weapons.

hf !

[Iluvalar]

Still in the proto version. I have 3 changes to comunicate :

1) First of all and most importantly, I'm sorry I didn't see that before. Since the last autobalance, my changes into the upgrades were not taken into account correctly. Meaning that the upgrades where not egals to one another, not following the curve I wanted and kinda random. It was playable but I was not the symetrical progression announced and you couldn't realy know what exactly to expect from an upgrade. I feel really noob for that one :'( . sorry again.

2): (1 power gen + 1 production building (fac or lab)) per 4 oil + the trucks necessary to build that in 5 minutes + the first 5 minutes power in bonus minus the interest rate you will win on all that power during the construction.
That's now exactly how much you'll get at start. It will be adapted by the number of oil well correctly. The starts in high oil map was slow because of the low starting oil and it was dangerous to start with a lab.

3) Interest rate have been reviewed. I think that some hardcore players will hate that but now misusing your power should be close to be efficient. The interest rate being close to the progression of research. Forgeting to research and just looking at your power increasing should be as good as sending borgs vs machine gun. which still look bad, but so much better then not reacting at all. Things like, waiting for the next model, starting with power gens and moving your base somewhere else will work a lot better.

4) I just realized that the brown bodies and the yellow bodies are pretty similar so i'll flip that a put the blue bodies first and the browns will come later...

[Iluvalar]

OMG.

When a research give an heavy borgs body. It also unlock the weapon at the same time. So I was splitting the change applied to the body in half. One half on the weapon and one half on the body...

It look neat isn't it ? But OMG it's wroooooong !! . I needed to split the desired value in half and calculate independently the change for the body and the weapon !

To make thing shot the cyborg pulse laser body needed an extreme boost of 600% while the weapon needed to be nerfed to 50%. but i was applying the first for both resulting with a pulse borg 12 time superior to the fair amount. It took me some time to understand. I know some of you knew it and abused of it !! I hate you lol !

[Iluvalar]

Yesterday i got a nice idea that well try in NTTpProtoV10 .

I'm gonna brake the symetry between components research (now 20 minutes 200%) and most of the upgrades research (40 minutes 420%). What is it good for ? Well it adress many different complaints I got about the mod. I'd say even most of the bugging issues.

A) All the components are stacked in the first 20 minutes. Which is a bit faster. Improving you capacity to access to what you want. and reducing the waiting for, say, the twin mg .

B) The gain for the first 20 minutes is fixed to only 200% instead of 400%. The ugrades progression is halved.
B-1) This increase the weapon modifiers effect. It is now twice as hard to overcome it with pure research boldness. So it also double your time of reaction before it's too late when your opponent counter your design.
B-2) Because the cost of T3 weapons were too high at 200% then 400%. I needed to further increase the first step lenght. The need to progress between T1 and T3 will be much higher. Clicking on a T3 component at start will be lot more dangerous. Many players were saying that the single maching gun vs flashlight war was unatural.
B-3) The difference between all components stats is also halved. Meaning that the previous component in a line should stay a nicer option if battle conditions, weapon modifier or synergy with the other components. You'll feel less pressure to change instantly.
C) Anti-collapsing : This rejoin B-1 but the time between you are loosing and you are absolutely dead is doubled. Meaning you have twice as much time to come with that brillant life saving idea.
D) Anti-stalling : The upgrades stop 15 minutes later this give more time of game play before both team reach the top. Before now i couldn't do that because 40 minutes was making the component come a turtle speed.