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 »

Is anybody else seeing the transporter failing to exit the map when resuming saves from pre-away missions on latest master?

50% seems ok. I just hope it doesn't encourage using anti-tank weapons on hard structures too much.

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alfred007
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:In addition I also note that the accuracy on the mini rocket pot is still subpar and a lot of the shots seem to be missing the target while its not as bad as it was before I would perhaps slightly increase the accuracy on the mini rocket pod, because I don’t think we are really seeing what the mini rocket pod is truly capable of due to the poor accuracy, and as consequence it still feels a little weak to me.
Because you were talking here to increase only the accuracy I was talking about the MRP could become overpowered. At this point, you were not talking about decreasing the ROF at the same time.
alfred007 wrote:If you really want to increase the accuracy of the MRP you shouldn't decrease the ROF as much as you suggested. Instead of increasing the firePause to 14 you should only increase it to 13. I don't see any benefit for gameplay by changing these values if the MRP becomes as powerful as before. But if you really want it, just do it, test it and tell us the result.
As you can see in my second last post I wasn't talking anymore about the MRP could become overpowered. And as I said before: If you really want it, just do it, test it and tell us the result.

All our calculations don't give us the real damage in the game. They only give us a hint which values are worth to test and which not. But you should always include the armor of the enemy units into your calculations. I calculated the damage an MRP would do against a tracked NP unit with Scorpion body.
(32 [base damage] x 115% [tracked propulsion modifier]-23 [armor of Scorpion body]) x 107 [ROF] x 50% [accuracy] = 738
In comparison the Lancer with the current values
(150 x 115% - 23) x 10 x 60% = 897
And now the MRP would become too weak with your suggested values. Without including the armor the DMP of the MRP would be 1712 and for the Lancer 900. Looks like the MRP is the way better weapon. But as soon as you include the armor you see, it's not.
Another point is that every round has an additional chance to hit the target even if it misses as NoQ explained in this post. So for your first tests, I suggest again increasing the firePause only to 13 and not to 14 as you suggested.

@Berserk Cyborg
What do you think about implementing a new artifact in Alpha 06 as Bethrezen and I short discussed in this and this post

Berserk Cyborg wrote:Is anybody else seeing the transporter failing to exit the map when resuming saves from pre-away missions on latest master?
In general or at a specific level?

Berserk Cyborg wrote:50% seems ok. I just hope it doesn't encourage using anti-tank weapons on hard structures too much.
We'll see.
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Berserk Cyborg
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

alfred007 wrote: 17 Jan 2019, 01:07 What do you think about implementing a new artifact in Alpha 06 ...
I would rather make the lancer available immediately after rocket-pod. Saves having to create a research item and less messages to translate (your links are pointing to profiles).

alfred007 wrote: 17 Jan 2019, 01:07 In general or at a specific level?
It affects everything as of right now. Been sporadically working on my skirmish adaption bot for a month and only just noticed this. Older saves I have are loading fine (like when we tested Alpha 10), but creating new saves is causing issues.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Berserk Cyborg wrote: ...(your links are pointing to profiles).
:oops: Ooops.
I meant this and this post.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

@alfred007
Could you test a few mission with the latest master (3bf96bc + no mods) and see if you notice any new issues that arise from loading saves? I tested a few Beta missions and did not find anything worrisome. Pastdue fixed the recent issues that affected scripts and wanted to see if you can spot any remaining issues, if any.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Because you were talking here to increase only the accuracy I was talking about the MRP could become overpowered. At this point, you were not talking about decreasing the ROF at the same time.
that's probably my fault for not being clearer, let me try to explain by default the mini rocket only has 30% accuracy, and that's to low and renders the mini rocket pod useless, now at the time i made that comment i didn't realise that the accuracy had already been increased from 30% to 40% i assumed it's accuracy was still set at 30% and thus with such low accuracy we don't really get to see what the mini rocket pod is capable of, having said that even at 40% accuracy I'm still of the opinion that the mini rocket pod still misses to much hence my suggestion to increase the accuracy to 50% which is what the heavy machine-gun has, this of course necessitate that something else be turned down proportionally in order to stop the mini rocket pod becoming to strong, now i recommend turning down the rate of fire since rate of fire is only beneficial when facing large numbers of weak units like scavs or cyborgs for which the heavy machine-gun is already better for this anyway, further more i high rate of fire only help you if and only if you can actually hit the target if your accuracy is so poor that you cant hit the broad side of a barn then you may as well give up and go home since you can blast the target all day long and you will never kill it if you can't hit it.

And now the MRP would become too weak with your suggested values.
Maybe but keep in mind that mini rockets are just that MINI ergo each rocket is smaller and carries less explosives and therefore is not supposed to be as powerful as lancer rockets, if they where there would be no point in using lancers, so having the mini rocket be slightly weaker than lancers is fine just as long as the difference isn't so huge that it's really noticeable, and realistically a difference of around 150 to 200 points of damage per minute isn't that noticeable, but if you wanted the gap between the two to be a bit smaller then you could always add like 1% to either the accuracy or the rate of fire or maybe increase the damage per shot from 32 to 33 which ever one you choose it's going to give you a very similar result

personally i probably go with accuracy because by default the mini rocket pod only has 30% accuracy, and that is way to low and it's what made the mini rocket pod completely useless even though technically it should of been stronger than the lancer, to be honest I'm generally of the opinion that all direct fire weapons should have at least 50% accuracy, because the range of most direct fire weapons is so short that there really isn't any justification for them being really inaccurate, artillery how ever is a slightly different matter as you wouldn't expect artillery to be as accurate as a direct fire weapons due to the fact you are shooting over a longer distance and thus its harder to shoot accurately even with a spotter to help you correct your aim

so what i would probably do is something like around 60% to 70% accuracy for slow firing weapons like lancers, for rapid fire weapons like machine-guns and the min rocket pod around 50% accuracy and for artillery maybe around 40% accuracy since artillery isn't supposed to be as accurate as it is currently, while most weapons are already like this there are a few that need adjusting

Ooops.
I meant this and this post
think you got the links wrong again think you meant here

oh talking of which you never did answer my question

Question why have HE Mini Rockets 2 as a prerequisite of Fast Fire Mini Rockets ?

Research to increase the damage of the warhead and research to increase rate of fire are 2 distinct and separate research arms, that have nothing to do with each other, so it doesn't make any sense to have HE Mini Rockets 2 as a prerequisite of Fast Fire Mini Rockets.
personally I'm still of the opinion that this is the most sensible research order

Alpha 6 Artefact 1
  • Medium cannon
    • Medium cannon hard point
  • Mini rocket pod
    • Mini Rocket Guard Tower
    • HE Mini Rockets
      • HE Mini Rockets 2
    • Fast Fire Mini Rockets
      • Fast Fire Mini Rockets 2
        • Fast Fire Mini Rockets 3
  • Lancer AT Rocket
    • HEAT Rocket warhead
    • Lancer Bunker
    • Lancer Hard Point
  • Bunker Buster Rocket
I'm not sure how researching mini rockets would lead to lancer rockets, I just don't see the logic in that ? because all 3 rocket weapons have the same heritage so once I've researched rocket technology i should automatically be able to research all 3 rocket weapons and there associated turrets, but of course currently there is no rocket technology artefact, so we can just skip that step and go striate to researching the weapons.

I guess this is one of them quality of life issues personally i don't like having to research 1 weapon to research another I'd much prefair to be able to directly research the weapon I'm interested in i don't see why i have to research mini rockets and lancers before i can research bunker bursters for example it makes no sense.

i actually have to wonder why pumpkin did the research order the way there did i wonder what they where thinking ?
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:think you got the links wrong again think you meant here
Now we encountered an issue with the website. When I'm logged in the links are leading to the posts I meant, but when I'm not logged in they are misleading. I'll open a topic for that.

The post I meant where that one where you suggested to implement a new artifact as the prerequisite for MRP and Lancer's research calling it "Rocket Propulsion" and I suggested to change the name to "Rocket Technology" and making the MRP a prerequisite for the Mini Rocket Guard Tower. I think that makes sense and I prefer this solution.

@Berserk Cyborg
Now that this issue is known please read the post I made, just search for "Rocket Technology" and you will find the post that I meant.
I post the two links as a test here, where I don't post the links in the form of [ url=link]text[/url] but [ url]link[/url]. I added an unnecessary space to show the form, otherwise, you would only see the words "test" and "link".
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12714&start=15#p143417
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12714&start=15#p143423

Edit: It seems that all links are at the moment misleading.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by WZ2100ModsFAn »

Campaign sounds like the testing is becoming a huge success.
One day campaign will be stable.
Thanks WZM.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Edit: It seems that all links are at the moment misleading.

here is the post you are talking about
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Alpha 06

Ok so here is what I would recommend for alpha 6 taking in to account the discussions that we have already had and things that have already been adjusted.

Mini rocket pod

Increase the accuracy from 40% to 50%.

Instead of giving

HE Mini Rockets
HE Mini Rockets 2
Fast Fire Mini Rockets
Fast Fire Mini Rockets 2
Fast Fire Mini Rockets 3

I'd only give

HE Mini Rockets
Fast Fire Mini Rockets

I'd then stagger the other upgrade just as we did for the other weapons and I'd give them at the same points you get the upgrades for the lancer, oddly enough I'm kind of surprised you didn’t do this already, how come ?!?!

Then I'd make any necessary adjustments to make sure the mini rocket pod doesn't end up underpowered, of course once the mini rocket pod has all it's upgrades it shouldn't be as strong as the lancer or the heavy cannon but it should be strong enough that it is still I viable choice, but of course that is something that can be dealt with when we get that far.

For the research order I'd do

Alpha 6 Artefact 1
  • Medium cannon
    • Medium cannon hard point
  • Mini rocket pod
    • Mini Rocket Guard Tower
    • HE Mini Rockets
    • Fast Fire Mini Rockets
  • Lancer AT Rocket
    • HEAT Rocket warhead
    • Lancer Bunker
    • Lancer Hard Point
  • Bunker Buster Rocket
As this seems to make the most sense, we could do as I previously suggested and add a perquisite "Rocket Technology" artefact, but I'm not sure what you would have it do other than unlock the ability to research rocket weapons, more over Berserk Cyborg already said he didn’t really want to do this.

You will however note I took your suggestion about making the mini rocket pod a pre request for building the mini rocket pod tower.

Engine upgrades

To deal with the issue of the engine upgrades, either I'd alter the calculations something like this

Code: Select all

Engine power / total weight x propulsion modifier = max speed on flat ground 
Engine power / total weight x propulsion modifier x terrain modifier = max speed on hills
Or I'd alter the engine upgrades from this

Code: Select all

Engine power = engine power + (engine power x upgrade value)
to this

Code: Select all

Engine power = engine power + (engine power x upgrade value)
Base speed = base speed + (base speed x upgrade value)
Which ever is easier / actually possible either way the effect is the same when you apply the engine upgrades all units get faster and not just the ones that are really heavy, because at the moment engine upgrades are completely useless.

To keep things fair I also make sure that the engine upgrades affect the computers units as well, we can decide on how much of a speed boost each engine upgrades gives later on once they are fully working because first we will have to see how this change affects the game with the default value of 5% because obviously we don’t want the lighter units in game getting to fast

we can also have a look at the default speeds of the other propulsion methods later and decide if any adjustments are needed we can also see if any of the lighter turrets need to be made a bit heavier once the engine upgrades are fully working as well but of course this is something that can be dealt with later because this could turn into a lot of work depending on what effect the fixed engine upgrades have on the game.

Tracks / Medium Cannon / Heavy Cannon

To deal with the issue of tracks being to slow what I would do is reduce the weight from 13,000 to 10,000 and I'd increase its base speed from 125 to 128 these 2 changes will increase the default speed of tracks to 1.00 before you add a turret

For the Medium and Heavy Cannons both of which I feel are excessively heavy I'd reduce the weight.

For the medium cannon I'd reduce the weight by 30% reducing it's weight from 5000 to 3500 and 35% for the heavy cannon reducing it's weight from 10,000 to 6500.

Next I'd reduce the cost of the medium cannon on a cobra body and half-tracks from 212 to 174.5 and I'd reduce the cost of the heavy cannon on a cobra body and half-tracks from 287 to 187 to match the lancer

The reason I'd reduce the cost of both cannons is because the cost should be the same for both lancer and heavy cannon since the aim of the adjustments we have made to cannons and lancers is to make the lancer and heavy cannon equally viable choices as the the medium cannon well if you make the heavy cannon the same as the lancer then this therefore necessitates that the medium cannon should be halfway between the cost of the light cannon and the heavy cannon so that needs to have its cost altered accordingly to.

if however it was felt that this makes the cannons to cheep then we could always compromise and increase the cost of lancer slightly to say 200 then make the heavy cannon like 200 as well and then adjust the cost for the medium cannon so that it again sits in between the price for the light and heavy cannons.

Bunker Busters

To deal with the issues with bunker busters first I'd increase its rate of fire from 3 to 10 to match lancer, then I change all of its modifiers against vehicles to 100, so that it will actually do some damage against vehicles, thus making it useful in a combined arms assault and at least able to defend its selves if they are in a group on there own.

Now since increasing the rate of fire to 10 will make bunker busters overpowered vs structures, I'd also reduces its structure modifiers accordingly I'm currently experimenting to see what they should be.

I'd also reduce the cost of bunker busters on a cobra body and half-tracks from 237 to 187 to match lancers and the heavy cannon as I feel that this is to expensive so early in the game, now it could be argued that the bunker buster is a highly specialised weapon and should therefore be more expensive and I don’t necessarily disagree with this but I still think that 237 for a bunker busters on a cobra body and half-tracks is a little excessive at this point in the game so if you think that 187 isn't quiet expensive enough given that is a highly specialised weapon we could compromise make the cost say 200 that seems fair.

Flamers

As we know flamers are currently a bit useless against the new paradigm units in part due to there heavier thermal resistance but also in part due to the fact that flamers damage just isn’t very high nor are its modifiers against vehicles now of course this makes sense for the first few levels because if it was any stronger it would be overpowered vs the scav's, now I have been thinking about possible ways to address this.

First off I'd adjust flamers modifier against hard targets because I think that 40 is a bit to low when i tried it out a modifier of 120 for hard targets seemed reasonable, but if ya reckon this is still to strong you could set it a little lower but i reckon the absolute minimum the modifier for hard targets should be is 80 to 100.

now for the flamers damage vs New Paradigm units

My first though was to make the heavy flamer available on alpha 6, but I'm in two minds about that one while I definitely think you should get it earlier in beta campaign, I'm not convinced it would be appropriate to grant it so soon in alpha campaign.

So my next though was to possible add the damage upgrade that you would normally get on beta after picking up the heavy flamer starting from alpha 6 and this would hopefully address the damage issue with out giving the player a weapon they shouldn’t have yet, but again I'm not sure this would be appropriate

My next though was to possibly just make a new upgrade for the flamer and add it to artefact 1 on alpha 6 and then simply have that artefact bump up the flamer's damage enough that it's not completely useless against the new paradigm units, but I'm not really a fan of that idea either.

My next though was to possibly bump up the damage boost given by the final flamer upgrade on alpha 5, that could work and I don’t see any significant downsides to that.

There is one other though that occurs are there perhaps any flamer upgrades that where created but never implemented for what ever reason? if there are perhaps we could add those from alpha 5/6 onwards to keep improving the flamer so that it remains a viable albeit somewhat weaker choice, or perhaps we could add flamer upgrades from multi player that might be another way to address this, now I know we have to be careful about adding stuff from multiplayer, but in the case of the flamer since that was always such a weak and completely useless weapon in campaign mode I don’t think doing that would cause any significant issues, as long as we don’t bump the damage up to much.

if you are not a fan of any of these options what about just bumping up the flamers modifiers against vehicles a bit because looking at its current modifiers

Code: Select all

FLAMER":
{
"Legged": 130,
"Hover": 110,
"Wheeled": 85
"Half-Tracked": 75,
"Tracked": 60,
"Lift": 25,
}
The modifier against Wheeled, Half-Tracked, Tracked seem a little low, now i know we need to be careful about altering these to much because the flamer will end up to strong but what about a small adjustment like this

Code: Select all

FLAMER":
{
"Legged": 130,
"Hover": 110,
"Wheeled": 100
"Half-Tracked": 90,
"Tracked": 80,
"Lift": 25,
}
humm i think that just about covers everything else that's still out standing for alpha 6 i can't think of anything else just off the top of my head, because i know the issue with the anti tank modifiers as already been adjusted, as has the weight issue with the mortar.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:I'd then stagger the other upgrade just as we did for the other weapons and I'd give them at the same points you get the upgrades for the lancer, oddly enough I'm kind of surprised you didn’t do this already, how come ?!?!
Because our tests showed that the MRP would be too weak. Giving the MRP only one ROF and one damage upgrade as you suggested would result in a damage per minute against a tracked NP Scorpion body unit of 441. In comparison, the Lancer is doing damage of 1500 per minute against the same unit. If I remember right neither Cannons nor Lancers are getting ROF upgrades in Alpha Campaign. So if you want to stagger the upgrades I would only stagger the damage upgrade. If my calculations are right we should set the base damage of the MRP to 24 and can increase the accuracy to 50. The second damage upgrade would then be given in Alpha 08 and the third in Alpha 11.

Bethrezen wrote:To deal with the issue of tracks being to slow...
That's no issue for me. Even with insane difficulty, I had never problems to finish a level in time when I used tracked units. During the tests we made, when Berserk Cyborg transcripted the campaign, I always used tracked Lancers and had never any time problems. If we encounter any time problems during rebalancing the campaign we can talk about it but at the moment I see no necessity to adjust the speed of any unit. I know, I suggested some minor changes and I stay by this suggestion but I'm against major changes at the moment.
About the speed and costs discussion, I'm of the opinion of Berserk Cyborg that we should focus first on making several weapons viable choices. I suppose the speed formula is hardcoded so that should be a discussion with more people than us three. And the costs are in my eyes a minor issue if any. We can talk about it after we finished the weapon rebalancing of the campaign. It will take a lot of time rebalancing the campaign when we just focus on weapon rebalancing. If we would start to play around with speed, weight, and costs I suppose we need 5 years or more to finish it. And only if we all three would be able to invest as much time as we invest at the moment and I can't guarantee that this will be the case for me.

Alpha 6 Artefact 1
The problem I have with your suggestion is that this would mean we have 4 artifacts in one building: Medium Cannon, MRP, Lancer, and Bunker Buster. I think that's too much. With the new artifact "Rocket Technology" we can reduce it to two.

Tracks / Medium Cannon / Heavy Cannon
As I wrote above, I still see no necessity for all these changes but I'm also curious about your results.

Bunker Buster
With your suggested changes the Bunker Buster would be more effective against a tracked Scorpion body unit than the Medium Cannon (DPM of 1330 to 1230). Anti Tank weapons are specialized weapons against tanks that's why they are less effective against Cyborgs and Structures. And the Bunker Buster is a specialized weapon against Structures. So it makes no sense in my eyes to make the Bunker Buster less effective against the targets he was made for and stronger against the targets he was not made for.

Flamers
Making Flamers a viable choice will be very difficult. It's not only about damage and ROF but especially the way shorter range. Even with the range upgrade we implemented, the range is 5.6 while even the range of the MRP is 7.5. And the ranges of Cannons and Lancers are even longer. So I think from Alpha 06 on the Flamer is obsolete. For structures, you have the Bunker buster, for units, three better weapons, and for Cyborgs, Machine Guns. I see no place for Flamers.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Because our tests showed that the MRP would be too weak. Giving the MRP only one ROF and one damage upgrade as you suggested would result in a damage per minute against a tracked NP Scorpion body unit of 441. In comparison, the Lancer is doing damage of 1500 per minute against the same unit. If I remember right neither Cannons nor Lancers are getting ROF upgrades in Alpha Campaign. So if you want to stagger the upgrades I would only stagger the damage upgrade. If my calculations are right we should set the base damage of the MRP to 24 and can increase the accuracy to 50. The second damage upgrade would then be given in Alpha 08 and the third in Alpha 11.
Yeah I know the issue though is that we have to maintain constancy we staggered the other weapons upgrades for better progression and to stop weapons getting to strong to fast so we must do the same for the mini rocket pod.

The best way I can think of to handle this is to have the mini rocket pods baseline stats start a little higher so that once you apply 1 damage and 1 rate of fire upgrade the mini rocket pod is doing the damage that it should be at that point in the game and then later on once the other upgrades are applied if the mini rocket pod ends up a little to strong then we can tune those upgrades down a little, and if you didn't want to play with the base stats then you could simply make the first damage and first rate of fire upgrade give a bigger boost either way the effect is the same.

Also bare in mind that even when you apply all possible upgrade that you can have on alpha campaign for the mini rocket pod its still ends up a good deal weaker then the lancer and the heavy cannon once they have had all there upgrades as well, now generally I'm of the opinion that once all possible upgrade are applied the mini rocket pod should probably be equal to the medium cannon, and the lancer and heavy cannon should be equal.

That's no issue for me. Even with insane difficulty, I had never problems to finish a level in time when I used tracked units. During the tests we made, when Berserk Cyborg transcripted the campaign, I always used tracked Lancers and had never any time problems. If we encounter any time problems during rebalancing the campaign we can talk about it but at the moment I see no necessity to adjust the speed of any unit.
The issue I have with tracks is less to do with not having time to do the level and more one of quality of life and pragmatism, tracks are to so slow to be practically useful and are therefore more or less useless and almost never used, the issue with tracks is the same issue that plages many of the weapons in the game they are badly balanced and therefore useless, and as a result rarely used, the adjustments I'm suggesting at the very least help to alleviate that some, it's not an idea solution but under the circumstance it's about the best that can be done, until such time as the speed calculations are reworked so that engine upgrades will actually increase the maximum speed, as i already mention previously originally pumpkin was going to do this by having mk1, mk2, and mk3 propulsion but this is at best a kludge and a bad way to handle the problem more over it's unnecessary if you just fix the engine upgrades.

I know, I suggested some minor changes and I stay by this suggestion but I'm against major changes at the moment.

About the speed and costs discussion, I'm of the opinion of Berserk Cyborg that we should focus first on making several weapons viable choices. I suppose the speed formula is hardcoded so that should be a discussion with more people than us three. And the costs are in my eyes a minor issue if any. We can talk about it after we finished the weapon rebalancing of the campaign. It will take a lot of time rebalancing the campaign when we just focus on weapon rebalancing. If we would start to play around with speed, weight, and costs I suppose we need 5 years or more to finish it. And only if we all three would be able to invest as much time as we invest at the moment and I can't guarantee that this will be the case for me.

Tracks / Medium Cannon / Heavy Cannon
As I wrote above, I still see no necessity for all these changes but I'm also curious about your results.
With regards to playing around with the weight cost speed etc I'm not suggesting that we do this for all units as that would require a load more work which is at this point largely unnecessary I'm only suggesting we do this for problem units.

So for alpha 6 that would be the medium cannon as far as cost, weight and speed go anyway because currently the medium cannon is to expensive to heavy and to slow

with regards to the result of the changes i can make the changes and then upload a custom version of the campaign mod if ya like.

Alpha 6 Artefact 1
the problem I have with your suggestion is that this would mean we have 4 artefacts in one building: Medium Cannon, MRP, Lancer, and Bunker Buster. I think that's too much. With the new artifact "Rocket Technology" we can reduce it to two.
Ok I'm not sure what you are getting at here because currently the research order for the first artefact on alpha 6 is like this

Alpha 6 Artefact 1
  • Medium cannon
    • Medium cannon hard point
  • Mini rocket pod
    • Mini Rocket Guard Tower
    • HE Mini Rockets
      • HE Mini Rockets 2
        • Fast Fire Mini Rockets
          • Fast Fire Mini Rockets 2
            • Fast Fire Mini Rockets 3
        • Lancer AT Rocket
          • Bunker buster rocket
          • HEAT Rocket warhead
          • Lancer Bunker
          • Lancer Hard Point
What I am proposing is that we do this instead

Alpha 6 Artefact 1
  • Medium cannon
    • Medium cannon hard point
  • Mini rocket pod
    • Mini Rocket Guard Tower
    • HE Mini Rockets
    • Fast Fire Mini Rockets
  • Lancer AT Rocket
    • HEAT Rocket warhead
    • Lancer Bunker
    • Lancer Hard Point
So you see I'm not actually adding anything, I'm actually removing the other mini rocket pod upgrades, and then just rearranging what's left into a more sensible order, now assuming that we make an extra research topic that you have to do before you can research the various rocket weapons then the above would look like this

Alpha 6 Artefact 1
  • Medium cannon
    • Medium cannon hard point
  • Rocket Technology
    • Mini rocket pod
      • Mini Rocket Guard Tower
      • HE Mini Rockets
      • Fast Fire Mini Rockets
    • Lancer AT Rocket
      • HEAT Rocket warhead
      • Lancer Bunker
      • Lancer Hard Point
    • Bunker Buster Rocket
Now I don’t really have an issue with doing that but Berserk Cyborg already said he didn’t really want to do this, now If I'm understanding what you are suggesting correctly, then you want to brake apart artefact 1 into 2 separate artefacts, and personally I'm of the opinion that this is completely unnecessary work for absolutely no gain.

So given that Berserk Cyborg already rejected the idea of doing a Rocket Technology research topic and given that braking apart artefact 1 in to 2 separate artefact would be unnecessary work for no gain, I'm not really sure what your problem is with simply rearranging the research order in to something a bit more sensible ?

Bunker Buster
With your suggested changes the Bunker Buster would be more effective against a tracked Scorpion body unit than the Medium Cannon (DPM of 1330 to 1230). Anti Tank weapons are specialized weapons against tanks that's why they are less effective against Cyborgs and Structures. And the Bunker Buster is a specialized weapon against Structures. So it makes no sense in my eyes to make the Bunker Buster less effective against the targets he was made for and stronger against the targets he was not made for.
think you might have your calculations wrong there because as far as i can tell those values don't take into account accuracy.

Medium Cannon
damage per shot = 64
rate of fire = 30
accuracy = 50%
modifier against tracks = 100

Bunker Buster
damage per shot = 157
rate of fire = 10
accuracy = 70%
modifier against tracks = 100

Scorpion body
armour = 12

now I can never remember where in the calculation the armour goes but i think this is right

damage per minute = damage per shot - target armour x rate of fire / accuracy

so using the values above

Medium Cannon
64 - 12 x 30 / 100 x 50% = 780 damage per minute

Bunker Buster
157 - 12 x 10 / 100 x 70% = 1015 damage per minute

so the damage per minute with of the medium cannon would be 780 not 1230 and the damage per minute of the bunker buster with the values i suggested would in fact be 1015 not 1330

of course this doesn't take into account the modifier for tracks but since the modifier for tracks would be 100 for both the Medium Cannon and Bunker Buster with my suggested values then we can ignore that.

but anyway be that as it may the fact of the matter is currently bunker busters are absolutely useless they can't defend them selves when they are alone due to not doing any damage to enemy units, they are no help in a combined arms attack because there rate of fire is to slow, so they need to be fixed.

if the only issue with the suggested changes is that there damage ends up a little higher then it should be then that's easy enough to solve just turn down the modifiers from 100 to say 90/80 or just slightly reduce it's damage per shot from say 157 to say 100 for example or a combination of the two which ever works best

i get where you are coming from with this but the reality is that bunker busters have to be able to defend them selves and there fore must be able to damage enemy units and they need a faster rate of fire, if they are ever to be practically useful a fire rate of 3 is just way to slow.

if you wanted to take my suggested values and then tweak them down a bit to reduce the damage against vehicles if you think it's to much then by all means do so and then get back to me.

Flamers
Making Flamers a viable choice will be very difficult. It's not only about damage and ROF but especially the way shorter range. Even with the range upgrade we implemented, the range is 5.6 while even the range of the MRP is 7.5. And the ranges of Cannons and Lancers are even longer. So I think from Alpha 06 on the Flamer is obsolete. For structures, you have the Bunker buster, for units, three better weapons, and for Cyborgs, Machine Guns. I see no place for Flamers.
oh i don't know, i actually got them working against the new paradigm units pretty easily by increasing the modifiers for wheels, half-tracks and tracks, to 100 and increasing the damage from 36 to 66.

As far as the whole range thing goes that is a none issue because flames are supposed to be short range, as long as there damage is up to snuff the shorter range is fine, the bigger issue with making flamers viable is there lighter armour, they tend not to last to long in a fire fight because of that so as well as having the damage increased they would need more hp/armour as well.

The biggest issue that flamers have against new paradigm vehicles right now is that the modifiers against wheels, half-tracks and tracks are currently set to low when you consider how low the flamers damage is anyway, having said that looking at the flamers damage is only half the story since it's total damage per minute is actually split between the initial hit and then the burn damage after.

Flamer
damage per shot = 36
rate of fire = 34
accuracy = 90%
periodic damage = 14
periodic damage duration = 50

Scorpion body
armour = 12

Tracked modifier = 60

36 - 12 x 34 / 100 x 90 = 734.4
14 - 12 x 50 = 100
734.4 + 100 = 834.4

834.4 / 100 x 60% = 500.64 damage per minute

so we see that against a tracked scorpion body unit we are actually only doing like 500 damage per minute now I'm not totally sure that is actually right, I'd need to use the cheats build my own tracked scorpion body unit and then have a single flamer force fire on it and just watch what happens but it demonstrates the point the the current damage per shot and the current modifiers vs wheels, half-tracks and tracks is to low.

with the current modifiers that last flamer upgrade you get on alpha 5 needs to increase the flamers damage to like 50 damage per shot and the periodic damage needs to increase to around 25 damage per second as well for it to come even close to performing as well as your other weapons.

with damage per shot value of 52 and periodic damage vale of 25 against a tracked scorpion body unit you should be doing around 1200 damage per minute assuming my math of right.

Flamer
damage per shot = 52
rate of fire = 34
accuracy = 90%
periodic damage = 25
periodic damage duration = 50

Scorpion body
armour = 12

Tracked modifier = 60

52 - 12 x 34 / 100 x 90 = 1224
25 - 12 x 50 = 650

1224 + 650 = 1874 / 100 x 85 = 1124.4

so you see its actually quiet easy and quiet possible to make flamers a viable albeit some what weaker option vs the new paradigm.
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alfred007
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:The best way I can think of to handle this is to have the mini rocket pods baseline stats start a little higher so that once you apply 1 damage and 1 rate of fire upgrade the mini rocket pod is doing the damage that it should be at that point in the game and then later on once the other upgrades are applied if the mini rocket pod ends up a little to strong then we can tune those upgrades down a little, and if you didn't want to play with the base stats then you could simply make the first damage and first rate of fire upgrade give a bigger boost either way the effect is the same.
The problem I have with the idea of staggering the ROF upgrades is that boost you get with the last upgrade. The ROF will increase from 50 with no upgrade to 63 with one upgrade to 83 with two upgrades and to 125 with three upgrades. You see from no upgrade to the first upgrade you get 20% more shots but from the second to the third upgrades you get 50% more shots. This means you will have a lot of problems not to become an overpowered MRP when you apply the third ROF upgrade. So give me some values you want to use and I can give you a hint of what will happen with the weapon with the upcoming upgrades in comparison with the Lancer and the Medium/Heavy Cannon.

... mini rocket pod should probably be equal to the medium cannon, and the lancer and heavy cannon should be equal.
That means that the MRP would be obsolete from Alpha 11 on. Do you really want that? The MRP gets three more damage upgrades at Beta 1 and even with the stronger armor of the Collective units, I think this would give us the chance to make the MRP a viable choice until the middle of the Beta campaign.

Bethrezen wrote:...tracks are to so slow to be practically useful and are therefore more or less useless...
...because currently the medium cannon is to expensive to heavy and to slow...

I disagree in all of these points. I used tracked Lancers and tracked MRPs in my tests and they were all but not useless. And the Medium Cannon on halftracks is a viable choice. You should think about that we are testing insane difficulty. And all things should be more difficult in insane difficulty. If you decrease the price of the Medíum Cannons things would become too easy and even easier in the less tough levels. Insane difficulty shall force the player to think about his usual strategy and especially to force him to adapt it to the tougher competition. With making the Medium Cannon lighter, less expensive and faster on tracks there would be no more competition and nearly even a newbie could play insane difficulty from the very beginning on. Insane difficulty is made for experienced players and experienced players should be able to deal with this competition. If they are not able to deal with it, they are not experienced enough at that moment.
...and almost never used..
Do you have any proof for this? Did you ask other players? In his fast walkthrough, NoQ used tracked units and I did it also when I played the campaign. From Alpha 06 on until Beta 11 I always used tracked units. In our rebalancing, it was the first time that I used halftracks in a level later than Alpha 06. And that with the Medium Cannon.

In Alpha 06 you get at the moment two artifacts in the Scavenger factory not one as you supposed: the Medium Cannon and the MRP (see the attached code). With your suggested research path, we would have to take four artifacts into the factory: Medium Cannon, MRP, Lancer, and Bunker Buster. But if you two want to do so, I'm fine with that.

Code: Select all

camSetArtifacts({
		"ScavSouthFactory": { tech: ["R-Wpn-Rocket05-MiniPod", "R-Wpn-Cannon2Mk1"] },
Calculation for Bunker Buster and Medium Cannon

In my posted calculation I ignored the accuracy because even if a shot misses the target he has still a chance to hit. So accuracy of 70% doesn't mean that 70% of the shots hit the target and 30% miss it. But if you want to include the accuracy into the calculation I can do it for you.

Medium Cannon
damage per shot = 64
rate of fire = 30
accuracy = 50%
modifier against tracks = 100

Bunker Buster
damage per shot = 157
rate of fire = 10
accuracy = 70%
modifier against tracks = 100

Scorpion body
armour = 12 12 is the base armor, the NP has one armor upgrade (see the bottom left of the included code). And that means that my calculation was indeed wrong because I calculated with three upgrades :oops: The armour for the Scorpion body is therefore 12 x 30% = 15.6 I don't know if the game is rounding up or down, for the calculation I will round down.

Code: Select all

const NEW_PARADIGM_RES = [
	"R-Wpn-MG1Mk1", "R-Vehicle-Body01", "R-Sys-Spade1Mk1", "R-Vehicle-Prop-Wheels",
	"R-Sys-Engineering01", "R-Wpn-MG-Damage03", "R-Wpn-MG-ROF01", "R-Wpn-Cannon-Damage02",
	"R-Wpn-Flamer-Damage03", "R-Wpn-Flamer-Range01", "R-Wpn-Flamer-ROF01",
	"R-Defense-WallUpgrade02","R-Struc-Materials02", "R-Vehicle-Engine02",
	"R-Struc-RprFac-Upgrade02", "R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage02", "R-Wpn-Rocket-ROF01",
	"R-Vehicle-Metals01", "R-Wpn-Mortar-Damage01", "R-Wpn-Rocket-Accuracy02",
Medium Cannon
(64 - 15) x 30 x 50% = 735

Bunker Buster
(157 - 15) x 10 x 70% = 994

But the result is the same, the Bunker Buster would be more effective against units than the Medium Cannon.

I still see no necessity to make the Bunker Buster effective against units. You can use combat units at the front against enemy units and bring Bunker Busters forward in their back to fight the enemy Walltowers. In Alpha 06 an NP Walltower is destroyed after two hits of a Bunker Buster Rocket. And even with the weakness of the Bunker Busters, three Bunker Buster backed with two repair units can take it with all Walltowers the NP has. I admit that the ROF is a little bit low and could have a little adjustment. But for me, they are still specialized weapons to fight defenses and structures and not made to fight units.

Bethrezen wrote:oh i don't know, i actually got them working against the new paradigm units pretty easily by increasing the modifiers for wheels, half-tracks and tracks, to 100 and increasing the damage from 36 to 66.
Aren't flamers then too strong in the early levels? Did you test these values in Alpha 2,3 or 4?
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Berserk Cyborg
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

I just don't see how lancer can be made an artifact, story-wise. It is an implied invention of the Project
and one of the few times we see them use a weapon they did not steal. Scavengers don't use lancers, which would also be suspicious. But, making it available immediately after rocket-pod is good compromise.

Would rather not deviate too much from multiplayer weapon expectations. If a player finds themselves
fighting tanks with bunker-busters, then its a tactical error on their part. The intended use is to
break the opposing army and rush in the BBs to take out a few structures. Retreating to safety as necessary.

My original idea on how to prolong the use of flamers in Alpha would be to create a new flamer weapon. It would
do more damage per shot, have a lower ROF, have longer range, weigh more, be slightly less accurate, and have more HP. Basically, a more "anti-tank" flamer. Maybe unlocked after researching the Bug body? Interesting what will happen with the Inferno which is another forgotten weapon in Beta.
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alfred007
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:Flamer
damage per shot = 36
rate of fire = 34
accuracy = 90%
periodic damage = 14
periodic damage duration = 50

Scorpion body
armour = 12

Tracked modifier = 60

36 - 12 x 34 / 100 x 90 = 734.4
14 - 12 x 50 = 100
734.4 + 100 = 834.4

834.4 / 100 x 60% = 500.64 damage per minute
There are two things wrong in your calculation. First, you forgot the armour upgrade of the Scorpion body. As I wrote in my previous post the armour is with one upgrade 15.6. Second, the modifier for tracked units is used in a different way than you used it. The formula for damage is the following:
[(Damage of the weapon) x (propulsion modifier) - (enemy armour)] x ROF x accuracy (accuracy is not part of the official formula, but if we want to include it the formula becomes that)
So for your example, the calculation is this:
((36 x 0.6) - 15.6)) x 34 x 90/100 = 183.6
And here the one-third rule takes place because 36 x 0.6 is 21.6. One-third of 21.6 is 7.2 and 21.6 - 15.6 is 6. So the damage will be:
7.2 x 34 x 90/100 = 220.3
I don't know if your calculation of the periodical damage is right or not. Maybe Berserk Cyborg can tell us how periodic damage duration is workíng. With your suggestion, a unit would burn nearly one minute and that seems a little bit long for me. But maybe I'm wrong.

Berserk Cyborg wrote:My original idea on how to prolong the use of flamers in Alpha would be to create a new flamer weapon. It would
do more damage per shot, have a lower ROF, have longer range, weigh more, be slightly less accurate, and have more HP. Basically, a more "anti-tank" flamer. Maybe unlocked after researching the Bug body?
Don't you need a new Pie-model for a new weapon? I like the idea and would suggest to unlock it after the third flamer damage upgrade in Alpha 05. We could call it "Firestorm".
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