Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

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

Post by Bethrezen »

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.
Actually I have just been looking at this and currently

The default stats for the mini rocket pod are

Damage 20
Rate of fire 50

After 1 damage / rate of fire upgrade
Damage 26
Rate of fire 62

After 2 damage / rate of fire upgrades
Damage 32
Rate of fire 83

After 3 damage / rate of fire upgrades
Damage 38
Rate of fire 125

So the first thing I'd do is reduce all 3 damage upgrades from 6 to 4 then I'd increase the base damage and the base rate of fire

From
Damage 20, Rate of fire 50
to
Damage 26, Rate of fire 95

After the first damage and rate of fire upgrade that would you take you to

Damage 30
Rate of fire 107

Of course this is where things would get a little tricky because the second rate of fire upgrade increases the rate of fire by 21 and the third rate of fire upgrade increases rate of fire by 42

Which would give you

Damage 34
Rate of fire 170

Clearly that is a bit much, so what I'd do is decrease rate of fire upgrade 2 and 3

Rate of fire upgrade 2 would be reduced from 21 to 12
Rate of fire upgrade 3 would be reduced from 42 to 12

Which is still going to result in a rate of fire of 131 which leave us with a difference of 6

Which would give us

Damage 34
Rate of fire 131

And that should give us roughly the same damage we would have with

Damage 38
Rate of fire 125

Well maybe a little more but I wouldn’t think it would be more than about 200 or 300 damage per minute, so I think that should probably be ok

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 armour 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.
I was talking about alpha campaign only, we know that by the time the lancer and the heavy cannon have all the possible upgrades that can have on alpha campaign they are going to be stronger than the mini rocket pod, when I said that it would be matching damage with the medium cannon, I was thinking in terms of light medium and heavy weapons and therefore trying to match the damage of weapons up to there intended role now personally I'd consider the mini rocket pod to be a medium weapon, more powerful that machineguns for example but not as powerful as a lancer or heavy cannon now obviously its difficult to decide on exact damage values till we get that far we'd have to see what the damage the mini rocket pod and the medium cannon where actually doing come the end of alpha campaign and then we could decide if any adjustments are needed.

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.
That’s something of a specious argument isn’t it, by that argument I could say that you are going to have to increase the cost of all weapons because insane is meant to be harder.

Clearly we are not doing that therefore all weapons should fall upon the pre-established cost curve, and since the medium cannon does not do this currently then it needs the cost adjusting accordingly, the long and the short of it is that the medium cannon is a weaker weapon then the lancer it is a much simpler weapon that the lancer as well and therefore should be less expensive than the lancer, and since the aim of the changes to the lancer and cannons is to equalise the heavy cannon and the lancer then the cost should be the same for the heavy cannon and the lancer and the cost of the medium cannon should be in between the light cannon and the heavy cannon.

I guess this is one of those things that we will have to agree to disagree about

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.
When I said this I was talking about me, I almost never use tracks because they are to slow to be practically useful, there are only really any good on defensive missions, or missions where you are dealing with particularly heavy resistance, but in the case of dealing with heavy resistance the best course of action generally is to just bring heavier fire power.

I mean yeah tracks might give you more durability but who needs that durability if you can kill your opponent so fast that they don’t get a chance in inflict a lot of damage, and in that case the durability you would gain from tracks goes completely to waste.

Ultimately what this comes down to is one very simple question why mess about with slow tracked vehicles when I can do the same job 10 times faster using half tracked lancers.

In Alpha 06 you get at the moment two artefacts 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.
I have just double checked this and the first scav base on alpha 6 only has 1 artefact unless someone has changed this is a later version of master and that contains

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

The artefact to North West of the first artefact inside the new paradigm tank factory has the tracks, and the third artefact on the ridge overlooking the new paradigm landing zone has the engine upgrade, and the fourth and final artefact is up on the plateau inside the research centre and that has the research module.

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


Oh I do because I'm sick and tired of bunker buster being unable to defend them selves and having such a slow rate of fire that they aren't even useful when used with other combat units, take alpha 12 for example I send out a few hover bunker busters to dispatch there turrets and ultimately the rate of fire is so slow that actual I may as well just use mortars, because thy aren't actually any quicker than mortars and at least mortars can defend them selves against the new paradigms hover units.

The way bunker busters are balanced at the moment renders them all but useless, the only time I ever use them is on vtols and even then I only use them maybe a half dozen times in the entire game that is how completely garbage they actually are in most cases I can smash the computers defences faster using almost any other weapon and weight of numbers, even if bunker busters only did like half the damage to a given tank that the lancer does it would still be a vast improvement.

Aren't flamers then too strong in the early levels? Did you test these values in Alpha 2,3 or 4?
Probably but I just wanted to get a since of exactly how much extra damage the flamer would actually need in order to be a viable option against the new paradigms units

Here are my latest test values for the flamer

Structure modifier "hard" increased from 40 to 100
Base Damage increased from 12 to 17 (which gives you damage of 52 on alpha 6)
Base Periodic damage increased from 14 to 25

I also reset the weapon modifiers back to

"Wheeled": 85
"Half-Tracked": 75,
"Tracked": 60,

With these values the flamer actually performs acceptably against the new paradigm units, the performance is kinds of similar to the heavy machine gun or the light cannon

ok so here is a custom build of the mod with the following changes for you to try out

Tracks
Weight reduced from 13,000 to 10,000
Base speed increased from 125 to 128

Medium Cannon
Weight reduced from 5000 to 3500
Cost reduced from 125 to 87

Bunker Buster
Cost reduced from 150 to 113
All weapon modifiers increased from 33 to 100
Damage decreased from 125 to 96
Rate of fire increased from 3 to 10

i didn't alter the structure modifiers but they may still need a slight reduction even though i turned the damage down a bit

Flamer
Structure modifier "hard" increased from 40 to 100
Damage increased from 12 to 17 (which gives you damage of 52 on alpha 6)
Periodic damage increased from 14 to 25

i know the changes to the flamer might make it a bit to strong on the earlier levels but I'm unsure how to alter the artefacts so i just changed the base stats instead, just so we can get a feel for the size of the buff that the flamer needs in order for it to be viable against the new paradigms units.
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Bethrezen
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

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.
to be honest its probably less work to just tweak the the flamer and either just buff the third damage upgrade or maybe just make a 4 damage upgrade as you can see from my test case above just tweaking the damage a but was enough to make the flamer viable against the new paradigm units.
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alfred007
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:So the first thing I'd do is reduce all 3 damage upgrades from 6 to 4 then I'd increase the base damage and the base rate of fire

From
Damage 20, Rate of fire 50
to
Damage 26, Rate of fire 95
There is no way to get a ROF of 95 without upgrades. You can set firePause in weapons.json to 6 resulting in a ROF of 100 or to 7 resulting in a ROF of 86. And the damage upgrades are working with percentage increases. At the moment with 30%. Saying to increase the damage by 4 is not as easy as it sounds.

I'm still of the opinion that it is way easier for adjustments if you only adjust the base damage and the damage upgrades and let the ROF untouched.

If you understand the MRP as a "medium weapon" like the Medium Cannon it still means that the MRP become obsolete after Alpha 11 like the Medium Cannon. From Alpha 11 on until Beta 8, where you get the Tank Killer, the player would have only two viable choices: Lancer and Heavy Cannon. I would like to see the MRP as a third viable choice.


Bethrezen wrote:That’s something of a specious argument isn’t it, by that argument I could say that you are going to have to increase the cost of all weapons because insane is meant to be harder.
We made it harder by decreasing the power output to 70% of what you have with normal difficulty. It's like increasing the costs. Having 4000 Energy and costs of 100 per unit is the same as having 8000 energy and costs of 200 per unit. In both cases, you can produce 40 units. Making units cheaper means it becomes easier to produce a large amount of them.


Bethrezen wrote:I guess this is one of those things that we will have to agree to disagree about
Indeed

I have just double checked this and the first scav base on alpha 6 only has 1 artefact unless someone has changed this is a later version of master and that contains
As you can see in the code I included in my previous post the Scavenger factory in the southeast includes technically two artifacts: One with the Medium Cannon and one with the MRP. It's not one artifact with two technologies but two artifacts with one technology each.

I think I can make some tests with your mod next weekend.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by hogwartswarrior »

still having the transport glitch
Bethrezen
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

There is no way to get a ROF of 95 without upgrades. You can set firePause in weapons.json to 6 resulting in a ROF of 100 or to 7 resulting in a ROF of 86. And the damage upgrades are working with percentage increases. At the moment with 30%. Saying to increase the damage by 4 is not as easy as it sounds.

I'm still of the opinion that it is way easier for adjustments if you only adjust the base damage and the damage upgrades and let the ROF untouched.

If you understand the MRP as a "medium weapon" like the Medium Cannon it still means that the MRP become obsolete after Alpha 11 like the Medium Cannon. From Alpha 11 on until Beta 8, where you get the Tank Killer, the player would have only two viable choices: Lancer and Heavy Cannon. I would like to see the MRP as a third viable choice.
This is one of those things where we would simply need to try out various ideas, and experiment a bit to see what works best, i know what i suggested wasn't the best, but that was simply a rough first go, since you asked me to toss some number out and I'm sure there are probably better ways to go about it, it's why i didn't make any changes for the mini pod rocket, in the the mod i uploaded.

We made it harder by decreasing the power output to 70% of what you have with normal difficulty. It's like increasing the costs. Having 4000 Energy and costs of 100 per unit is the same as having 8000 energy and costs of 200 per unit. In both cases, you can produce 40 units. Making units cheaper means it becomes easier to produce a large amount of them.
and that's an issue why exactly ? because we both know that anyone who is playing insane isn't going to be spamming units, because that's is wasteful, inefficient and completely unnecessary.

ultimately you can't get away from the fact that the medium cannon is a weaker weapon then the lancer, and in every RTS game out there weaker simpler units are always cheaper then there more powerful counter parts take command and conquer as an example

light tank costs 600, medium tank costs 800, and a mammoth tank costs 1500

so explain to me how a medium cannon on a cobra body and half tracks ends up being more expensive than a lancer on a cobra body and half tracks, when clearly the lancer should be the more expensive weapon give that it is clearly a lot more powerful, now i know that we have tuned things such that on alpha 6 there power levels are roughly similar to but that is neither here nor there and still doesn't change the fact that the medium cannon is clearly the inferior weapon.

what this comes down to is that we are trying to equalise the lancer and heavy cannon, one of the steps in that process is equalising the cost, which means either the lancer has to be increased in price or the heavy cannon needs to be reduced in price, and then the medium cannon needs it's cost adjusted accordingly so that it sits in-between the cost of the heavy cannon and the light cannon, now given that oil production has been cut substantially on insane then it makes sense to reduce the heavy cannon to the same price as the lancer which then in tern necessitates that the medium cannon needs its cost adjusted accordingly, so given that i really don't see what the big problem is.

I know that this is only my own subjective experience and i know we have different play styles but usually when i start alpha 6 i only have around 3000 oil so i can't actually use medium cannons there too expensive, and if the way i play is in any way indicative of the average player then that's a problem especially if you want to encourage players to experiment with all the weapons they have available to them, which is the whole point of adjusting the weapons so they are all viable choices.

Then again this is where we always did have a difference of opinion since i tend to be a little more generous and less restrictive when it comes to balancing where you seem to favour making as hard as possible which for most average players would be way to difficult, hell there are some players that find even my more generous and less restrictive balancing to hard, and certainly we have had a couple of comments here to that effect.

As you can see in the code I included in my previous post the Scavenger factory in the southeast includes technically two artifacts: One with the Medium Cannon and one with the MRP. It's not one artifact with two technologies but two artifacts with one technology each.
Maybe that is how it's written in the code but that is not how it is in game, since there seems to be some disagreement on this I have just checked this on v1.10 and once again there is one 1 artefact in the first scav base and here is what it gives you and the order it gives you in
  • Mini Pod Rockets
    • Mini Pod Rocket Guard Tower
    • HE Mini Rocket
      • HE Mini Rockets 2
        • Lancer AT Rocket
          • HEAT Rocket Warhead
            • HEAT Rocket Warhead 2
              • HEAT Rocket Warhead 3
                • Bunker Buster Rocket
          • Lancer Hard Point
          • Lancer Bunker
        • Fast Fire Mini Rockets
          • Fast Fire Mini Rockets mk2
            • Fast Fire Mini Rocket 3
        • HE Mini Rocket mk3
so if you are seeing 2 artefacts at the first base on alpha 6 this is incorrect there should be only 1

now about the research order, as we can see the research order pumpkin came up with is slow inefficient and doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a start i don't see how a damage upgrade leads to a rate of fire upgrade ?!?! they are 2 separate and distinct research arms that have nothing to do with each other, I also don't see how a damage upgrade for mini rockets is supposed to lead to the lancer, it would make much more sense if all rocket weapons had a common ancestor aka
  • Rocket Technology
    • Mini Pod Rocket
    • Lancer AT Rocket
    • Bunker Buster Rocket
and then after researching each of the weapons, get the turrets and the upgrades, why pumpkin didn't do this and what there thinking was when they came up with the above research order i don't know, but i think we can improve this somewhat by rearranging things like this.
  • Mini Pod Rockets
    • Mini Pod Rocket Guard Tower
    • HE Mini Rocket
      • HE Mini Rockets 2
        • HE Mini Rocket mk3
    • Fast Fire Mini Rockets
      • Fast Fire Mini Rockets mk2
        • Fast Fire Mini Rocket 3
  • Lancer AT Rocket
    • Lancer Hard Point
    • Lancer Bunker
    • HEAT Rocket Warhead
      • HEAT Rocket Warhead 2
        • HEAT Rocket Warhead 3
  • Bunker Buster Rocket
this is much faster and makes more sense, now as me and alfred where discussing we could do
  • Rocket Technology
    • Mini Pod Rockets
      • Mini Pod Rocket Guard Tower
      • HE Mini Rocket
        • HE Mini Rockets 2
          • HE Mini Rocket mk3
      • Fast Fire Mini Rockets
        • Fast Fire Mini Rockets mk2
          • Fast Fire Mini Rocket 3
    • Lancer AT Rocket
      • Lancer Hard Point
      • Lancer Bunker
      • HEAT Rocket Warhead
        • HEAT Rocket Warhead 2
          • HEAT Rocket Warhead 3
    • Bunker Buster Rocket
of course the one slight wrinkle doing this has is what should the Rocket Technology research topic do other then unlock the ability to research the various rocket based weapons, because if all it does is unlock the ability to research rocket weapons then that would be a bit redundant, and unnecessary, so while i don't have a problem with doing this, I'm not really sure there would be any real benefit to doing so, so I'd be tempted to just stick with my original suggestion.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Ok so I forgot to adjust the cost for the lancer and the heavy cannon so in addition to the previous changes

Tracks
Weight reduced from 13,000 to 10,000
Base speed increased from 125 to 128

Medium Cannon
Weight reduced from 5000 to 3500
Cost reduced from 125 to 87

Bunker Buster
Cost reduced from 150 to 113
All weapon modifiers increased from 33 to 100
Damage decreased from 125 to 96
Rate of fire increased from 3 to 10

i didn't alter the structure modifiers but they may still need a slight reduction even though i turned the damage down a bit

Flamer
Structure modifier "hard" increased from 40 to 100
Damage increased from 12 to 17 (which gives you damage of 52 on alpha 6)
Periodic damage increased from 14 to 25

I know the changes to the flamer might make it a bit to strong on the earlier levels but I'm unsure how to alter the artefacts so i just changed the base stats instead, just so we can get a feel for the size of the buff that the flamer needs in order for it to be viable against the new paradigms units.
I slightly increased the cost of the lancer on a cobra body and half tracks from 187 to 200, I decreased the cost of the heavy cannon a cobra body and half tracks from 287 to 200, and I adjusted the cost of the medium cannon on a cobra body and half tracks from 212 to 181

Lancer
Cost increased from 100 to 113

Heavy Cannon
Cost reduced from 200 to 113

Medium Cannon
Cost decreased from 125 to 94 instead of from 125 to 87

I figured since you seem to have issues, with adjusting the costs of the medium / heavy cannons this would be a reasonable compromise, Also don't forget that later on the light and medium cannon get replaced with the assault cannon and the hyper velocity cannon, so adjusting the cost for the cannons like this is not quite so crazy as it seems, as it will only really affect alpha campaign, and maybe the first couple of levels on beta till you get the Assault and Hyper Velocity Cannons.

Still trying to figure out how i adjust the upgrades, so that the flamer changes don't make the flamer to strong on the previous levels not sure which file it is i need to adjust for that, but really those changes should go into third flamer upgrade on alpha 5, unless you wanna make a new flamer upgrade and add it to the first scav base on alpha 06 or maybe the first New Paradigm base, or you wanna make a new flamer weapon, or maybe give the heavy flamer on alpha 06, and then replace the heavy flamer on Beta with a new flamer weapon.

Anyway give that a go and let me know how ya get on with the changes, I don't think there is anything there that's stupidly overpowered or unbalanced, I tried my best to avoid that.

camBalance.wz
(174.79 KiB) Downloaded 353 times

[edit]
ok so having a look at the research.json to see if i can figure out how to move the changes for the flamer to the third upgrade on alpha 5 and i found the High Temperature Flamer Gel Mk3 research topic

Code: Select all

"R-Wpn-Flamer-Damage03": 
{
	"iconID": "IMAGE_RES_WEAPONTECH",
        "id": "R-Wpn-Flamer-Damage03",
        "keyTopic": 1,
        "name": "High Temperature Flamer Gel Mk3",
        "requiredResearch": 
	[
            "R-Wpn-Flamer-Damage02"
        ],
        "researchPoints": 2600,
        "researchPower": 115,
        "results": 
	[
            {
                "class": "Weapon",
                "filterParameter": "ImpactClass",
                "filterValue": "FLAME",
                "parameter": "Damage",
                "value": 150
            },
            {
                "class": "Weapon",
                "filterParameter": "ImpactClass",
                "filterValue": "FLAME",
                "parameter": "RepeatDamage",
                "value": 90
            }
        ],
        "statID": "Flame1Mk1",
        "subgroupIconID": "IMAGE_RES_GRPDAM",
        "techCode": 1
},
now i take it that the first part

"parameter": "Damage",
"value": 150

that's for increasing the base damage now is that increasing the base damage to 150 or is that adding 150 to the base damage ?

As for the second part

"parameter": "RepeatDamage",
"value": 90

I take it that's for increasing the burn damage, again is that just adding 90 damage per second to the base burn damage or is that increasing the base burn damage to 90 per second ? Also if RepeatDamage is for increasing the burn damage how come the parameter is RepeatDamage instead of periodicalDamage ?

just a little unsure so though I'd ask.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

Bethrezen wrote: 28 Jan 2019, 10:52 that's for increasing the base damage now is that increasing the base damage to 150 or is that adding 150 to the base damage ?
The value is a percent increase/decrease added to the base value. So, if you had a weapon do 100 damage and one upgrade increases the damage value by 50, then it means you are adding 50 "points" to damage (cause that is 50%). Upgrades don't change the base damage (as seen in weapon.json) and are merely additive/subtractive. And, you could also make the value a negative number to subtract from the baseline (like ROF upgrades do).

Damage is what the impact of the projectile does.

Bethrezen wrote: 28 Jan 2019, 10:52 I take it that's for increasing the burn damage, again is that just adding 90 damage per second to the base burn damage or is that increasing the base burn damage to 90 per second ? Also if RepeatDamage is for increasing the burn damage how come the parameter is RepeatDamage instead of periodicalDamage ?

just a little unsure so though I'd ask.
RepeatDamage is just an alias for periodicalDamage. Not sure how burn damage works (well, I couldn't calculate the resulting damage one flamer projectile did exactly, but was pretty close).

Code: Select all

"periodicalDamage": 10,
"periodicalDamageRadius": 32,
"periodicalDamageTime": 90,
My thought was periodicalDamage (calculate damage normally but with this value instead) done over periodicalDamageTime in game ticks (100ms each, so 90 ticks = 9 seconds if I am right).
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

The value is a percent increase/decrease added to the base value. So, if you had a weapon do 100 damage and one upgrade increases damage by 50, then it means you are adding 50 "points" to damage. Upgrades don't change the base damage (as seen in weapon.json) and are merely additive/subtractive. And, you could also make the value a negative number to subtract from the baseline (like ROF upgrades do).

Damage is what the impact of the projectile does.
Ah so it's what I though then

"parameter": "Damage",
"value": 150

Just adds the specified amount to the unit's current damage value.

RepeatDamage is just an alias for periodicalDamage. Not sure how burn damage works (well, I couldn't calculate the resulting damage one flamer projectile did exactly, but was pretty close).

My thought was periodicalDamage (calculate damage normally but with this value instead) done over periodicalDamageTime in game ticks (100ms each, so 90 ticks = 9 seconds if I am right).
The way I was calculating burn damage was

periodicalDamage - thermal armour x duration

So if the burn damage is 25 per second and the targets thermal armour is say 12 and the duration is 60 seconds then

25 - 12 x 60 = 780 burn damage inflicted

Not sure if that’s right I'd have to test it and see but it should be reasonably close its not going to be an exact match because that calculation don't include the propulsion modifier which will either make that value go up or down depending on if the units propulsion is venerable to fire damage or not.

Also isn’t 1 second 1000ms not 100ms?

One other thing while I'm thinking about it I was playing round with altering the research order for the first artefact on alpha 6 and while I was able to alter the order for fast fire mini rockets when I tried to alter the lancer and the bunker buster I couldn't get it working I removed "requiredResearch": but for some reason the lancer and bunker buster don’t show up in the research window and I'm wondering what am I missing ? Because I would of assumed it would of been as easy as changing

Code: Select all

"R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT": {
    "iconID": "IMAGE_RES_WEAPONTECH",
    "id": "R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT",
    "msgName": "RES_W_RK_LTAT1",
    "name": "Lancer AT Rocket",
    "requiredResearch": [
        "R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage01"
    ],
    "researchPoints": 3600,
    "researchPower": 112,
    "resultComponents": [
        "Rocket-LtA-T",
        "Rocket-VTOL-LtA-T"
    ],
    "statID": "Rocket-LtA-T"
},
To

Code: Select all

"R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT": {
    "iconID": "IMAGE_RES_WEAPONTECH",
    "id": "R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT",
    "msgName": "RES_W_RK_LTAT1",
    "name": "Lancer AT Rocket",
    "researchPoints": 3600,
    "researchPower": 112,
    "resultComponents": [
        "Rocket-LtA-T",
        "Rocket-VTOL-LtA-T"
    ],
    "statID": "Rocket-LtA-T"
},
but since neither the bunker buster or the lancer will show up in the research window when i remove "requiredResearch": i can only assume that I'm missing something do i need to make a change somewhere other than research.json to make that work ?

[edit]

Ok so trying to test out the burn damage but I'm running into a snag even when i force fire on my own units I can't actually set them on fire normally that's a good thing, however for the purposes of testing out the burn damage i need to turn friendly fire back on temporally as force firing on my own units is the simplest way to test this so I'm wondering if you know how i do that ?
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

Bethrezen wrote: 28 Jan 2019, 18:39 Also isn’t 1 second 1000ms not 100ms?
It is. But I was talking about game ticks. Briefly: A game tick is a, mostly regular, time measurement unit for some repeated action (ie. for the main game loop). This varies depending on the type of game. From what I have read here, Warzone runs at 10 ticks per second. So, for our purposes, 1 tick = 100ms for Warzone.
Bethrezen wrote: 28 Jan 2019, 18:39 One other thing while I'm thinking about it I was playing round with altering the research order for the first artefact on alpha 6 and while I was able to alter the order for fast fire mini rockets when I tried to alter the lancer and the bunker buster I couldn't get it working I removed "requiredResearch": but for some reason the lancer and bunker buster don’t show up in the research window and I'm wondering what am I missing ? Because I would of assumed it would of been as easy as changing

but since neither the bunker buster or the lancer will show up in the research window when i remove "requiredResearch": i can only assume that I'm missing something do i need to make a change somewhere other than research.json to make that work ?
(I'd assume this to be accurate)
When a research item is completed the game scans each research item's requiredResearch array. If that item is not already enabled, and if a match is found, the game then scans the entire requiredResearch array of that item. If all prerequisites have been completed, then the game automatically enables the technology for the player so that they can research it.

The one exception is if "keyTopic" is defined. Which, only in campaigns, prevents research items from being automatically enabled when all prerequisites are completed.

So you would thus have to tie the lancer research to an artifact for libcampaign to enable it.

Bethrezen wrote: 28 Jan 2019, 18:39 Ok so trying to test out the burn damage but I'm running into a snag even when i force fire on my own units I can't actually set them on fire normally that's a good thing, however for the purposes of testing out the burn damage i need to turn friendly fire back on temporally as force firing on my own units is the simplest way to test this so I'm wondering if you know how i do that ?
No, the game won't allow the player to burn their units (there is an if statement somewhere... I saw it a while ago). You could, however, go into Alpha 6 and hack around with the debug menu. Create the unit design you want to test against, switch to player 1 (NP), add the unit via the tab in the main menu, then switch back to player 0 and test.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

(I'd assume this to be accurate)
When a research item is completed the game scans each research item's requiredResearch array. If that item is not already enabled, and if a match is found, the game then scans the entire requiredResearch array of that item. If all prerequisites have been completed, then the game automatically enables the technology for the player so that they can research it.

The one exception is if "keyTopic" is defined. Which, only in campaigns, prevents research items from being automatically enabled when all prerequisites are completed.

So you would thus have to tie the lancer research to an artifact for libcampaign to enable it.
humm.... and here was me hoping this would be simple DO'H !! though I'm still not clear on why the lancer and the bunker buster vanished from the research list when i removed

Lancer

Code: Select all

"requiredResearch": ["R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage01"],
Bunker Buster

Code: Select all

"requiredResearch": ["R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT"],
surely if it has no requiredResearch because i removed requiredResearch shouldn't they just show up ? In fact a though occurs what if i changed requiredResearch for both the lancer and the bunker buster to

Code: Select all

"requiredResearch": ["R-Struc-Factory-Module"],
you think that would make the lancer and bunker buster show up without having to mess about inside libcampaign.js or what i still have to change things inside libcampaign ? i figure the factory module makes the most sense as a pre requite since you would have to retool the factory to produce the new weapons and body's.

No, the game won't allow the player to burn their units (there is an if statement somewhere... I saw it a while ago). You could, however, go into Alpha 6 and hack around with the debug menu. Create the unit design you want to test against, switch to player 1 (NP), add the unit via the tab in the main menu, then switch back to player 0 and test.
how do you actually do that because i tried going to the player tab in the debug menu and I cant see any way to switch which player I'm controlling, i can do than on v1.10 but it doesn't seem to work with master.

As far as testing out the damage a flamer can do, with a damage value of 52 it will do 27 damage per hit vs a half track scorpion unit with composite mk1 which equates to about 918 damage per minute assuming 100% accuracy taking accuracy into account that drops to 826.2 damage per minute with a 90% hit rate

testing this in the real world the actual damage per minute seems to fluctuate depending on how much you miss the 4 times I tried I got

810 damage per minute
864 damage per minute
783 damage per minute
837 damage per minute

Adding them together gives you 3294 averaging them out gives you 823.5 which is almost exactly 10%

So it seems that for calculating the damage this is the correct formula to use in order to get accurate damage per minute calculations.

(Damage Per Shot x Propulsion Modifier - Target Armour) x Rate of Fire x Accuracy

not sure about how to correctly calculate the burn damage yet, my guess would be that you replace Damage Per Shot with the periodic damage value.

[edit]
Yup it seem changing

Lancer

Code: Select all

"requiredResearch": ["R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage01"],
Bunker Buster

Code: Select all

"requiredResearch": ["R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT"],
to

Code: Select all

"requiredResearch": ["R-Struc-Factory-Module"],
did the trick
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

ok now i figure out how to rearrange the research order for the first artefact on alpha 6, here is another update to the mod for you to try out

Here is a list of all the changes I've made so far

Tracks
Weight reduced from 13,000 to 10,000
Base speed increased from 125 to 128

Bunker Buster
Cost reduced from 150 to 113
All weapon modifiers increased from 33 to 100
Damage decreased from 125 to 96
Rate of fire increased from 3 to 10

I didn't alter the structure modifiers but they may still need a slight reduction even though I turned the damage down a bit, but figure I'll let you guys try it out and see what you think.

Flamer
Structure modifier "hard" increased from 40 to 100
Damage increased from 12 to 17 (which gives you damage of 52 on alpha 6)
Periodic damage increased from 14 to 25

I know the changes to the flamer might make it a bit to strong on the earlier levels but I'm still trying to figure out the burn damage so once I'm done and I'll move the flamer changes to the High Temperature Flamer Gel Mk3 research topic that you get on Alpha 5 to prevent the flamer being a bit to strong on the earlier levels.

Lancer
Cost increased from 100 to 113

Heavy Cannon
Cost reduced from 200 to 113

Medium Cannon
Weight reduced from 5000 to 3500
Cost decreased from 125 to 94 instead of from 125 to 87

I figured since alfred seemed to have an issue, with adjusting the costs of the medium / heavy cannons I assume because he thinks that what I proposed earlier would make them a bit to cheap and would therefore make things a little easier than they should be I figured slightly increasing the cost of the lancer decreasing the cost of the heavy cannon to match the lancer and then decreasing the cost of the medium cannon a little less would be a reasonable compromise.

Rearranged the research order of the first Alpha 06 artefact

from
  • 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
to
  • 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
Changed Fast Fire Mini-Rockets required research

from ["R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage02"]
to ["R-Wpn-Rocket05-MiniPod"]

Changed Fast Fire Mini-Rockets Mk2 required research

From ["R-Wpn-Rocket-ROF01","R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage02"]
To ["R-Wpn-Rocket-ROF01"]

Changed Lancer AT Rocket required research

From ["R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage01"]
To ["R-Struc-Factory-Module"]

Changed Bunker Buster Rocket required research

From ["R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT"]
To ["R-Struc-Factory-Module"]

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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berg »

Is that for all the campaign Bethrezen.
If so I would suggest you make a thread in addons so we can get some feed back for the mod?
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Berg wrote: 29 Jan 2019, 04:42 Is that for all the campaign Bethrezen.
If so I would suggest you make a thread in addons so we can get some feed back for the mod?
Berserk Cyborg, Bethrezen and I are trying to make a new balance for the campaign. This mod includes some ideas of Bethrezen so that Berserk Cyborg and I can test it and give him our feedback. This mod and also the new balance is far away from being published. Nevertheless, any help is welcome. Maybe we should really open a new thread so that more player knows what we are doing.

@Bethrezen
Sorry, but I was very busy this weekend. As soon as I found the time to test your mod I'll give you my feedback.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

@Bethrezen
Sorry, but I was very busy this weekend. As soon as I found the time to test your mod I'll give you my feedback.

Don't worry about it.

I figure since we seemed to have something of a disagreement over what i was suggesting, I though it might be easier to show rather than tell because it's always easier to judge if a preposed change is good or not when you can see it in action rather then just talking about it, but yeah when you have some time take a look and we can take it from there.

Also i was wondering if there might be a way to fix the engine upgrades so that all units get faster when there applied and not just the really heavy ones, so i was poking around inside the research.json and found this for the engine upgrade on Alpha 06

Code: Select all

"R-Vehicle-Engine01": {
        "iconID": "IMAGE_RES_DROIDTECH",
        "id": "R-Vehicle-Engine01",
        "imdName": "iceng.pie",
        "keyTopic": 1,
        "msgName": "RES_V_EN1",
        "name": "Fuel Injection Engine",
        "researchPoints": 1200,
        "researchPower": 37,
        "results": [
            {
                "class": "Body",
                "filterParameter": "BodyClass",
                "filterValue": "Droids",
                "parameter": "Power",
                "value": 5
            }
        ],
        "subgroupIconID": "IMAGE_RES_GRPUPG"
    }, 
Now the part that interests me is the bit under result, because that’s the bit that adds 5% to the engine power, now since the formula for speed is hard coded, that makes it somewhat annoying to deal with the engine upgrade problem, but seeing the above I realised that maybe we don't have to change the formula, maybe the answer to this is as simple as adding a second result to each engine upgrade something like.

Code: Select all

"class": "Propulsion",
"filterParameter": "PropulsionClass",
"filterValue": "Droids",
"parameter": "Speed",
"value": 5
which would then cause the engine upgrades to not only increase the engine power by 5% making heavy vehicles faster but also increase the top speed so that the lighter vehicles like say machine-guns also get faster, then if it turns out that that after applying several engine upgrades the lighter units get to fast that can be solved by adjusting the weight of those turrets to make them heavier thus making then slower.

now of course if there is already a PropulsionClass defined then adding that and getting it working should be a simple matter and should take all of 5 minutes if however there is no PropulsionClass at the moment then that's where things get a bit more complicated because you would need to find where those classes are defined and then create a new one.

Maybe we should really open a new thread so that more player knows what we are doing.
not sure how you would do that because the thread is right there and anyone can post and add there feed back at any time the problem is that most player just don't.

Maybe they think because they have no technical ability that they can't help which is of course not true, even just trying stuff out and the giving feed back can help, and you don't really need a lot of technical ability for that you just need to know how to give good clear concise feed back, it doesn't take a lot of technical ability to report a bug either, again all you need to know is how to be clear and concise so people can recreate the bug and figure out why it happens so it can get fixed.

Of course what we are doing with the balance changes does require a little bit more technical knowledge but not much, once you know what you need to alter, what file its in and how you need to alter it its not do difficult to make changes, and then post those changes for people to try out.

Is that for all the campaign Bethrezen.
If so I would suggest you make a thread in addons so we can get some feed back for the mod?
yeah i know as alfred already mentioned we are trying to fix issues with the games balance, since I can't currently continue with bug testing because the latest master builds wont run on XP.

I figured helping to fix the balance issues is something productive that i could do until such times as the master builds will run on xp again because a lot of the weapons in the game are either underpowered and useless or massively overpowered, so we are trying to even out the inconsistencies by going level by level and adjusting things that need adjusting, what i posted above was a few changes that i was preposing for alpha 6, I figure since there was some disagreement over what i was suggesting it would be easier to just make the changes and then let folks try them out to see what they think because its often easier to judge if a change is good or not when you can actually try it out, sometimes when you are just talking about it and its just an abstract idea it can be hard to judge.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:not sure how you would do that because the thread is right there and anyone can post and add there feed back at any time the problem is that most player just don't.
alfred007 wrote: Maybe we should really open a new thread so that more player knows what we are doing.
The reason why I'm thinking about it is the name of this thread. What we are now doing is making a new balance for 3.3 or later versions. This is no longer testing 3.2.x Campaign games. And maybe if we make clear in the name of the thread what we are actually doing more player are interested in to join us.

Bethrezen wrote:which would then cause the engine upgrades to not only increase the engine power by 5% making heavy vehicles faster but also increase the top speed so that the lighter vehicles like say machine-guns also get faster, then if it turns out that that after applying several engine upgrades the lighter units get to fast that can be solved by adjusting the weight of those turrets to make them heavier thus making then slower.
The problem is that there are two formulas for speed and the speed that is slower is used in the game. The second formula is: Propulsion Max Speed x Unit experienced bonus. And no matter how fast you can get a unit, if the speed of this formula is lower, this speed is used. This formula gives you the limit you can reach.
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