With all of the changes to the mod as of late in the infantry weapons and vehicle weapons, it seems as if empiresmod is trying to figure out what it's missing one piece, one change at a time. Every discussion or debate on what should be added or what should be taken away is successful only in changing items in the game at the most granular level. The results are always the same, each side has a highest dps/most maneuverable tank and one side's tank is always better than the other. Research allows the games to evolve from front lines and apc chasing to tank sniping and then comm chasing over timelines that vary depending on the geography and fierceness of the fighting. These script changes only make different tanks and empires ideal and do nothing to alleviate the placid sequence of phases in each round that we're collectively becoming sick of. I'm proposing a brake from all that. Our current model is balanced around cannon/missile and by extension, nfht and beht balance. The current changes are all about making the nfht balanced with the beht, while being careful not to over marginalize infantry. They are based on vehicles, which ends up making vehicles the endgame. I think that we should tilt the balance back to infantry for plenty of reasons. First, empiresmod is first and foremost a first person shooter game. Second, everyone in this game plays the majority of their time as infantry. Third, eastborough is way more fun than vehicletraining. Balancing based on infantry will mean a few things: #nerf vehicles# Nerf driver+defusal. (50% or 25% less damage instead of not even setting off the mine) Give defusal an animation. (it's going to be used a hell of a lot more) Nerf vehicle armor by making certain schemas unalterable, but scalable. (this will keep the customization aspect of adding or removing armor, but Leave vehicles with a weak spot, the rear perhaps?) Make vehicles move slower as their hull becomes damaged. Disable vehicle weapons as their hull becomes damaged at/by random chance per hull hit varying by damage. Re-enable all weapons after hull repaired. Totally change the armor/hull dynamic by making armor plates also modify the damage taken to vehicle hulls instead just of absorbing it. Plates would still be taken off, but depending on the projectile that hits them and depending on the type of armor, a certain percentage would go to the hull and the other half would go to the armor. #change the purpose of vehicles# Make vehicles about either transportation/spawning, anti vehicle or anti building. Move vehicle combat from ramming and chasing to positioning and aiming (more strategy based). The Jeep stays the jeep but maybe gets some armor back? It'll need it with all the above penalties. APC can be the spawning vehicle as always, but with improved anti infantry capabilities such as heavy machine guns, lasers and (non building threatening) grenade launchers. The AFV and LT would become more like technicals instead of frontline fighting vehicles. They would be the anti vehicle weapon platforms of the early game with anti vehicle grenade launchers or guided missiles. They would be pretty good at taking out APC's, but not the best choice to use against mediums. Medium tanks would be the medium to long range direct engagement anti armor vehicle. They would have slow firing and accurate, but very heavy damage cannons. Given the right armor/projectile type, a single direct hit could likely disable a weapon or mildly incapacitate the target vehicle. At range, infantry may die but due to the slow recharge of the cannon, may revive and regroup with cover without much challenge. Close up, however, mediums would suffer due to the slow recharge of their primary weapon heavily penalizing misses. The medium's weapons would be unable to easily arc barriers, or negate cover. The arty tank can remain as it is. The heavy tank would be somewhat like the arty tank, but useful in a short to medium range direct or indirect engagement. Essentially a siege breaker that can demolish positions up close and take a few hits. You know S bend in slaughtered 20 minutes in? one of these will come in handy. The heavy tank may be strong, and its weapons may deal lots of damage but they are not made to fight at range with mediums. #change vehicle weapons# Remove all the current weapons. (just to be clear, we can readd some but lets start with a clean slate) APC [STD MG] A standard machine gun that is a cross between stdmg and DU mg where it can hurt infantry and vehicles, but not turrets or buildings. [Light LASER] A direct weapon that can hurt infantry up to a certain range before it fades and does little to no damage. Lots of heat. [Frag Grenade Launcher] A grenade launcher that hurts infantry but also does marginal damage to turrets and buildings. [Smoke Grenade Launcher] A grenade launcher that shoots smoke grenades at considerable range. The smoke nullifies camera detection and obscures vision. [Seismic Grenade Launcher] It shoots seismics but not as far as engies can throw them. The benefit is that it shoots them from higher up than engies could throw them. A better arc. AFV [Burst Cannon] Like STD Cannon but not. It shoots three shots instead of one at a time. It does the same amount of damage as the current cannon, but its recharge is long so as to make the dps the same. [Guided Missile] A missile launcher that is guided by the mouse. It has a clip of 1 and takes a while to reload. It does as much damage as a direct hit by a burst cannon. It's really fast so not easily controlled while moving, but also capable of hitting moving targets without much lead. [Autocannon] The HEMG of yore, but with a much more reasonable reload. Medium Tank [Battle Cannon] Fires with the railgun arc and does high damage to infantry, vehicles and buildings. Medium splash. Takes a while to cycle. [Homing missile] Locks on at long range quickly and fires a salvo that quickly finds its target. Takes a while to cycle. [Ranged Cannon] Fires with the ranged cannon arc. Lower splash but higher speed. [Plasma Cannon] Fires with the Battle Cannon arc, good at penetrating armor and damaging the hull, but weaker than the other cannons. Larger splash. Heavy Tank [Heavy LASER] Like the light laser, but only mountable on heavy tanks and can damage buildings and vehicles. Obviously, lots of heat. [Burst ML] Shoots a burst of 9 missiles with limited accuracy. Short reload. [Demolisher Cannon] Just like the space marine weapon. Does as much damage to walls as nukes do currently. [Guided Bio Missile] I've got a boner just thinking about it. Artillery Tank [Ranged Artillery Cannon] Same as before [HE Artillery Cannon] Same as before [Cluster Launcher] Standard Artillery weapon, launches cluster bombs at the enemy. Relatively short range. Damage-wise, a combination of seismic and frag infantry grenades. #misc notes# Armors and engines could be the same, but given the changes above to their operation they would be much different. Just make it obvious which armor defends against which damage and we're cool. Make building carcasses recyclable. -- what do you think?
I like it. I think that everything but the stuff in #Nerf Vehicles# can currently be done in scripts, and I'm interested in seeing how this turns out.
It's too late for me to parse your whole post, sorry about that, so I'll just pick up a couple things. I suggested this a while back. As far as I know, it was impossible because of the way things were coded. And armour was just an HP block that sat in front of the hull. If it's possible, I do think it would be a good idea still. This actually made me think of something else - having different tanks in the same weight class. Some models might have features which prevent rear armour, for instance (such as enlarged weapon arrays/engine bays). Some might be made specifically for ridiculous tactics like close combat, and have reduced armaments but enhanced frontal armour/plate limits. Some might be more normal, but have lesser all round armour say. Variants like that would of course require extra models though.
I want to say that right now quite a bit of that is possible with current scripts. Weapon wise there really isn't anything extra that needs to be coded, well except for smokes, which I would want for infantry smokes first. You can change the max armor plates each side of a vehicle has, but you can't make it scale instead of redistribute like you suggest. Reducing speed while hull armor takes damage is also possible, gas works that way but it goes faster instead. Everything else in nerf vehicles needs code support. Generally most of that should probably have been in the game at some point anyway. I don't get the weapon mentions of apcs, .50 cal is still amazing at dealing with infantry. I wouldn't hate ugl or regulars nades being nerfed to not do damage against buildings though. For the most part I kinda like most of this, at worst I feel like vehicle customization will go down a tad, but we haven't really had the ability to mess with setups for a while now because of how research works, so that's a pretty moot point.
The logic behind the new STD MG is that with all of the vehicle nerfs, APC's would want to either stay at range where they could snipe or up close where their turret angle wouldn't allow them to get many hits unless they were using GLs. .50 cal is just a little less powerful than how triple mg was in 2.0. I think instead of spraying death, it should be more accurate but not as fast. You should feel like you're shooting huge bullets, because you are. The only thing is that since you're mounted on a vehicle, theres lots of technology that could dampen the recoil and assist with accuracy. I'm glad that you like it though. I agree with you that heavy tanks should be weapon platforms, and I also think that every other vehicle should be a weapon platform too. Medium tanks for medium to long range, heavies for medium to close range, and artys for indirect engagement.
VEHICLE-WEAPON COMPATIBILITY APC Gun Mount [STD MG] [Light LASER] Launcher Mount [Smoke Grenade Launcher] [Seismic Grenade Launcher] [Frag Grenade Launcher] [Poison Gas Grenade Launcher] AFV/LT Cannon Mount [Burst Cannon] [Autocannon] Launcher Mount [Guided Missile] Gun Mount [STD MG] [Light LASER] MEDIUM TANK Cannon Mount [Battle Cannon] [Plasma Cannon] [Ranged Cannon] Launcher Mount [Homing Missile] 2x [Guided Missile] HEAVY TANK (Make NFHT and BEHT the same) Heavy Weapon Mount [Heavy LASER] [Demolisher Cannon] Heavy Launcher Mount [Burst ML] [Guided Bio Missile] ARTILLERY TANK Artillery Cannon Mount [Cluster Launcher] [Ranged Artillery Cannon] [HE Artillery Cannon] RESEARCH LAYOUT PRE-RESEARCHED WEAPONS *STD MG *Smoke Grenade Launcher *Seismic Grenade Launcher *Frag Grenade Launcher *Burst Cannon *Guided Missile *Battle Cannon *Cluster Launcher PHYSICS Plasma -> *Plasma Cannon Projectile Physics -> *Ranged Cannon -> *Ranged Artillery Cannon CHEMISTRY High Explosive Research -> *HE Artillery Cannon -> Large Cannons -> *Demolisher Cannon Improved Flagration Compounds -> *Autocannon MECHANICAL ELECTRICAL LASER Weapons -> *Light LASER -> Heavy LASER Technology -> *Heavy LASER Missile Systems -> *Homing Missile -> High Capacity -> *Burst ML BIOLOGY Biological Weapons -> Biological Warheads -> *Guided Bio Missile -> *Poison Gas Grenade Launcher
This topic deserves a more detailed & expanded write up as it's a complete rehaul, not a rebalancing. I'm always open to trying new things when there's minimal development investment, but it becomes a much tougher sell when you're talking about potentially hundreds of man hours at stake. Every one of there requires additional code or art support. I'm neither a coder nor an artist, so I can't estimate the intensity of the necessary efforts, but some of those are beginning to touch the interface and that's a deceivingly large can of worms to open. I really can't overstate the effort required to pull some of this stuff off. Lasers need new art and might be challenging to implement them in the current scripts without murdering performance. Also, while lasers would be cool, we can't have weapons that don't behave consistently. It makes no sense that one laser can only affect infantry while another affects everything. It doesn't matter if there's some bullshit sci-fi explanation in there. If I see "light X" and "heavy X", I assume that the heavy version is a carbon copy except for more damage or something like that. This requires code support to ensure that it can't be exploited. I don't know the magic that ensures that you can't cheat smoke grenades, but I'd expect that it's not an ideal solution (or else the rest of the particles would be implemented that way). "Cluster" weapons exist in the game, but it's a pretty half assed implementation (which is why we have unused vehicle weapons sitting in the scripts). I don't know the details, but this is another area that was previously attempted but halted for whatever reason.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I think the only way to really balance the game is to rehaul it. Like I said in the first post, doing little things here and there that take minimal development investment hasn't done much for empiresmod yet. I think you guys need a vision. A goal that you can coordinate your efforts around and not have every dev working in their own silo. Art goes this way, code goes that way, the only thing you can do is make the scripts go your way. Just like velocity vectors splitting opposite directions, you're going somewhere but you won't really get anywhere that fast. What I'm calling for takes a lot of effort to achieve. Maybe it's not possible with the current lack of governance but at least I can draw attention to the obstacles or conditions that prohibit a comprehensive rehaul. I think it would resolve the galaxy of problems players have with the infantry/vehicle dynamic. About lasers, if there's an issue with the light laser not hurting vehicles then allow it to hurt vehicles marginally. Like I provided for with the STD MG. With the smoke launcher, we could just change the particles. If people cheat it then so be it, I wouldn't cheat it and I would just hope that other people didn't either. Eventually it could be made to be un-cheatable but initially that doesn't need to be the focus. For the cluster weapon, it wouldn't need to have any special effects. It could just be shotgun arty. The point is just to have an arty cannon that isn't as long range as either HE arty or Ranged arty. While I have the heavy tanks require their weapons be researched first, arty could be rushed without a weapon like it is now.
Code: "Horsepower Health Modifier" "0.0" //amount of max throttle reduction as health is destroyed "Horsepower Armor Modifier" "0.0" //amount of max throttle reduction as armor is destroyed Does this not work anymore? How does lasers murder performance though? Is it a case of it drawing the sprite or particle effect too often? Because you don't need to make actual lasers, just something that feels like lasers. Sometime this week I might take a shot at actually making a fn version of empires, shouldn't be terribly long. I couldn't do a lot of things, but I can at least rebalance weapons/infantry/building resists and how they work a bit.
yup, thats about what bugs me, it feels a bit random. the rest sounds like an interesting direction to take, especially the first two lists.
I agree with the rest and I'd really like to see them implemented, except this one. This would make "light" vehicle combat much less enjoyable than it is now. I believe none of our current vehicles are too good at two different abilities, for the three you mentioned. Again, this would make vehicle combat less entertaining. We have 50 cal, I'd say we just nerf 50 cal and make it generate more heat, in fact, I would have suggested this too. Laser requires artwork and stuff. Smoke grenades aren't that tactically useful, unless you want to make it an independent sidearm, as in, you can still equip other launchers. You mean same damage per shot as our current std CN...and three shots at a time? This would instantly kill non-gren infantry, and this is actually a nerf to its anti-vehicle ability. More shots at the same time = Harder to land all shots. Guided ML is pretty unfriendly to new players and anyone that has 100 ping and above, in before more EU & US server rage. I'd say we put guided ML at the corner like it is now. I agree with everything that are not quoted. But, FN, we all know what would happen. Suggestion => discussion => derail => more discussion => more derail => thread sinks. Not to mention some of these suggestions are pretty hard to implement and balance and stuff.
Ha says you, I'm actually gonna try this one out. I know enough of the scripts to get like 80% of it working. Also, I think he wants that battle tank to be more of a long range thing, so guided makes a lot of sense. No one can really hit anything with a cannon at long ranges, it's too easy to move to the side.
For long range combat, I honestly wouldn't say guided is more feasible/easy to use. Long range guided ML means you have to keep your crosshair on enemy for seconds, we all know what that means.
I use guided when ever vehicles try to hide behind walls. I just guide the missile up and then right down on their head. 85% chance of getting a hit.
