First of all this is a work in progress prototype. It does not reflect how future changes to the mod will look. I pretty much made all the changes alone, so not everything reflects the opinions and preferences of the rest of the dev team. I'm posting this in the public section now mainly so interested community members can have a look at it. There is no point using any of these prototype changes as arguments in other discussion. (e.g. flaming about things before they are actually changed, :p) Rough Changelist: - different research tree concept (dizzys plan with a few modifications) - new "Logistics" research tree which has all the odd researches like chassis and turrets in it - 91 recycled or new weapons - list of all weapons included - pardon me, the new 2.23 armor values are not included because work started before the release If you want to test the scripts put the contents of the rar in the empires/scripts folder. (compatible to 2.23) But for the love of god make a backup of the whole scripts folder, else you are in a world of hurt. Download: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/534848/20MarchTestScripts.rar FAQ How does research work in this script pack? You still research armor, engine, chassis like you used to. All the weapons are grouped into trees and tiers. Every research tree has 3 consecutive tiers of weapons. Those tier researches take a long time and cost quite some money. As a result you get batches of 4-9 weapons per tier. Normal games are meant to be played this way: You choose your research tree and usually keep on going till you reached tier 3 (the best weapons) After that you can open another tree. (Edit for clarification/example: 1. Research Bio 2. Research "Regrowing Munitions" (tier1) 3. Research "Improved corrosive substances" (tier 2) 4. Research "Lethal Virus Development" 5. All bio weapons have been researched) What's up with 90 different weapons? Spam-a-lot? Since your comm should stick to 1, maybe 2 trees your vehicle customization interface shouldn't be spammed by more than 30ish weapons including the standard ones. The weapons are geared towards having somewhat easy to remember names. What's up with the whacky descriptions? Stopped work on descriptions for now. You evil person, you take away the fun of quickly researching paper railgun heavies!? I plead guilty. However instead of letting the commander completely decide which weapons the team will use now the players themselves have more possibilites for tank customization. The full "research pressure" shifts from the commander to the players, enabling them to find their own favorite weapon in every tree. There are no "useless researches", all the trees have a decent amount of all weapon types for your choosing pleasure. Wait, so now it doesn't matter at all what tree is researched? I tried to give the trees distinctive characteristics, weaknesses and strong points. They are as follows: Electrical Pro: Precise (homing, guiding, precise mgs and cannons, rails) + fast shooting (autocannons, massive salvo swarms) Con: Range, Handling Mechanical (yes it has weapons now, geared towards spam) Pro: Cheap (weapon costs of OTHER trees have been slightly increased) + light (missile rack weapons, nano weapons (1 slot uber cannon for example)) Con: Ammo-replenishing times, only average weapons Chemical Pro: Blast radius (duh, tier 1 has explosive weapons already, siege cannon ftw) + heat (phospor cannon deals heat to target, low heat weapons for spam) Con: Ammo capacity very low, reload times, ineffecient against enemy tanks, range Physics Pro: Fast (Fast ml ftw) + damaging (depleted uranium cannon, fission ml [<-- nuke ]) Con: Inefficient against infantry, blast radius, cost, weight Biology (Evil aids) Pro: Durable/ammo (makes tanks not need engineers every second) + damage over time (all kinds of bio weapons including bio arty :x) Con: Low alpha strike damage, requires you to play defensively The changes are tested to the point where it doesn't crash you, but as mentioned above, some descriptions are still copy+paste. Have fun, or not. Keep discussions about it in here.
Commander chooses a focus or style of play. Up to infantry to decide which weapons they are best with in each tree.
Ok ... I found the old research system was not bad. Just a little more balance was needed. But why not give a new system a chance. So the major change would be, that you are fixed to one research tree. Right know you keep one research tree when you have limited time and ressources. Else you pick the best things from all research trees. (Excepts Mechanical) If this isn't balanced very well, we will see more than now allways the same research tree on a respective map. So the main question: Will there be a test server? Or will one public server use this script for a defined period?
but if i understand correct, of the new research tree 1 full branch is going to be as much as the current research trees branches combined
Just fyi, these weapons are not balanced with the new damage types in mind. They came in a few days after these scripts were prototyped, and I think Drag is still incorporating the resist tables into the weapons/armor.
Yea, thats why I throw the old version out here and work on a one incorporating the new system. The old research system is absolutely horrible and nothing can convince me otherwise, no amount of balancing will ever make every last research good enough to be equally researched (see the last, what, 2 ? years of trying to balance it) I talked to the nachos guys, but right now I'll not spend time these old scripts anymore, if someone wants to organize a test they can do it.
If anyone needs a extra hand to test, I'm up for it. I don't think we can say wether these changes are good or not until we've had a bunch for 10 a side minimum games with them.
This restructuring of the research tree sounds very interesting, it's good that you don't have any "fail" research trees anymore. Let the logistics tree only be unlocked when armor and engine is researched and you have eliminated almost all posibilites for fail research.
I really like the idea of adding customization within each tree. It DID feel like you were getting force fed by your Commander. So, good ideas. Did some scoping about in a solo server but I'd love to have a test server up eventually. It does feel a little...'lumpy' when it comes to those huge Weapon branches, and that Armor/Engines get left out in the cold, but whether its a dumbing down or not we'll just have to find out.
in before the game gets too commander reliant and having to babysit my entire team, even the "veterans"
I know it wouldn't mean much considering the armor values are going to end up changed, but it would be nice to see a rough estimate of what each weapon is capable of. Right now everything says 40/40/40 for damage to buildings/vehicles/infantry. Probably wouldn't be worth the effort to change the descriptions yet, but I'm curious:p
Correct me if im wrong(chances are that i am), but it seems to me that this system looks more punishing for the commander's choice of tech tree. If for example, mechanical is weak against electrical ( actually not true, but for the sake of the example , it is) , you choose your first tier in mechanical, and the enemy choose electrical, isnt it a bit hard to choose another tree to counter it? It means that by the time you will get to the first tier of your new tree, the other team will surely be at the second tier. you will lose time to get that new tech and money too. I really like the idea of these new tech tree and i am willing to give some of my (few) time to test out those scripts. Would it be possible to have more information on this idea drag? To know what kind of route you would like to take. Maybe a route we can take is to start each techs at the same level and give "subtle" (I can't quantify subtle so i put it loosely here) , different advantage to each tech. Meaning that you still get a chance even though you've picked to "weak" tree against your opponent. The tech tree you'll choose will affect what kind of tactics you have to use depending on the tech. Example : you won't use direct front assault with biological weapons: instead you'll siege the enemy, or with mechanical, you make sweeps of attacks. Throwing out idea here. Anyway , im all in for that idea!
I think there are enough weapons in each branch to have a soft counter vs every other branch somewhere in there. EDIT: So I fooled around in a custom game for about an hour. I really like the ideas. It seems like every branch has access to the same stuff (1 slot MGs, 2 slot MGs, Arty Cannons, 3 slot Cannons, etc etc) with a few exceptions, but each has its own perks. For instance, the Tier 1 Bio stuff comes with more Ammo (50 shells/48 MLs), so you may not have to be an engi to go Ref raiding. Then when you hit T2, you get DoT stuff like Bio has now, and at T3 some nifty 'Homing' Missiles and a 'Bio Bomb' Arty Shell that sounds awesome. I don't quite see how all this stuff will be any easier to balance than it is now as was claimed, but it seems like the concept is sound and I'm actually really looking forward to it. So, fears averted guys, looks like you did have a long term plan after all.
