264 replies to this topic

[fuggles]

Depends really. BC are very powerful, scouts are not really now stalker is nerfed. I don't think you can win with scouts alone unless you buy no detectors. They are smaller squad size than regular and will melt under fire. They don't get flamers or plasma like regular ones.

It could be done if needed. Now I would cap with scouts and fight with bcs - isn't that what we want?

[ZeusHammer]

I base myself on Biffy's Peril, and I can tell you that if you start by training additional builders to build the barracks faster, then train three scout squads to start capping, you still get to conquer your first strategic points roughly at the same time as you would with other races (building three of whatever troop they can build from their HQ).

• If you just increase the scouts' build time, this would slow you down in capturing your first points.
• You still can't decrease blood claws' build time as to make them effective cappers, as they are (or supposed to be?) stronger than, say, slugga boyz or cultists, and you'd have 6 units stronger than most of what others have available at that point.
  • They still COST as 6 units too, true, but you still shouldn't spawn a squad of 6 in the same span others spawn a squad of 4-5 (cappers)

As they are, Blood Claws are melee units in all respect, taking their sweet time to build too. It is true that if you build the armory as soon as I do you'll prefer sky claws to blood claws. Is there currently any reason to prefer blood claws to sky claws aside from the cost? Sky claws also deal higher damage (as far as the UI says) once you perform the relative research. I'll see to test them both against kroots and let you know. I think BC may be in need of some beefing up (maybe after research).

[fuggles]

Fine, slowed. I wouldn't use BC for capping. I would build BC, wolf and lord to harrass and then build scouts to cap.

BC are supposed to be worse than SC, they are a t0 plus cheaper. Open to suggestions though. there's a research to improve both of them in the armoury.

Edited by fuggles, 20 November 2017 - 07:18 PM.

[Roderick]

I think you're right. If the nerf prevents from spamming making the other squads less useful than on the paper then it's fine. Now if every squad has a definite role and you can and need to combine two or three types the design is far from being flawed. 

 

I think the melee squad of skyclaws can overwhelm the role of bc somehow, after all they're the upgraded version of the initiates. Is any chance to increase the number of members of a bc squad with some research to get a bigger squad for the late tiers? Alternatively, decrease the time cost for the long game play. This would compensate the lack of jump and speed.

 

The research now is just in terms of stats which does not conveys any apparent change, visually speaking. If you keep the basic chainsword amored soldier with no specialized upgrades, then they can become useful in long term either in larger numbers or being quicker to get. 

 

I think that the relevance of melee oriented combat has to be kept during all the game, otherwise you would rely solely on the common ranged squads and terminators as the rest of the chapters.

Edited by Roderick, 20 November 2017 - 10:31 PM.

[fuggles]

You can't change squad size in this mod. I could increase build time through scaling research. I wouldn't go full melee build but would use BC from the hq to screen my ranged units as the mod promotes better mixed synergy than vanilla. They are entirely disposable throwaway squads.

You will always end up relying on the somewhat terrifying terminators.

[fuggles]

I've tried thinking about it, but lack of motivation and imagination have conspired. I could raise the build time of ASM, or stick them into T1, but ultimately they do the same job as BC and there will always be redundancy. Shy of popping a wulfen squad in, there is not a melee unit between T1 and T3, shy the force commander or lone wolves.

[fuggles]

I think putting them up a tier is the way forward. There's just too much overlap. I was hoping to give the BC lightning claws but not sure if the model has it - would need someone with oe to have a look.

[fuggles]

Okay, after a devastatingly non-productive 3 hours then I concede. Whilst they overlap heavily on paper then I am not sure they do in the game for the sole reason that BC come from the HQ. They are much better combat squads than any other T0 and scale more or less in line with regular marines. I imagine you could build a pretty solid melee build, more so than other races. Having such a capable HQ unit is amazing in terms of a mixed force as you can build decent melee and range at once - chucking the ASM into T1 then gets in the way of building other squads so did not really work.

 

I cannot activate any other weapons on the BC, possibly disabled in OE? Not sure, but also it turns out you can't apply passive upgrades as with special characters so you would have to buy them. The problem of my creation is that the squads just do not scale as they cannot repair losses so there comes a point that if you haven't looked after a squad it's deadweight(ish) - but then that's why the are low squad cap and if you just suicide them then they can survive for a while.

 

ASM have double the time and additional cost to BC - I mean they ARE the same unit, just one has a better backpack. ASM have a slightly better DPS as it's a t1.5 unit, vs a t0. It's ideal that a higher tier unit takes over from a low one naturally, especially with the wastage mechanic.

 

My personal opener of BC, FW and WL to put pressure on allows you to get going on the scouts and segue into either ASM or grey hunters before going for long fangs etc. It always ends in termies etc as they are the top units and this is still a marine army. I believe we are over working it now and I am spending greater numbers of unproductive sessions.

 

Frankly I give up, I think it's done, along with renegades - I know I am!

[Roderick]

I trust you completely I and I'm sorry for not enough feedback. I am afraid I am the delayer in this project. I am trying to do some art for the SW but I see that the projected things need quite fiddling and FFE/OE to get all the textures and features alright. I can try to circumvent the issues I find however, related mostly to the randomized visibility; this is something I need to learn how to master.

 

This is why I am considering to make a lite version to get something fast and meanwhile I can work on a complete remake for the models and art in a future 0.8+ version for the next months (along with any issue detected while playing them). I figure out that 13th wolves may be affected by these "fluffy aesthetics" work and the proposal can be extended to them too, in a future remake with a granted supported randomness thanks to OE and/or FFE.

 

In principle everything is transparent to the AE, only a visual thing. On the other hand, whatever idea you may have for upgrades is strongly reliant on the model and since I am considering a replacement for some of them, I need to be sure which weapons are granted to each squad. I am designing with the current AE, meaning that whatever model I use will have the equivalent upgrades to fit with the AE weapons.

 

There is also the possibility (but I don't know how achievable is for me) via OE to get a randomized weapon visually while being the same weapon in code. I would like to get something comparable between swords and axes for example. If not, then some squads could get axes and other swords.

 

I send the Renegade stuff asap to get them active in December.

Edited by Roderick, 27 November 2017 - 06:18 PM.

[fuggles]

Biggest problem that I have is that the blood claw weapon upgrades don't work, hence the rather brute force solution in the other thread of FFE swapping to force it to swap by fooling it into thinking it is displaying a chainsword, but we have renamed that component.

 

I just don't have an answer. You can't bulk upgrade, similar to sergeants methodology as they are a squad, but obviously here it will not work. I think I am pretty happy with how it works, as much as can be. I quite like the custom BC texture work someone has done... If we REALLY need to split them up then they can have axes which are a bit better vs vehicles and a bit worse vs infantry, but I think they are alright being overlapping.

 

Oddly I tried swapping the model completely for a c2c one and it still got nowhere, but still has the same design problem.

[Kekoulis]

At least did it work out for you as you have somewhat wanted? What I can't understand is why the whe file cannot get successfully converted in an ebp file. If it could,I would be able (potentially) to edit in OE,much like the PSM and the Damned Marines.

If the file was corrupted,wouldn't break the model as well?

[Roderick]

Which custom texture?

[fuggles]

They all seem to be a bit - wolf paw on the left knee for instance.

[Roderick]

Ah well, they are really nice but I want to improve them, more fur and models which grant some randomization in the heads, to have as much as helmetless units as possible.

 

I think the veteran vanguard marine is not the best model to represent the BC due to the low randomization (yet I think it has a couple of heads, or it is the sergeant?) and the veteran armor.

Edited by Roderick, 28 November 2017 - 11:39 AM.

[fuggles]

I'm open to suggestions!

[Roderick]

I have been thoroughly checking the models to see what is the optimal approach to get art and diversity and closeness to fluff.

 

My proposal (what I'm currently doing partially) is to replace the grey hunter model, the pack leaders and the blood claw models.

 

The grey hunter model I am using now is a space_marine_codex model which is found as a tactical marine in the TTRU mod. I suspect that this was the original model from c2c and possibly(?) as the base for the dark angels. The good thing about them is that they have three possible heads. I am thinking to replace them with helmetless ones and the third with a helmet. Another interesting point is that the right pauldrons have different versions (potentially up to 4). They can be textured to present the same sigil but I think that it would be more appealing to have different sigils based on the fluff.

All in all it is a better replacement for the vanilla tactical marine model and the weapon models are compatible (flamer and plasma). 

 

The pack leaders should be the same for all the squads (but for the skyclaws). They are wolf guard. There are two models which currently have this role: the sergeant_vanguard (blood claw leader) and the sergeant_tactical (wolf guard squad leader, currently unused).

 

The sergeant_vanguard has the right upgrades for the bolter and the plasma gun but it presents an issue with the upgrades for the melee weapon: it has no chainsword but a power sword by default; on the other hand it has several upgrades (claw, power fist, thunderhammer...). Ideally one would want to have a chainsword->power weapon->claw. 

 

My idea would be to texture it the right way and put the wolf guard backpack and banner from the sergeant_tactical to the sergeant_vanguard. Then replace the default weapon with a chainsword and the others with the respective upgrades.

 

Quick question. The ebps of the blood claw leader (which has the sergeant_vanguard animator) has as hardpoint the weapon "space_marines_chainsword", associated to the "weapon space_wolves_chainsword_assaultsergeant" however the sergeant_vanguard model hasn't this weapon. By default it has the power sword, how is it working?

 

For the bloodclaws I'm thinking of a replace of the space marine vanguard with a multihead model (at least two). Several sergeant models can do the trick. Ideally I could replace the animations to get that of the berserkers to show that the blood claws are hot-blooded warriors rather than disciplined as sergeants.

[Roderick]

Howdo, I think I'm able to get a common sergeant model based on the wolf guard leader for BC, GH and LF. The idea is to be able to get them the standard upgrades: a default melee and default ranged then an upgrade for ranged and two levels of melee upgrades, as sergeants usually do.

 

The tricky but nifty idea behind there is that I can do different versions for the model which has different weapon sets and enabling five as a whole. The model I am using can potentially have five upgrades in the whe but I can replace the mesh in the whm for each upgrade level among several options (more than five to choose). These weapons would be related to a proper AE weapon or would be the same weapon and just a cosmetic change for flavor.

 

For example the GH sergeant has bolter pistol->plasma pistol / chainsword->power sword->power fist. This is so because the model is the original sergeant. However the sergeant_tactical has these upgrades too, it just needs tweaks in the whm and whe to get them enabled and the AE can use them.

 

Among the available weapons besides these five above there are a combi-plasma, a claw, a hammer and probably an axe too.

 

Do you have in mind some set of weapons for the pack leaders? if so, tell me and I will do the convenient versions.

Edited by Roderick, 03 December 2017 - 08:30 PM.

[fuggles]

Sounds hopeful? It would be cool to have chainsword, axe, claw I think. Combi plasma also fun, I wonder if you could get the wolf head from those drill marines?

Anyway good luck. Hopefully can get this and Renegades to bed soon,!

[Roderick]

I could work asap but I opted to check if there is any special consideration regarding balance in case the sergeants could get something different from the standard package. Is there any attribute made for weapons like combiplasma, axes, claws...?

 

On the other hand, the different weapons could relate to the same attributes although it seems a bit unfair unless you're having diversity of weapons for the same upgrade (like for example the black templars, but it is something I cannot do at this moment). For example the BC leader has a power sword but it behaves like a chainsword. Misleading.

 

I like the chainsw->axe->claw, as I said it can be one of the versions for a type of squad, BC maybe? and keep the chsw->power sword->fist for the GH as a more standard approach. The combi could be given to the LF version.

 

Bear in mind that the same model is given for the three squads but I think there is a chance to enable a second head which could be different for each one, helmetless I guess. The pauldrons have the potential to be chosen from three or four, can't remember now. All in all, a lot of variation for each wolf guard leading each pack along the game.

Edited by Roderick, 03 December 2017 - 09:11 PM.

[fuggles]

The pattern seems to be they just get better against armour, but in real terms I'm not sure how much a Sgt actually adds - not like you start meleeing tacticals because you have a power glove, it's mostly cosmetic.

Cool though.

What's occuring with Renegades, thought you had finished that a while back?