5260 replies to this topic

[BrucetheMoose]

I ALMOST agree with you. However, I think the main problem is that the rank 5 USA power comes from the closest edge. Normally this isn't much problem, but against an AI that gets it early it is. Stormtroopers are relatively easily countered by machine guns, while the heavy mech drop can be stopped by missile troops. I felt the bigger problem fighting insane robots is is that gatling weapons tend to shoot airborne drones, and with the amount of damage that spider mines do defenses get wasted pretty quick.

I'll try some games against insane robots as I've turned down the power of spider mines, so I'll see how big a difference that makes.

EDIT: So after trying with a friend to take on Insane Robots a few times, either we're both miserable at Generals (which is entirely possible), or he does need to be toned down. Given both the storm trooper and heavy mech drop plus the hellfire drone strike (which is immensely powerful), there isn't too much you can do. And then a volumetric bomb goes off over your war factory and strategy center.

Exactly. I spent the first part of the game preparing for the AI barrage with the laser gen, getting all the AA, laser infantry, and turrets I could build. While my units were busy taking care of the cyborgs, the spider/cluster mine destroyed most of my defenses, and the mechs keep what's left busy. By the time the hellfire drones and the bomb get there, I have no defenses.

I suppose you could mess with the AI and build a "decoy" war factory/strategy center somewhere far away, but it's still a little unfair.

[ApOcOlYpS]

I think the better route would just be slow the AI down a little at the start. If they were promoted a little slower (though still automatically), it would give you some more time to prepare. Besides, if you build enough to stop the drop attacks, you'll have nothing for the normal ground assault. Also, I feel laser general is one of the worst generals to play against the AI. He's too handicapped at the very start to compete with how powerful the AI is (just pumping out units at an...insane...rate). This isn't to say he's not balanced to the other generals, as his cars are fast enough to be a good scouting, ground control and harassing squad. Those tactics, however, are useless against the AI.

I'd suggest trying infantry general, and getting out minigunners and tank hunters in bunkers and your powerplants as quickly as possible. With all that you may stand a chance.

[Pendaelose]

The Insane AI was specifically designed for challenging CoOp play. The Balance for a 2 on 1 match is just right with Insane Robot general. 1 vs 1 should never win vs an Insane AI.

When Drake and I play we usually would start with a 2 on 1 vs an aggressive, just to get warmed up and get a feel for the map and the units... we know we're going to win, this is just practice. Then we play 2 vs 1 with an insane. then 2 vs 2 with aggressive. then 2 vs 2 with 1 aggressive and 1 insane.

[BrucetheMoose]

I think the better route would just be slow the AI down a little at the start. If they were promoted a little slower (though still automatically), it would give you some more time to prepare. Besides, if you build enough to stop the drop attacks, you'll have nothing for the normal ground assault. Also, I feel laser general is one of the worst generals to play against the AI. He's too handicapped at the very start to compete with how powerful the AI is (just pumping out units at an...insane...rate). This isn't to say he's not balanced to the other generals, as his cars are fast enough to be a good scouting, ground control and harassing squad. Those tactics, however, are useless against the AI.

I'd suggest trying infantry general, and getting out minigunners and tank hunters in bunkers and your powerplants as quickly as possible. With all that you may stand a chance.

True... garrisoned laser missile troops work pretty darn well though, and the laser gen's late game AA units are devastating. But I agree, early on he's pretty weak.

Those minigunners are monster AA units though.

The Insane AI was specifically designed for challenging CoOp play. The Balance for a 2 on 1 match is just right with Insane Robot general. 1 vs 1 should never win vs an Insane AI.

When Drake and I play we usually would start with a 2 on 1 vs an aggressive, just to get warmed up and get a feel for the map and the units... we know we're going to win, this is just practice. Then we play 2 vs 1 with an insane. then 2 vs 2 with aggressive. then 2 vs 2 with 1 aggressive and 1 insane.

I understand that, and I suppose I got myself into this bad situation. I actually built a little experimental map just for... experimenting. My base is on a little island, with an indestructible bunker guarding the only entrance to my island, for fending off the initial waves of ground units. The Comp players get tons of oil derricks, which I suppose let them unlock tier 5 powers VERY early on. It's great for having fun with some insane tank gens and testing out factions against a massive wave of tanks, but the AI gen's powers are just to powerful early on. Like I said, I couldn't even defend myself from the air-drop powers without worrying about ground attacks.

Still, I think the insane AI should gain ranks at a slightly lower rate. Money cheating is fine, but those powers are just hard to defend against.

Edited by BrucetheMoose, 29 December 2011 - 08:41 AM.

[Pendaelose]

When you play a 2v1 with an Insane one player will be singled out for powers while the other player has to pick up the slack. basically you have a dedicated defense and offense.

[ApOcOlYpS]

When Drake and I play we usually would start with a 2 on 1 vs an aggressive, just to get warmed up and get a feel for the map and the units... we know we're going to win, this is just practice.

Friends and I usually play against equal number of aggressive (robots or tanks). We've managed 2v2 insane tanks I believe because we can counter tank drops and (hopefully) shoot down the mag bomb, or it just hits a poor place. Much harder though, especially with ecm.

We've also beaten insane robots in a 3v2 (us 3 vs 2 insane robots). Having choke points and someone to just rush to high tech units really helps, especially when they're airforce with king raptors.

[MasterZH]

Happy new year 2012 too all remix fans!!

[Tomeister]

I've got a suggestion. A seperate dozed for supw gen which builds defense things( like engineer in 0.75)

[ApOcOlYpS]

Considering you already have access to 2 different dozers, I'm not sure how necessary that is. I personally would like the engineer back because of the a10 beacons he could build. On the other hand, those feel a little out of place with super weapons since airforce has the a10 caller defenses.

And since I'm already on here, I may as well post my list of planned changes that I'll be testing:

First off, as brought up in the new blood topic, it would be nice to have toxin general's units require a toxin supply (power) to work. I didn't want to implement it because, well, I was lazy and finals are coming up. BUT, I can model (have the student version of Maya...we're allowed to use models from that in the mod aren't we? Says not for commercial use, but I don't think a non-profit community mod is "commercial"), and so will see how to get a new model into the game. Of course that also means dealing with the other aspects of building (animations and whatever), so it'll take me a bit to figure out. The point of all this is that toxins plays a lot like superweapons/laser general right now (powerful superweapons and defenses), and so I feel needs to have the downside of requiring power. The only other option would be to nerf defenses substantially, and then improve his units to compensate. One problem with this is that he only has one war factory, unlike other unit based generals who have 2, meaning he'll almost always be behind in the unit race because he simply can't create units fast enough.

Also, I'm removing flammable acids because it made them too powerful against infantry, and will also be looking to reduce the damage that acid pools do, especially to buildings. Also to improve nerve agents, I'm still working at getting toxin pools to have a chance to kill vehicle pilots.

Those are really the main changes I want to make, and they're going to take some time. I also need to look at laser general some more. For some reason he feels incapable at the start of the game, and I just can't figure out why. However this is mostly tested against the AI on aggressive, so that may be the case. I'll need to play as him/against him with humans more.


oh, and with poison general, it would help if Pend could tell me how he wants the general to play, so I can make changes to emulate that. Otherwise, I'll just go with mimicking super weapons for the most part. His units are very capable so he's not a clone, but they'll operate similarly.

Edited by ApOcOlYpS, 25 February 2012 - 06:33 PM.

[Pendaelose]

oh, and with poison general, it would help if Pend could tell me how he wants the general to play, so I can make changes to emulate that. Otherwise, I'll just go with mimicking super weapons for the most part. His units are very capable so he's not a clone, but they'll operate similarly.

I planned him as a flexible general with more air force than his peers. I always wanted to add a few more units to him, especially on the toxin side, but was never really happy with the alternatives I came up with. Chem General and Assault general were always meant to be the established armies of a 3rd world nation. Stealth general was envisioned as a pure terrorist organization, while Demo was seen as more of a people's uprising melitia with terrorist roots.


as for the changes,

i'm 100% OK with having the flame removed, and the acid duration can be cut in half I think.



and,

Some units I wanted to add, but never made, and some other changes....


Toxin artillery - more mobile than toxin scud, smaller AoE, standard artillery range.

Scud/Luna - increase range to make it more on-par with the heavy artillery of other factions, maybe as an upgrade unlocked by the Toxin Tree.

Anti-Tank Zeppelin - Air-To-Ground homing missiles with AT damage, possibly Toxin only, to help balance vs the Acid tree.

[ApOcOlYpS]

Anti-Tank Zeppelin - Air-To-Ground homing missiles with AT damage, possibly Toxin only, to help balance vs the Acid tree.

As a toxin only unit, that would be quite useful. There is no way that acid needs it (since he's got innumerable anti-tank weapons), and would give toxins a boost. I'm still looking at getting that pilot killing weapon working. Probably would be easier to create my own new weapon field rather than add a new weapon to the existing field's fire mechanism. Then again, I'd have to find all the creation events...hmm I'll play around with it.

Can you elaborate what some of the "alternatives" you were thinking of were?

Oh and one other thing: The long arm defense sites sometimes won't fire. They'll start the animation, but reset after the bay doors open without actually shooting. Anyone have an idea what that's about and where I might look to fix it?

Edited by ApOcOlYpS, 27 February 2012 - 11:39 PM.

[Pendaelose]

the only ideas with merrit still floating around in my head are the ones I posted. GLA has always been a challenge for me to work on... That's a big part of why they don't play like "GLA" anymore... I used up all my classic GLA juice on Demo and Stealth generals.

the best way to add the driver kill effect is to use the trick Creator suggested. The toxin field can be given an AIUpdate behavior and a silent weapon copied from the sniper's driver kill ability. Reduce the range so it matches the radius of toxin cloud, and it will do the rest... randomly drivers will die when driving into the cloud. You just have to find the right toxin cloud objects... Thinking about it, I would give ALL toxin clouds a chance to kill drivers, but higher level clouds can have a better % chance... ranging from 5% up to 30% etc. Another upgrade can specifically increase the odds of a driver kill by upgrading the weapon on the clouds.




the long arm bays use a spotter weapon to call in the strikes from the upgraded sites. It needs to have the same range and reload as the primary weapon. That may fix it. If it doesn't the assist attribute needs to be changed so it calls from the first missile. basically, if anything survives the first missile the extended sites will follow up with a battery.

Edited by Pendaelose, 28 February 2012 - 02:34 PM.

[ApOcOlYpS]

the long arm bays use a spotter weapon to call in the strikes from the upgraded sites.

It's actually the initial site that's having trouble. The first long arm site (with just one missile and the spotter) has issues of not firing. I'll look at the spotter and the missile in the site/weapon though.

The toxin field can be given an AIUpdate behavior and a silent weapon copied from the sniper's driver kill ability. Reduce the range so it matches the radius of toxin cloud, and it will do the rest... randomly drivers will die when driving into the cloud.

The way I interpret that, it will only shoot at the first vehicle until it's no longer a valid target (dead, driver killed, out of range), then move on to the closest, which isn't really random. What I'm hoping for is to do a pulse weapon from the center (which I believe is basically how toxin fields deal damage), which triggers a chance generator in each vehicle it hits (rather than trigger its own that affects each vehicle it hits). That is the ideal situation, but I'm not sure it's possible because I don't think a vehicle can be told to fire a weapon when hit by a specific attack. EMP seems like something to look at, but I'm just going to assume (since I don't have time to check right now) that it just does a pulse of subdual damage to shut down its target.

[Pendaelose]

the long arm bays use a spotter weapon to call in the strikes from the upgraded sites.

It's actually the initial site that's having trouble. The first long arm site (with just one missile and the spotter) has issues of not firing. I'll look at the spotter and the missile in the site/weapon though.

I know. What's happening is that spotter weapon is firing and causing the primary weapon to stop firing. the AI on stationary defenses has a bug (ea code, not mine) where a defense site with multiple range weapons can get locked into only firing at a single range, or a single weapon. Usually it happens when a defense has 2 weapons with different ranges. That's why I recommended making sure the spotter laser uses the same range as the missile, and if that doesn't fix it move the call assist behavior off the laser (remove the laser completely even) and make the missiles call the assist. That will fix the single missile.

The toxin field can be given an AIUpdate behavior and a silent weapon copied from the sniper's driver kill ability. Reduce the range so it matches the radius of toxin cloud, and it will do the rest... randomly drivers will die when driving into the cloud.

The way I interpret that, it will only shoot at the first vehicle until it's no longer a valid target (dead, driver killed, out of range), then move on to the closest, which isn't really random. What I'm hoping for is to do a pulse weapon from the center (which I believe is basically how toxin fields deal damage), which triggers a chance generator in each vehicle it hits (rather than trigger its own that affects each vehicle it hits). That is the ideal situation, but I'm not sure it's possible because I don't think a vehicle can be told to fire a weapon when hit by a specific attack. EMP seems like something to look at, but I'm just going to assume (since I don't have time to check right now) that it just does a pulse of subdual damage to shut down its target.

While it wouldn't be truly random, it would be a much smoother solution. The "fire when damaged" code has lots of potential for errors and mistake. It would be better to make the center of the toxin cloud more deadly than to try and add code to every single vehicle in the game.

[Tomeister]

Does the airf gen still have laser point defence? If not, I think he should. Perhaps a third option for the Sdi cannon that does missiles and land but prioritises missiles. Saves having to switch alot. And supw general should be able to deploy mines somehow.the research generals satellite bombard ability should have a longer cool down, otherwise it's continuous bombardment- a nightmare.

Edited by Tomeister, 04 March 2012 - 12:00 AM.

[ApOcOlYpS]

Airforce does still have point lasers. My friends and I were actually debating some things about air force being overpowered, and the survivability of planes against missiles was one of the topics. Decided to improve missiles rather than nerf planes though since missile based AA was pretty poor.

I don't believe the SDI cannon even has a switch (I think that's contra's thing), and I can't be bothered to implement one at the moment, nor do I think it's necessary (would also need a shortcut on the side so it can be quickly changed back and forth as needed). And considering the sheer amount of anti-ground firepower superweapons has, she really doesn't need mines as well. Besides, you'd plant them outside your defensive perimeter, and then your long arms would blow them all up. Wouldn't add enough (and security systems exist as a building defense).

I'll agree that the bombardment ability is too powerful, but I will not say that the recharge on the power should be extended. Rather, the duration should be shortened (as that's apparently what's causing the high number of shots). The reason for this is that it's a major stealth detecting/scouting power for research, and you payed money AND generals points to get it. Increasing the reload means it isn't as useful at scanning the enemy, which should be the focus. The reload would have to be around 4 minutes to be balanced with its current power (able to destroy groups of unwary units or even multiple buildings with one use), and that becomes pretty useless as a scouting tool.

[Tomeister]

I think The supw spy satellite should detect stealth. And pop up turrets need a quicker pop up time for turrets- at this rate they miss their chance.

Edited by Tomeister, 06 March 2012 - 09:58 PM.

[Tomeister]

That's a good idea! I've read that Idea before. I know it's for realism, but infantry are so small! I can't tell what they are unless I select one, or zoom in really close. Nightmare when you send you rangers instead of missile defenders!

Edited by Tomeister, 08 March 2012 - 10:44 PM.

[ApOcOlYpS]

I haven't really had issue with infantry. Then again, I tend to not build them unless I'm infantry general, which then I just build swarms and send them forward.

I've played Shockwave once, is the enforcer the plasma tank that can create some weird plasma storm thing? Anyway, the omega cannon would fit that style if it still had different fire modes, but with how powerful particle is against tank, I don't see a need to bring it back, especially since AOE kind of stuff is Plasma's thing, and it wouldn't feel right to give such a tank to anyone but research general, who doesn't need it.