mrvecz

It would be really fitting end for Epsilon if they had to emigrate out of the Sol system, settle down and rebuild. Only to get massacred by Scrin forces because Epsilons psionic abilities drawn their attention. 

Is it possible for there to be a harder AI level? Or enhance existing ones at least?

 

I feel like the AI always goes with the "Keep building stuff + headfront assault till you win" tactic. No smart play or at least stuff you would expect from a normal player, like using aircraft against attacking units rather than my buildings and my units parked at my base all the time, and using the chronsphere, and I'd love to see espilon factions using shadow ring on bloaticks or a bunch of tanks to infiltrate my base or smth.

 

Another request, can the mega arena projector be temporary? like a risen inferno or lightening rod because it has an insanely huge area for a power that makes megalodons nearly invulnerable to any infantry. that means that any infantry based attacks (like the brutes or siege cadres) do basically nothing to a base with a projector and a couple of megalodons.

 

Thanks in advance.

There are multiple downfalls of AI. It has no late game scaling, it doesnt produce giant death blobs,it sends its units one by one to be mown down by base defences. It also has some kind of hatred towards your miners. It will send hundreds of suicidal units just to damage them. This hatred makes maps where there ore is outside of your base bordeline impossible to play. It cheats like mofo, it rarely tries to flank your defences, the closest thing it can do is trying to sneak Jackals with clayrs inside of your base, or Borilos with crazy Ivans to bomb your factory or powerplants.

It also fails when attacking your base defences, since the odd Mental Omega balancing, there are only few artillery units that actually have longer range than T3 defences like Neutralizes or Grand Cannons so once you plug them to your defences, nothing will even come close to destroying your defences, let alone touch the CY. The only threats are SCUD launchers, Centurion, Hailstorms. These artillery pieces actually do their job as artillery so you need to send something to kill them (Which is easy since AI doesn't guard them at all)

It doesnt need harder difficulty (Which would just result in AI that just builds 2x larger bases and 2x larger stream of units 24/7) it needs to be improved as it is. More skill, less cheats, some kind of late game scaling so it actually has a chance of defeating humans. But most importantly, it needs to be better at siege, thats one of its massive downfalls.

I dont like the Epsilon in act 1 either, while i do understand the lore reasons, it doesn't translate to the game that well. CnC isn't really made for precise unit micro like Starcraft, for this reason i find Epsilon campaign to be the worst out of the three. Boring microfest missions with instant failure states just littered throughout the missions, i celebrated the mission where i actually got a base and i could build tanks... even if that was playing with stolen American forces... it was a relief. Same later with the Chinese base. 

And i played the Epsilons campaign before save and load feature and aside from Shipwrecked i couldnt finish the other missions because it was just unfun and way too time consuming with the many trials and errors. 

Some missions like... Singularity is totally beyond me and i must bow before Meister for pulling it off on youtube on mental difficulty.

Things got better after save and load, i actually managed to finish the Act I except Singularity, wont bother with that.

More base building campaign, there is only few like that at campaign, especially Epsilon.

That is part of the Epsilon armies theme, covert actions instead of fully fledged assaults.

Although i must agree that more regular missions would be nice, but i dont think there will be more room for them, Eps, Allies and Russians have only 2 missions left per faction and since its finale for them i dont think those will be covert ops.

For that matter, Foehn is the only chance, but due to over abundance of cool features (That no other faction has in such quantity) for their units i believe they will get alot of covert ops.

Hopefully not another Singularity like mission.

Engineers could be amphibious in infantry only

Like in the RA3, while making model for each faction (Some kind of inflatable boat) would take some time i think that could be a possible solution.

Or, giving everyone access to docks and ferries, non combat transport ships that can haul all kind of infantry around.

Access to base defences IMO should be heavily reduced to more focus on the infantry skirmishes. While AA is understandable, something like Inferno towers littered across the base make assaults a pain in the ass for factions that doesnt have a long range anti building specialists. Soviets suffer the most (Pyro's small range is the problem) Allies are all well off due to siege cadre, Epsilon HQ has Stalkers but Scorpion and Psi Corps dont have them, Foehn's armies have similar problem like soviets but they can amass Lancers who are less vulnerable to AOE due to larger HP pool. Giantsbane for LB and Synchronauts for HH with other infantry could be considered also somewhat decent siege force.

Stolen Tech Infantry for such gamemode is a cool idea, it wouldnt even have to be unique units, just some powerful unit from their arsenal like Eradicators (Soviets) Riot Troops (Allies) Stalkers (Epsilon) Giantsbanes (Foehn)

tbh, just remember that the nerf is only 15%-20% which is still not that big for the apocalypse tank, it will still shred everything

But hey, atleast its something, in theory it shouldnt be able to survive the 1vs1 fight against Irkalla anymore.

Heh, when a new aircraft unit comes out, it should be measured how many seconds will it last against Apocs tank and how many % of its health can it take away before getting annihilated.

A secret tech gamemode

Where all factions can build all their respective stolen tech units without having to infiltrate enemy tech and MCV.

So Foehn can use Archelons, Seitaads, Phantasms and Ramwagons and so on....

While having all sec tech is accessible in the Ultimate Alliance, the secret units without having 4 MCV's would be better.

Repair walls support power

As they are very tedious to keep replacing once they broke down, it would be nice if we could just have some way of repairing already existing walls instead of rebuilding them constantly.

A problem with neutral units on custom maps is that your forces don't target them initially on their own.

So one "neutral" dog could kill an entire infantry battalion if unnoticed.

It's like the neutral brute problem from geno-mines currently in 3.3.2.

 

On the map "Avalanche Valley" (I made a really long time ago), I did put a sniper on a cliff that would prevent engineers from capturing an oil derrick.

I wouldn't mind remaking that map again with some much needed improvements to it.

 

As for there being neutral structures belonging to certain sides... that might make things imbalanced?

ARES has a function for that "Treat civies/neutrals as enemies"

http://ares-develope...ians-as-enemies

Hmm, if the neutral structures were a new building on its own would it be better ?

I am thinking about something like Tech forward barracks, or Tech forward vehicle factory. Where you can build your units, but doesnt give you new units. Just a place in the front lines or even a backup war factory if your main one gets nuked and you need an MCV.

Challenge about the Heavy Object, i tried it as Pacific Front on easy with Russian hard AI as comrade. I found two odd things

1) Friendly AI cease to build units past 2 hour mark (Yes, the battle took me 3 hours) so the last hour was just me fighting everyone on the map with barracuda spam and rocketeer blobs

Can AI... run out resources ? I dont recall that happening like ever in actual skirmish, but i might not see it since the time i siege their base, they usually have +100k resources in stocks if i get a spy in their eco support building, so the game doesn't last long enough for them to run dry.

It build some flak troopers, few tigers and engineers but no attack force, it had resources for repairs though, but if they can run out of resources, they had only one oil derrick and one miner who i had to protect with rocketeers.

I also kinda felt shitty that i capped all the oil derricks for myself except one i forgot.

So i was running the show while AI atleast was a good bait for those annoying offensive support powers.

By the time AI ceased to help me, i already demolished Last Bastion's base so the boidmachine was out of action.

2) Death blob

Once i smashed Bastions and US base, they sold their bases and moved all their units to a circle in their main fortress. I didnt noticed it until it was like 100-200 units strong blob and the framerate has gone to shit when they started to move.

I was like: " Game over man ! "

They have destroyed 2 bases along their way, one where one Bastion HQ stood (I used that one to make mass barracudas, which won the match for me) that had solid defences and alot of units. Then they demolished my foward outpost at the right, bottom where's a tech expansion. That had some units and defences too.

Then, the remaining units moved to our main base

Ramwagons, Archelons, Seitaads, Knightframes, Lancers, GI's, Siegfried. Destroyed half of my base and took 50% HP of my MCV before, their ignorance to base defences was their undoing. 

I had no units since everyone died in the fight beforehand, but i was building Guardian GI's, Kappas and defences as much as i could since... 206 327 credits in reserve. So i did replenished and manned my base before i rebuild everything.

I won the map after that, i reclaimed the Bastion's base, build atleast 30 barracudas and then just tore the base apart. Since i blow up their nuclear reactors already, Epsilon's base was out of juice and only gattling tanks, archers and one grumble remained as a threat.

Ground combat was out of question since tech defences seems to be capable of firing even if power is out. So i just used Barracudas to bomb everything. Then enemies sold everything, unloaded every bunker and gathered everything, smashed through my forward base the second time (But this time i atleast saved some of my units by ordering them to retreat) and they raced to my main base but they failed as i had bolstered my defences and AI build alot of defences at the entrance as well

I cannot imagine this challenge on normal or hard jesus christ ! But i must say someone had to put alot of effort in this one    .