Damfoos

• ...you don't even realize how pointless all those changes you suggested were, because you just shifted the power elsewhere, meanwhile gave no shit about that missions became literally unplayable

 

Missions can be adjusted for most of the changes suggested, especially for that theoretical SC duplication factory which can be made not buildable. There were plenty of changes that affected missions in a very bad way: stuff like Radar Tower being split into Bureau and Airbase which broke the entire 3.0 Soviet campaign (some missions don't have radar to this day), tesla coil changes that broke Singularity, Desolator range increase that was the sole reason to unneeded Tanya's range buff, sniper buffs that might affect some missions more than they should, Medic IFV mode change that made Panic Cycle and Wrong Side much harder than intended. I won't even mention the missions that were designed with no soviet airforce in mind yet the Foxtrots are a thing now and make the missions easier or harder, depending on which side you're on. The list goes on and on, but guess what - some of these things have been adjusted and the missions are playable again, while some are on the todo list. So I wouldn't say it's that much of a big deal.

I'd rather have weird and inconsistent special version of ARO for garrisons that works like GGI missile instead of even more weird and inconsistent instant hit garrison weapons for all AT infantry.

 

Considering how fast Chitzkoi kills jets this is an unusual event.
It is also hilarious when Chitzkoi dies by falling out of an Airbourne unit it jumped into, so frankly this needs to stay in for the meme potential.
 

Even though 3.3.3 changelog mentions that the issue regarding infantry that can clear garrison by entering them (Tanya, Chitzkoi and Duplicant) now fixed, this is not the case at all. Apparently the Assaulter tag for those units are still existing within the code.

I don't understand what the problem is here?
The feature seems to work just fine for me.

 

I'll admit, I didn't read the note in the changelog properly. 3.3.3 changelog mentions to fix "various behavior issues" relating to clearing garrisons by Tanya, Chitzkoi and Duplicant, so I thought it meant removal of this ability.

 

 

The issue in question is probably the bug where the assaulter was considered killed (by the game) while the victims were considered the killers. Thus if Tanya (or Chitz) are critical for a mission, mission will be failed if you use them to clear a garrisoned structure, even if they don't actually die. Because of that bug Foehn players used to get insane amount of bounty cash if any of these units cleared a structure garrisoned by their infantry - instead of registering it as "tanya kills 10 knightframes" the game thought "10 knightframes killed one Tanya each" and granted bounty as if Tanya was killed 10 times. Now it's fixed.

Why did I wrote all this? I was forced to replay some RA2 and YR campaign missions on all the difficulties to compare the difficulty levels against Mental Omega and difficulties do not match. I went through the normal difficulties of the first 4 missions, I found them challenging but doable but, then I came across "Beautiful Mind" and I just crashed and after a couple attempts I was forced to go to Easy.

 

Not only was I welcomed by the timer but no matter how hard I bolstered my defenses and how hard I went after that damned Iron Curtain, my troops were decimated and, before I turned, all the checkpoints I went through and cleaned of enemy presence, enemies were back there. Like I was playing Hard difficulty. And then I decided to check the Official Playthrough and, although it was recorded on Highest Difficulty, the level of speed required to set up your defenses, as a new player, was insane.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not bashing the entire game, only the difficulty levels because, Easy difficulty should not be THAT challenging. It should be something you pick to get a lay of the land, not to be eaten alive.

 

Well, Mental Omega is (in)famous for higher difficulty level in missions, and it was way worse in 3.0, where Act 1 missions were added. Those missions were designed and playtested by people with lots of experience with their own mod, so no wonder other people found them quite insane, especially when Easy difficulty there was harder than Hard difficulty in RA2/YR. In 3.3 these missions were adjusted to be easier (on first two difficulties) however, but not all of them got enough changes in that department.

 

In addition to that, unit stats adjustments made during 3.3.0 -> 3.3.3 period made certain tactics harder to pull off or outright impossible - in Beautiful Mind you could build a few airfields of Stormchilds and bomb the hell out of that Iron Curtain AND the Amplifier, now you will need twice as more jets, while the timer is still too pushing for a beginner. In other missions you are often given a Medic and an IFV to repair your vehicles and heal your troops, but since 3.3.3. Medic does not make the IFV into a Repair IFV, so there's nothing in these missions to extract Terror Drones and repair damaged vehicles anymore. This is why Wrong Side and Panic Cycle are now way harder than they were supposed to be on Easy. Certain Soviet missions do not even have radar and means of remote scouting anymore, all this needs to be updated to be playable properly but someone responsible for this stuff doesn't seem interested in doing it.

 

I keep refering to Easy difficulty because this is the difficulty for the newcomers, it's equal or even harder than vanilla Normal, while MO Normal is actually hard. So don't torture yourself, switch to Easy and have some fun time, or skip the difficult missions and start with Act 2, those missions are actually easier than Act 2 ones, on Easy that is.

That tiny warhead is not easy as to spot as the whole rocket. And it's a part of RA2 silliness as well.

Maybe what they really need is a range decrease, so more AA units could attack them at the same time? Maybe a strenght/amorset change would work, though the more we nerf them here, the less useful they become individually, while blobs will still remain dangerous. Decreasing the AoE would be another solution, but that AoE is kind of the point of this units, so idk. It certainly should be weaker than other T3 heavy tanks simply because it has a large advantage of being extra mobile AND stackable (so you can concenrate enomous firepower at just a few tiles), and also because it can only be attacked by dedicated units unlike other super tanks. I'd say making the T3 heavy tank a flying unit opened a big can of worms, which is what we see now.

 

Let's break it down. Pteranodon has a lot of potential to be OP because a large blob of those can move in, one shot a blob of units (like 3x3) and get out, then repeat, and you can't do anything if your AA is taken out. That's a bunch of separate factors. The first one can be sort of addressed with a price increase, but in team games there will still be a large blob that will oneshot anything, simply because they stack. So unless AlexB invents some more Ares magic to not let air units stack in the air (which I think is way beyond possible), a mobile source of highly concentrated firepower in form of multiple Pteranodons bunched together will remain a thing. Increase the cost too much, and then first few Pteranodons may not pay off, while still being effective in stacks. The second factor is how many units can this stack kill in one shot. You can decrease the firepower (eventually making lone Pteranodons next to useless), or decrease the AoE (does not sound like a bad idea to me, but considering vehicles are often spread, your chances to kill something decrease quite much), the former means you'll need more Pteranodons in a stack to oneshot things and the latter means you'll oneshot less units no matter how many Pteranodons you have (unless they are split into multiple groups and are told to attack different targets, but that's not easy to do when they are moving). The thid factor is that Pteanodons, unlike other monster tanks, can't be harmed by most of the units, so your success in countering them depends on how long your AA can fire at them and how much damage it can deal. Since Pteranodon is a fast flying unit, it can escape stationary AA before taking enough damage, so you have to either build walls of AA defences or spam AA infantry and vehicles. Once those are taken out, you are defenceless. Here we can either decrease its mobility making hit'n'run attacks more difficult, decrease its armor making direct engagements more risky or decrease its range, so more AA units would be able to get shots on it before dying. RoF nerf won't do much because Pteranodons are already good for hit'n'run, no need to stay in danger when you can fly away to reload, then return and attack again. Now the question is, do we want Pteranodons to stay hit'n'run units or do we want them to be most suited for direct combat?

 

There are other stackable flying units that can kill ground stuff, but do we have problems with them? The biggest problem would probably be Wolfhounds and Thors, but the former can only oneshot one AA vehicle at a time and doesn't fire on the move, so it can be chased, and the latter is slow and doesn't do well against AA vehicles, which are your mobile source of AA. Invaders deal pitiful damage and are lightly amored, same applies to Warhawks except they are a bit better at killing stuff; all these units stack, but most often can be killed with proper units before doing too much damage. Wolfhounds can be killed by both vehicles and infantry, thors can be killed by vehicles which EA can't kill remotely other than with Harriers (they have no AT gunships or AT support powers), warhawks and invaders can be killed by both infantry and vehicles (Invaders are better to be killed by vehicles, but Epsilon doesn't have a way to quickly remove a group of AA vehicles from a distance either). You can say Pteranodons can't kill infantry so it balances them, but let's not foget that Coronia can handle BOTH infantry and vehicles by adding Buzzards to the stack or by dissolving enemy AA infantry with Devourer in the right time. This adds up to Pteranodons' own traits described above, so go figure.

This is ridiculous lol

Here are the missions I edited to fix certain rather critical bugs, unpack them into your MO directory to use:

https://cdn.discorda...38821/fixes.rar

 

Soviets: Dragon Dance

MiGs destroy the Missile Silo properly now (buffed their damage to guarantee it)

Epsilon: Spring

 

Oil Derricks on player's outpost should generate money properly now (for some reason they don't work if given to player initially, so I made them change house from civilian to player's)

Epsilon: Mental Omega

Victory trigger is enabled now, so you do actually win the mission once all enemy forces are eliminated (for some reason the last event didn't enable it, so it was impossible to win no matter what you did).
 

I'd like to fix the bug in Allies: Plague as well, but don't know what exactly I should do. The mission gets stuck if you manage to destroy Yuri MCV before it unpacks, and I can either not let the player kill the MCV, or give him his own MCV to finish off the remaining Yuri forces even if "Yuri MCV deployed" event didn't happen. The first solution removes some speedrun possibilities (I could buff it's HP to absurd levels, but it isn't even fair and will look obvious), the second one contradicts the story as the port is supposed to fall, and spies are supposed to die. For now I gave the MCV ToProtect=yes to make AI attack anything that tries to kill it, but it doesn't help at all, on Easy 2 GGI IFVs + Grizzlies and garrisons kill the MCV in seconds. Any better solutions?

Edit: went with the second solution, now your MCV will arrive even if you don't let the Yuri MCV to unpack.

It will appear in 3.3.3, don't worry.

• Tempest Architect (based on Weather Control Device, which PF completed in Stormbringer)

The Tempest Architect have in common with an WCD the "weather" stuff. Meanwhile TA and Psychic Dominator have similar building design (and animations). And if it is possible to make a clone of superweapon, why does it have to be the clone of PD? (Yeah, I almost sure it have been done because PD is the only superweapon to apply the side-effect on units directly, while Nuclear Missile applies tile mod in form of radiation, and WCD blocks map) But what if Tempest Architect was stolen (at least partially) from Epsilon?

You're overthinking it A LOT. GT is a clone of PD for technical reasons, because this specific SW mechanic allows it to work the way it does (spawn damaging animation, then activate another weapon which is that final stage of Tempest that kicks units away). Neither WCD nor Nuke do not allow this. Also it isn't necessarily for Nuke SW clone to leave radiation, the whole idea of this SW is that there is an animation of some object (missile) coming first up, then down, after that the impact happens and targets receive a portion of damage. Tech missile silo uses such a SW, and it has no radiation. Meanwhile TA description directly mentions its possible connection with weather control tech. Let's also not forget about Heartwork, where weather does weird things as you progress through the mission.

There's a valid point about structure animations being similar to PD's, but this might be the case because it looks cooler this way. Though lore-wise they seem to work on a similar principle: it accumulates some kind of concentrated energy within its containment part, then releases it somewhere in a less concentrated form.

Probably impact animations aren't played if zero overall damage is dealt, I don't know how the engine handles this. What I can say for sure is that Raccoon does not disable weapons but simply makes them harmless. Ares 0.E allows to change that, adding a tag that makes a weapon disable targets' weapons from firing, and this tag was initially applied to Raccoon so it would finally truly disable weapons (including non-damaging ones like Mastermind mind control attempts) but then AlexB had to change this mechanic a bit and now weapon disablers must also deal actual damage to work. This isn't welcomed for Raccoon, so the change will be reverted unless the mechanic changes again.

Yeah, I expected someone to make a proper cool art out of it but noone seems to be interested. Here's a clean one:

Well, noone asked me to make a Russian one, I've just made it because I wanted to see MO in my own language. Then it became a regular thing, some people wait for it now and it feels satisfying to see your work is useful. So if you want to try it out, go ahead and make one, maybe you'll find it interesting and there will be other people who will use it. I have to warn you however: the amount of text is HUGE, and you won't translate it quickly, so be patient. Also, use a proper stringtable editor instead of that XCC crap, it allows you to import new strings into already translated files and has plenty of other options. Here's the link:

http://www.redsys.su...pe=post&id=6461

Instead of Stallion for each faction I'd go with a generic civilian helicopter, Tech Helicopter, too bad we don't have any Tech vehicles (yet?).

Now if only we could set rally points for it...