artillery question

[Dark Horse]

Dear cncnet team and forum users, 

I know that Nod's artillery was severely nerfed in Firestorm.  While I understand the rationale for the change, this and other changes left Nod underpowered.  For my own  enjoyment, I am hoping to create a mod to restore the original Vanilla TS artillery performance to a Firestorm game.  An online search mentioned that the change was made in the EXE file.  I wanted to confirm whether that is true and also to ask--if it is true--whether/how I can change the coding to achieve the objective above.  I figured this would be the best place to ask, given the expertise of many people on this forum.  If anyone is able to provide any guidance, I would appreciate it tremendously!  

Best,

DH

Edited January 29, 2020 by Dark Horse

[9LivesCatFood]

there were a lot more changes than just to the artillery that broke the game.

[Bumblebee]

bump.

 

no one plays firestorm ?

Edited January 27, 2020 by Bumblebee

[Black]

The artillery were just adjusted to not hit moving targets, same as the GDI juggernaut. I’d say it’s more balanced tbh because NOD had a unstoppable range advantage on larger maps.

GDI got an artilary (juggernaut)

NOD got a titan (cyborg reaper)

But no, no one ever embraced firestorm at any point in the games history. 

[Dark Horse]

I found a thread on the topic of restoring original artillery performance: https://ppmforums.com/topic-36053/editing-nod-artillery/

Below is a comment by Nordos in that thread.  He refers to copying the weapon and then copying the vanilla rules.  I am interested in trying this, but am trying to figure out the best way to start.  Does anyone know how to do this?

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 7:32 pm    Post subject:
AFAIK does the hardcoding of 155mm two effects: It limits the damage output to a specific value, and (dunno if it is because of the damage), it doesn't use the yellow animations, but only the grey explosions. (The Deformation isn't happening because of the Treshold, AFAIK, since the hardcoded damage is below the treshold) As far as I am concerned, it is far easier to copy the weapon itself, and copy the vanilla rules

[Mole40k]

Black makes a good point -- when it comes to game balance, you shouldn't make adjustments in isolation. Art were weaker in FS yes, but NOD finally got something to balance out some of their other weaknesses. 

[X3M]

Range got calculated wrong in that game any way.

[Black]

7 hours ago, X3M said:

Range got calculated wrong in that game any way.

We get it, you hate TS

[X3M]

You are toxic as ever with your blatant assumptions.

[Black]

15 hours ago, X3M said:

You are toxic as ever with your blatant assumptions.

“Maybe I can say something outlandish, baseless, and asinine to bait him into getting himself banned again since I can get away with whatever I want and the staff doesn’t care about him at all.. all i have to do is call him toxic in every response with nothing to back it up and he will make a response crushing me with logic and substance, my friend mods will ignore my baseless insults/instigations and ban him for winning an argument and making me feel bad.”

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Black

[Ferret]

?

[X3M]

You are simply assuming I would hate TS. I consider that as toxic behaviour.

Back to topic:
The artillery was an "extreme" in the game. The range was ridiculous, compared to other units.
This made it hard for the designers to balance it properly. In Firestorm they added the inaccuracy on moving targets. Which is something they put in by mechanical means, not by natural effects. So, @Dark Horse with the help of the right people here, you should be able to undo this effect.

Back then, the designers didn't know yet about the cumulative effects that ranged units can have.
The threshold of overkill could easily be obtained.
I could go into detail as of how and why. But instead I suggest to play around with the damage of the Artillery, once you removed this inaccuracy.

[Hungry Mike]

I love Reapers !!! They are so cute and just mow down anything, heal in tib, stop inf.

[Black]

On 2/4/2020 at 4:46 AM, X3M said:

You are simply assuming I would hate TS. I consider that as toxic behaviour.

Back to topic:
The artillery was an "extreme" in the game. The range was ridiculous, compared to other units.
This made it hard for the designers to balance it properly. In Firestorm they added the inaccuracy on moving targets. Which is something they put in by mechanical means, not by natural effects. So, @Dark Horse with the help of the right people here, you should be able to undo this effect.

Back then, the designers didn't know yet about the cumulative effects that ranged units can have.
The threshold of overkill could easily be obtained.
I could go into detail as of how and why. But instead I suggest to play around with the damage of the Artillery, once you removed this inaccuracy.

Please provide your source for all the information you have on the development of the artillery unit. You are using language that suggests that what your saying is backed up by authority and not just your personal opinion.

Im not making an assumption. I’ve never seen you make a single post in this section of the site that wasn’t hostile or condescending. Maybe that’s just the baseline of your personality and you don’t recognize it. But to those who don’t know you it comes across as disdainful. 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Black

[Hungry Mike]

On 2/4/2020 at 11:46 AM, X3M said:

The artillery was an "extreme" in the game. The range was ridiculous, compared to other units.
This made it hard for the designers to balance it properly. In Firestorm they added the inaccuracy on moving targets. Which is something they put in by mechanical means, not by natural effects. So, @Dark Horse with the help of the right people here, you should be able to undo this effect.

Back then, the designers didn't know yet about the cumulative effects that ranged units can have.
The threshold of overkill could easily be obtained.
I could go into detail as of how and why. But instead I suggest to play around with the damage of the Artillery, once you removed this inaccuracy.

Arts are bad against tits compared to tanks in early or middle game. The same for well microed disses. Its only fair that,  if you are in later game and survived the GDIs strength (rushs), you have an adventage as Nod. Your speculation about the WW team knowing/not knowing about the art range effect sounds substantive to me, i would agree on that. But what Beethoven, Bach or Monteverdi wanted with their notes doesnt change anything about the notes; the intention can be a tool to interprete the note, but it cant replace the notes without destroying the original workpiece. The same for TS: If they misscalculated it or not, doesnt matter; their intention doesnt make X good or bad. The question is: Is is it good or bad? And i dont see any problem with artillery nor do i think they are op. For instance in Terr, you dont see the best (Nod) player, Mola, using them much, instead he goes for other stuff, and only later builds artillery.

[X3M]

I only provide to those that aren't trolling.

If Dark Horse requests, I will provide personally. It contains google searches, research and math with statistics. On general terms for all RTS.

I am in disdain to those that make blatant assumptions. I only find those kin, on this forum.

 

[Black]

8 hours ago, X3M said:

I only provide to those that aren't trolling.

If Dark Horse requests, I will provide personally. It contains google searches, research and math with statistics. On general terms for all RTS.

I am in disdain to those that make blatant assumptions. I only find those kin, on this forum.

 

So in other words, you have nothing except confirmation bias at best.

reported for abusive trolling, instigation, and negativity towards a game you have a personal problem with. 

You’ve had this same attitude, intent, and vitriol in every interaction I’ve ever had with you. 

You have no right or authority to make any claims towards any matter of this game. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it or that it wasn’t made exactly as intended. 

Your trolling and hate is unhelpful and unwelcome in our community.

[X3M]

12 hours ago, Hungry Mike said:

Arts are bad against tits compared to tanks in early or middle game. The same for well microed disses. Its only fair that,  if you are in later game and survived the GDIs strength (rushs), you have an adventage as Nod. Your speculation about the WW team knowing/not knowing about the art range effect sounds substantive to me, i would agree on that. But what Beethoven, Bach or Monteverdi wanted with their notes doesnt change anything about the notes; the intention can be a tool to interprete the note, but it cant replace the notes without destroying the original workpiece. The same for TS: If they misscalculated it or not, doesnt matter; their intention doesnt make X good or bad. The question is: Is is it good or bad? And i dont see any problem with artillery nor do i think they are op. For instance in Terr, you dont see the best (Nod) player, Mola, using them much, instead he goes for other stuff, and only later builds artillery.

This is a good and well explained view.

The intention indeed seems to that artillery need to build later on. They need a clean basis provided by other units, before entering the battlefield as support. The threshold for artillery in TS seems to be very fast and perhaps to fast in this regard. Which can be seen as an (my) opinion or needs to be subject to a community vote if you will. The WW team followed up with FS shortly after they brought out TS, so the WW team did know about this balance that was hard to achieve by practical testing. No doubt they tried hard with TS. The solution through FS; the inaccuracy on the weapon: Imho a well thought fix outside the scope of mathematical balancing. A fix for practical balance through other means, is still a valid fix.

I find it interesting that you don't see the artillery as OP. Is this a case of preventing a snowball effect? Thus preventing certain thresholds?

Does Mola play TS or FS or both? Just curious. The artillery feel so very different in both games. What is a top player preference?

If anyone wonders. Regarding the threshold that I am talking about. It is the number of units you need to get, before they become in certain ways "invincible", where otherwise there was a way to defeat them by the "wrong" means. Idk if I elaborated this before.

[DAIJOUBU?]

On 2/2/2020 at 7:15 AM, X3M said:

Range got calculated wrong in that game any way.

Is there any documentation on this bug? I'm really into the inner workings of these games

[Black]

@X3M

That post is just an opinion of a low tier player. Which doesn’t include any details or sources of these “miscalculations”.

 

 There are many applications for artillery even in early game. Especially if you have a starting position that has a bottle beck entrance or cliff surroundings. Think being TL on terraces with enemy units moving between your cliff entrances.

@Hungry MikeMola is not a good long game or defensive player(notice that less than 1% of his games last longer than 5-10 minutes) His play style depends on extreme aggression and pressure. Players like corpsmakr utilize them and they were much more common on old servers where the game speed wasn’t so fast. Furthermore, your reference point is limited only to terrace which is a fully open map. On large maps like river runs and forest fires artilary are extremely effective. As well as bottle necked maps like Grand Canyon and crater. GDIs mobile mechs will always have advantage on open map and nods OP stationary defense will always have advantage on larger/closed off maps that force bottle necks or cliff pathing.

mola doesn’t and ever did play FS. On FS artilary/juggernauts do not hit moving targets. Which made them useless for unit defense.

Artillery are equally as useful/useless as the GDI hover MRLS which has applications under the same scenarios. MRLS are trash on open maps but extremely effective on large/bottle neck maps where air units take over as the primary attack method. 

Edited February 7, 2020 by Black

[DAIJOUBU?]

18 minutes ago, X3M said:

If anyone wonders. Regarding the threshold that I am talking about. It is the number of units you need to get, before they become in certain ways "invincible", where otherwise there was a way to defeat them by the "wrong" means. Idk if I elaborated this before.

what you're calling a "threshold" most RTS players would probably call "critical mass", and it applies mainly to the situation where a ranged unit no longer needs a frontline, or where a group of backline units can shrug off most direct attacks, because nothing can tactically close the gap

it's largely a matter of targeting and accuracy since smaller groups absorb random non-splash shots more evenly and thus won't get enough shots off, but any unit with any combination of long range, a slow firing rate, high accuracy, passive self-maintenance, a force-multiplier and a splashy warhead is a unit that is more likely to cross that threshold

[dkeeton]

In vanilla TS, artillery is hard coded in the EXE to be stronger and do more terrain damage in the campaign. When playing a skirmish or online, artillery will have the stats listed in rules.ini

[X3M]

9 minutes ago, DAIJOUBU? said:

Is there any documentation on this bug? I'm really into the inner workings of these games

It is not regarding a bug.
It is merely a misunderstanding in combat statistics.
It clearly can be shown with extremes, which the artillery unit has in range.
To fix it: the WW team added inaccuracy to the damage in the Firestorm expansion.

Which reminds me, does anyone know, how much the inaccuracy actually is?

 

[DAIJOUBU?]

  

8 minutes ago, X3M said:

It is not regarding a bug.
It is merely a misunderstanding in combat statistics.
It clearly can be shown with extremes, which the artillery unit has in range.
To fix it: the WW team added inaccuracy to the damage in the Firestorm expansion.

Which reminds me, does anyone know, how much the inaccuracy actually is?

 

ah, personally I don't think it's possible to "calculate range wrong" unless there's a bug involved. everything else is just a gameplay abstraction and that sort of thing is always forgivable except in flight simulators and documentaries

[Black]

18 minutes ago, X3M said:

It is not regarding a bug.
It is merely a misunderstanding in combat statistics.
It clearly can be shown with extremes, which the artillery unit has in range.
To fix it: the WW team added inaccuracy to the damage in the Firestorm expansion.

Which reminds me, does anyone know, how much the inaccuracy actually is?

 

What would be the point if the unit even existing if it didn’t out range other units? It’s also extremely vulnerable to fodder and can’t hit units that are too close to it.