Testing and balancing new Map based Mod

[AchromicWhite]

CURRENT DOWNLOAD BELOW!!!

Now on three maps!

Last Update: 05/Oct/14

 

 

This mod is based around re balancing RA1 Aftermath, in an effort to not only bring better balance between the two factions, but also to rein in over powered units to allow all units to be equally useful, ultimately making the game play and tactics more dynamic. I want to be clear, that while some units have changed sides, the over all feel of what the teams are about are to stay the same. This is not about just using RA1 to make a totally new game, but rather bring out the best in what is in it already.

It'd be nice to see if the new units were as such that the original campaign could still be played.

 

Below, I'll try and explain how each type beats another, what's been changed so far, and why.

 

The mod is starting out without anything at or above Radar Dome tech (so currently no Radar Dome), to make a strong base to add the other units onto. This is important, because if we start trying to add the more advanced units, especially the AM units, and find that a more basic unit is out of balance in comparison, we'd have to make a call to either change the more advanced unit, or the basic one. It's also harder to see if each tech level is actually balanced.

[Edit: Dome is now added, though the base probably still needs a little tweaking. Dome units added below]

[Edit: Tech Centers now released. Again, probably not fully balanced, but please download and play. All feedback it helpful. When I'm reasonably happy with this level, I'll move onto the ships. Then full release )

 

The current edition of it can be downloaded at the bottom.

 

 

 

Basic start up rock paper scissors type scenario: Troops > Battle Tanks > Artillery > Troops

This is the basic circle, but as you'll soon see there's a lot more to be had in this mod.

 

 

Troops

Both sides have Rifle inf still, then each have an anti troop inf. Sovs now have a faster flamer trooper at a low tech and allies steal the grenadier from the soviets.

I'm aware that this feels like TD, but it's just the way it really needs to be done. If soviets are given the gren, it leaves allies only with rifle and medic, which get killed too quickly to even be healed. Both sides need to be able to take one inf, so this seems the best way to do it. Obviously I COULD give the flamer to the Allies instead and let the soviets keep the gren, but flame tech is something that is closely associated with soviets in RA (like the flame tower, for example).

 

Sovs have dogs from a cheaper kennel and dogs are now only 100 (they die in one shot and can only attack inf, who wants to pay more? Also, this means people might actually want to build dogs )

 

Both sides have rocket troops, which are faster and have a projectile that is now better against tanks. It doesn't "lock on" and is faster, making it more similar to a tank shell. It's particularly important for allies to build a lot of, early, when against a soviet army. As I'll explain later.

 

Allies take the medic, giving them not only superior range from the grens but also healing, making their troops punchy, not only at the start of the game, but even later on.

 

Allies will also get the mechanic, but we might look at making him Dome tech, currently purchased after putting down a service depo, his stats remain unchanged.

 

Both teams have the engineer; they do 35% dmg to buildings now... but need 25% to capture. This means that 3 engineers will destroy a building on their own, but without the help of other things attacking the buildings, the cannot capture. If you'd like to see this one changed, please comment and give some ideas. (Trying to make something without cheese tactics).

 

Battle Tanks

ALL tanks are now slower, they feel more like the speed in C&C95 to allow infantry to be not only a threat, but actually a trump card, to tanks.

 

Allies keep their Medium Tank: it's stats are about = to a medium tank in C&C95, this makes it strong and gives you an idea how much inf power is needed to overcome it.

 

Soviets keep their Heavy Tanks: Now costs more (currently 1100, needs more people to balance this price out) It now has more HP (+100), it moves slow and still does it's 2x damage of a Med Tank. This is the soviet's "punchy" unit and means that like how the allies are trying to deploy a good inf army, soviets are trying to build a large tank army. However, because of the price tag, trying to make too many early in the game will almost certainly end in being swamped by infantry. Later, though, if they can produce enough, the tanks may well be able to literally roll over the infantry and win them the game.

 

Artillery

The allies keep their artillery, for just 600 it's as fast as a heavy tank (may up the speed to med tank) and have +1 range. Very useful for helping protect allied vehicles from enemy infantry.

 

This is where it becomes more dynamic...

The Soviets get the Yak: Now an early unit, the airfield is purchasable strait after the refinery. While it's attack damage is the same, the warhead is now HE, rather than SA. What that means is that, instead of being a trail of gun piffs spraying up, you'll see what looks like a string of tiny explosions along the ground, while this IS more effective against certain armor types, it (more importantly) widens the damage, so that MORE units are hit by the strafing plane. This places the Yak as the soviet artillery unit. Remember that the only offensive Vehicle the Soviet WF gives is the Heavy Tank.

 

 

Extra Units

These are units that don't fit directly into that loop, but are still part of the game, and are very important to each team's ability to deal with different situations.

 

Allies keep their Light Tank: It's cheaper (600) fast compared to the other tank, less HP and fire power, but due to its firepower and mass numbers, can be hard for soviets to handle. Their early flyers cannot do enough damage to them when they're massed, and their tanks can't keep up, forcing the soviets to use their rocket troops, spread out around their base, to take care of them. Out in the field, the light tanks can be an annoyance and a large threat to harvesters.

 

The allied Ranger (Jeep) fore fills a similar roll:  Now only 400 to build, it will remind C&C95 players a LOT of the classic Humvee. Great for picking off stray infantry, or sniping distant buildings, soviet ground forces will have trouble keeping up.

 

The allies now have the APC: Heavy armor, good speed and a MG to top it off, it's a pretty sweet vehicle, with all the soviet air units that fire SA and HE, keeping your troops in an armored vehicle might be what's going to keep them alive until they're needed. The extra speed over inf means it can keep up with other allied vehicles easily, and means you're able to move in rocket troops to protect them from soviet air attacks. Heavy armor means there is no soviet air units that can badly damage it, in the early game.

 

Not to be totally left out, the soviets now have the Convoy Truck: It has light armor and no weapon, but can carry your troops around for only 500. (Might look at changing the price).

 

Helipads can also be build strait off of the refinery. While the apache still needs the radar dome to be build, this means that the Allies get a transport copter for 600 in the early game and the Soviets get the Hind.

The Hind (flying tank): has Heavy armor and an extra 50HP (taking it up to 275, nearly the 300 of the vanilla RA1!) and is still armed with it's MG. It's two main tactics are to make quick work of allies rangers (which is why allies should look at having APCs with rocket troops in them to accompany) and to soak rocket troop fire while yaks swoop in and take out the infantry. -- (remember, the Yak is the soviet artillery, and needs to be able to take out enemy infantry. If rocket soldiers can take the yaks down, then they're not capable of doing their job, however... rocket soldiers, other than raids on landed air units, are the only real way to take down air units in the early game. So micro management on both sides, will be required to gain the advantage needed) --

 

Remember that the soviets also will be getting their spy plane and paratroopers with their early airfield, making soviets really reliant on getting up into the air, early in the game.

 

Dome Tech.

Buildings

 

Tesla: Now requiring the soviets to make dome, instead of just war factory, it is, other than that, currently untouched. Will probably need some serious balancing, as it's quite powerful.

 

GAP generator: Mostly untouched, but now only requires dome to be built.

Vehicles

Tesla tank: That's right, dome tech unlocks ALL soviet tesla tech, and so here comes the tesla tank. As quick as a medium tank, but still light armor, low HP, it's quite long range allows it to essentially "tank snipe". Place it behind a blockade and enjoy.

 

V2: The soviets can now finally deal with all those masses of allied troops. Costs 1000 now, and moves at the same speed as the med tank.

 

Mobile Gap: Yep, like how the soviets get all the tesla, allied get all the gap. Cover up and confuse your opponent... how are they gonna snipe tanks and use the V2 to hit where all the troops are when they can't see them? hehe

 

Apache: So the soviets can deal with the allied troops? well the allies can deal with the tanks. Anti tank aircraft, faster than the hind. nuf said.

 

Infantry

 

Shock Troop: I told you, at dome level... ALL the tesla: That's right, Soviets can get their Shock troops. I've had some trouble deciding what the EXACT point of this unit is (what it's good against, what it's not). Obviously soviet hinds/yaks are great against them, and artillery awesome at killing them also. They certainly should be good against tanks, and still cannot be squashed. They have a low Rate of fire, so less useful against infantry. Think of them as a rocket soldier that's a bit better against infantry, a LOT better against tanks (because they can't be crushed) and cannot attack air. Currently priced at 350. Needs serious balancing.

 

Spy: Better than ever... He can still do all he used to be able to; move around undetected by automatic unit's AI and infiltrate buildings and see what they're building, but they now also have a silenced pistol that can instant kill troops. It's got the same range as a rifle troop, but MUST be told to fire (like the commando in C&C95). Again, this is quite new territory, so needs balancing. Currently 500.

 

Tech Center Tech

 

Vehicles

 

Mammoth Tank: Multi-Purpose mega tank. Good against infantry vehicles. Same speed as a heavy tank (quite slow), to be balanced in a way where if you ONLY build mammoth, you can't beat an army of pure tanks. Might look at toning down the power of it's missiles a bit too.

 

M.A.D. Tank: Very slow and quite vulnerable. Does some serious dmg if you can deploy it in the right place. Might look at making it a bit faster, or giving it more armor. Doesn't dmg inf.

 

Phase Transport: The allies super stealth unit... great for spy/thief drop offs. The soviets are gonna have to be super vigilant once the allies reach this level of tech.

 

Chrono Tank: It teleports, it's quite slow, it's not that tough, it packs a punch of firepower. What more do you want to know?

 

Demo Truck... same as always. Might look at giving it a lower price.

 

Aircraft

 

Mig: Soviets finally unlock their mig, now priced at 1800. It's a great weapon against ALL vehicles and almost all buildings. Even a single AA gun can be taken out by 2 migs; if the migs are used correctly.

 

Super Weapons

Iron Curtain: Cheaper, faster to charge. have fun. If it seems to still be useless, please post why below. Thanks

 

Chronosphere: Again, Cheaper, faster to charge. have fun. If it seems to still be useless, please post why below. Thanks

 

Missiles Silo: Unchanged

 

 

 

That's about all for now. Other minor changes are already in the game, faster flame projectiles, less power from the flame tower but with a more frequent fire rate, slower harvesters etc.

 

Anyway, if you like the sound of this and would like to help out; inquire below. I obviously can't balance this by myself, but with some work and (fun ) this mod could be the next big thing on CnCnet as you can download it directly as a map, and can be easily ported to other maps as well.

 

You'll find tech trees for both sides, below. This is so that you can hopefully see how it all fits together;

the 3rd tiers are not yet in the mod, but that gives you an idea of where we're going with this. (They are not added because they are not yet balanced, and need lower tech to be better balanced to create a base for them to be placed upon).

 

CURRENT DOWNLOAD BELOW!!!

Now on three maps! (make sure you check out Icy, it's a brand new map!) Map preview here: http://imgur.com/fbZtzRu

Last Update: 05/Oct/14

 

All feedback is helpful, thank you.

  -Liam

 

The current edition of it can be downloaded below; 3 different maps.

HnS01AVE.mpr

HnS01BSX.MPR

HnS01Icy.mpr

[Jacko]

I would switch around the Artillery and V2 given what buildings they would mainly be used against

[Messiah]

I like the new minigun of the yak plane. Good deal!

 

Making the shock trooper same price as the rocket soldier made the game too outbalanced. It is not crushable and has a strong armor, so that guys are like walking tanks.

I prefer the slow speed of the bazooka and the flame thrower projectiles. So you can maneuvre around a flame tower with light tanks without being hit if you are good.

[AchromicWhite]

The artillery and V2 will stay on the same sides, as they're signature vehicles of each team (esp V2). Like I said before, I mostly want to keep units on the right sides of the teams. This mod isn't about making RA into something else, so much as it's about balancing and smoothing it out. I do understand what you're saying, however. Not a bad thought.

 

 

I'm glad you like the yak, it does what I want it to, without being too over the top.

 

I did push the shock trooper up to 400, so he costs a bit more now. Well worth noting that, if most of the crushing vehicles are much slower, than not being able to be crushed is less of an issue, but I might still look at changing the price to 500 though, they are very good... A single one can stop 4 other normal men being run over also... but still artillery wastes them. Really, it just forces allies to use arty etc. Also, note he can't shoot into the air. Which is now a really important roll of the rocket troops.

 

Should a tank be able to move faster than fire? I wanted projectiles to really hit their targets, so you'll actually notice that most of the projectiles are quicker. I've been working on making missiles/cannons etc more accurate in their ability to simply hit their targets. It's working out quite well. Very hard to balance a unit, that, if not moving will die quickly, but if moving, is near invincible. This also helps to make the game about WHAT you build, rather than just your ability to use the "q" function.

 

 

 

Thanks for the feelback though, happy to know people are starting to look at this.

I've also just updated it today Walls/Defenses can now be placed 4/3 squares from other buildings, allied fakes are now just Con Yard and Weaps (because who wants to make fake dome/S.yard), and now have the same HP as their counterparts and cost 100. Fake Weaps can be made after the refinery is up, so you can slap this down and lure in early sov air raids and use it to snipe out their stuff. Even if they kill it, you win out.

Also, Gap is  now a total defense building, cannot be captured, cannot have structures built off of it, can be placed 3 squares from other buildings.

 

  -Liam

 

 

[Jacko]

I always preferred the Fire Logic from Tiberian Dawn because it acted more like fire than a fireball, and simply worked better.

[AchromicWhite]

Agreed Jacko, if I could change it, I would. but alas, lol, I'm stuck with RA programming xD

  -Liam

[AchromicWhite]

By the way, I'm still quite desperate for more testers. So if you'd like to hit me and and help me test this game (pretty much by playing it), send me a message!!

 

 

You can even just trying playing some games of this against one another and see what units seem to be (too) awesome. Remember, if one unit seems to be powerful, make sure you try it against an enemy that's using it's counter (a unit that's good against it). It will, unfortunately, be of no use to me, for you to tell me that the infantry is too darn good because tanks couldn't stop them etc.

 

What I'm asking for, is that when you play with quite well balanced armies, of certain units just seem to be either too strong, to are always in too much of a mass (cheep to buy) to be able to stop.

 

Happy gaming! And please give feed back

  -Liam

[Messiah]

Should a tank be able to move faster than fire? I wanted projectiles to really hit their targets, so you'll actually notice that most of the projectiles are quicker. I've been working on making missiles/cannons etc more accurate in their ability to simply hit their targets. It's working out quite well. Very hard to balance a unit, that, if not moving will die quickly, but if moving, is near invincible. This also helps to make the game about WHAT you build, rather than just your ability to use the "q" function.

not faster than the projectile, but the tank could avoid to be hit, thats the goal on this. I think it was one of the most interesting ideas of the game to have bullets being strong against slow units and weak against fast. if the ltnk would be nearly invincible against the flame tower, the owner of the ftur needs to quickly move in a more effective unit like the heavy tank. another good example for this is the 1vs1 battle between submarine and gunboat.

In real battles were moving units are a greater challenge too and need advantaged weaponry. So the israelian army uses guided missiles to destroy the cars with hamas leaders, because tank bullets aren't accurate enough for this.

 

I see you completely removed the pillbox and the radar jam vehicle?

[AchromicWhite]

Yeah, again, just trying to make things balance by knowing what can kill what; rather than what can kill what IF it's not moving etc. So, about WHAT you build, less about just using "q" function.

 

I did take out regular pillbox... why do you want the one that's crappier when you can just have an invisible pillbox.

and though I kinda wanted the radar jammer in, I just can't think of why you'd really want to have it... maybe if I gave it a really long sight range? that's about all I can think of. Even saving the spy was kinda hard.

 

  -Liam

[Chad1233]

The ranger being a open topped unit should have really good view range making it the perfect scout. You could also have the regular pillbox as a cheaper variant for anyone low on ore just lower the price and maybe HP!

[AchromicWhite]

2 points about the ranger.

1. The ranger is now actually really useful. If you make a bunch of them at the start, soviet tanks just can't keep up. Even the yaks can have trouble hitting them. You'll notice they're much cheaper and also quicker. They're pretty much balanced to be like the GDI Humvee. We could make them even nastier if changed to be like a nod buggy xD But most importantly, it's sight range is one of the highest sight ranges anyway at Sight=6. Things that have higher sight are:

mobile radar jammer

cruiser

gunboat

and some buildings

2. This mods purpose isn't so much to be realistic, so much as that it's about building a game that's closer to TD, while still clearly being the RA teams. On the same note as you said about it being open topped, in a realistic situation, that would pretty much mean that all troops should have at least double the sight range.

 

 

Yes, well I think the regular pillbox is 400 while the camo pillbox is 600 in stock RA. Just seems like everyone would still just make the camo one... I suppose I could put it in, it just seems like it's another building that might not ever be built, or have a real reason to be. Which is the same reason I took out fake ship yard and fake radar dome.

I also find that if there's lots of unused cameos on the sidebar, it actually becomes more of an annoyance, rather than something that's in anyway helpful.

 

If people are super keen to have it back, I'll just pop it into the game, and probably do as you said; lower the HP.

What I really need right now, though, is more people to either contact me about a time to test it, or to find a buddy and play a bunch of games

 

Remember, other people don't even have to download the mod, as it's all built into the map. If people you're asking to play it with are unsure about it, you can even just direct them to this post so that they can get a clear idea of what the mod is about.

 

As always, thanks for the feedback, glad to know that this idea has some interest. It potentially has a good chance of being quite popular when it's complete.

And of course, when it's balanced, I'll port it to other maps, maybe even make some of my own for it and make a proper release in the mod section.

BUT FIRST I NEED TESTERS!

So get gaming!

 

  -Liam

[AchromicWhite]

For all those following the production of this mod. I've just had a whole load of games against new players, and they're picking it up quickly and even winning

The balance seems to be all good. Will look at releasing the next tech soon!

  -Liam

[AchromicWhite]

New map released!

Mod now ported to Arena Valley Extreme

Have fun!

  -Liam

[Ferret]

gr8 gaem m8 i r8 8/8 no h8 i appreci8

[AchromicWhite]

haha, cheers. It's got a while before it's perfect. Still needs ALL of the navy units balanced, and I'm unconvinced by the tanks and top tech units.

If you're around and can help with the balancing, that would be great. I kinda want to get through this so that I can get onto vamping up Classic Revolution.

  -Liam