Finally after countless hours of work and testing, we're presenting you BA version 10.
We used to have a somewhat weekly release with much fewer changes, but due to the scope of this release that wasn’t possible without breaking changes and uncompleted work.
We aimed it to be ready much sooner, with fewer changes overall, my apologies for the long wait.
Since our last release, a new Spring engine has been released. BA 10 supports Spring engine 103 and 104.0.1-104 (104 maintenance engine that has fixes applied to 104). Because Mac users can’t run 104, we still support 103. (it’s due to Apple not having support for the used OpenGL version, 105 is aiming to use a compatible GL version again)
Download BA 10.00 here: https://springfiles.com/spring/games/ba ... ilation-96
Download the 104.0.1-104 engine here: https://springrts.com/dl/buildbot/defau ... 4-g2135e2e
The main goal of this release was graphical improvements, because this was going to take a lot of work and time, we thought it was a good moment to do some mechanics/balance testing in the meantime.
Renamed widget folder to Widgets_BA (if you want custom widgets, (re)name your widget folder) This is so you can have custom widgets for BA specifically.
Important: Old time BA players can adjust their interface to match the one they are used to (i.e. hide unit costs on uniticons) in options menu.
Summary of the changes below
(See Full changelog for details)
Particle effects
We stripped the death particle effects defined by all unit scripts and replaced them with CEG particle effects that offer much more customization. By doing so we encountered a ton of unit script animations being broken and this took quite the extra development time. The new particle effects also increase the overall particle count. There is still room for optimization and we have to see how much this affects larger games. If explosions fail to show… increase “Max particles” via options window.
Lighting
We’ve added deferred lighting, this means explosion and projectile lights have been added that actually lights the ground and unit models around it. Because of this I’ve made the groundflash ‘light’ less bright compared to the old situation. So if you don’t have ‘Light Effects’ enabled (via Options window) you will experience less bright explosion flashes than before. The lifetime and amount of the lighting is customizable too.
Unit distance/radar icons
Are reworked to have more detail and quality. Finding objects of interest like LRPMs etc. was made easier. When it looks more blurry then it’s probably because you have no Anti-Aliasing enabled, the old icons were more forgiving in that regard.
Unit textures
Have been reprocessed to have a higher bit-depth, resulting in less grainy/noisy and cleaner look.
Interface
We’ve removed and combined widgets for Resource bars, Energy Conversion, Wind Display, Com Counter, Rejoin progress was merged into the new 'Top Bar' widget.
The energy conversion slider is now integrated into the energy resource bar.
The console/chat has been split in 2 console widgets/areas, one for chat, and one for system messages. If you prefer the old console situation then this is toggleable via options window.
The buildmenu unit icons have added meta/energy cost, which can be disabled via the options window. Via the options window you can also add shortcuts for the buildmenu.
On a general level: tooltips pop up next to the mouse cursor when they are available.
The buildspacing shortcuts are changed to ALT+Z and ALT+X like they were in the old days.
Reasoning is that you don’t have to stretch while queuing holding down SHIFT.
Area mex button has been added for constructors, click and drag an area and metal extractors will be built on the available metal spots.
A lot of units (buildings) have their useless repeat/stop/wait buttons removed.
The options window has a lot of added options which includes a dropdown with graphical presets.
Gameplay
The minimal build-range of all constructor units has been increased.
Wrecks reclaim speed has been overally reduced -10%
Commander blast has changed. The radius is the same, but the range that it’s lethal to other commanders has been reduced. This is to counter easy combombing enemy coms.
Chicken Defence
Has been updated and integrated into BA. This way it’s possible to switch to chicken defence, also maintaining its code is easier this way. Just add an chicken AI bot and make sure you have startboxes set. ("!autobalance off" to manually get everyone on the same team)
Movement
Spring engine 104 brings us raw unit movement, and we’ve also greatly reduced units getting stuck on cliffs.
Vehicles with tracks can turn-in-place. The angle limit depends on the unit's turnrate (equal to the turn that can be performed in one second). Wheeled vehicles cannot do this (Jeffy/Samson). Tachyons, artillery and banishers can move in reverse at 60% max speed.
Pathing example between v10 and v9.46: (less stuck units)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnthTnhdcw0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C1NOIeuK5c
Vehicles
We have improved vehicle movement so it becomes the best choice for flat areas again. The improvements lay in the fact that slowdown penalty are less of a thing when turning. Also the new raw-move functionality of the engine helps in by not having to heavily turn units along their path and as a result slowing them down on every turn.
Air
AA missile range has been increased a bit. Bombers do more damage. Air movement has been made more reactive, having a faster acceleration, brakerate, turnrate in order to get a better control over planes: lower landing distance, lower takeoff time and more freedom with its enhanced mobility.
Other
Rarely used units are made more attractive like: Vanguard, Decoy commander, Tremor, Marauder and mobile t2 artillery.
Mod options
We’ve added some optional (experimental) modoptions.
map_waterlevel will flood or dry up any map (-1 = Dry, 0 = Unchanged, 1-100 = WaterHeight in % of maxheight.)
map_tidal applies tidal strength (low = 13, medium = 18, high = 23)
mo_unba will gradually level up commanders with weapon upgrades when they gain xp.
mm_diminish_factor will reduce metalmaker efficiency.
reclaimunitefficiency set how much metal a reclaimed unit should give back.
smallfeaturenoblock lets small 2x2 wreckage not block movement
Sea
ECONOMY
After testing the Offshore Metal Extractor, we came to agree that the objective in terms of game balance and mechanics was sane but the implementation of a surface metal extractor that we had tested was off. For this reason, we haven't changed the current metal extractor (underwater metal extractor) yet. We only postponed this change since it felt very necessary to us, devs, and to some of you, players, to have means to harass sea metal extractors without necessarily relying on submarines or destroyers or even sea at all.
The lack of any Tidal alternative in low tidal maps made me develop a modoption to force a tidal strength setting. This option is called "map_tidal" and can be set to low, medium, high. Respectively 13,18,23. This gives access to tidals on any map. Comes in pair with map_waterlevel which will be described further.
Again, since all t1 sea energy incomes actually come from regular tidals, an alternative consisting of Underwater Geothermal has been made. Depending on the results, it is possible that in the later versions, this gets moved to the surface of the sea.
The rest of the economy hasn't been altered by this time, and i don't think there is a necessity to change anything to the metal makers, storages, or the costs of tidals.
DEFENSIVE BUILDINGS
The floating dragon teeth costs are decreased and this might come with some hp and build time tweaks.
The gun platform is a defense tower with 430 range and approx 110 dps. Its accuracy isn't perfect but it deals the maximum amount of damages any time it hits (unlike the llts which deals reduced damages over distance). It's main purpose is a cheap/easy to make scout defense, and also, with a lower efficiency, against corvettes. Some might say it's a water LLT. I would argue with this, since it's less effective and cannot deal with underwater units (such as commanders... which is very important).
The torpedo launcher has been made overall lighter, and embarks a small range sonar (half of its total range). It won't be able to outrange submarines, and will even be outranged if they don't have a proper sonar coverage by scouts, support ships, or static Radar/Sonar Tower (see below). It is kept in commander build menu as its only mean to defend itself in a commpush. It doesn't provide a very effective firepower against ships, but has a greater range than the gun platform.
The FHLT: This one only had its cost reduced a bit since it was very expensive to start with.
UTILITARY
Nano platform = Basically a nano turret, with higher m cost and lower e cost to fit the sea economy more.
Radar and sonar MERGED: This means no need for a dedicated sonar, so no reason to "forget" it, but also less cheap (since you are forced to spend m for both the sonar and radar) and also targeted by surface units, not only uw weapons. Overall it allows a better sonar coverage, but also spotted more easily, and destroyable by scouts, air, hovers...
SHIPS
T1 Sea Constructor: Builder dedicated to sea, which brings the possibility of teching. Build power was reduced to 125 (vs 250), and it gained the ability to build Nano Platforms and land factories.
T1.5 Hovercraft Constructor: Non dedicated constructor that does not bring any teching possibility, but allows both sea and land t1 engineering.
Scout : It has been made lighter and the AA has been nerfed. It now embarks a small sonar. It's main purpose is early detection and harassment.
Corvettes: Their DPS is huge and grows bigger the closer they get to their target. They are -almost- melee raiders. Their speed allows them to dodge plasma shots and destroyer depth charge. They have a very light armor and therefore are very weak when idling. They are the most efficient when shooting on the sides (circling around an enemy and taking advantage of their speed). Their dps is halved when facing or running from an enemy.
Plasma Frigates: They are a balanced unit that can take on both corvettes and destroyers. The arm one has two cannons but the front one can only target front and on the sides. The core one has only one cannon that can shoot 360°. They are relatively armored ship.
Support Frigates: They are relatively armored AA and depth charge units. They can be used to counter submarines with a very high cost effectiveness, but also to target commanders and other UW units. They are helpless against any surface unit (ships/hovers).
Submarines: Glass cannons. They are weak to anything that can target them but have deadly torpedoes. They can move backwards on small distances (this was meant to allow some more subs micro, especially against comms)
Destroyers: Although it is inaccurate, slow. It also packs a depth charge launcher which will kill t1 submarines with 2 shots, and 3 shots for sub killers/t2 construction subs. They will gain accuracy over experience gains, as well as a lot of hp so they are worth microing. Don't try rushing them on their own and sending them alone. Since they are very slow and inaccurate they will end up dead, killed by corvettes cost for cost. They are mainly good at taking down slower units, porc, and harrassing coasts.
Rezz sub: They now have reduced workertime/resurrect speed. Since they can now be spotted by scouts and support frigates in addition to submarines and destroyers, which makes them less likely to just pop units out of nowhere.
OTHERS
Ships TurnInPlace to avoid "random" speed losses on small turns (just like vehicles on land) and allow more micro and less "luck" or unpredictable factors in the sea battles.
Movement speeds reduced (a lot) to make the game globally slower and give (again) more space to micro management of units.
Factory cost increased, unit costs decreased: Allow slightly more units to be built overtime while reducing the efficiency of rushes to force longer struggles for sea (instead of quick battles that decide the outcome of the game too fast).
Thanks to all contributors
• Floris - Graphics, interface and all but sea balancing
• Doo - Sea rebalancing and general assisting
• Triton - Testing and T1 balance
• PtaQ - Maintaining and filling the website, unit radar icons and descriptions
• Forboding Angel - For setting the stage for the graphical changes and assisting
• All others who occasionally contributed (Tzaeru, BasiC, ...)
Here is a useless rendered video of the code changes since then
https://youtu.be/YyHT2xWIiD0?t=635
We now also have a website!
https://balancedannihilation.com
Merry Christmas!
(30000 Brawler tree)
Full changelog
Code: Select all
Important:
• Renamed widget folder to Widgets_BA (if you want custom widgets, (re)name your widget folder)
Chicken Defence
• Has been integrated into BA. Just add an chicken AI bot and make sure you have startboxes set. ("!autobalance off" to manually get everyone on the same team)
Balance changes:
• All Energy and metal prices have been rounded (to fit their display in buildmenu)
• Introduced a minimum (slightly larger) buildrange
• Global edgeeffectiveness buff of 0.15.
• TargetBorder for all weapons: They don't aim for unit centers, but rather any part of the unit that can be aimed at.
• Wrecks reclaim speed is more dependant on reclaimer's reclaimSpeed and reclaimSpeeds have been overall reduced (-10%).
Movement
• Raw unit movement implemented
• Pathing improvement: units won't get stuck in cliffs any longer
• Pathing improvement: units won't go back and forth while walking along a cliff
• Vehicles with tracks can turn-in-place. The angle limit depends on the unit's turnrate (equal to the turn that can be performed in one second). Wheeled vehicles cannot do this (Jeffy/Samson)
• Tachyons, artillery and banishers can move in reverse at 60% max speed.
• Improved Air Units manoeuvrability and lowered TurnRadius (allowing close move commands)
Commanders
• Diminished blast radius damages versus Commanders, still lethal at dgun range.
• Torso turnspeed increased 33% + dgun reloadspeed reduced 10%
• UWLaser damages increased to 150 dps (default) and 75 dps (subs).
• Decoy commanders have been given same lasers as regular commanders
• Decoy commanders 8% cheaper + same buildpower as com + added Radar, LLT and AA as buildoptions
Air
• Air transports unload bug fixed: don't have collision enabled anymore
• Thunder hp increased 560 -> 600 and speed increased 8.15 -> 8.50.
• Fixed flak doing ludicrous damage to ground units
• T2 bombers are in between current and right before the nerf of ba v7.92 (now better buildtime and cost less energy)
• Airlab costs decreased (1500e -> 1370 arm and 1400 core, 900 m -> 850m arm and 1000m -> 870m core).
• Chainsaw costs 8700e 750m => 7000e/600m, airlos 1000 -> 1200, range 1200 ->1250
• Armaak: missile damages +33 % (1:150 => 200 and 2:75 => 100)
• Coraak: flak reload time 5.5 -> 4.5
(AA) missiles:
• AA missile range increased a tiny bit
• T1 aa: pack0 and sam range increased, missile damage increased slightly and price increased 10%
• Fighters have been given more range due to slower missile speed and missile turnrate
Long range plasma
• Plasma shields are 50% weaker to non LRPC shots, 10% more range, cost reduced by 20%.
• Armvulc and corbuzz cost increased by 40%
• Bertha and Intimidator weapons have 15% more Area of Effect
Land T1
• Thuds and hammers will use a high trajectory mode when lowtrajectory weapon cannot shoot due to obstacles/ally units on the way
• Rezbots have 15% reduced speed, 50% reduced reclaimspeed (in addition to global -10%), 25 % reduced repair/rezz speed and 25% increased HP.
• Guardians/punishers have lower m cost (1500 -> 1250)
T2
• Fark workerspeed increased 16%
• Armmart and cormart (mobile T2 arty) do 15% more damage
• Morties are 5% slower and are a bit less accurate (even more when moving)
• Fixed viper overshooting (when aiming at radar dots)
• T2 mexes now use 20 energy instead of 25. (exploiter consumed 12, and now 20 as well).
• Moho Exploiter now has same health (2000 -> 3500) as regular moho, but does less damage per shot
• Core Tremor m cost 2000 -> 1800 + accuracy increased 15%
• Pelicans damage 70 -> 80, hp 910 -> 1050, turretspeed 150 -> 200 (y and x axis)
T3
• Vanguard does 15% more damage
• Marauder does 10% more damage and has 5% more health
• Shiva has more sightdistance (300 -> 520)
• Reintroduced KrogStomp (vs ground scouts + pws/aks only) as well as a GFX/SFX
• Removed T3 Hovercrafts from t3 sea factories, reduced costs, weaponery, hp and tweaked model size.
ARM = 1150m/33000e, 4750hp, UW capable cannon, 370 aoe damages per 1.8s
CORE = 950m/12000e, 3800hp, Surface only Heavy beam laser, 2150 damages over 1s per 9s.
Mod options
• Added map_terraintype: allows to cancel the TerrainType movespeed buffs of a map when disabled.
• Added map_waterlevel: allows to alter waterlevel (-1 = dry, 0 = unchanged, 1-100 = %maxheight)
• Added map_tidal: allows to change tidalstrength value (unchanged, low = 13, medium = 18, high = 23)
• Added mo_unba (Unbalanced Commanders) modoption. When enabled, the commander levels up as it gains XP, therefore gaining new weapons and abilities.
• Added reclaimunitefficiency (Set how much metal a reclaimed unit should give back. 1 = max, 0.5 = half)
• Added mm_diminish_factor (The strength of diminishing returns from metal makers. 0 = off, 1 = very strong diminish effect.)
• Control victory options: info on startup and offers a better scoreboard window
• Optional: Small (2x2) wreckage don’t block movement (smallfeaturenoblock)
• Optional modoption for fixed hitspheres (requires firethroughfriendly enabled)
This replaces hitboxes with correctly sized hitspheres.
Currently hitboxes are smaller than desired, this was done so that units can somewhat can fire over others
Smaller than desired hitboxes result in missed projectiles or projectiles passing through without hitting
Sea reworked
T1 ships
• Increased T1 shipyards costs.
• Increased Patrol Boats laser reloadtime and decreased hp, costs. Added a small sonar. Tweaked their speeds. Reduced AA range.
• Decreased Submarines costs and HP, tweaked their speeds.
• Decreased Destroyers speed, costs, and depthcharge AoE/speed, increased range, damages (especially towards submarines), HP and reloadtime.
• Added Plasma Frigates to both factions available in T1 Shipyard.
• Added Support Frigates (AA/Antisub) to both factions available in T1 Shipyard.
• Reduced Construction ships costs, buildpower, added land labs in buildmenu, tweaked speeds.
• Reduced Corvettes costs and HP, tweaked speeds and renamed "Fast Assault Corvette".
• Reduced rez submarines hp, costs, worketime and rez speed, tweaked speed.
• Added the Construction Hovercraft to the t1 sea labs.
• Nerfed the Construction Hovercraft build power to 90 for both arm and core (arm 150, core 125 before nerf)
T1 buildings
• Guardian, punisher, ambusher and toaster now have increased damages against ships (this was an old BA feature)
• Added Gun Platform to both factions available in T1 ship con, t2 engineer and Commander buildmenus.
• Reduced the Floating HLTs costs.
• Reduced the Torpedo Launchers costs, reload time and damages, increased their ranges to 475.
• Added Nanot Turret Platform to both factions available in amphibs, hovers, t1 construction ships and seaplanes.
• Merged the sonar and the floating radar into a floating Radar/Sonar tower with 1200 sonar range and its old radar range. Radar cost unchanged.
T1.5 Seaplanes
• Reduced the factory's metal and energy costs
• Used the generic amphibious build menu for Construction Seaplanes
• Reduced some of the energy costs that were crazily huge.
T1.5 Amphibious lab
• Removed Submarine from amphibious lab.
Movement
• Uses Raw move to avoid needless turns in water
• Ships can now turn-in-place (as it did back in 2012). This allows better control on boats by being able to anticipate if the unit will slow down for the turn or keep its max speed.
• Globally, maxspeeds, accelerations, brakesrates and turnrates have been decreased for a smoother handling and better feeling of inertia. In terms of balance, this also results in ships being globally weaker to non instantaneous (non beamlasers) weapons (including each other as most ships use plasmas).
Other
• Add SystemPrivacy=1 to springsettings.cfg to not send your system info
• Increased default player unit limit to 1500
• Renamed a lot of unit id's, so they start with arm/cor and the id fits the name
• Krogoth model scaled down (10%) and bantha model scaled up (5%) Flagships scaled up (15%)
• Some models scales have been changed in order to add a ship feeling to them (mainly longer Z-Axis)
• Arm Beamer updates its aim faster when firing
• Half the amount of critters, and smaller in size
Graphics
• All new particle/lighting effects!
• Radar/distance icons are more detailed/sharper and more various
• Projectiles/explosions/laserbeams can have lighting. 'Lighting Effects' option toggable via options widget. (default enabled)
• Added outline widget, toggable via Options (default disabled)
• Unit textures reprocessed with bigger color range and less grain
• Some units got remodeled for better looks
• More units have been given a shatter effect on death
• Bloomshader: prettier and more pronounced, added brightness slider and highlights toggle to Options
• Snow: added amount slider, map toggle and auto-reduction option to Options
• Some walking animations are improved
• Changed some missile models
• One universal tank script for the most basic tanks, which has preset animations that can be tweaked directly via unitDefs
Interface
• Console split into Chat Only and Battle/Autohost:
Chat console will handle all chats between players from and to lobby/all/team/spectators.
Battle/Autohost will handle all battlestates messages (warnings, errors, pauses, lags, afk, resigns...) and all autohosts messages (votes, rings...)
"!xxx" commands are hidden from players and only the feedbacks will be seen in the battle/autohost console.
Autohosts feedbacks on invalid commands or rings are hidden from players unless your name is mentionned by the host or you are the one who attempted the command.
Autohosts vote feedbacks only include: who started the vote, whose votes are missing, and vote results.
• GUI background 10% darker
• Added Tooltip widget, shows tooltips at mouse cursor location
• Buildmenu: shows metal/energy cost and tooltip on hover
• Buildmenu: could show shortcuts when enabled via Options widget
• Buildspacing shortcuts B and N are now ALT+Z and ALT+X
• Player Color Palette widget has beed added (rainbow scemed team coloring, toggable via Options)
• Removed 'Allies' label from advplayerslist
• Added grabinput widget (enable if you have problems with mouse detection in (borderless) window mode)
• Pausescreen changed and darkens screen or decolorizes it when shaders enabled
• Restyled prestart faction change widget (also scales with resolution)
• Spiced up the loadscreen progress bar, and removed old loadscreens
• Replaced engine info screen (shortcut i) with our own variant
• Spiced up 'Buildbar' and 'Selected Unit Buttons' widgets
• Added additional extensive unit description (by PtaQ)
• Unit info widget removed (the one that had the ctrl+u shortcut)
• Added quit button showing a custom resign/quit window
• Added widget "Set fighters on Fly mode" (default enabled), toggable via options widget
• Added widget "Depth of Field" (default disabled, when enabled: toggle with f10) ctrl+[] to in/decrease DoF
• Added widget "Tombstones" (default enabled), toggable via options widget
• Button click sounds added for various widgets
• Various (ui/control) widgets disable when you become spectator
• Unit stats: when not spectating: disabled unit info screen for selected units
Top bar widget
• Resource bars, Energy Conversion, Wind Display, Com Counter, Rejoin progress merged into 'Top Bar' widget
• No com counter when teams consist of just 1 player
• Escape key now hides windows: Keybinds, commands, changelog, options, quit, gameinfo
• Teamstats widget renamed, bugfixed, simplified, spiced up and has a fixed position
• Changelog widget: version shortcuts only show for every 10th version number
Options
• Added graphics presets
• Added labeled option groups, and a lot of new options
• Fixed that not all settings remembered their values
• Added option “Ex
Fixes
• Removed useless repeat/stop/wait order buttons from a lot of buildings
• Commands FX widget: improved performance
• Fixed units flying across the map after unloading from transporters
• Thanks to the new engine and pathfinding units will not get lost when walking along walls (ie. dsd west north spot)
• Ally Cursors widget: improved performance
• Fixed Team stats widget creating an unresponsive darkened/blurred screen
• Fixed commander nametags occasionally showing spectator name
• Fixed cursor size changing after alt tabbed to desktop and back
• Fixed glitchy/spiky healthbars shader on current intel gfx and very old cards
• Fixed unit_stats crashes when hovering enemy units. And dps values for beamlaser and stockpiling weapons
• Settarget queues will now be paused when a unit attempts to dgun.
• Settarget will stick to water surface instead of ground level if main weapon (weapon 1) cannot reach underwater.
• Highlight unit/highlight selected units widgets skip a unit when its shown as icon
• Map startbox widget won’t enable fog any longer
• Fixed BA los colors not initializing on first launch + enabled radar view by default
