Expand and Exterminate version 0.42

[lurker]

Still lots of people here insist that Aliens as a faction are overpowered. So, what am I doing wrong? For instance, what is a good initial build sequence to keep energy problems to a minimum?

this is what I used last game, worked pretty well: mex, energy pylon, mex, energy pylon, scout, scout, all three units go off to seperate mex spots, after the com makes one more mex, let him wait until the scouts have made at least one mex each, then build a combat form, maybe another energy pylon and another scout, and then a combat form or con

And the only reason I can think of to make tons of energy pylons is if you're trying to power many T2 mexes on T1 power. Not a good plan. Either that or going into late game without teching to any advanced energy pylons.

[Smiff]

which bots can play this sorry?
KAIK seems to get stuck after a while on GD

[eriatarka]

@lurker:

Thanks, that helped a lot. Indeed upgrading my mexes too early was probably part of the problem. I just had another game and did much better; the trick seems to be to send out the combat forms early, and when they arrive at your mex spot or whatever, immediately clone them and send those clones off even further. This way you can cover a lot of ground pretty early in the game.

After a promising start, I was slowly driven back again because of the insane amount of micro management involved. You have to remember where you have put all your groups of combat forms and periodically go back to them to reinforce them through cloning, at the same sending off parts of them for raiding... I'm not particularly good at multitasking, so after a while I just got overwhelmed.

I think one problem is that this cloning/morphing business breaks the powerful queuing system we are used to having. You can set a form to repeat clone, but there is no way (I know of) to set a rally point for the clones or even give them any kind of orders until they are finished.

Anyway, when I was about to lose Spring crashed Unfortunately my infolog.txt never seems to get those stack traces (anyone know why that could happen?).


@Smiff:

KAIK seems to do pretty well as URC or GD for me. Of course you can't let it play Aliens since it doesn't understand cloning or morphing.

[Fanger]

The alien armored form is fine IMO, while it has a big dps, its very slow and low ranged, so you can dance it pretty easily with battletanks/plasmabots/light aliens.

Thats the problem sleksa its not "very slow" at least not IMO, being that it has a speed of 1.25 vs a GD light battle tank with a speed of 1.26.. That is a very small difference, and if you ran the numbers not even the Flamethrowers/Lasers have that much DPS at lvl 1.. it has nearly as much DPS as a lvl 2 unit, and the HP, but not the cost..

Alien transport has no animations peet.. I dont know whats causing that crash.. it is beyond me to fix...

[Google_Frog]

Drop armored forms from transports onto incoming armies although I can't do this atm because the game crashes. If hey have aa drop them where the army is going.

[Fanger]

I really dont know why that is google_frog.. I wish I could fix it..

Is there a general consensus that the aliens are OP and that they do need some nerfs, which of which it was further suggested that the Armored from take a HP nerf, the scout form be moved to only the cons build menu so youd have to build the con first to get the scouts but could still use them to expand, thus slowing down alien expansion, and of course the support form has again been tagged as OP..

Is this something other people have noticed..?

[Decimator]

I think the targeting facility functionality of the lvl2 radars should be removed. This would make artillery have to fire with less accurracy, enabling more attacking later in the game.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

find some way to put "build additional pylons" into gaem plz

[Relative]

Reducing the DPS of light combat forms and reducing the damange and health of armoured forms should balance out the t1 units. Increasing the cost of t4 units such as the capitalship and penetrator should put the aliens more in line with the other sides.

I'm not sure about limiting scouts to light cons though. Maybe you should just reduce the scouts build power so the aliens don't expand so quickly.

[Decimator]

Well Relative, remember that pushing them to light con forms will only delay their arrival. After the first scout is built, the player can just clone them to his satisfaction.

[Relative]

Its just that I've found making a con early causes stalling due to their justified high cost, thus putting the aliens at a disadvantage at the start. By reducing the scouts build power you slow down there expansion and remove the addtional problem with them being an uber, mobile nano tower.

[Fanger]

Im going to change up the light alien units, excluding the AA form..

1. The scout will have his build speed reduced to slow him down

2. Armored form will now have a toggle mode, Armored mode will give him Lots of HP, but he will be unable to fire his weapon and will move at a decent rate.. Armed mode will open him up allowing him to fire his weapons but will severly reduce his HP, and cause him to slow down..

3. Support form will be change to the Artillery form and will only have a light artillery weapon which it will now fire in hightrajectory mode

4. Light combat form will have a missile launcher added to him.. this will keep the availablity of missiles at lvl 1, and bring him more in line with his other forms at lvl 2/3.. he will recieve a cost increase to pay for this..

[Pxtl]

On Armored form: will you follow the TA pop-up convention with that (Off = always closed, On = auto-open to attack, otherwise close) or the "modern" BA-style approach (On=open, Off=close).

[j5mello]

i'm gonna say second one as that will prevent silly things like them closing up just before entering a battle.

As to the the revisions it all sounds good. i meant to bring up the High traj thing on tues-wed but i forgot...

[KDR_11k]

i'm gonna say second one as that will prevent silly things like them closing up just before entering a battle.

Wouldn't that actually be a good idea? They're better off closed while they're approaching.

Maybe they could be like Gundam's Goufs, i.e. they have almost no range but anything that gets really close gets stunned so the enemy has an incentive for shooting them but you need an actual combat force behind them to finish the job? Would allow them to function as a meatshield better and make it possible to give opther alien T1 units a HP nerf.

[Pxtl]

If you go with the manual approach _please_ provide a widget to manage it automatically (like "if enemy within firing range * 1.25, open, otherwise close). Manual open/close is nasty micro (unless the open/close takes a super-long-time to do and is practically a morph - in that case it's handy).

[smoth]

On Armored form: will you follow the TA pop-up convention with that (Off = always closed, On = auto-open to attack, otherwise close) or the "modern" BA-style approach (On=open, Off=close).

default mode. Armored.
toggled mode. unarmored but ready for fight.

If you go with the manual approach _please_ provide a widget to manage it automatically (like "if enemy within firing range * 1.25, open, otherwise close).

Auto is fucking gay. the units could then be taunted open by a scout. No, my troops should follow my orders.

Manual open/close is nasty micro (unless the open/close takes a super-long-time to do and is practically a morph - in that case it's handy).

AFAIK it is a morph and it would be fairly quick as the units are just opening up.


Fang, can you add a cooldown time to the morph so people cannot sploit it? or will it be timed with an anim aswell?

[Fanger]

I can easily using the replace lua stuff alter how long it takes to do both.. and the unit would likely be locked in place whilst switching.. similiar to the submersible battleship..

[Google_Frog]

I think the scout forms should stay comm buildable. Alien has trouble holding the land gained from fast expansion because the con that can build turrets coasts 800m as opposed to 100m for the other races. I agree with the buildspeed reduction to make them less op when assisting.

[KDR_11k]

Why the replace? Even OTA supported damage modifiers, just use set ARMORED. If you want the armor to affect different weapons differently (e.g. armor piercing are unaffected or something) you can use HitByWeaponId. The Byte in KPDZ uses that to be armored against anything except nukes when closed and lose its armor bonus if it's stunned.