Absolute Annihilation 2.23
Moderator: Moderators
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Machiosabre
- Posts: 1474
- Joined: 25 Dec 2005, 22:56
Play Balanced Annihilation. Problem solved (tremor was rebalanced).
Excellent report, TM!
Hello all, I thought it was about time I posted something. I've been very busy with my new job. The change of waking hours has been a real adjustment... I often times get home and just sleep until my next shift starts. I work 5:30 to 3:30, and myself not being a morning person....
AA isn't dead, not by a longshot. I really appreciate the work that's gone into Balanced Annihilation in the meantime, and strongly encourage people to try it until I can get the next official version finished. I haven't tried BA, for the same reason I haven't been working on AA much, but it comes with great praise from many knowledgeable people.
Regarding the "Abolition" project. I'll fill you in on the details, since it's caused so much confusion. My plan is to eventually seamlessly merge several of my mods-in-progress into one unified package. You could play Arm vs Galactic Empire, for instance. Or an Advance Wars race versus Core. It sounds impossible, and it probably is, but it's my ultimate goal. I view AA as being mostly "complete" - that is, besides silly numerical errors like jeffy/weasel's stats, the mod as a whole is pretty much finished large-scale development. What remains now is mostly just integration of new Spring features as they arrive.
The final Abolition project, which has been underway for some time now, will include the races:
Arm
Core
[new mod, army 1]
[new mod, army 2]
Xect
Mynn
TLL
GEM (Galactic EMpire)
OS (Orange Star, advance wars)
BM (Blue Moon, advance wars)
GE (Green Earth, advance wars)
YC (Yellow Comet, advance wars)
BH (Black Hole, advance wars)
plus the three races from EE if I got permission, and any others that might catch my attention.
Just Arm vs Core wasn't confusing enough
My plan was to include *one* of the above extra races (not telling which) with the next release. Absolute Annihilation Compilation. It's a mouthful, so I found a shorter word that was symbolic of a few things. It abolishes the old limitations of mods... It's like, putting every multiplayer FPS into the same game, and letting you choose which type of game you want your character to be from. You could be JC Denton playing counterstrike (and pwning for massive damage), or something. There's no longer any limits to what's possible now, thanks to Spring.
Each race has its own strengths and weaknesses. Arm and Core would both be the most "balanced" in terms of strength vs weakness. The Advance Wars armies would basically all be very similar to each other, but with canonical strengths and weaknesses. Their collective strength would come from the fact that they need only one resource and don't need much of a base. They would also lack a commander unit, instead having a HQ which is virtually impossible to destroy without either Advance Wars units on your side, or a sustained attack from other races. GEM would have other advantages... etc.
There's also the two completely original races. One more project of mine.
There would not be any copyrighted material in the game. All TA units would be recreated in high detail using original models and textures, retaining only the names of the original units, something that, based on my research, would not be much of an issue.
The reason why I said Abolition would replace AA was because, like I said, I intended to launch a completely new concept of mod, featuring one of the above races in a completed and balanced state. I've decided to hold off on that until I can get more races finished though.
Hello all, I thought it was about time I posted something. I've been very busy with my new job. The change of waking hours has been a real adjustment... I often times get home and just sleep until my next shift starts. I work 5:30 to 3:30, and myself not being a morning person....
AA isn't dead, not by a longshot. I really appreciate the work that's gone into Balanced Annihilation in the meantime, and strongly encourage people to try it until I can get the next official version finished. I haven't tried BA, for the same reason I haven't been working on AA much, but it comes with great praise from many knowledgeable people.
Regarding the "Abolition" project. I'll fill you in on the details, since it's caused so much confusion. My plan is to eventually seamlessly merge several of my mods-in-progress into one unified package. You could play Arm vs Galactic Empire, for instance. Or an Advance Wars race versus Core. It sounds impossible, and it probably is, but it's my ultimate goal. I view AA as being mostly "complete" - that is, besides silly numerical errors like jeffy/weasel's stats, the mod as a whole is pretty much finished large-scale development. What remains now is mostly just integration of new Spring features as they arrive.
The final Abolition project, which has been underway for some time now, will include the races:
Arm
Core
[new mod, army 1]
[new mod, army 2]
Xect
Mynn
TLL
GEM (Galactic EMpire)
OS (Orange Star, advance wars)
BM (Blue Moon, advance wars)
GE (Green Earth, advance wars)
YC (Yellow Comet, advance wars)
BH (Black Hole, advance wars)
plus the three races from EE if I got permission, and any others that might catch my attention.
Just Arm vs Core wasn't confusing enough
My plan was to include *one* of the above extra races (not telling which) with the next release. Absolute Annihilation Compilation. It's a mouthful, so I found a shorter word that was symbolic of a few things. It abolishes the old limitations of mods... It's like, putting every multiplayer FPS into the same game, and letting you choose which type of game you want your character to be from. You could be JC Denton playing counterstrike (and pwning for massive damage), or something. There's no longer any limits to what's possible now, thanks to Spring.
Each race has its own strengths and weaknesses. Arm and Core would both be the most "balanced" in terms of strength vs weakness. The Advance Wars armies would basically all be very similar to each other, but with canonical strengths and weaknesses. Their collective strength would come from the fact that they need only one resource and don't need much of a base. They would also lack a commander unit, instead having a HQ which is virtually impossible to destroy without either Advance Wars units on your side, or a sustained attack from other races. GEM would have other advantages... etc.
There's also the two completely original races. One more project of mine.
There would not be any copyrighted material in the game. All TA units would be recreated in high detail using original models and textures, retaining only the names of the original units, something that, based on my research, would not be much of an issue.
The reason why I said Abolition would replace AA was because, like I said, I intended to launch a completely new concept of mod, featuring one of the above races in a completed and balanced state. I've decided to hold off on that until I can get more races finished though.
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Guessmyname
- Posts: 3301
- Joined: 28 Apr 2005, 21:07
Three things:
1. How the hell do you plan on balancing that without losing your mind?
2. I thought the idea with Abolition was to get away from the TA IP. Instead, we're mixing in the Advance Wars and whatever IP GEM is based off (can't remember)
3. Don't all the Advance Wars races have the same units, with their stats tweaked a bit?
1. How the hell do you plan on balancing that without losing your mind?
2. I thought the idea with Abolition was to get away from the TA IP. Instead, we're mixing in the Advance Wars and whatever IP GEM is based off (can't remember)
3. Don't all the Advance Wars races have the same units, with their stats tweaked a bit?
GEM isn't space based. It's low-orbit based
A pure space-based mod is boring. So instead it's more like, planetary invasion. Ships are incapable of firing on most ground targets, and likewise ground targets cannot fire on ships. However, there is some crossover - for instance, things like Ion Projectors (think bigassed HLT) can shoot at ships, and ships likewise can shoot at them.
So, how do you fight on the ground? With tanks, of course! Tanks must be carried by transports. Transports will be priority targetted by ground batteries (projectors, I mean), so you must destroy the target's anti-ship defences before you attempt to land a ground force. On the ground, there are fortifications you can build (barracks, fortress, stronghold, bunker, etc) which can fire exclusively at tanks and other ground units.
Tanks on their own are pretty slow. Actually, they "appear" slow, since they are extremely small in relation to most units. Think, flea-sized, for the smallest kind. They are comparable to modern-day tanks. You can have a pure ground attack, but fighters can attack ground units and they'll therefore get pwnt in most cases before they arrive at their target. They also can't climb terribly well. No kbots are available to GEM players.
As I mentioned, there are certain crossovers. Like, fighters can attack anything they want to, making them very valuable! They are also pretty strong - 30 medium or high-powered ones can overwhelm most any lone ship, even the largest kinds. Besides using fighters to counter other fighters, they can be difficult to destroy. They are not TA-style fighters, but more like Homeworld 2-style corvettes. Destroyers and similar ships require 10 or more hits to kill one. They can only be effectively shot at by laser blasts, which move exceptionally fast. The larger the ship, the lesser its proportion of lasers to heavy weapons is. There's also a lot of arcs to think about. Destroyers have balanced fire arcs, although generally speaking even they have relatively weak aft firing. Cruisers are designed mostly to combat destroyers, other cruisers, and larger ships. Large cruisers can attack ground targets with the aid of slow-reloading bombs. Flagships have many bombs and can service fighters, have tons of HP, but are slow and have only 50% or so greater firepower than your average cruiser. However, because of their great HP, it would take 3-5 cruisers to kill one.
As you can see, it's a completely different kind of mod, but I will integrate it nicely... I've got lots of ideas for that.
A pure space-based mod is boring. So instead it's more like, planetary invasion. Ships are incapable of firing on most ground targets, and likewise ground targets cannot fire on ships. However, there is some crossover - for instance, things like Ion Projectors (think bigassed HLT) can shoot at ships, and ships likewise can shoot at them.
So, how do you fight on the ground? With tanks, of course! Tanks must be carried by transports. Transports will be priority targetted by ground batteries (projectors, I mean), so you must destroy the target's anti-ship defences before you attempt to land a ground force. On the ground, there are fortifications you can build (barracks, fortress, stronghold, bunker, etc) which can fire exclusively at tanks and other ground units.
Tanks on their own are pretty slow. Actually, they "appear" slow, since they are extremely small in relation to most units. Think, flea-sized, for the smallest kind. They are comparable to modern-day tanks. You can have a pure ground attack, but fighters can attack ground units and they'll therefore get pwnt in most cases before they arrive at their target. They also can't climb terribly well. No kbots are available to GEM players.
As I mentioned, there are certain crossovers. Like, fighters can attack anything they want to, making them very valuable! They are also pretty strong - 30 medium or high-powered ones can overwhelm most any lone ship, even the largest kinds. Besides using fighters to counter other fighters, they can be difficult to destroy. They are not TA-style fighters, but more like Homeworld 2-style corvettes. Destroyers and similar ships require 10 or more hits to kill one. They can only be effectively shot at by laser blasts, which move exceptionally fast. The larger the ship, the lesser its proportion of lasers to heavy weapons is. There's also a lot of arcs to think about. Destroyers have balanced fire arcs, although generally speaking even they have relatively weak aft firing. Cruisers are designed mostly to combat destroyers, other cruisers, and larger ships. Large cruisers can attack ground targets with the aid of slow-reloading bombs. Flagships have many bombs and can service fighters, have tons of HP, but are slow and have only 50% or so greater firepower than your average cruiser. However, because of their great HP, it would take 3-5 cruisers to kill one.
As you can see, it's a completely different kind of mod, but I will integrate it nicely... I've got lots of ideas for that.
Last edited by Caydr on 16 Dec 2006, 16:52, edited 1 time in total.
No no, it works very well! Honest! I was just playing it a couple minutes ago! ^^ It makes for VERY exciting battles!
Remember, GEM is about small, longish battles involving lots of thinking. The stuff you see in movies and BSG and such is actually possible here. Nothing's a throw-away... except for tanks. Tanks are bloody cheap. Radar cars, too. You're lucky they're so cheap, since they're also pathetic in comparison to most of the other races' ground units.
I'm going to keep the suspension of disbelief to a minimum. Just because Advance Wars has unarmored infantry as one of its main units, doesn't mean that those infantry aren't going to be positively mowed down by virtually any TA ground unit. However, the advance wars universe has lots of heavier units that will fare much better. Advance Wars technology, while being closest to our own modern technology, is also in many ways far more advanced. Take the Neo Tank for instance. It's a frikkin huge AT-AT style thing that can climb mountains easily, not even being impeded slightly.
Remember, GEM is about small, longish battles involving lots of thinking. The stuff you see in movies and BSG and such is actually possible here. Nothing's a throw-away... except for tanks. Tanks are bloody cheap. Radar cars, too. You're lucky they're so cheap, since they're also pathetic in comparison to most of the other races' ground units.
I'm going to keep the suspension of disbelief to a minimum. Just because Advance Wars has unarmored infantry as one of its main units, doesn't mean that those infantry aren't going to be positively mowed down by virtually any TA ground unit. However, the advance wars universe has lots of heavier units that will fare much better. Advance Wars technology, while being closest to our own modern technology, is also in many ways far more advanced. Take the Neo Tank for instance. It's a frikkin huge AT-AT style thing that can climb mountains easily, not even being impeded slightly.
Last edited by Caydr on 16 Dec 2006, 17:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Guessmyname
- Posts: 3301
- Joined: 28 Apr 2005, 21:07
You mean you can play any mod against any other? Funny, I had the idea to do that too - I've even adapted my MuteSmithy tool to make it easier to balance/import whole groups of units in-batch (when I get another stable version, I'll post it and document it).Caydr wrote:Excellent report, TM!
The final Abolition project, which has been underway for some time now, will include the races:
Arm
Core
[new mod, army 1]
[new mod, army 2]
Xect
Mynn
TLL
GEM (Galactic EMpire)
OS (Orange Star, advance wars)
BM (Blue Moon, advance wars)
GE (Green Earth, advance wars)
YC (Yellow Comet, advance wars)
BH (Black Hole, advance wars)
plus the three races from EE if I got permission, and any others that might catch my attention.
Of course, I was going to call it something like "Crime Against Humanity" or something like that.
Honestly Caydr if you can manage to pull all those races off into one mod function, I would have no cumpunction about allowing the EE races into that just because I think the whole damn thing would be funny, I dont think it would work at all well, but it would be funny.. My only condition is that I am allowed to either do the balancing for my stuff or am at least notified..