Expand and Exterminate version 0.42

Expand and Exterminate version 0.42

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Fanger
Expand & Exterminate Developer
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Joined: 22 Nov 2005, 22:58

Expand and Exterminate version 0.42

Post by Fanger »

This is a release post for Expand and Exterminate. I have released version 0.42 and feel it is in a position for public consumption again.

For those of you who have not played this mod, or no nothing about it. Expand and Exterminate or "EE" as its shortened to, is a mod with 3 different sides, with several hundred units between them. This mod is done on a large scale, and focuses on Large scale combat over micromanagment. The 3 current factions are URC, GD, and the Aliens. There is a 4th faction that I have yet to finish called NI which has not been added in.

The main focus of this mod is expansion and area control. There is an emphasis on attack as opposed to defence, and games can be over fast, or drag on for a while depending on the relative skills of the players.

This is version 0.42, and is a public beta, the balance of the mod may not be complete, any input on this area is appreciated, as well as any input people have in general.

Link: http://files.filefront.com/ExpandandExt ... einfo.html

For changelog see my most recent post..

Additionally If someone could upload this to Unknown files that would be excellent since I cant seem to do it.

There are no pictures atm that I can post, hopefully I will get some later. Please enjoy the mod..
Last edited by Fanger on 18 Feb 2008, 02:41, edited 4 times in total.
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Pxtl
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.40

Post by Pxtl »

W000000000t!

Is there an up-to-date description of the units out there? I was playing for the longest time assuming that most of the URC bots were exactly the same, but with different weapons (not realizing that their armour values and other attributes differed as well).
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Fanger
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.40

Post by Fanger »

Probably not..
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AF
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.40

Post by AF »

I'll upload to darkstars when I'm done downloading but its taking ages to download at 11kbps.
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smoth
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.40

Post by smoth »

Image
Play EE or the chavs win! FUCK THE CHAVS!
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Fanger
Expand & Exterminate Developer
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.40

Post by Fanger »

Bleh.. I made a balance error.. already so atm the Alien Armored form is a bit OP.. I will have to nerf it.. excuse me whilst I pend 0.41..
feh..
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Argh
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.40

Post by Argh »

Played a quick game on SVN.

The Aliens seem to have enormous economy problems, on big maps, they just don't seem to scale well. Maybe I'm just doin' it wrong, but they just don't seem to have any way to hold off the other two sides once they get going, especially URC, whose flamers seem to find Alien flesh delectable ;) And once they get going, the Aliens' relatively superior stuff is pretty meaningless- spaem 4 teh win. It seems like their cost curves for advancing their econ are really weird, they get screwed on energy pretty hard, and they cannot maintain a patrol screen... so they're kinda hosed past really early game. Their arty form isn't worth it, either, for the time and cost investment to micro it- I'd rather have more Armored.

I can see them being OP, on a very small map- quick rush out a soldier, morph to Armored, and rush- but that's about it, otherwise they seem very underwhelming at first glance. I see that they have cool toys at the high end, but I really don't think they ever get there, against anybody just spamming and getting their econ rolling as fast as they can, they just can't defend themselves long enough to get there, and their progression is really, really slow.

GD vs. URC seems fairly balanced, though the rapid-artillery spammer GD gets at level 3 is almost a game-wreaker- 4 or more in one place pretty much closes the door on attempts to advance through a zone, letting GD porc fiercely, but also advance. I'm sure there's a good counter, but I haven't seen one yet.

Oh, and last thing... it seems like the icons don't work consistantly, for all sides. URC icons show up, GD is very spotty, Aliens don't seem to have 'em at all. Makes it hard to play on big maps. And could ya maybe use a custom FX for the factory smoke? It's using about 5 times as many particles as it should be. Performance really drags, once you have 20+ metal spots capped as GD...
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Fanger
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by Fanger »

Prolly could fix the smoke thing..

The Icons, I dont have an issue with them, they all seem to work for me, not sure what your icon distance is set too..

GDs saturation artillery, lacks the range of lvl 2 artillery meaing it can take return fire, in addition it is relatively expensive and slow, and as with all artillery very vulnerable to aircraft, which are its main counter. It can essentially be countered via airstrikes, lvl 2 artillery striking from longer range, if your URC a stealth strike team can be used to get in close and kill it, if GD you can use the tactical cruise missile launcher to either force the opponent to move them, or kill them outright. URC also has a counterpart unit to this, the Mammoth which is nearly as effective.

The alien economy does not work the same as GD and URC, which essentially feature a constant build curve and a centralized base. The aliens do not constantly build and really dont need to, and also additionally have no need for a centralized base area, instead they can work from any spot as long as they have resources to morph/clone, which allows them to rapidly build up forces. Additionally the multirole nature of their combat units combined with their durability makes them tough nuts to crack on defence. They are the more micro heavy race of the 3. The best way I find to run them is to create lots of storage, so that in those lulls where you are building nothing you can amass resources and allow yourself to clone all your units at once without stalling sort of a wave build method. Storage is less helpful for GD or URC because essentially you need to be constantly spending your resources to gain more units. Additionally defensive turrets for the aliens are dual purpose they contain both Anti Air and Anti ground and can fire both simultaneously. The last thing that the aliens can do to set up a defensive perimeter where they wont be is to use scout forms to construct either Quill Pylons, or if water Spike Pylons.. these are essentially a Wall and Mine wrapped up in one. These structures are dirt cheap take nearly no time to build, can nearly be built during a stall, and have a lare amount of hit points for their cost. Your opponent has 3 options when encountering a wall of quill pylons, either go around, shoot them, or attempt to cross. Because the quills will explode if they approach their units will take casulties doing this reducing their force significantly, if they shoot them they take time to remove them, and if they go around they again take time. This should allow you to mobilize a force to deal with the incursion. Again the aliens are more Micro heavy than GD or URC.
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LathanStanley
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by LathanStanley »

FANGER IS THE UBER WANGER! :mrgreen: :lol: :lol:

but yeah seriously, the mod EE is NOT TA, or BA, or AA, or ANYTHING "a" its EE.. Expand and Exterminate, it plays differently BECAUSE IT IS DIFFERENT..

the aliens aren't gonna be the same as the "people" they are ALIENS! :P

I'm not tryin to be a jackass argh, and I apologize in advance if I am so... but sometimes, for the benefit of others, you gotta make it obvious.. :wink:


but yes, E MO FEKKIN E! :twisted: wewt
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zwzsg
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by zwzsg »

The alien icons worked fine that game we had. And they were very detailed and varied.

Indeed, the aliens are so micro I'm not sure how to handle them in a large game. With the aliens, I'm also worried that it might be easy to accidendally lose all your building capacity, since battle units produce themselves. Though I need to play it more to really know.

Nice work overall btw. Still love that mod.
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AF
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by AF »

My download froze at 63% after hours of downloading at <6kbps

edit:: pfft 11kbps and falling in the first 20 seconds
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Argh
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by Argh »

Hmm. I have my IconDistance set to 200, the default. I'll set it to the lowest setting, see what happens.

Lathan, I understand it's supposed to be different. It's great that it's being different. That's a good thing! And it's a lot more different-feeling than it was, which is even better, and balance for GD and URC feels pretty good.

I'm just having trouble figuring out how to get the Aliens anywhere useful on large maps, that's all. They're extremely micro-heavy, and they don't move very fast, which negates their per-unit advantages on large maps. I'll take a few more starts and see if I can get them rolling without stalling, but keep moving fast enough to get a decisive advantage. Among other things, I obviously need to play with their aircraft more- they're quite effective at killing stuff on the ground, maybe they can be a patrol line. That was the only thing I found on the first starts that seemed to work, and the AA guys can make lots of planes fairly quickly.

I just played KAIK, which cannot use any morph features, and it spammed me to death with level 1 stuff really easily- a human would do better, but it's irrelevant- when KAIK rolls over me easily, 1 vs. 1, then something is wrong, I think- my micro isn't that terrible, and I play 3 vs. 1 when I'm testing P.U.R.E., to keep it remotely challenging.

After 4 starts, I played GD, which was a totally different story, because there I could win on attrition and use patrols to make up for the fact that there aren't any real area-holding weapons in E&E until you tech up. Oh, and the cute little healing scouts made it easy to keep my horde alive whilst I teched to Krog in the background ;)

The Aliens, though, seem to suffer huge choke problems, econ-wise, though, and I did not find their defenses all that effective for their costs. They don't have anything like the Zerg defenses, which helped the Zerg survive into midgame in StarCraft, and I think they probably need it.

On a small map, or a map with some chokepoints, they'd be fine. But to cope on large, open maps, I think they're going to need a different curve- maybe slower teching, but a lot more power when they get there. I think that the morphing makes it worse, though, because you're constantly having to go back and grab guys who've been frozen. That's a lot of micro hassle, on a large map, where URC or GD can be charging you with 30-40 things within 10 minutes.

I'll try the wall approach, but on the EE map I played, it'd take too long to make a perimeter, there weren't any chokepoints or land features that'd slow down URC bots, either. And the defensive turrets were too expensive to make that a practical proposition, either.

Some of the above reflects KAIK's biggest advantage over human players, of course- it knows where you are, all the time. I can see the the Aliens aren't so hosed against a human player, because they can hide and clone and come back again and again.

As for the arty, I'll test the spammers against level 2 stuff, see how that works out for costs. I have a feeling, based on the game I played through, that you can counter the aircraft for far less than cost. Therefore, it's down to counter-battery, or overwhelming it with spam. I'm not sure that a stealthed strike team is practical, though, given that you can pop them next to detectors and cover your advance, but meh, we'll see. I'll take a good look at the cruise missile option, too, maybe that's the best way.

Overall, this version is a lot more interesting than the last one, though, and feels a lot more solid. I'm sure the Aliens will shake down, with some testing, and as I said, maybe I'm just doing it wrong.
[Krogoth86]
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by [Krogoth86] »

Is the GD Derzhavinskoye i.e. that "Heavy Very Long Range Artillery Vehicle" meant to be High Traj only? Because on Low Traj it keeps drilling its barrels into the ground... :wink:
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Argh
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by Argh »

Ok, I just tried again. Was able to keep a good solid burn, until it was time to tech, then... well, I had to keep spending, to fend off spam. Teching made me choke, and ultimately, there was just too much going on to micro my way through. Energy is the crunch point- I was able to get ahead of the curve on metal, but you can't morph your Energy... which is bad, imo, because then you're hosed until you have a Tech 2 Constructor, which is why you need all that E in the first place.

I got good results from the attack planes, though- they're about the only really cost-effective way for the Aliens to establish a perimeter. Too bad I can't clone them ;) That's not a good thing, imo, but it's better than nothing.

I tried the perimeter barriers, and, as I feared, it's not the "cost", which is basically nothing, that matters- it's the true cost, which is that you've tied up a very valuable construction dude for however long it takes. On a big map, it's basically worthless. If they were a lot larger (longer?), then maybe, even if they cost more.

The turrets, however, aren't worth building- AA Aliens do it better, both against ground (via planes) and air (via themselves + planes). With a few Armoreds, it might work, I'll give it another go. I'll try that, and see if that works well enough to tech up and finally get a chance to fight the URC spam hordes on a better-than-even footing. I think a human player who knew what they were doing would've run over me very easily, though- enough flamers and missile guys to take down the AA, and URC wins on sheer numbers, pretty easily, I suspect.
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Fanger
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by Fanger »

We just played a large game in which the aliens held their own pretty well..

I dont know if you are using light scout forms for early expansion, this should be the way to go since otherwise trying to build a con will stall you.. cons are cheaper to clone than build again as well..

Id prefer to play the game with you to see what is and is not going on in real time...

I dont personally trust test games against the AI..
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[XIII]Roxas
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by [XIII]Roxas »

*Claps*

I have always been a staunch supporter of EE, often going to...extremes. Good to see that you're still working strong, Fang.
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Fanger
Expand & Exterminate Developer
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by Fanger »

thnx roxas..

Other than that...

Argh could I get a bullet by bullet point of what exactly you think the issues are in some concise nature, and what exactly you think ought to be done to address the issue, at least for my musings and for possible discussion..
smokingwreckage
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by smokingwreckage »

Coherence.
Vision.
Persistence.

Yay Fanger! Look forward to playing this!
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lurker
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by lurker »

Yay more EE!

For anyone having filefront issues, I put a copy on wolfgame.org. Which is one of the uf mirrors anyway, so you can pretend it's on uf.

http://xta.wolfgame.org/ExpandandExterminatev0.41.sd7
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Neddie
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Re: Expand and Exterminate 0.41

Post by Neddie »

I believe in these, E&E and Fang.
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