Expand and Exterminate version 0.42

[[XIII]Roxas]

I like bruisers, thank you very much! I made more of them than any other unit, I think, in our fight.

[Fanger]

Anywho, version 0.42..

Quick changelog here:

-Nerfed Armored form, not has armor on when closed takes only 50% damage, opens to fire and takes 100% damage while open.. set to hold fire to keep it closed
-Support form is now ONLY artillery it has no missile weapon at all..
-Penetrator unit now costs a more reasonable amount considering its abilities
-GD tier 4 artillery tank can now fire correctly
-GD tier 3 tactical cruise missile launcher should be more useful since the projectile moves very fast giving it a low time to target
-Buildspeed of the alien scout form was reduced..

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

If anyone can mirror that Id appreciate it..

[Forboding Angel]

Consider it mirrored:

http://evolutionrts.info/EEMirror/Expan ... ev0.42.sd7

Btw, as an added note, you really really need an updater... Talk to lurker in the spring lobby, and I'll host the files for you + ftp access to it.

It's extremely simple to set up, and I can make the installer for you (just give me an icon for the shortcut).

With patching you could release a super small hundredsomething kb patch whenever you felt like it instead of having to have everyone dl bigass files each time (not to mention that it's convenient because you retain versioning control as well).

Working Example: http://forbodingangel.zjt3.com/evolutio ... pdater.exe

[Peet]

Oops, uploaded it earlier and forgot to link.

[Fanger]

Any issues with this version??

[Decimator]

I haven't seen any so far.

[bobthedinosaur]

change log?

[chillaaa]

Anywho, version 0.42..

Quick changelog here:

-Nerfed Armored form, not has armor on when closed takes only 50% damage, opens to fire and takes 100% damage while open.. set to hold fire to keep it closed
-Support form is now ONLY artillery it has no missile weapon at all..
-Penetrator unit now costs a more reasonable amount considering its abilities
-GD tier 4 artillery tank can now fire correctly
-GD tier 3 tactical cruise missile launcher should be more useful since the projectile moves very fast giving it a low time to target
-Buildspeed of the alien scout form was reduced..

QFT

[Fanger]

bob what specifically do you want a changelog for.. since 0.173, or just for version 0.42, cause well that was already posted, although Im not sure if you want specifics..

Also it currently looks as though a number of issues I thought are in fact somewhat valid.. those would follow:

1. Teching up happens too quickly in games now, especially with alien players, this makes the pace of the game quite accelerated and almost feel like a rush for teir 4 units.. Not quite what I had intended, Id still like it to be easy to tech up in terms of not going to require a massive economy, but Id like it to take longer to do than it currently does so we can get more per level interplay.. This will likely cause an increase in hub construction time and morph time.. and a altered cost for alien cons..

2. Bombers: both cluster and tactical/strategic seem to crop up in large numbers on medium resource or higher maps, this makes crossing large distances with a ground force pointless since they just die due to bomber spam.. anti air can only be so effective and bombers seem too easy to access.. so cost increase and reload time increase seem likely.

3. Flak weapons seem to not cut it.. they dont seem to do the damage neccessary to lvl 2+ stuff to usefully bring it down even in numbers.. So a damage boost is likely in order here..

[HeavyLancer]

Umm, these following suggestions aren't for game balance, but may help with the game.

Firstly, morphing. I love it, but I think you are using an older, messier looking version of the morphing LUA code. For instance, it shows the unit being paralysed and I think the text is slightly borked too. I can provide a screen shot of this on request.

Second, could you please include the CustomFormations LUA gadget? I've noticed that after getting used to it in TA-based mods it is hard to live without, especially in such a strategic, macro-intensive game such as EE.

Keep up the good work Fang! This mod is going really well and is actually quite refreshing to play compare to the myriad alphabet soup mods.
Most of my recent EE games have been against RAI though, I want to have a game against a real player sometime

[Decimator]

You can actually add the custom formations widget yourself, widgets don't have to be included with mods to be used. That being said, I'm not opposed to the idea.

[zwzsg]

There's a known bug in Spring, that causes a crash when a move order is given to stacked units. For instance, set an alien on repeat then clone, (so you have units stacked), then you have two or more units stacked on same spot, move them: it might crash.

Since we don't know when next Spring release will be out, you'll have to fix mod-side. A workaround that helped reduce the frequency of this bug alot in Kernel Panic .NET is to introduce a small random displacement when spawning units.

[lejocelyn]

I would like to know the licence of Expand and Exterminate, I couldn't find info about it. I'm learning packaging and I plan to package TA Spring/SpringLobby for fedora with some maps and mods so I look for the mod licence.

:)

[bobthedinosaur]

what do you mean stacked?

[Decimator]

He means that when two units share exactly the same XYZ position, the game may crash.

[tjonnguyen]

The "Banshee", that big mf flying unit, is some what futile to attack it since no damage is registered on the banshee. Once i saw several laser tanks shot a bullet and it went through the banshee without hurting it.The Super Scorpion's rockets should be replace with plasma or continuous stream of laser instead. The Kodiaks are fine and ok.

[Decimator]

Well, if I recall, laser tanks don't shoot at aircraft anyway. Try attacking the banshee with fighters and SAMs. It'll go down quick.

[Fanger]

Nope, not changing the armerment of the scorpion, it will remain a missile/scatter cannon weapon mount, URC does not use laser weapons of any kind, and it already has a plasma cannon.

Lasers are not supposed to shoot at aircraft, they arent for that, you would have an incredibly hard time doing anything with them. Use flak, Missile, or SAM weapons to deal with the banshee, I assure you they will deal with it in short order if you have enough, as in more than 1 or 2..

[BlueTemplar]

Great mod!

I have a small problem: AAI doesn't know how to use the "factory constructor" and crashes at the start if I don't build it manually for him. Do I need to change the cfg file?
(KAI crashes right from the start, and I didn't manage to compile RAI yet)

Also, I have a major complaint: the unit size.
Usually I (and I think most players do) instinctively zoom out to the point when I can see what my units are firing at.
The problem is that at this zoom level all the units except maybe lvl3-4 are just small grey blobs or squares, and it's very hard to tell which is for instance plasma, which AA, and which rocket!
And since they all have the same icons, you can't even use that!

So maybe on a 21+ inch screen with 16xAA it isn't that a problem, but IMHO something really should be done about that for those of use that have smaller screens!

Really great mod otherwise...

EDIT: I just realised looking at the mod files that icons ARE different... but since I didn't even see it in game, IMHO they are not different enough. Something like this would be interesting IMHO:

urcspideraap.png (7.81 KiB) Viewed 1829 times

[Fanger]

the size of the units is done on purpose it is not being changed.. Id suggest using a different camera mode but I dont think you will.