Balanced Annihilation V7.14

[TheFatController]

- Added fix for new Spring release not spawning units.
- Added fix for new Spring release removal of AllowUnsafeChanges function.
- Added some fixes for MT build lua errors.
- Removed default off widgets
- FPS Manager
- Blob Shadows

Really small patch for compliance with the new Spring release.

I'd like this thread to contain any feedback about 'the state of BA' including any outstanding bugs (even old stuff eg crappy land transports) or issues with underpowered or overpowered units, thanks!

Download Balanced Annihilation V7.14

[Jazcash]

Awesome, an update For next release, have a good look at naval units. Especially naval transports. The hover and naval transports are ugly, have ugly animations, show units miles underground and have various other bugs.

Main thing that annoys me about playing naval is the slow turn circles of the units and the messy labs. I mean, units being spawned inside the lab is cool, but isn't terribly awesome for gameplay. CA spawns the units in front of the lab to avoid the problem of units taking ages to exit the lab or getting stuck.

[Mopar]

Hi All,

Please find attached AAI 0.90 config for BA 7.14....

I hope someone else finds this useful.....

Regards,

Mopar

[HectorMeyer]

I'd like this thread to contain any feedback about 'the state of BA' including any outstanding bugs (even old stuff eg crappy land transports) or issues with underpowered or overpowered units, thanks!

Well, everything has been discussed before, so I am just repeating some of my points here:

A good way to implement change and breathe some fresh air into BA while maintaining the essentially conservative style of BA would be modoptions. Give players a choice!

I strongly promote a few "Commander options" checkboxes, e.g.:
"Transportable by T1 transporters", "Commander wreck", "Double health". "Increasing health + resource production over time", "Enemy commanders can't enter within a certain range of own starting position".

Economy modoptions:
Maybe replace the diminishing metal maker returns with a more plain 50% reduction of metal maker income. I think it would be way more popular, since its effects take place sooner, and its easier to understand and predict its effects. A no metal maker option would be nice too.

Teching modoptions:
It would also be interesting to see what would happen if teching needed more sunk costs than only one cheap t2 con. Make a mod option which severly increases the costs of t2 cons into the 1500 metal or so range. Throw in a "no T2" and "no air" modoption for good measure.

Regarding seagame, i always promoted making hovers truly t1, and not t1.5 units

OP/UP units:
- Vanguard and Vulcan are OP. I'd say give them turnrate decrease and increase costs.
- I never understood why the crappy Annihilator is more expensive than the awesome Doomsday Machine.
- The Fido is too weak. The concept of a skirmisher does not really work, the Morty is way better at this. I suggest making the Fido into a fast medium tank, i.e. lower range, higher DPS and health, maybe cost increase.
- I think T2 bombers could use a slight(!) nerf. I think the idea of lowering their speed a bit is great. The DPS could also be reduced just a little bit, they do ridiculously high damage.
- Make the guardian more useful for defense: In low traj, reduce its range, but buff its DPS.
- Amphibious units are way too slow underwater. There was a time when they got a huge speedboost, bring it back.
- Packo and Chainsaw are kinda weak right now, increase their range.
- Move antinuke to T1 or reduce its costs and make it able to intercept tacnukes and emp missiles. Maybe increase the buildtime of nukes a little bit, players could still surprise the enemy with more than one nuke by queuing them up.
- Destroyers are too strong vs subs. Buff t1 subs a bit, maybe give them cloak + stealth.
- Diplomat/Merl are a bit too expensive.
- Do Krogs still have the LRPC weakness? Consider removing it. Actually, give the Juggernaut and maybe also the Krogoth increased LRPC resistance.

[Wombat]

- vanguards - make them shoot only when immobile, also hp nerf
- annihilator is cool, its made for eating single high hp targets
- fido needs bigger range so it at least outranges hlt >> maybe give it artillery mode with bigger damage vs buildings ? i dont see any difference between ON/OFF mode, both sux
- make t2 bomber precision bomber, not carpet bomber
- /me ignores suggestions about guardian buff
- i dunno, amph are good
- u mean packo and sam? coz chainsaw got biggest range of all t1 aa
- erm...
- subs are underwater, that makes them good enough already (u do realize cloak + stealth means 100% invisibility)

uh oh and btw, reduce raiders buildtime and e cost a little,
samsons usually dont shoot while moving, what sux (tho, i vote for missle trucks to not shoot while moving) also they dont stop when shooting enemy while set on patrol (even when hold pos)

[Regret]

I strongly promote a few "Commander options" checkboxes, e.g.:
"Transportable by T1 transporters", "Commander wreck", "Double health". "Increasing health + resource production over time", "Enemy commanders can't enter within a certain range of own starting position".

No.

[Jazcash]

I agree with some of those points, but not all.

• Vanguard just needs a HP nerf
• T2 Bombers shouldn't throw their bombs so far, as Wombat said, would be better if they were precision so they dropped their bombs when they fly over their target and not 2 miles before they fly over it. It makes AA impossible to stop them before they release the awfully powerful bombs of death...
• Fido needs a big range buff, they're weaker than morty's already in terms of health and damage, having a range smaller than a HLT really doesn't add to their favour.
• Sharpshooters could use a health boost
• Screamer and Mercury need a serious buff. They always shoot at the first target they see which is usually a radar plane or a scout. If you have more than one, they all shoot at the same target which is a big waste. Their reload time is 18.75 seconds. I mean really. These really do need a buff otherwise just remove them, they're a waste of build menu space and a newb trap.
• In terms of normal fusions, why does Arm get the added cloakable fusions AND the decoy fusion where Core just has the normal fusion? I know the decoy fusion is never used anyway (Maybe change it to Decoy Adv Fusion?) but it would make more sense for Arm to have the cloakable and Core to have the decoy or vice versa.
• Is it possible to make Dragon Pop-up Turrets just appear like normal Dragon Teeth to the enemy? I think that their original purpose was to be disguised within Dragon Teeth and then when the enemy sends their units up to it, they pop-up and shoot. Instead of the enemy knowing that they're Dragon Teeth without even going near them and killing them from a distance.
• Make the Juno cheaper so people actually build it. The fact that mines are so incredibly cheap to make and yet can be so effective, means a decent mine clearer should be cheap as well. I hardly ever see these in use when they're great for clearing mines.
• Increase Goliath's reload time a bit.
• Please for the love of God nerf Bladewings in some way or another. It's increasingly frustrating to see good games ruined by these little buggers. They easily stop raids by just about any unit. I mean, AA units are usually really slow and are hard to keep in groups of raids because of this. Regardless, even if you do have AA, enough Bladewings put a stop to them in no time if you have enough of them (which people usually do because they're so amazingly cheap). This is probably the change I want the most over every other change. Just do something, anything, to make them less so darn effective for their price. You could increase reload time, increase cost, decrease EMP effectiveness, decrease EMP stun time, decrease speed. Just ... anything.
• And for a trial mod-option, I'd like to see some kind of nerf in base teching. Maybe making a big change like decrease metal-makers and adv metal-makers efficiency. Just do as much as you can to decrease the easiness of being able to win a game by sitting at base. Encourage people to expand.

That's all for now Maybe I'll think of some more later.

[BrainDamage]

And for a trial mod-option ...
... Maybe making a big change like decrease metal-makers and adv metal-makers efficiency.

you mean like the existing, unused, option "diminishing metal maker" which reduces metal maker efficiency the more you build?

Buff t1 subs a bit, maybe give them cloak + stealth.

first, there's no such thing as underwater LOS, second, stealth would have to be sonar stealth ( radar doesn't see underwater ), and if any submerged unit has sonar stealth in Spring it's 100% undetectable as long as stealth is active

[Jazcash]

And for a trial mod-option ...
... Maybe making a big change like decrease metal-makers and adv metal-makers efficiency.

you mean like the existing, unused, option "diminishing metal maker" which reduces metal maker efficiency the more you build?

Oh.



Well... It's hard to change mod options on autohosts, so... meh.

[BrainDamage]

Future Bug: diminishing metal maker option works in the current stable Spring release but not in the RC ( was removed from Spring), but there's no Lua reimplementation in BA despite listing it, so as soon as the RC will be used as official, the option will do nothing.
Solution: either remove it or reimplement it in Lua

Minor annoyance: you kept StartEnergy and StartMetal in EngineOptions.lua while they should belong to ModOptions.lua, also I don't see any difference from EngineOptions.lua in current stable release and BA's, why do you ship your own? overriding it needlessy will only produce problems like the one I mentioned few lines ago.
Solution: move StartEnergy and StartMetal from EngineOptions.lua to ModOptions.lua and delete EngineOptions.lua ( would also fix previous problem with the RC )

[SirArtturi]

[*]And for a trial mod-option, I'd like to see some kind of nerf in base teching. Maybe making a big change like decrease metal-makers and adv metal-makers efficiency. Just do as much as you can to decrease the easiness of being able to win a game by sitting at base. Encourage people to expand.[/list]

That's all for now Maybe I'll think of some more later.

This is like telling people to stop eating meat because its unecological. They just cant do it unless they are forced to since they love meat and are so addicted to it. Base-teching is the part that most of the BA players love therefore it most likely will not be changed. Porc is built-in feature of this mod.

Whatsoever, I really agree with all the suggestions gone through here. But more than anything I'd like to concentrate on the major issue here and that is the issue of commander being not useful only but as a bomb or metal.

This is one of the main reasons I stopped playing BA. Every FFA I get either combombed or napped (thats why I really hesitate playing them.) Most of the overcrowded teamgames are just reckless combombing and comwalking or Base teching using commander as a metal to build fusions asap. When two commanders face, it's usually just best option to dgun first, since the explosion will fly the wreck in your base and leave the dgunned wreck in that position.

Current commander system is just not suitable for anything else than 1v1 where commander ends the game. Commander is just not worthwhile to be kept as alive. Well this could be used as a mod option for team games but people dont want... dunno whats the reason...

And the BA could really take some graphical updates. Its quite ugly...

But why Im even complaining since this project seems to be stagnated. Theres other cool projects running which I hope in some day will replace their death predecessor.

[hoijui]

BA should be moved to git, and instead of distributing it as an sd7, everyone uses it in an *.sdd folder. then, in the lobby, before a game starts, a merge session is held, where all commits that are not shared by all participants get voted in or out, including more or less lengthy discussions about each commit. if this process is done, a merge is attempted, and if there are conflicts, they again get solved one by one, by voting (needs the ability to add custom solutions to vote about). when this is done, the merged version of the mod is pulled by all players and specs, and then the game can start.
-> WIN!

edit: typo

[scifi]

D: hoijun its an awesome idea, but that sounds CAish, Ca had a voting sistem in SD, years ago, it failed, people were alowed to vote and discuss.

But are you saying to do this before the game starts that is imposible to do

[BrainDamage]

forgot few points to reply:

...
A no metal maker option would be nice too.
...
Throw in a "no T2" and "no air" modoption for good measure.

already possible without modoptions, you can restrict units in the lobby

But are you saying to do this before the game starts that is imposible to do

theoretically possible using the way hoijui described (someone would have to write some glue logic, and perhaps simplify it a bit so majority could use it ), but as long as BA keeps the policy "enforce some gameplay choices in the official release by not providing option to toggle them off", I don't see how giving to the players (almost) total freedom could be adopted

[scifi]

forgot few points to reply:

...
A no metal maker option would be nice too.
...
Throw in a "no T2" and "no air" modoption for good measure.

already possible without modoptions, you can restrict units in the lobby

But are you saying to do this before the game starts that is imposible to do

theoretically possible using the way hoijui described (someone would have to write some glue logic, and perhaps simplify it a bit so majority could use it ), but as long as BA keeps the policy "enforce some gameplay choices in the official release by not providing option to toggle them off", I don't see how giving to the players (almost) total freedom could be adopted

wouldnt be a bad sistem if it was only enabled for certain trusted users

the thing is gameplay changes shouldnt take place that fast at least for a stable version of the game ^^

[caldera]

I get some error when building units in the airlab, havent tested other labs yet.

screen00000.jpg

(246.02 KiB) Downloaded 7 times

Also AAI 0.9 doesnt work for me, despite the file provided in this thread.

[hoijui]

AAI config file name
... for spring RC/master: Balanced_Annihilation_V7.14.cfg
... for spring release (0.81.2): BA714.cfg

this change was done, cause the old way was using the mod primary archives filename, which is incompatible with mods downloaded through the rapid system (pool format), as there, the name of the archive is some hash.

[JohannesH]

Most of these suggestions are pointless or awfull imo.

What kind of balance you want though TFC? What type of map and gamesize is most important for you? Is it more important to have fun matches with uncoordinated teams consisting of players of varying skill, or have a better, more skillful game for good players to play? What would be the core elements that must be maintained or augmented?

Without knowing your design logic there's not much meaningful advice to give. Its just ppl shouting random changes to random units they dont like.

[TheFatController]

I get some error when building units in the airlab, havent tested other labs yet.

screen00000.jpg

Also AAI 0.9 doesnt work for me, despite the file provided in this thread.

Crap, this is because it seems I left out a backwards compatible line of code. Bug will vanish with new spring so I think i'll just stick a warning on BA7.14 to use 7.12 until the release.

[Wombat]

Most of these suggestions are pointless or awfull imo.

i bet as a best spring player u got awesome ideas, plz bless us with ur pro word