Expand and Exterminate version 0.163 Released
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
Well I just played another game of EE and several things that people are complaining about were showed to be false:
defense's are useless! WRONG!
An enemy of mine entrenched enough to bog my units down. Long enough for his ally to make trouble for me.
Air units are useless! WRONG!
I made great use of air craft. As did my enemy. In fact my enemy took out my com and lost me the game...with surgical strike air craft.
The first battle solves everything! WRONG!
I won the first battle. And lost the game, because just because you win once doesn't mean your going to win every time.
And it had lots of explosions.
defense's are useless! WRONG!
An enemy of mine entrenched enough to bog my units down. Long enough for his ally to make trouble for me.
Air units are useless! WRONG!
I made great use of air craft. As did my enemy. In fact my enemy took out my com and lost me the game...with surgical strike air craft.
The first battle solves everything! WRONG!
I won the first battle. And lost the game, because just because you win once doesn't mean your going to win every time.
And it had lots of explosions.
Hehe that was me with the defenses.
I had a look after that on all the units of the mod in a sandbox game. I think the mod was cool and the idea of different factions with different strengths and weaknesses is great.
However I think the units lacked a bit in "personality". Ok so from my impressions the general layout is that there's 3 tech levels, a bunch of different weapon systems and 4 platforms (air, water, land, defenses). Then there's one unit for each weapon, tech level, platform, so you get:
Lvl 1 Light Rocket Unit
Lvl 2 Medium Rocket Unit
Lvl 3 Heavy Rocket Unit
Lvl 1 Light Cannon Unit
etc.
In my opinion this get's a bit boring. Sure there's lots of units but in many ways they are too similar and the difference itself between units is very similar.
I know lots of units is the TA design philosophy but sometimes I think there might be too many units. It's more interesting to have 3 units that are truely different from each other and well thought out then 10 or so units that are seemingly designed from a table like:
________Rocket___Laser___Cannon
Heavy_____x_______ x_______x__
Medium____x_______x_______x__
Light______x________x______x___
My point is, after figuring out this system there wasn't much left to explore in unit variety, apart from slighter differences and figuring out what the different weapon systems was good for. I know the earth 2050 game is similar and their latest on you "designed" units with chassis, gun turret etc. So I understand where it all is coming from since its inspired by that.
Overall, great mod.
I had a look after that on all the units of the mod in a sandbox game. I think the mod was cool and the idea of different factions with different strengths and weaknesses is great.
However I think the units lacked a bit in "personality". Ok so from my impressions the general layout is that there's 3 tech levels, a bunch of different weapon systems and 4 platforms (air, water, land, defenses). Then there's one unit for each weapon, tech level, platform, so you get:
Lvl 1 Light Rocket Unit
Lvl 2 Medium Rocket Unit
Lvl 3 Heavy Rocket Unit
Lvl 1 Light Cannon Unit
etc.
In my opinion this get's a bit boring. Sure there's lots of units but in many ways they are too similar and the difference itself between units is very similar.
I know lots of units is the TA design philosophy but sometimes I think there might be too many units. It's more interesting to have 3 units that are truely different from each other and well thought out then 10 or so units that are seemingly designed from a table like:
________Rocket___Laser___Cannon
Heavy_____x_______ x_______x__
Medium____x_______x_______x__
Light______x________x______x___
My point is, after figuring out this system there wasn't much left to explore in unit variety, apart from slighter differences and figuring out what the different weapon systems was good for. I know the earth 2050 game is similar and their latest on you "designed" units with chassis, gun turret etc. So I understand where it all is coming from since its inspired by that.
Overall, great mod.
Last edited by Zpock on 16 Jun 2006, 22:00, edited 1 time in total.
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
One thing I can't help but notice...
How much gameplay would EE lose if there was no energy? I mean seriously, I find that building powerplants just slows the game down in an annoying way. They make sense in TA because of (a) the win plants mean that the game changes as the winds do, and (b) metal makers. However, in EE, energy just seems to be a distracting nuisance. Anybody else have a similar experience?
edit: I've only played 3 games so far, so I admit I'm hardly an authority. It's just something I've noticed.
edit: I've only played 3 games so far, so I admit I'm hardly an authority. It's just something I've noticed.
Ok so Ive got vs 0.158 sitting around here is a rough approximate changelog..
URC:
-LvL 1 units cost/buildtime altored, they produce faster but drain slightly more than they did to do so.
-LvL 2 units altored to function on a 2.5x LvL 1 for buildtime, cost, firpower and armor. This means some LvL 2 weapons were rebalanced, it also means LvL 2 build faster now and costs less.
-LvL 1/2 turrets had a build time decrease and a cost rebalance as well as having their weapon damage tweaked and health tweaked.
-All naval units had their weapons rebalanced to bring them inline with the new LvL 2 land unit weapons.
-Light reactor was reduced in build time to slightly more than the mex as it costs nearly the same.
GD:
-LvL 1 production was slowed by a small amount to rebalance with URC LvL 1 production.
-LvL 2 units were rebalanced around a 3x cost/buildtime/firepower ratio as the Main Battle Tank was already at this. Laser and Rocket were boosted to match.
-Naval units were also rebalanced to match new LvL 2 weapon balance.
-LvL 1/2 turrets slightly reduced in cost/buildtime, slight increase to armor.
Disclaimer: No shields are not included nor are new explosions these will be added once the new version of spring is released, I will also look into aircraft balance again at this time as it seems to have gone to far the opposite of when air was first added.
URC:
-LvL 1 units cost/buildtime altored, they produce faster but drain slightly more than they did to do so.
-LvL 2 units altored to function on a 2.5x LvL 1 for buildtime, cost, firpower and armor. This means some LvL 2 weapons were rebalanced, it also means LvL 2 build faster now and costs less.
-LvL 1/2 turrets had a build time decrease and a cost rebalance as well as having their weapon damage tweaked and health tweaked.
-All naval units had their weapons rebalanced to bring them inline with the new LvL 2 land unit weapons.
-Light reactor was reduced in build time to slightly more than the mex as it costs nearly the same.
GD:
-LvL 1 production was slowed by a small amount to rebalance with URC LvL 1 production.
-LvL 2 units were rebalanced around a 3x cost/buildtime/firepower ratio as the Main Battle Tank was already at this. Laser and Rocket were boosted to match.
-Naval units were also rebalanced to match new LvL 2 weapon balance.
-LvL 1/2 turrets slightly reduced in cost/buildtime, slight increase to armor.
Disclaimer: No shields are not included nor are new explosions these will be added once the new version of spring is released, I will also look into aircraft balance again at this time as it seems to have gone to far the opposite of when air was first added.
not disregarding my above post, but just becausea unit is bigger and heavier and has the same weapon as the last lvl of unit does not make it automatically fufil the same role...
in all honesty if you go out and check real world combat units youll see that most of them are just larger more badass vs of the lighter units with a bigger gun.. however this makes them slower, less manuervable less able to turn.. these aspects alter how the unit is used.. yes they dont look massively different but a ural cannot be used in the same capacity as a vladost light battle tank.. you cant get into the same spots..and urals are much slower..etc..
in all honesty if you go out and check real world combat units youll see that most of them are just larger more badass vs of the lighter units with a bigger gun.. however this makes them slower, less manuervable less able to turn.. these aspects alter how the unit is used.. yes they dont look massively different but a ural cannot be used in the same capacity as a vladost light battle tank.. you cant get into the same spots..and urals are much slower..etc..
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
Yes I did notice the lvl3 artillery did stand out in uniqueness. Rocket spewing mech, nuke gun, nuke missile launcher and multi barrel artillery, all very nice. The multi turret tank was pretty good too, always fascinating with multiple turrets. The lvl2 units could use some work tough. They all seem like just beefed up versions of the lvl1 ones? Tech 1 units can be basic like TA, but tech2 should be more specialized and offer more unique options so it's more then just a doormat for tech3. Then tech3 more as expensive huge uber units, perhaps with more allround capabilites. Not kroggie huge but something in between krog and a goliath. To sum up:smoth wrote:Zpock, seriously have you tried the artillery? there are 4 flavors and they each serve a different purpose.
1:basic
2:specialised
3:huge, multi function?
The medium size oftenly get problems with not really having a good role to fill if they are just in between 1 and 3 in power and function. So it might be a good idea to have for example the best (cost efficient) AA vehicle in tech 2, while there's a basic AA capable but not very good unit in tech1, and tech3 unit that has anti air secondary weapons (see krogoth).
never mind that horseshit.. here comes mongo...!
http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=3480 <- get this version
http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=3480 <- get this version
