Metal Factions

[Forboding Angel]

Yay thanks! :-D

I'll pin a link to it in the evo discord and the spring discord.

[raaar]

Thanks, I added the discord links to the website's community section.

btw...new version out! Grab it NOW!
here

also available through the "metalfactions:stable" rapid tag


2017/01/22 ------------------ NOTES v0.973 ----------------------

--- balance / mechanics

- increased SPHERE "Magnetar" HP from 10000 to 13000
- fixed an error that could happen when commanders with drone upgrades are destroyed while drone is under construction
- improved collision volume for GEAR "Barrager"
- fixed an issue where pop-up defense turrets would try to fire through terrain
- reduced weapon aim tolerance on SPHERE "Tycho" so it can no longer fire when moving away

--- effects / visuals

- improved SPHERE "Golem"'s wreckage

--- UI / widgets

- show an opaque grid covering the map surface outside of the playable area (widget by Pako)

--- AI

- MFAI avoids retreating mobile ground units that are lightly damaged if its team has a big enough mobile army compared to enemy mobile units + defenses
- MFAI won't build more than 3 energy storage and 2 metal storage buildings per player
- MFAI is less likely to build energy generators unless it's actually using the energy

[raaar]

new version out! Grab it NOW!
here

also available through the "metalfactions:stable" rapid tag

2017/03/12 ------------------ NOTES v0.974 ----------------------

--- balance / mechanics

- morphed commanders take 50% longer to repair
- increased the total repair cost from 66% to 90% of the unit's energy cost
- increased commanders' power rating by 50%, this means that when commanders fight normal units:
a) they take 50% longer to get the same amount of experience
b) the normal units gain experience 50% faster
(this won't change commander vs commander interactions)

- changed minor speed upgrade bonus from 4% to 5%
- changed major speed upgrade bonus from 8% to 10%

- level 2 robot, vehicle, aircraft and ship factories can now build some of the level 1 units of the corresponding type

- made collision volumes grow vertically as the unit gets built (prevents an exploit where "nearly empty" build frames could block projectiles)

- updated the fortification wall build tooltips to correctly show that they have 4800 HP
- reduced fortification wall height slightly
- increased cost of wall sections from 50 to 65 metal

--- effects / visuals

- increased model size and improved the trails of advanced missiles

--- UI / widgets

- updated sort order on factories' build menu : start with construction units, then from cheapest to most expensive (roughly)
- added N hotkey for build menu pages
- added gadget to prevent players from getting stuck in FPS mode
- modified clock and fps indicator

[raaar]

New version out!

same links as before

2017/04/02 ------------------ NOTES v0.975 ----------------------

- drastically reduced cratering effect on most weapons

--- effects / visuals

- added a simple concrete-style ground decal below buildings
- fixed an issue with 3d model faces not being rendered on some ships on spring 103.0

--- AI

- renamed "Onslaught" mode AI to "Brutal"

[raaar]

new version out! Grab it NOW!
here

also available through the "metalfactions:stable" rapid tag

AWARDS


AIRCRAFT THRUSTER EFFECTS




2017/05/03 ------------------ NOTES v0.976 ----------------------


--- balance / mechanics

- slightly increased CLAW "Maul"'s damage per second and cost
- reduced inaccuracy of GEAR "Dominator Form" commander's cannons

- fixed collision volumes for many units, mainly for robots which had volumes shorter than their actual height
- fixed a serious issue introduced in 0.974 that made SPHERE shielded units' collision volume flat when shields were down
- fixed GEAR "Toaster"'s collision volume and aim point inconsistency when under construction

- teams with all players disconnected are automatically resigned unless they have at least 40% as much value in units as the strongest team
(requirement is doubled if all their commanders are dead)
- when a player resigns their commander explodes

- GEAR Heatray towers no longer try to turn their turret while firing


--- effects / visuals

- added thruster exhaust effects for all aircraft (added LUPS system by jK)

- made the ground decal below metal extractors fade faster after they're destroyed

- reduced the transparency on projectiles from some weapons, namely EMG
- AVEN Dervish, Magnum and Racer had their "Plasma Cannon" weapons changed to "Plasma Bolt", with different impact sound and projectile
- added trail for long range plasma cannon shots
- modified rocket trails for better consistency, and to make smaller rockets less expensive in terms of performance
- made fire area effects simpler to make them less expensive in terms of performance


--- UI / widgets

- system messages are no longer shown on a separate message box (to avoid wasting space)
- improved handling of multiline messages

- added bloom shader widget (by Kloot) : maybe makes game look better (adds blur/glow) but comes with a performance cost
(experimental : it's disabled by default, can be enabled through the widgets menu - F11 key)

- show awards for players when the game ends

--- other

- cleanup of deprecated weapon definition tags and categories that caused warnings on the infolog.txt

[raaar]

new version out! Grab it NOW!
here

also available through the "metalfactions:stable" rapid tag

AVEN "Gamma" form commander being harassed by CLAW "Knife" robots




2017/06/02 ------------------ NOTES v0.978 ----------------------

- added AVEN "Gamma Form" commander : Laser skirmisher with increased range and firepower against heavy units

--- balance / mechanics

- Changed CLAW "Knife"'s weapon to a 100 dps short ranged laser cutter but increased its cost by about 10%

click here for unit details


large sweep through the costs of nearly all units:
- up to 5% relative cost reduction on units with tracking projectiles
- up to 10% relative cost reduction on units with slow-moving projectiles (some plasma cannons, rockets, bombs...)
- up to 10% relative cost reduction on cheap short-ranged or very low dps units
- up to 10% relative cost increase on units with very fast non-tracking projectiles (high energy bolts, railguns...)
- up to 10% relative cost increase on aircraft, especially those with relatively high HP
- up to 10% relative cost increase on flamethrower units (compensates for the buff due to slow moving projectiles)
- up to 10% relative cost increase on units with extremely energy intensive weapons like SPHERE's lightning beams

- fix movement speed modifiers from upgrades not being applied to the order queue that the unit got when under construction

- slightly reduced speed of advanced fighters and air scouts and adjusted the costs
- fixed SPHERE "Magnetar" not firing, increased its HP from 13000 to 15000 and energy cost to move from 225 to 280 per second
- reduced CLAW "Flail" shotgun range, reduced the spread and adjusted the cost
- increased CLAW "Centaur"'s damage output by about 12% and adjusted the cost
- reduced CLAW "Grunt"'s speed by about 10% and adjusted the cost
- reduced CLAW "Grinder"'s HP and weapon effectiveness by about 10% and adjusted the cost

--- effects / visuals

- fixed GEAR "Pyro"'s wreckage
- changed CLAW "Knife" and "Centaur"'s movement animations (again)
- changed CLAW "Flail" weapon sound (was too loud)
- minor adjustments to the scale of some of the models

--- UI / widgets

- changed the Economy build menu page to always show metal extractors on the first position
- changed the builder towers build menu section to "Plant" instead of "Other"

[raaar]

New version out!

same links as before

2017/06/03 ------------------ NOTES v0.979 ----------------------

- fixed the cost of nano-towers (they should be about 10% more expensive than on 0.976)

[raaar]

new version out!

here

also available through the "metalfactions:stable" rapid tag


2017/06/25 ------------------ NOTES v0.980 ----------------------

--- balance / mechanics

- taking damage reduces build and repair rates by half for 2 seconds (resource drain is halved too)
(this allows smaller raids to be effective even if there are enemy repair towers nearby)

--- UI / widgets

- tooltip shows damage and reload time separately for weapons with reload times longer than 5 seconds

[raaar]

new version out! Grab it NOW!
here

also available through the "metalfactions:stable" rapid tag

CLAW "Slayer" form commander slaying some enemies...



2017/08/17 ------------------ NOTES v0.981 ----------------------


- added CLAW "Slayer Form" commander : Greatly increased speed and firepower, but sharply reduced range.

click here for unit details

--- balance / mechanics

- made aircraft drop wreckage parts when destroyed amounting to 40% of their metal value, same as other units (excludes commander drones)

- enabled an engine option to have weapons on turrets track targets a bit more effectively when either the unit or the target moves
- fixed an issue on some units with different weapons on the same turret/torso wrongly restoring position when only one is in range of target

- torpedoes from morphed CLAW commanders track their targets (same as all other morphed commanders)


--- effects / visuals

- improved CLAW Commanders' movement animation to scale with speed modifiers
- improved effects when features are fully reclaimed

--- UI / widgets

- show victory status as "undetermined" when the game is aborted instead of showing "defeat" for all players
- added support for MF data collection system

[raaar]

I've made significant changes to the website, now there's a dropdown menus for easier navigation, link to the replays site and a new page with 1v1 rankings and player profiles.

http://metalfactions.pt/stats.html

It tracks games made on the nebula hosts only.

1v1s between human players nebula1 host count as valid ranked games.

example player profile:

http://metalfactions.pt/stats.html?type ... name=raaar

[raaar]

New version out!

same link as before

2017/08/28 ------------------ NOTES v0.982 ----------------------

--- balance / mechanics

- fixed an issue from the previous version where debris would drop after cancelling half-built aircraft (oops)

--- effects / visuals

- show effects when half-built units are destroyed or canceled

--- UI / widgets

- slightly lowered the minimum experience required for the COMMANDER award
- fixed the way the EFFICIENCY award is calculated (it was counting morphing, reclaimed units and upgrades as losses)

[raaar]

I've added "Type "!promote" to call more players." to the autohosts' welcome message and made some infrastructure changes.

Now whenever someone uses "!promote", a message will appear on the MF discord channel!

Discord webhooks, very useful!

Announcements triggered by "!promote":

[Forboding Angel]

WTF???

That is EPIC! I can haz epicbot? That is an amazing tool for games with a small playerbase.

[raaar]

It's not a real discord BOT, it's a simple bash script that runs a check on the spads battle room logs every 10s and sends http requests to a discord url (check attachment).

promoter.txt

promoter script

(1.83 KiB) Downloaded 144 times

First you need to create a discord webhook. On discord click on "edit channel" > "webhooks" for the channel you want, then define the webhook.

Then you can send http POST requests to that url with json data and they'll show up on the channel. I found an example request here:
https://meta.discourse.org/t/has-any-on ... cord/51785

[raaar]

i've added a slideshow with screenshots to the website
http://www.metalfactions.pt/index.html#screenshots

and updated the community section of the website with more information about the 1v1 ladder rules
http://www.metalfactions.pt/community.html

[raaar]

New version out!

same link as before


Burn!




2017/09/11 ------------------ NOTES v0.983 ----------------------

--- balance / mechanics

- modified GEAR "Infernal Form" commander : now has two fireball launchers instead of a fireball/cannon combination and moves about 15% faster

- reduced range on GEAR "Destroyer Form" commander's energy bolt weapon by about 15%

- improved AVEN "Gamma Form" commander's weapon DPS by about 10%

- reduced CLAW "Slayer Form" commander's laser cutter energy consumption by 15%

- fixed error when drone upgrades where used with the latest AVEN and CLAW commander forms

- reduced speed and cost of most commander drones

- reduced slope tolerance for factories (this indirectly helps MFAI not to place them on slopes too steep for some of the units to exit)

- reduced speed and cost by about 10-20% and increased HP by about 15% for level 2 fighter aircraft

- increased acceleration and turnrate for AVEN "Runner" scout robot

- increased reload time and damage per shot by about 20% for most light and medium plasma cannons

- reduced cannon range and cost for GEAR "Might" and various level 2 Ships by about 10%

- increased GEAR "Kano" DPS by 10%

--- AI

- MFAI will now reclaim wreckages and other features much more effectively
- MFAI mobile unit evasion range reduced and uses half as many waypoints
- MFAI global awareness and tasks updates about every 6 seconds instead of 2
(these changes should boost performance on games against MFAI)

--- UI / widgets

- F10 key takes screenshot on png mode (F12 is for lower quality jpg)
- fixed issue with selection circles tilting to match the slope below the water line for ships near the shore

[raaar]

New version out!

same link as before


Scout pad building scout aircraft...


2017/09/17 ------------------ NOTES v0.986 ----------------------

- fixed bug where GEAR's scout pad couldn't build air scouts (oops)


2017/09/17 ------------------ NOTES v0.985 ----------------------

- fixed bug that caused a crash when trying to start single player games through weblobby or directly through the spring engine binary
(didn't happen when using springlobby, though)


2017/09/17 ------------------ NOTES v0.984 ----------------------

--- new units

- added scout pads for all factions : cheap level 1 buildings that build air scouts
(this is to discourage some rushes and early blind rock-paper-scissors gameplay)

--- balance / mechanics

- significantly increased acceleration of SPHERE "Bit" robots
- fixed SPHERE "Golem" missiles being launcher horizontally
- increased damage per shot and reload time by about 20% for most missiles (damage per second is the same)

COMMANDER DRONES
- reduced the cost of commander drones by 30%
- commander drones are now automatically destroyed if they somehow stray too far from the commander (twice as far as the retreat range, or about 1200)
- intelligence drones got even cheaper and drain 75 instead of 90 E/s but radar/sonar range was reduced from 1300/1100 to 1100/900
- light drones evened out across factions, weapon's base DPS was set to 50 (up from 35 and 44 DPS)
- medium drones changed: AVEN's a bit faster and deals more damage at shorter range, SPHERE's tougher but slower and got its weapon range slightly reduced

RESOURCES
- reduced relative metal extraction multiplier for moho mines and exploiters from x3 to x2.5
- metal extractors and moho mines are now about 20% more expensive
- made metal extractors a bit tougher (from 300-500HP to 450-580HP)
- exploiters extract the same amount of metal as moho mines (was 93%) but increased energy drain from 80/s to 90/s
(this is meant to increase the payback times of rushing resource production, make exploiters more attractive and reward raiding more)
- removed energy income/cost from units that produce or drain less than 3 metal/s when moving

WRECKAGES
- units with build percentage greater than 50% explode normally and leave wreckage when destroyed
- prevent nano-frames from using self-destruct
- death explosions for most non-hazardous units and buildings deal L, M damage type instead of M, H
- AVEN "Zapper", "Penetrator" and "Excalibur" explode more violently when destroyed


--- UI / widgets

- updated upgrades' description to display their MINOR, COMMANDER or MAJOR type
- show message when construction orders for upgrades are denied because either own or type limit was reached
- removed white outline from the shield values on the tooltip

[raaar]

New version out! Grab it NOW!
here.

Also available through the "metalfactions:stable" rapid tag, and by joining the nebula game rooms on the official server.


SPHERE outpost under attack...




2017/10/16 ------------------ NOTES v0.987 ----------------------

--- engine

- changed SpringRTS engine version compatiblity and requirement from 103.0 to 104.0

--- new units

- added SPHERE hardened fission reactors
(this adds a choice between the previous cheaper but vulnerable economy clusters or sturdy ones)


click here for unit details

--- balance / mechanics

MOVEMENT
- enabled "raw movement" (requires springRTS engine 104.0)
(this means units are more likely to travel in a straight line over short distances if they can)

COMMANDERS
- improved overall combat attributes of most AVEN, GEAR and CLAW commanders by about 10-15%
(they're no longer being overvalued relative to SPHERE commanders due to their cloaking ability)
- improved the relative balance between the underwater and surface weapons (underwater weapon is generally worth half as much on all commanders)
- reduced range by 6%, increased DPS by 12% but doubled the energy consumption for the unmorphed SPHERE commander's beam
- fixed issues when trying to aim the torpedo weapon while underwater (affected several AVEN and GEAR commanders)


click here for unit details


CLOAKABLE UNITS
- made cloakable units about 8% cheaper

CONSTRUCTION UNITS
- removed 0.1m/s and 0.2m/s and 50/100 resource storage from construction units and reduced the costs by roughly 10%
- construction aircraft build at the same rate as other builders of the same tech level instead of half, but costs increased by about 30%
- reduced construction aircraft movement speed by 20% but increased their HP by about 20%
(they're still fragile)
- increased build power of construction drones by 25%
- increased the build time for most level 2 buildings by 37% to have the resource drain consistent with the other buildings

click here for unit details


OTHER
- fixed aiming delays that made most fast firing weapons (emg, miniguns, continuous beams) deal 10-20% less damage per second than expected
(this happened while maneuvering or against mobile targets even if they were still within tolerance)
- fixed units with torpedoes trying to target enemy aircraft

- reduced CLAW "Grinder" dps and range by about 10% and cost by about 25%
- made CLAW "Mega" significantly bigger and stronger and adjusted the cost
- made GEAR "Cascade" bigger and increased the damage per pass, but now it deals M damage instead of H and is slightly slower and adjusted the cost
(a single bomber is now much more likely to be able to destroy a single factory or small cluster in one pass and survive)
- increased GEAR "Instigator" HP from 850 to 1000 and cost slightly and changed the armor type from L to M
- increased SPHERE "Crustle" HP from 1100 to 1200 and adjusted the cost (+6%)

- "Advanced Plating" upgrade changed from +8% to +10% HP

click here for unit details


--- UI

- prevent sharing units to enemies
- tooltip shows build power for construction units in metal per second
(note that level1 factories are built 50% faster and aircraft have a builtin cost modifier of 7% less metal but 100% more energy to build/repair)

[raaar]

New version out! Grab it NOW!
here.

Also available through the "metalfactions:stable" rapid tag, and by joining the nebula game rooms on the official server.


CLAW Spinbots and some of the other amphibious units...


A Magnetar and a squad of Nimbus hold an area. Comet passing by while moving to raid some unfortunate enemies...



2017/12/01 ------------------ NOTES v0.989 ----------------------


--- new units

- added SPHERE "Comet" : Energy-intensive Fast Assault Sphere (requires 1000 E/s to move)
- added SPHERE "Nimbus" : Small Skirmisher Sphere
- added SPHERE "Orb" : Intelligence Sphere


click here for unit details

- added CLAW "Bullfrog" : level 2 Amphibious Boat

- added CLAW "Spinbot Plant" : Produces level 2 Amphibious Spinbots
- added CLAW Advanced Construction Spinbot
- added CLAW "Dizzy" : Infantry Spinbot
- added CLAW "Gyro" : Anti-Armor Ring Launcher Spinbot
- added CLAW "Mace" : Assault Spinbot
- added CLAW "Predator" : Heavy Infantry Spinbot (reworked unit from the adv. shipyard)
- added CLAW "Tempest" : Heavy Missile Skirmisher Spinbot (reworked unit from the adv. shipyard)
- added CLAW "Haze" : Intelligence Spinbot


click here for unit details

--- balance / mechanics


GENERAL BALANCE

- increased repair energy cost from 90% to 100% of the unit's energy cost

- removed aircraft-specific cost modifiers : they now cost about 7% more metal but about half as much energy
(they now have their energy cost set to 5x the amount of their metal cost instead of x10, like ground units and buildings)

- increased the efficiency assumption for relatively fast non-tracking projectiles, which makes some units with cannons relatively more expensive

- slightly reduced projectile velocities (10-20%) for many plasma cannons

- made lower weight units about 5% cheaper than bigger more expensive ones
- made units with very low HP about 5% relatively cheaper
- made units with below average range up to about 5% cheaper than longer ranged units
- made slower units and static defenses up to about 5% cheaper than faster units
- reduced cost of units which cost more 3k metal (they may still be more expensive due to the previous nerfs)
(these make most level1 units cheaper relative to level2 units, which get 5 to 25% more expensive than in the previous version)

- increased cost of level 2 air transports by about 10%

- reduced idle HP regeneration per second from 2+0.3%HP to 2+0.2%HP

- fixed collision volumes for static long range plasma cannons

- the reload rate on commanders' weapons is reduced to 25% while building
(this is to reduce the advantage commanders with high reload time weapons have when building and fighting near the front line)

- made most heavy tanks amphibious

- reduced cost of amphibious boats by 15%
(they get the same "discount" as other ships as they still have the 33% speed penalty on land)

- unit mass now calculated to also scale with unit hp instead of metal cost, and air units are lighter
(this affects transportability and impulse from being hit)

- changed mass limit for level1 air transports from 1000 to 1200

- made heavy units push-resistant


SPECIFIC UNIT CHANGES

- increased the DPS level 1 land scout units by about 20%

- increased the size, HP of battleships and main gun DPS by about 20%, but reduced their speed by about 40%

- added angle restriction on secondary weapon on GEAR "Proteus" and CLAW "Wrecker" so the front turrets don't shoot "through" the larger back turret

- AVEN "Gryphon" rockets no longer track their targets
- reduced speed of AVEN "Excalibur" by 10%
- doubled AVEN "Skimmer" DPS
- increased AVEN "Turbulence" DPS on missile launcher by 50% but slightly reduced range and dps on the secondary lasers

- increased HP of GEAR "Cube" robots by 400
- GEAR "Might" is now about 20% slower but 20% stronger in HP and DPS
- GEAR Cube and Titan robots are now amphibious
- GEAR "Barrel" no longer slows down on water

- made CLAW "Crawler" bigger and stronger (+20% DPS, +30% HP + 15% range)
- changed CLAW "Cutter"'s torpedo to an amphibious rocket and the laser gets +10% range but deals M damage instead of H
- changed CLAW "Trident"'s amphibious rockets : they hit a bit harder and stray less, but with longer reload time and slower speed
- changed CLAW "Sword"'s weapon from cannon to a short range high DPS laser cutter

- SPHERE "Magnetar" now regenerates 100HP/s and has radar jammer and a toggleable aura that pulls deals up to 150(L) disruptor dmg/s within 300 range, but doubled the reload time on the disruptor blast and increased cost by 20%
- reduced speed of SPHERE "Chub" by 10%
- SHPERE construction sphere regenerates 30 HP/s
- reduced E cost to move for SPHERE construction sphere, Astra and Gazer from 150 to 120 E/s
- SPHERE sphere factory can build level 1 construction aircraft


--- MAPS

- added preliminary support for some maps which have no hard-coded ground metal values but have lua metal spot configuration

--- AI

- MFAI will use AVEN Hovercraft, CLAW Spinbots and SPHERE flying spheres
- SPHERE MFAI now builds hardened fission reactors

--- UI

- tooltip shows mass and transportability "light", "heavy" or "no transport" status for mobile units
- groups of units will try to converge near the point when given non-unit point targets as the auto-formation wasn't working properly
(it's generally recommended to click-drag when giving orders so units spread out along the lines)


--- effects / visuals

- fully charged magnetars light up the grow below, slightly
- renamed GEAR air transports from "Valkyrie" to "Carrier" to match their more "industrial" flavour
- fixed glowy effects from underwater explosions being drawn above the water surface (workaround for Spring 104.0 engine bug)
- slightly improved models of amphibious ships and CLAW amphibious robots
- slightly improved AVEN "Merl" model
- plasma cannon projectiles light up the ground below, slightly

[raaar]

New version out!

Same links as the previous one.

AVEN runner bots with updated legs...




2017/12/17 ------------------ NOTES v0.990 ----------------------

--- balance / mechanics

- doubled magnetar's pull strength and increased the HP regen from 100 to 160 HP/s but removed the shield

- fixed scaling of collision volumes for units under construction and aircraft

- fixed metal values on some maps that rely on lua metal spot configuration

- modified the footprint size of light vehicles so that they spread out more when moving around in groups


--- effects / visuals

- improved the 3D models of AVEN runner-type family of robots
- fixed some of the feature destruction and reclaim effects being visible outside the sight range of friendly units