AI Wave Survival Mod Information

I played a game just now to try some stuff and I noticed you added the Doom waves, I love it
I only got the Colossus, Megalith and Ythotha for now, gonna try later and see what you did with the others, but that's a great idea, also the fact that you can damage the HQ by killing these bosses will be a lot of fun!

New Endgame Feature:
Doom waves are an alternative EndGame option, using extremely powerful T5 units. Destroying a wave will damage the HQ by whatever percentage set by the player. Doom Waves will respawn after 1 minute, and waves will continue until HQ or players are destroyed. There are multiple settings, so players may fine-tune the final difficulty.

4a: DOOM EndGame Wave:
-Sets the size of the initial Doom Wave. Setting to "Off" will disable the waves completely.
4b: DOOM HQ Damage:
-Sets the % health the HQ will lose every time a Doom Wave is defeated. Can be set anywhere between zero and 100%.
4c: DOOM Wave +/-:
-Causes waves to increase or decrease in size when respawning. Start with a large Doom Wave, and then have it grow weaker as the HQ is damaged. Or have it grow stronger!
4d: DOOM Health Boost:
If the Dooms just aren't tough enough for you, feel free to boost their base health by up to 1000%. Dooms also receive health, damage, and speed boosts from the standard BOOST settings.
4e: DOOM Crawlers On/Off:
-Enable/Disable Doom Megas and Doom Fatboys from spawning in Doom Waves.
4f: DOOM Walkers On/Off:
-Enable/Disable Doom Colossus and Doom Ythotha from spawning in Doom Waves.

Also added a new setting for ACU Hunters, per a request. And made them immune to Colossus claws.

ACU Hunters Wave Multi:
-Adjust the amount of hunters that will spawn, if you like your SACUs to die. Can also reduce wave size.

@Retributer
Yeah, I've been planning out the Doom Waves for a while. Felt there needed to be an alternative way to win other than spamming arty or Hold to Win. Now feels like a proper EndGame. I still need to balance, so feedback is appreciated. Also added in the ACU Hunter Wave Muti, since you liked fighting those guys.

@swaaye
Good to hear you haven't had any more issues after redownloading mods. The situation you described, with the game frozen and the UI still functional, usually happens when the script gets caught in an infinite loop. Sometimes an error can trigger that.

We went through a game with Doom Waves on but we set the whole difficulty too low so we just spawnkilled them. Next time we'll try setting 5 waves with +1 Doom each wave, that should be a good start.
What worries me is that each Doom unit is basically a walking HP pool with long range, maybe you should give each of them their own gimmick (Colossus pulling units fast with its arms, Fatboy periodically spawning group of enemies, (if that's even possible) for example). Also, as usual, an option to set their respawn time (or remove it completely) could be nice !

We haven't tried with endless waves and bosses either so maybe they work best with these on ! In any case I like the idea and this will make the endgame much more fun

Some bug fixes and changes:
-Nuke and YoloBoss attack scripts redone. Nukes are still random, but will be much more likely to target game enders. Also will target naval units and coms if bases are destroyed. YoloBosses will attempt to reach game-ender threats.
-Fixed error in attack scripts, causing units to not aggressively pursue player's few remaining units.
-T4 EMP Tacs are now cheaper and faster to build.
-Dooms will deploy platoons of units on their destruction.

New Options:
Doom Minimum Wave Size:
-Restrict Dooms smallest wave size.
Doom Storm Spawns:
-Will spawn electrical storms randomly all over the map. There is a 50% chance storms will form every time a Doom wave is defeated. Number of storms can be set with the multiplier. Default is 15 storms on 20+ km maps, 8 on 10km, and 5 on 5km.
Salvation Player:
Sets what player is salvation player. If salvation player loses/suicides ACU, entire wave will be destroyed. Salvation can be set to kill everything, spare Dooms, or spare Dooms and T4 units.

@retributer
I usually play with bosses and endless waves on, so the Dooms are certainly harder to deal with than on their own. I have, however, improved them a little. They now deploy a platoon of units on destruction (not really a threat unless defenses have been breached). And there is an option for random storms across the map whenever a wave is defeated (very much a threat, set it to 5x and prepare to party!). Doom walkers will also behave a bit different than the crawlers.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Nice ! Gonna try this tonight and I'll let you know how it went, that sounds fun !
We actually disabled endless waves because reaching the HQ with groups of T4 spawning around it was a pain, but I think I'll try turning it back on with the Doom waves.

@retributer

There is an option under Endless, that adds spawn time to the waves once past Hold Time. So if you have waves set to 2 mins, and want to have waves less frequently during Endgame, you could set Endless Delay to 3 mins, which would cause waves every 5 minutes.

There is also the option under Wave Multiplier to make Endless Waves smaller. The final number is the multiplier applied to the endgame wave. I believe I added some that go:
2 > 2 > 2 > 1.5 > 1

So if you had wave size set to 10 units, it would spawn 20 units most of the game, then drop down to 10 units for endgame.

Added those two options for players who wanted to be able to ground assault the HQ. Though, maybe I should add a defensive wave, only triggered by units near HQ after Endgame begins. Hmmmmmm...

Edit:
There is also a third option. Set everything to spawn from 2nd Spawn, with no HQ recovery. Destroying 2nd spawn would then eliminate all regular waves. Or set HQ recovery to 25% or less, which will keep units spawning, but in greatly reduced numbers.

oooh I never thought about making everything spawn at the second base

ok so we've gone through a game with endless and Doom on, that was really fun! However, there might be an error regarding the number of Dooms per wave ; we set it at initial 1, with +1 each wave and 20% HQ damage, and the waves went 1 > 2 > 5 > 7 > 11 (not sure about the 5, I lost count at some point because there are two Fatboys that I'm not sure I counted when they spawned).
Also, the sACUs that spawn when Dooms die just stood there, I though at first they were set to attack move the player and ended up reclaiming, but watching the replay I think they received no order at all

The endgame defensive wave is a good idea. The nukes work fine, but sometimes they hit the HQ, so if the player set its HP to something not too high, it can self-destruct this way.

Added an AI for use with the mod, AI_WaveSurvival. The new AI actually does nothing, won't base build or give orders. Also means it won't interfere with the attack scripts or run in the background, slowing down SIM. Other AIs sometimes redirect units or horde the early waves instead of attacking. Best used when Base Building is off.

Re-did artillery targeting. Artillery should now prioritize targeting team's paragons and artillery, instead of just picking a random player and blasting their base while ignoring game enders.

Gave Dooms the Commander icon to make spotting on map much easier.

@retributer

The Rambo SACU have an attack script to give them orders. It was working in testing, up until the last FAF Patch. No idea why they aren't being detected and given orders, as there are no errors in the log. Might just change them out to something else.

I'll see if I made a mistake on the Doom Count. And I set the nuke launcher that spawns for the HQ to not damage friendlies (unless the flag isn't working), but may have forgot to change the launcher for the defensive script. Thanks for letting me know.

No problem ! Maybe give the SACU a move order, as they are enough of a threat to be able to just walk into enemy defenses.
Speaking of SACUs, do you think you could add them in late-game waves ? Maybe somewhere after the first T4s start spawning, their HP pool could help other units get close to the defenders' bases. Like, give them a small chance to spawn instead of a T3 so there are a few coming with each wave. Maybe even give them better loadouts as tech level increases, so you start with vanilla SACUs and end up with mostly Rambos and Combattants.

As usual, I can't wait for the next update ! Thanks for your work !

Small Update:
-Endgame Air Boss health nerfed.
-ACU Hunter Health nerfed, torpedo range reduced.
-Bug Fix: Salvation Player warning text won't show if configured correctly.
-BrewLAN walls restricted.
-Added support for Commander Survival Kit (won't spawn Fire Support units in waves).

Redid the experimental spawn rates, greatly reducing them, and changing progression a little. Should be able to host larger waves with few T4's spawning now. The T4 Spawn Rates can always be increased under the Experimental/Boss Frequency settings.

Added 4 new T4 defense units for players. They are in need of play testing and balancing.
UEF - An artillery unit that fire napalm canisters, doing damage over a large area for a period of time. Dooms suffer 1.5x damage to the Napalm canisters. No energy draw.
Cybran - A powerful stun cannon, capable of even stunning T4's and Dooms (though Dooms must get close). Energy hungry.
Aeon - Oblivion cannon, direct fight, high damage and long range. Very power hungry.
Seraphim - A T4 tac launcher, deploying two energy beings on impact that attack everything in range for 20 seconds, including air. Reduced damage against Dooms (1/3rd damage).

I am having a little problem with a victory condition occurring when the first Doom wave is destroyed. At least, that seems to be what causes the end. Disabling Doom wave keeps the game going. I have endless normal and boss waves enabled, and Doom HQ damage set to 0. 3-4 Dooms per wave.

By the way we have had some additional problems with the game going into that freeze condition with the UI and chat still responsive. I think it might be related to waves spawning in. It seems like if fewer units are in play, it doesn't happen.

And also, there has been an appearance of a strange bug seemingly related to pathfinding. Air units will fly like 20x higher than usual and take minutes to come down to attack. There will also be an invisible vertical map barrier that land units can not cross. Very strange. And a game restart usually fixes it even with identical settings. Maybe it's related to the recent FAF patches.

I saw the new T4 turrets two days ago, only tested the Oblivion so far, looks good
I have no idea if it's balanced or not, but looks like for once I'll have to give orders to my defense (I don't want its slow firing rate to be wasted on T3 units). I noticed you also made the CoffeeEnt bigger, which makes sense, stacking them around a mex was insanely powerful !
Gonna try this out later today and tell you how it went !

@swaaye

I haven't had any of those bugs in play testing. All current testing has been done with no unit packs (except BrewLAN, on occasion), and using the AI included in AI Wave Survival. The last FAF patch broke multiple AI's and BlackOps Unleashed.

What mods are you currently using? BlackOps Unleashed will cause an infinite loop (frozen gameplay but functional UI) because of bugs caused by the latest update. And what size waves are you using? I've tested with up to 200 units per wave, with waves every 2 minutes without issues.

The pathfinding bug seems very strange. Is it map specific? Only time I encountered that was on a map with an actual invisible wall (map terrain marked as lava, making it impassable). And Retributer had an issue with Dooms spawning incorrectly, but I was never able to recreate the bug.

My best guess is it is a mod conflict, introducing errors that are breaking scripts. But I would have to know what mods you are currently using. And checking your game Log for errors and posting here would be a big help.

My network has been acting up so I couldn't try out these new turrets until earlier today
Still went with Colossal Oblivions, they're good at what they're made for, it's kind of like a Tempest canon on land, that's nice
I also built a few Cybran T4s but couldn't get an enemy close enough to see what it did ; I will say however that their size makes it impossible to align them with other buildings, thus using adjacency. Make them half a tile (or one tile?) bigger or smaller, I hope they'll still look good like this. I noticed the same problem with the T4 AA, though I don't need adjacency on these ones, it's purely aesthetic.
I still can't tell you how balanced they are, though I wouldn't worry too much about that since all the balance is changed with your mod. They don't look overpowered as far as I can tell.
Gonna look into the other turrets more, they look fun to use!

Added a new wave option, Air Drops! Lot of flexibility with these. Can set unit types carried, multipliers, where they spawn from, and even if they will drop in T4 units (Monkey Lords and Ythotha).

Here are all the options:
-AIRDROPS-
DROPS: Airdrops On/Off:
Sets if Air Drops are on and how frequent they occur. Transports are affected by the Wave Tech Delay (delays/speeds up tech progression) setting and Start Waves T2 setting (skips T1).
DROPS: Airdrops per Wave:
Sets how many transports spawn per wave.
DROPS: Airdrops Wave Multiply:
Will increase or decrease the size of waves as game progresses.
DROPS: Airdrops Start Time:
Sets the time after Holdtime begins that Transports will start.
DROPS: Airdrops End Time:
Sets the time after Endgame begins that Transports will stop. Endless means transports never stop spawning.
DROPS: Airdrops Unit Types:
Sets the time after Holdtime begins that Transports will start.
DROPS: Airdrops Experimentals:
Sets if Transports will drop T4 units. Transports only carry one T4 unit at a time. Sets the frequency of the occurrence.
DROPS: Airdrops Spawn Location:
Sets where Transports will spawn in from.

Also, buffed the Seraphim T4 Tac.
-Missiles cheaper and faster to build.
-Faster moving, higher health, longer range, and more damage on impact.
-Spawns two Energy Beings on impact instead of only one.

@retributer

Yeah, I was aware of the Cybran stun not being able to take advantage of adjacency. I was going to correct, but because Cybran T4 can stun Dooms, it seems like an accidental balance I haven't decided if I should correct or not. I'll see about fixing the AA, makes it harder to fit in small bases. And I'd like to add SACU's to air drops, but the attack script I made for Rambo Coms stopped working on the last FAF update, for unknown reasons, which is why they would just stand there.

Forgot to mention in a previous update:

Allies:
Can now be set to spawn Only Land, Only Air, or a mix of the two.

-- Extra Waves --
2b: Extra ASF:
Added an alternative Anti-Air response, which spawn in extra ASF to attack player air units. A selectable multiplier affects the base spawn rate of one ASF per 2 Gunships/Bombers, one ASF per 4 ASF, and five ASF per T4 Air. Spawns with regular air waves. Can be used in unison with Nomanders or on its own.

Oh, yeah, I noticed the ASF waves and wondered how long they had been there
5 ASF per T4 seems underwhelming (Awassa and CZAR can easily take that down on their own), otherwise I like it! Dropinentals are nice too, they can be very hard to kill if spawned early (I haven't tried making them drop T4 yet but that sounds very dangerous)