AI Wave Survival Mod Information

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)

Cybran Stun Cannon:
-Fixed error causing T4 Stun to not fire.
-Bots now can be stunned.
-Changed T4 Stun to a different projectile, high burst damage.
-Removed Doom Stun, also ACU Hunters are immune to stun.

Added T3 Point Defense for all factions!
Cybran - 65 range, 268 dps, fires in small bursts, 1.9k cost.
Sera - 60 range, 275 dps, fires dual beams, 2k cost.
Aeon - 75 range, 200 dps, high damage, slow rate of fire, 2.2k cost.

@Retributer
I'll probably increase the base ASF vs T4, originally planned as a supplement to Nomanders.

10 ASF for every T4 should be fine, not sure tbh since they're gonna spawn with each wave, but that'd force the player to make ASFs of their own
Also, if I got it right you're making them spawn with a move order, so they just make a beeline towards the players' bases and crash into their defenses. Is it possible to give them a patrol order instead?

Good call for the T3 turrets, since I'm playing Aeon lately I needed something between the Oblivion and the T4 (we're using the All Faction Quantum Gate mod but I like to stick to one faction most of the time).

New Options! (I know that is what you all wanted...)
HQ Alternate Spawn:
An alternative spawn point for HQ. Will spawn half of Land/Air Waves from the alternate spawn point. Will also spawn half of Dooms, ACU Hunters, Endgame Bosses, and Nomanders. Cannot be destroyed.
2nd Spawn Alternate:
Spawns half of Land/Air waves that would normally spawn from 2nd Spawn. Disabled is 2nd Spawn is destroyed.

Reason for adding 2 new spawn options? So that the mod can support Hold the Middle maps, where waves come from up to four directions. The Alternative HQ Spawn also allows splitting the spawning of Endgame Units between two points, increasing difficulty.

DROPS: Airdrops RAMBOS:
You can now enable the option to have Transports drop in Rambo SACUs. How fun is that?
NUKE: Increase Nukes Per Strike:
Increases nuke count every strike. An easier and more sane alternative to Nuclear Overwhelm.

Changes:
-Aeon T3PD:
It was just too good. 1000 damage -> 800 Damage, 250 DPS -> 200 DPS, 2 AoE -> 1 Aoe, Slight increase in inaccuracy, 10% cost increase.
-ExtraASF:
Changed 5 per T4 Air to 9 per T4 Air.
-Artillery Response:
May spawn advanced shields. Easier to trigger response.
-Guardian AA for HQ:
Buff to fire rate.
-Universal PD for HQ:
Buff to range.
-Dooms:
Deploy a squad of RAMBOs on death.
-EcoBoost Energy:
Reduced by 25%, so 75 energy per 1 mass given.
-CoffeeEntes T4 AA
Pull 300 power.
-NUKE: Strike Frequency Option:
Greatly increased number of frequency options.
-Error Messages:
Added Warning Messages that should show if Alternate/2nd Spawn is not configured correctly, as these errors will stop units from spawning.

So with Total Mayhem enabled with this mod, the AI Spams out T1 Experimentals even with Experimentals turned off. This just completely destroys my base cuz its like 90% of the enemy compositon.

@tot1212

I haven't really played much with Total Mayhem, so haven't balanced the mod for it. It is chaos the few games I've tried.

Right now, the experimental modifiers only affects T4 tech. I'd have to add in some new scripts to support limiting T1 through T3 experimentals. I'll look into this week. I think there are a few other mods that also add lower lever experimentals that would benefit from a custom script.

@rama Thank you.

@tot1212

Well, I wasn't planning to get it done so soon, but your post got me thinking I might actually play Total Mayhem more if I could adjust those pesky T1/T2/T3 Experimentals.

The new option should work with any Unit Packs that introduce very powerful T1/T2/T3 Units, as it separates the regular units from the heavy units by Mass Costs.

So, added some new options under Wave Settings:
10: Special Option for Unit Packs:
-Enables the ability to adjust the spawn rate of T1/T2/T3 Experimentals in Unit Packs. Or can be left off and the units will spawn at random.
10a: Land T1/T2/T3 Experimental Frequency:
-Sets the Spawn Rate for Land units. The default percentage of 100 translates to 25% in game, with increments of 2.5% chance. The Experimental spawn rate increases as game progresses.
10b: Air T1/T2/T3 Experimental Frequency:
-Sets the Spawn Rate for Air units. The default percentage of 100 translates to 25% in game, with increments of 2.5% chance. The Experimental spawn rate increases as game progresses.
10c: Navy T1/T2/T3 Experimental Frequency:
-Sets the Spawn Rate for Navy units. The default percentage of 100 translates to 25% in game, with increments of 2.5% chance. The Experimental spawn rate increases as game progresses.

I also got to learn what the error "too many upvalues (limit=32)" in LUA means!

Sounds fun! I also noticed you made some changes to auxiliary gens, I like being able to set where they spawn
I'm not exactly sure what destroying them does though, I get that it stuns everything for a few seconds, and there's still the energy stall, but what's the resupply about? I haven't done it much since I play very defensively until the timer ends but I remember it's possible to get early reinforcements by destroying the gens before the endgame begins, but the message is displayed with each gen destroyed, even if it doesn't do anything

I also noticed that the HQ doesn't send Monkeylords anymore, is that supposed to happen? The only ones I get are the ones sent by Dropinentals

@Retributer

The Support Bases (former Auxiliary Gens) are meant to reward players for taking the offensive.

Destroying a support base will:
-Rewards team with resources. Grants 500 mass and 37500 energy, each second, for 14 seconds (7000 mass). Increases by 4 seconds (2000 mass) for every Support Base destroyed.
-Very high chance of temporarily stunning entire wave. Dooms, ACU Hunters, and RAMBOS immune to stun.
-High chance to damage HQ for 5% or 7% of total health.
-33% chance of spawning T4 Allies for team.

There is also a 60% chance one of the following retaliations will be triggered:
-Nuclear Strike: A small nuclear strike. Nukes will NEVER occur on the first Support Base destroyed.
-Boss Wave: Spawns YOLO strength counter bosses.
-Artillery Barrage: Calls in a 4 minute artillery barrage.

Airdrops are always triggered as a retaliation for every support base destroyed. All retaliations increase in strength for every support base destroyed.

On destroying all Support Bases:
-Will damage HQ for 10% health.
-Stuns wave for 30 to 45 seconds.
-Grants resources.
-Crashes HQ's power.
-Spawns mapwide storms that damage anything in range.

Support Bases are still a work in progress. Might add a few more random events and will be adjusting others, before adding in options for players to fully customize. Bases are a little too difficult to attack with ground units at the moment, and the rewards might not be worth the mass costs and risks.

As for the Monkey Lords not spawning, now that you mention it, I haven't seen any in a while. Looks like I accidentally disabled them when I excluded "counterintelligence" from the unit tables. I'll fix that next release. Thanks for the feedback!

Bug Fixes:
Waves will now spawn Monkey Lords and UEF T2 Gunships.
Air and other units that cannot attack underwater mexes will no longer get stuck flying in circles around them.

lmao I thought YOLO bosses were a response to the players building a Yolona Oss since it spawned around the time we built one
Thanks for the fix, I missed the spiderbots! I didn't notice the UEF gunship was missing too

Hey Rama, thank you for your work on the mod. i have so many ppl joining my lobbies, they all like what you do.

For your _AIWave - i stop using it for now and switch back to uveso. Your AI (17.08.2023) has problems with underwater mex and does not command idle units. uveso takes 1-2 min until it sends waiting units but it does. therefore uveso is better for performance.

@slykar

I fixed the issue with air units targeting underwater mexes they cannot hit (after you messaged me on FAF, it was on my to-do list, just hadn't prioritized it). I haven't noticed any issues with idle units, after fixing the scripts. Please let me know if there are any other idle issues you notice.

@retributer

The Yolo bosses are normally in response to starting a Yolo. They are the next most powerful units after Dooms, so I figured they would be a good random retaliation for killing a support base. Probably will adjust to a unique wave event that isn't as good at breaking defenses.

After Slykar kept hosting games with well over 1000 unit waves, and stress testing the mod, I had to rework a number of things to reliably generate that big of waves. So far, after testing, mod can reliably generate 3000 unit waves. I would recommend all players have CPU scores under 200, and good thermal cooling, if playing with such massive waves. Idle units will now always redirect to new targets, usually in 10 to 30 seconds.

Also, a few changes:
-Tech Progression option has been made easier to understand. Limits have also been increased to +/- 50%.
-Personal shields on HQ and 2nd HQ have been changed to shield bubbles. The personal shields were causing confusion on why buildings weren't taking damage.
-Optional Wave Break has been moved from 70% of Hold Time to just before Endgame.
-Stun and Salvation events will cycle through waves much faster now.
-Storm Missiles have been buffed. Spawn 2 to 4 storms now. 62.5% chance for 3 storms and 6.25% chance for 4. Range increased by 10%, speed increased by 6%, missile hit points increased to 6, silo capacity increased to 5, silo now has a volitile death.

They had a personal shield? I never noticed
That being said, we usually wait until the timer runs out and start building game enders when our bases are less threatened

We've never been able to destroy the support bases before the endgame so I can't tell if Yolo bosses are a threat ; by the time they pop, we have dozens of Broadswords waiting for them. Maybe instead you could try making an airdrop wave, with a few Dropinentals landing near the players' bases (not in the bases, I feel that'd be unfair, unless you really want to make it difficult). You could have maybe ten of them transporting T3 units, and two or three with T4. Just an example, ofc

btw, you ever thought about adding vocal messages during the mission? 5iver Survival did it and it was kinda nice
just need to have HQ or anyone sending relevant voicelines when something important happens, like HQ saying "scratch one of the bases" if you destroy a support base.

Personal shields were added recently.

There already are airdrops triggered by killing support based, which increase in number per support base killed, and each transport has a 20% chance to drop T4's.

I used to have the messages go to chat, which allowed players to check the messages if they missed one. But then an FAF update broke the mod. I switched to printtext messages after, because I didn't know if another FAF update would break messages again. Personally, I dislike the video alerts.

Hi, your Airdrop response to destroyed support bases are coming from the edges of the map.

if possible, it should be happen from the same position we saved in the settings. Example: Center only.
Once on the map Griffin, the transporter came from the edge of the map at the very top left, that is at Fort Clarke. It was shot down, of course, because our base was there. I liked the 10k Mass donation.

I also made some notes to your Map and hope you have the time so give it a quick view.

In the first Screenshot is the problem. Everything else is extra.

Extra:
For the 2nd Screenshot, i added my played and recommended meta. In total i recommend to change 3-4 spawn points.

I do not like to give Slot 14 (AI Wave Survial in blue) the job to defend the beach, as it would be boring for the island player. Either Slot 14 survives and island ecos = free win or he dies and Island has no defenses built...
I would only do it, if we have no full lobby.

For Slot 15 and 3 i recommend to move it more to the center of the beach BUT far enough away from the AI-route to the island. Air units targting Slot 1 ans 2 (Island) should not swtich the targets mid flight.

Slot 10 and 11 are unusable. i cant give it a player. Worse as slot 14.

For Slot 10 i recommend to move it to the left area. The player will have a reason to fight for the 4 mexes and can help in a lot of ways. Navy, Def top left, Def south, Eco.

Slot 11 would be the new main HQ slot. Maybe the slot position is fine but the north-, south-mountain range must change. West-East looks fine and should split land units going the water route and the land route to the top right player.

Even if you do nothing. Thank you for your nice mod!

Griffin - Ideas.png

Griffin - Meta Adjustments.png