BlackOpsFAF-Unleashed only for FAF v26

Doompants

Heavy Attack Drones:

To recreate, simply build any one of these units:

BSL 0401 - Seraphim T4 Hover Tank
BEL 0402 - UEF T4 Assault Bot (Goliath)
UAS 0401 - T4 Battleship (Tempest)

The units when completed will have various numbers of "Heavy Defense Drones". These units used to autonomously defend the Experimental and add to their attack capabilities, but they now immediately land when the experimental is built and they will not interact with anything, nor will they follow the experimental.

Doompants

BlackOps Aeon ACU hitbox:

Various weapons seem to have issues hitting the BlackOps Aeon ACU. I do not have an exhaustive list, but the most notable ones are focussed beam weapons and some ACU basic guns.

To recreate:

I used three T3 Aria PD and walked an Aeon ACU into range. As I walk the ACU around, some Aria beams will hit and do damage, but often the beams pass right through and do not inflict damage. With minimal positioning, it is often possible to find a place where the ACU can stand absolutely still and some of the beams will not hit. This is not limited to the T3 Aria PD, but it is one of the easiest to reproduce and see the effect. This weekend I was playing a game where My Cybran ACU was in a close firefight with my Aeon opponent and many of my shots passed through him at very close range, which was not because of juking.

Doompants

BlackOps ACUs upgraded before Factories results in not being able to build upgraded factories with ACU.

Correct behavior: If the Factory HQ is upgraded first, the ACU will properly be able to build T2 and T3 factories when it reaches T2 and T3 respectively.

Problem behavior: Only if ACU is upgraded first then:

when the factory HQ reaches t2, ACU cannot build T2 factory.
when factory reaches T3, a T3 ACU cannot build T3 factory.
if ACU is then upgraded to T4 upgrade, both T2 and T3 factories become available.

Note that in all cases, T2(T3) engineers and SACUS are not affected and can build the T2 and T3 factories as soon as the first HQ is completed. Only the ACUs are bugging.

Doompants

New problem detected last night: Aeon Tempest (BlackOps version) won't wreck when killed. It just becomes an unmovable, unfiring, untargettable unit, and doesn't play the sinking animation, and cannot be reclaimed.

This is in addition to the above-mentioned problem with the drones that it normally builds with.

@Jip @Uveso I know there's been a lot going on but this is a great mod with great units. If any of these bugs might be easy fixes, or if you can see how a game patch might have broken things along the way, we would love even a partial fix! Thank you!

Szasz

Hi all,
If the issues could be solved in this mod pack then it would be the best around overall.
Some I was able to solve, some are still causing trouble:
Broken Tempest, redundant air staging platforms - removing these entirely from the mod is as easy as it gets
Incorrect naming for T3 Air Transports - deleting "T3" or "Tech3" respectively from their descriptions corrects this
False stats shown on the UI for ED5 Shield Generator at the build menu - fixed an entry to no avail, must've missed something still ‍️
Excessive amount of stretched mass point icons or hydrocarbon icons make up the skidmarks of the Fatboy and the Viper - I have no idea what's causing this
Any advice?

Doompants

@Szasz And everyone else;

I've made some big breakthrough fixing some of the bug's my crew is aware of and I'm going to expand my original TP balance patch to include these fixes. It's mostly for my play group because we always use BlackOps, but of course I'll share it for everyone when it's done, and you'll be able to see it in a search for BlackOpsFAF like the mods themselves.

Szasz I ping you specifically because I haven't seen some of the bugs you mention.

I have the Tempest Drones not following fixed. What is wrong with the air staging?
Which false stats are showing for ED5?
I have never seen the graphical glitch you're getting with the fatboy. Do you have any more info about how this is BlackOps related or whether map related?

Currently I have solutions for:

Aeon ACU hitbox issue
Sera ACU TML bug
Sera ACU Overcharge Boost upgrades not working
Fix for Multiple Experimentals with drones not following.
And some balancing around BlackOps teleport nerf and the ridiculously OP Aeon ACU, and a buff for poor weak, short range cybran ACU. Make Mazers feared again!

Nomander

The bug with the tread textures is because FAF upscaled the hydrocarbon/mass deposit textures which turned out to cause a bug in how the engine handles textures late-game when there's lots of them. It's not the mod's fault.

Doompants

Heads up BlackOps lovers:

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/10009/blackopsfaf-balance-and-patch-mod-2026 is the patch mod for my crew that fixes many of the bugs I've found, and some of the bugs you all have found, and binds them in with a few ACU, PD and Teleport balance changes. Try it if you want! Fix list and changes are listed in the thread.

Szasz

@Doompants

FAF moved air staging platform (static building) from tier 2 to tier 1, but this structure is overshadowed by BlackOps' own T1 Air Staging Facility even at half capacity by being much much cheaper and smaller.
false build UI stats for ED5 (only for engineers or commanders): 14000 shield value (resets to 16500 when built), 2000 structure hp (will be 500), empty description (every tier in vanilla uses an identical generic description)
I had a hunch that the track marks texture bug is tied to vanilla and it just rears its head easier while modded. I have only weak observations here. For example it does not happen on White Fire and Winter Duel (maybe frozen maps in general?).

Do you plan to extend your fixes to BlackOps ACUs?

team chat notifications are off for upgrades (e.g. starting T3 Engineering Upgrade displays T2 notification, starting Apocalyptic Engineering Upgrade displays T3 notification, weapon upgrades are silent)
~~- - one of the first Seraphim ACU engineering upgrades has a much lower build time (probably due to a typo)~~ this I remembered wrong (LOUD related)
assisting a T2+ Mass Extractor with BlackOps ACUs do not place Storages around it but the UI suggests it will (there's a similar issue with field engineers so I'm aware that ideally it would be best if the engine handled the behaviour correctly)
balance issue on combat engineering upgrades: On average, I think the combat engineering route could be the better choice only about 1 out of 100 times, but I always regret it. Resource route is too useful and gives enough hp regen as it is. They need to be more distinct. Aeon has a slight upper hand here by being unique. Sera combat engi effect is reproducable by a T2 restoration structure on land or by reworked SACUs anywhere. For the rest it's meaningless extra DPS that's detrimental to the health of own units.

Doompants

Thx for the clarification Szasz. I had to learn a lot of the structure of BlackOps on the go in order to make the changes I did, so I can't promise I'll find the time and motivation to learn how all these UI and stat block changes need to be made, but I will keep a list -- I am not going to say I'll never get to it.

My priority is/was bugs that break the mod (or when changes to FAF break it), and balance that is WAY off. The one exception to that was making the Novax targettable.. I was drunk with power and wanted to learn if I could do it.

I will definitely look into the Sera ACU upgrade though. (typos are easy fixes).
I will look into the ED5 fixes if I can find the time. Team chat misalignment is less likely, but like I say, I'll note it.
I am 95% certain that I can put storage around a T2 MEX with my commander, but i also have some custom hotkeys I've set up for it, so that could be the difference. I could be mistaken though so I'll try to remember to test it tonight when we play.

Szasz

@Doompants It's my pleasure to clarify and I'm grateful for your work.
I've noticed that you changed UEF T4 Stellar Generator which is technically not an Unleashed unit.
If you plan to fix EXUnits, you might want to take a look at Seawolves. It seems the explosions of their torpedoes introduce lags, does not damage land or hovering units which they supposed to and can crash the sim.

Crash logs revealed even more:
warning: Error running lua script: 0 damage specified.
[C]: in function `DamageArea'
.../exctorpeffectcontroller01_script.lua

Torpedo script loops and leads to heap overcommit:
Heap: 448.0M / 428.2M

Heap growth coincides exactly with this loop:
Error running lua script: 0 damage specified.
DamageArea()
exctorpeffectcontroller01_script.lua

Still gotta check what unit exactly is
"FORMATION DEBUG: Unit ees0302 does not match any Naval categories."
but I'm gonna bet my ass it's the Seawolf.

Doompants

Interesting. EES0302 is actually the Escort Frigate. Seawolf is EES0301.

We hadn't noticed lag or caught that the torps weren't doing damage. I'll test that one and add it to the list for next time. Might be a bit, but this is definitely more the kind of bug I want to devote time to figuring out.