BlackOpsFAF Balance and Patch Mod 2026

[Zopto]

I'm not sure how much I can express my thanks for this. This is exactly the mod my playgroup needed! I was thinking of doing something similar myself, but you swooped in and made the teleport changes yourself and fixed a bunch of bugs! Also made a bunch of much-needed balance changes (I know the pain of the aeon beams & teleporting coms first hand lmao).

If you want some stuff that could be changed in blackops, I've compiled a small list over the years of using the mod:

• The Manticore doesn't display its DPS, and says "Defense". This can be fixed by changing the WeaponCategory to 'Direct Fire' instead of 'Defense'.
• The Aria is in the wrong category; it's filtered under the Strategic section instead of the Defense section. This can be fixed by changing the 'SORTSTRATEGIC' category to 'SORTDEFENSE'.
• With the Seraphim T3 Advanced Airstaging Facility, specifically the attack drones (BSA0001) it spawns, they do not have a strategic icon. This can be fixed by giving it the "StrategicIconName" tag along with some icon. I would recommend giving it the same icon that the other blackops drones have, which is 'icon_gunship1_directfire'. (Maybe also make then un-selectable? Though that's more opinionated)
• Due to recent FAF patches, the Aeon Inquisitor Experimental Siege Bot has become bugged; it spawns it's projectiles in the ground, causing them to explode instantly, rather than spawning them in the air and having them fall. This has made the unit extremely powerful, as it can bypass shields and hit units beneath them (ideally, just take out the shield generator so the rest of your army doesn't have to deal with it). Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix this one, but I'd figure I'd bring it up if you knew how.

I'm pretty sure I have more in the depths of my mind, but these are the ones that come up first. And once again, I can't express my thanks enough for making the mod in the first place.

[Nomander]

Your mention of air staging reminds me that blackops' air stagings repair slowly and cost mass to repair, while FAF's air stagings repair for only energy and do it quickly. Would be nice to bring to parity.

[Doompants]

@Zopto Wow. We hadn't noticed the Inquisitor bug. That sounds gross. lol.

I dove deep on these fixes because I had two weeks off and my wife did not. I can't promise I'll be an ongoing champion for this, now that I'm back to work because life is pretty busy, but I thank you for posting. I will take a look.

Gamebreaking stuff like the Inquisitor I'm certainly a lot more willing to spend my time trying to get working. Unit descriptions, not as much, but with your level of detail, if it can be a quick fix, it may get done.

Tell me though -- did your friends just play house rules with Blackops Teleporting? I'm not crazy right? It's fun, but it's pretty dang OP. I wonder sometimes why it doesn't overtake the mod on 20x20+ maps.

[Zopto]

@Doompants Oh yeah we absolutely have a set of house rules regarding the teleporting. We banned offensive teleporting but still allowed defensive teleportation for the purposes of running away or base defense. That's what ended up satisfying the most people and worked as a decent compromise.

[Doompants]

Cool, well if you try the TP balance, let me know what you think. I think it's still very powerful offensively due to the strength of upgraded ACUS in BlackOps, but it's a little bit harder to rush, and a little easier to see coming if people actually scout, and the longer channel time is not as long as vanilla, but we've definitely had people overstay and die trying to get out, (or super-clutch escapes) which just doesn't happen in unbalanced BlackOps. Also the range on T2 and T3 Anti-TP towers are a lot bigger.

[Szasz]

This post is deleted!

[Szasz]

[Szasz]

Hey Doompants,

Did you touch artilleries in any way?
The mod '1.5x T2 Artillery Range, 75% cost' conflicts with yours resulting the game getting stuck during loading.
Yet that mod is a simple script changing only a few values dynamically:

LOG('[Blueprints.lua Line number 1 inside mod is line '..debug.getinfo(1).currentline..'] after hooking blueprints.lua!') -- printig the real line number after hooking

local OldModBlueprints = ModBlueprints

function ModBlueprints(all_blueprints)
	OldModBlueprints(all_blueprints)

	for id,bp in all_blueprints.Unit do

		-- build Category Array for faster access like "Categories.LAND" or "Categories.EXPERIMENTAL"
		local Categories = {}
		for _, cat in bp.Categories do
			Categories[cat] = true
		end
		
		if Categories.TECH2 and Categories.STRUCTURE and Categories.ARTILLERY then

			if bp.Economy.BuildCostMass then
				bp.Economy.BuildCostMass = bp.Economy.BuildCostMass * 0.75
			end
			
			if bp.Weapon then
                -- Loop over all Weapons
                for _,weapon in bp.Weapon do

					if weapon.MaxRadius then
						weapon.MaxRadius = weapon.MaxRadius * 1.75
					end
					if weapon.MuzzleVelocity then
						weapon.MuzzleVelocity  = weapon.MuzzleVelocity  * 1.25
					end
					if weapon.ProjectileLifetimeUsesMultiplier then
						weapon.ProjectileLifetimeUsesMultiplier = weapon.ProjectileLifetimeUsesMultiplier * 2
					end
				end
			end
		end
	end 
end 

[Doompants]

Everything I fixed or balanced is in the readme. There was nothing to do with T2 arty at all. I'll try to give it a quick look into it tomorrow after work tho. Who knows what weird shit I may have done. Hahah.

I have a version 3 I'm going to try to get done for tomorrow too. I not only fixed that Seawolf bug, but I reinstated their concussion torpedos so they work properly now with an AoE that matches the blast projectile. Can hit hover units too. Super stoked.

[Doompants]

New stuff in V3:

• Fixed the Seawolf as mentioned, and in doing so reinstated the concussion torpedo - medium AoE torpedo that can hit hover units.
• Nomads stuff! Extended the Blackops SMD-kills-satellites to include Nomad Deadline Satellite (and enable Nomad SMD to Shoot down Artemis and Novax satellites).
• Also Nomads: Bullfrog Experimental Tank back on the construct list.

We're playing with Zopto's "Nomads Commander BlackOps" mod, and that paired with this actually make Nomads a faction that can contend in BlackOps games. (Could still use a bit of love, but it's a start!)

[Punzler]

Ha! I found a kindred soul! I just uploaded some of my own small Blackops changes to the vault, to play with my friends and thought why not go and see what's new on the formus. heh
Uhm, do you mind if I incoporate your changes into my own stuff? Especially the bugfixes. but also the balance changes, they look reasonable enough. but I am not intrested in the nomads parts. I'll obviously make sure to credit you and the others.