AI Wave Survival Mod Information

this is truly beautiful; An absolutely wonderful accomplishment.

seeing this on the official faf github would be neat.

Added a new Wave Syle, Aggressive Air/Navy. Makes air waves especially difficult and teams need dedicated air players. Also, some new Wreck settings.

Newest updates focus on Verses Survival options.

• Added ability to set exactly which player spawns with HQ. This allows for more diversification in teams, and correct counting of players. Multiple teams can now fight the HQ and each other!
• Added new Wave Style meant for Human HQ Players. Human with AI Assist Script will send units to attack all enemy players on spawn, but is easily over-ridden.
• A wave suicide option has been added, that kills waves after set time, forcing human players to use units or lose them.
• Players can now set Defeat conditions! 'Assassinate All ACUs Defeat' is a special condition where the HQ Team must kill all enemy ACUs to win. Enemy ACUs may be on different teams, and no team will be eliminated until all ACUs are dead. The other three options, Assassinate/Supremacy/Annihilation, function the same as default Supreme Commander, but do not affect any players on the HQ Team.
• HQ Defenses can now be set to Guardians, Vanilla, or Off. All Guardian units can spawn ON water; useful if setting HQ to a water spawn.
• An EcoBoost option has been added for any players Allied with the HQ Player. Does not provide the bonus to the HQ Player.

Changes:

• HQ Building, Guardian buildings, and Guardian SML all now spawn on water. Makes setting HQ to a water spawn viable.
• HQ will spawn HARMS if HQ Defenses are on and the HQ spawns on water.
• Guardian Artillery has been slightly buffed and will also acquire targets faster. Can spawn on water.

Bug Fixes:

• Naval Units will no longer spawn on land.
• EcoBoost scripts will no longer break if players drop/die.
• A rare occurrence, spawned units will no longer instantly die.
• Guardian Artillery will no longer cause HQ power to crash when spawned.
• Player Guardian Shields should no longer drop from friendly fire.
• If setting HQ Player under 'Player Slot that Spawns HQ', all players are correctly counted. Using 'Random' option can result in miscounts, which will affect the behavior of some scripts.
• Players allied with HQ will be destroyed if HQ is destroyed.

Since I had the scripts ready, I went ahead and added Defeat Options for Allied HQ Players. So now HQ Allies can be Assassinated or set so all HQ Allied ACU's must be destroyed to eliminate.

Reworked the Allied and Secondary Building scripts, so that they are actually useful to use.

Secondary Buildings will spawn appropriate defense, depending on where they spawn on the map. So if on water, they will spawn HARMS. Destroying the buildings will cause Allies to spawn early and cause the HQ to power stall, disabling shields and any weapons that need power until it recovers.

Allie script will now randomly spawn T4 units for all players fighting the HQ. The amount of allies that spawn can be set with a multiplier.

Newest Features:

• Can now set a 2nd spawn point, under "Secondary Spawn Spot". An AI/Human must be assigned to the spot for it to work. The 2nd Spawn Player can also be set to suicide on start, if one doesn't want any base building, under "HQ/2ndSpawn Base Building On/Off".
• 2nd Spawn is useful for splitting navy on maps with two ponds, cause waves to take more paths to attack players, and attack players from two fronts. Also can be set to be a tempting target that weakens the HQ. The 2nd Spawn Building is weaker than the HQ and has weaker defenses. Works with water spawns, will spawn on water.
• 2nd Spawn has various settings. Host can enable what waves spawn and how large the waves are. For example, if Land Waves are 80 units a wave, and 2nd Spawn is set to spawn 50% Land Waves, it will spawn 40 units (roughly, it is random, so there is some variation between waves).
• 2nd Spawn can also be set to suffer permanent wave losses if destroyed.

Example: Air Waves 80 Units. 2nd Spawn set to 50%, so both HQ and 2nd Spawn are spawning 40 unit waves. "Transfer Units to HQ Spawn" is set to 50%. When 2nd Spawn is destroyed, HQ will recovery half of 2nd Spawn's units and start spawning 60 unit waves.

• Wave Multipliers for Land/Air/Navy. Waves can be set to grow larger as game progresses or grow smaller. One can set it so Waves start out huge and grow smaller as they tech up, or the opposite.

Changes:

• EndGame Air bosses have been buffed.
• "HQ/2ndSpawn Base Building On/Off" option will now clear any engineers/factories built by ACU before it self-destructs, allowing players to enable build speed mods.

Felt Verses mode was missing something. Like the option to win the game without also needing to kill the HQ. So added an option where HQ and any HQ Allies will suicide once one team has eliminated all other teams. This means in Verses games, you can now ignore having to kill the HQ and instead focus on getting the HQ to kill your enemies for you.

Make sure NOT to have Verses on if playing just regular survival with two teams, the HQ Team and a Survivors Team, or the HQ will suicide on start of game.

Great mode, loving it so far !
You seem to work hard on it too, I get an update every few days
Is there a changelog available somewhere, or do you post everything here ? The mini CZARs were a nice surprise, spamming gunships made the game kinda unbalanced so it's not bad to be punished for that
I also feel that the AI behaved differently the last few games I played, like it sent way more nukes and T4 than usual (always using Uveso Easy because the waves alone are more than enough for me). It might be because of the map too, I don't know.

In any case, keep up the good work ! I'm hyped to see what comes next !

Thanks for the feedback! I actually haven't had a chance to play-test and balance the Mini-CZARS. Last game I hosted to do so, I DCed before they spawned. So am looking for feedback on their balance.

They are meant to be played with Air-Crash Damage on, as they don't have any ground attack weapons but have a devastating air crash (small area, but 20k damage air crash). The idea is, Air has two options when they spawn, pull back behind base ground AA and risk an air crash blowing up the front line, or engage the min-CZARs and risk heavy air losses. The min-CZARS have a layered attack, with the most powerful weapons having the shortest range. Currently, a Black-Ops UEF Flying Fortress can 1v1 a mini-CZAR and win with 1/3rd health remaining. Since one bad Air Crash can easily end a game, I do have some mods that adjust Air Crash damage to 25%, 50%, 75%, and 150%. I mean to add it as a built-in mod option at some point.

Nukes and T4 spawns are completely random. There was a bug that was reducing nuke wave sizes, but that has been fixed. Both Nuke Count and T4 spawn rates can be adjusted in the options. I'll probably adjust nukes to be more dynamic in the future. Sometimes, they player with the Paragon only gets a few nukes lobbed at em while some poor player with only 2 SMD gets hit with 20. If you really like nukes, turn on Nuclear Overwhelm, an alternative to dying from Artillery/EndGame Bosses

If you set Base Building Option to OFF, the AI ACU and any engineers/factories will suicide at start of game. This prevents the AI from building any units/structures (which mainly interfere with spawned units pathfinding) and also helps to speed up SIM speeds. This also can be set to apply to the 2nd Spawn Player, which will then suicide on spawn. Note, you don't need to use a 2nd spawn, that is optional, but allows for waves to spawn in from two points.

The Wave Style you choose also has a big impact on how the AI chooses targets. Note the "Human with AI Assist" also works with an AI HQ Player as well. Its original intention was to help Human Players by giving Spawned Units an initial attack order that a Human Player could easily over-ride and then redirect. But it also forces AI Players to attack with waves on spawn instead of hoarding; however the AI can also easily over-ride the orders and use the units as it sees fit. This script also does not interfere/give orders to any units built by Human/AI HQ Player.

I didn't notice crash damage from the mini CZARs, either the shields absorb all of it, or the area is so small it needs to land right on top of a building

The main threat they pose for defenders' bases is that they'll deplete shield generators quickly by trying to shoot down air units under them, so you need to be careful not to hide your air when your base is already threatened. An option to chose how many of them can spawn at a time, and how often, would be nice. As for the unit itself, it seems balanced to me as it does exactly what it's meant to do. I usually kill them with T4 turrets or T3 ground units, I haven't tried ASFs yet so I can't say, but 28k HP doesn't seem overwhelming.

I always disable nukes, except for the defensive ones (I like these) ; the ones I get are those built by the AI itself (they usually target roaming T4s though, not my base). I like the idea of having to defend against more and more nukes, but I'm not that good at survival maps in RTS in general so I prefer focusing on ground and air armies. As for T4, I think it's because most of the time they somehow get stuck in the HQ base, but recently the AI seems to remember how to send them. I don't think they're from the survival waves though, it's more likely the ones it builds once it gets enough eco.

I'm gonna try AI controled waves next, I'm curious to see how it'll behave !

The mini-CZAR crash bug has been fixed. They have also been toned down in DPS and should be vulnerable to ASF packs. They will also no longer rush into player's AA and will try to stay at maximum range.

Added an option to disable/adjust mini-CZARs spawn. Also nerfed them a bit. They won't spawn as frequent or in as big of waves. Weapon range reduced. Air crash damage greatly reduced, but damage area increased.

Yep, they seem to deal a whole lot of damage when they fall (I didn't notice the damage change today because the only one that fell on my base took down a few gens, thus making the splash damage bigger). At least now they can be reclaimed !
I have a problem with them just staying on top of my base when they don't get any more air units to kill, it makes avoiding the fall damage impossible

I didn't notice the spawn option, I'll check it next game ! Thanks for the update !

By the way, do you think it would be possible to make units spawned from the second spawn point the same color as the player on its spot ? This way it'll really feel like we're dealing with two separate armies. Maybe even make it possible to restrict races for each spawn, so you can make one that spawns only UEF and the other Cybran, for instance !

@Rama FYI M28AI should be compatible with the mod but if you use it and come across any major issues let me know - I only tested on a couple of maps on the AI wave survival mod that was released a couple of weeks ago, and the games didn't go into the late game. For example I'm not sure how it would handle the mini-czars referred to above if they're weaponless.

Latest update, small nerf to Nomander's health, fixed Nomander graphics glitch, and a change to script so more Nomander's will not spawn if too many are still alive.

@retributer

I did make some mods that reduce Air Crash Damage. There are 4 mods, which set Air Crash Damage to 25%, 50%, 75%, and 150% damage. I usually play with 50% Air Crash Damage mod on.

While your suggestion is possible, it would basically require completely duplicating the functions of the mod. The mod is already pretty resource intensive when playing with large waves. That and the options list to configure everything is already too large as is.

@maudlin27
Ooh, I am going to have to test out your new AI! I've played the mod with M27, which I usually play with the attack scripts off and let your AI use the spawned units as it sees fit. The new Mini-Czars (named Nomanders) only have AA weapons, as they are meant to clear player Gunship spam. They also have a powerful aircrash to punish players that allow Nomanders to get over their base.

I really like the new options you added for HQ/Secondary defenses
My bro and I are trying to play shorter games and the HQ not having Slayers and Guardian SMDs helps with that, this way we can focus on defense until the timer runs out and counterattack quickly (I know we could set the objective to "survive x minutes" but destroying the HQ is always satisfying). We're still having lots of fun and no two games are identical, replayability is great !

Too bad for the secondary color, but I understand, I had no idea how that would work !

@retributer
Giving more Defense Options was something I meant to do for a while. Does make for more replayability, so good to hear! One fun game style is setting shorter rounds (10 to 15 min Hold Times) with Hold To Win on and set the waves to scale up very fast!

I finally reorganized the Options into something sensible, as hosting and having to change settings was a massive pain. Hopefully people find the new organization easier to navigate. Let me know if I messed up any of the options by accident.

Yep, that's much better ! I used to scroll up and down to find one particular option and somehow missed it, now it's gonna be much easier, thanks for the QoL !

Latest Update:

2nd Spawn:
Added options to set HQ Recovery Rate for Land, Air, and Navy. So, if you want to have 2nd Spawn have 100% of Navy and 50% of Air, but if destroyed, HQ recovers all Air and no Nay, now you can!

Damage Amplification:
Added option under BOOST to turn off or set the damage multiplier higher/lower.

NOMANDERS:

• Greatly reduced ASF weight causing NOMANDERS to spawn. You can build 4x as many ASF before triggering now.
• Slightly reduced weight of T4 Air triggering spawn.
• Increased random respawn time between AntiAir waves by 10 to 30 seconds.
• Add more choices to size of NOMANDER waves in Options.

Hello Rama!
Your mod works on vanilla version???