AI Wave Survival Mod Information

@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!

Hello Rama,

thanks again for all your hard work. It's always a joy to test your updates!

I implemented everything you taught me and we enter the Endgame Stage after 30 min holdtime

Unfortunately I don't have only good news for the v6 map. Some things worked well, others didn't.

You can find all the details in the screenshot. Additionally, I would like to point out that the red text is an absolute game changer, as losing one base rapidly increases the attack strength on all other bases, making it first impossible overall and frustrating for affected players to have a slot with no chance of survival.

Edit: For the Pink text, i want to add:

I dont think the TML is a big deal. either he invests 200-500k mass into TML on THAT slot which is insane and he earned it, or he destroys 2nd HQ and can use Aeon Missile Ships and Battleships (and all player with access to water also).

@slykar

Wow, four runs already?

Heh, I knew adding the back door to position 5 was probably going to completely screw the position. I'll change it back.

Didn't know there were lunatics who liked the old spot 13. It was a high skill spot. You said a Doom pathed through the water to Spot 13? Only the Fatboy Doom can hover. I did leave that gap there as a vulnerability, because of the added walls protecting from the navy. Removing the walls would make the spot impossible to hold, as every naval ship would bombard the player while passing.

All T4 and I believe Doom units can cross water. They don't need hovering, Amp is enough. You could change the water depth so that Amp units can't cross the water. That should work for slot 13. I don't know, if it will look good.

Navy for slot 13 - depending on settings, yes, it is impossible to hold. with my settings it's easy to defend as the old slot 13, as the navy is very weak early and scales hard (3 navy per player x2 in Late, I'll increase it once I find a way to hold the beach and the island is less pressured).

In any case, it's easy to counter if you have sub spam. Personally, I like that slot 13 dies in the T3 phase if the island doesn't help him with the navy.

Additionally, I recommend moving slot 13 further up so that only the 4 mex expansions are lost to the navy.

Today we did only 2 games.

We won with 4 player. and my standard settings. 100k HP HQ after it deployed scathis - we have been through hell

what i noticed:

1. HQ - Slot 16 will stuck with fatboys and other t4 units at the mountain to the top left area. Top right was dead.
2. 2nd HQ alive, Alternative HQ spawn destroyed, Support bases alive, HQ destroyed - AI kept spawning Doom waves - no victory, but score button was available.
3. We had a teleport chicken with rambo units. Chicken exploded and created a storm. Maybe my PD destroyed it idk. bug or feature?

@slykar

Only the Doom FatBoy hovers. This was to make it a greater threat to Naval players. The small Gap at position 13 can only be reached by hover units, as the underwater terrain is too steep for units that walk.

Though, mute point, I did move Position 13 back (you said some players really like that position) to the peninsula that is further north, and added a small wall (half the height of the current walls) to make the position a little more forgiving. Or should I keep 13 where it currently is? I did shrink the walls there as well.

Beach defense is always going to be difficult. I've tried to make it easier by switching the old artillery positions (the ones for the scripted coop) to work for defending the island. I moved 1 spawn from NW to the beach, so there are now 3 spawn positions for beach defense. They are grouped together on the West side of the beach, so they may provide support to each other. East side of beach/peninsula has no spawns, but is an optional expansion area for beach players. Difficult to hold if navy doesn't do their job well.

I did watch your replay and saw the traffic jam. Looks like it saved you. T4s were pathing through it, trying to go different ways and holding each other up. Can fix by opening up the area a little more.

The teleporting doom is not a feature. Seems that was a bug. Don't know if it was related to the game not properly ending. There are flags that should stop all scripts from running once HQ is detected as destroyed.

Hi Rama,

on v230 we won on Griffin after 1 week of loses.

what we noticed:

1. Endgame Boss Fatboy with vanilly HP spawned (once not every time)
2. all bases destroyed. Support, Alternative, 2nd, 1st HQ but - transporter spawned. dropped units and died. the land units kept moving
3. doom wave still gets deployed even after everything gets destroyed from your script / HQ down event.
4. no Score popup
5. game was slower then usualy since v230

If you want to check the game...

1 Hour 56 Min

02.09.2023

with 10 Player

@slykar

1. That can happen with any units that have their health boosted. Seems the engine just forgets the modified health and calls the health from the unit's file. I've tried various fixes, but I've no idea what causes it.
2. Sorry, I don't understand. The HQ's and bases were all destroyed, but transports continued to spawn, drop units, and die? And how many transports were spawning when this was happening?
3. The Dooms are on their own loop. Usually, the loop ends when everything is destroyed. But Dooms drop SACUs on death, which can cause game to continue. Added a check that will break the Doom Loop if HQ destroyed.
4. That is related to the Doom wave continuing to spawn.
5. Haven't really done any changes since v230 that would be causing slowdowns. I did add a longer delay to an action in the attack scripts to keep Navy from accidentally retargeting to new units too soon. It didn't impact performance on my host, but it may be a factor with the huge waves you like to host.

@slykar

I did get around to running the replay.

-Replay ends when HQ is destroyed. No Dooms continue to spawn and no weird behavior seen with the transports.
-I have a i7-12700H (gets a CPU score under 100), replay speed reached 0 at 42 mins, then fluctuated at +1/+2 afterwards. Once 2nd HQ was destroyed, speeds went up to +2/+3. Checking Task Manager, CPU use for Supreme Commander never went above 20%.

Unfortunately, Lua does not support multithreading, so everything has to be done in sequence. The more units = more slow down. There was always a sudden drop in speed whenever ASF waves would spawn, which would continue from all the projectiles fired at the ASF swarms, then sim speed would go back up once the swarm was dead. Did you adjust settings to have large ASF Response waves now, when you host?

Large ASF swarms on Dual Gap always caused significant speed reductions for me on my older laptop, which had a CPU that scored around 220, but was closer to 250 when it started to get throttled. Don't know why air, particularly ASFs, seem to drop sim speeds so much. I'm guessing their high speed requires frequent calculation updates from the CPU, and since Supreme Commander doesn't really support multicores, this really slows things down.

Navy appears to still be spawning off map. Though this was only around 30 ships, not really enough to cause much issue. I'll have to figure out my error. Looked to only be affecting the X axis and not the Z.