AI Wave Survival Mod Information

@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???

I was wondering what that damage amplification was about, I couldn't figure what triggered it (maybe it was in your original post but I must have missed it)
I love the new options for second spawn, there's a lot of settings I'd try now !

Can't wait to see what you come up with next !

@Mavr390

Hi Mavr390, do you mean Vanilla Supreme Commander (not using the FAF Client)? I have tried the mod twice in vanilla. I was able to get it to load, but the HQ didn't spawn. Also, there is no way to adjust any of the mod options in Vanilla, via Map Options in the lobby. And vanilla doesn't show Play Slot numbers, which makes it a pain to know what spawn is what player. So I haven't really tried to get it working with vanilla. Don't know if there is a way to make it work with vanilla.

If you mean units, yes, it works fine with no other unit packs. Unit packs like BlackOps are not required.

@Retributer

Damage Amplification is triggered when Mass Production exceeds 250 * Number_of_Players (doesn't include HQ and any HQ Allies). Default damage bonus is 1 point damage per 100 mass production. This means faster firing units would gain more DPS. A unit that fires once per second would get 1 DPS boost, while one that fires twice per second would get 2 DPS boost. Currently does not apply to beams. Boss Units get 4x the bonus.

An Example with the Fatboy, after building a Paragon, triggering 100 Damage Bonus:

• Fatboy Gauss Cannon does 250 damage, 3 shots per second , for 750 DPS.
• Damage Bonus on, 250 + 100 = 350, for 1050 DPS.
• If the Fatboy is a Boss, 250 + 100 * 4 = 650, for 1950 DPS.

@rama, thanks for the answer. In FAF I tried it and I liked it. So I wanted to know if there is an opportunity to run on vanilla.

New Option:

Hold to Win Torp Bombers:
-No more cheese wins by hiding ACU's and SACU's under water till Hold Time runs out! Spawns powerful Torp Bombers that will eliminate anything hiding underwater. Bombers only spawn if game time is past the activation time and ACU/SACU are detected in water. Activation time can be set in options.

New Defense Options under HQ and 2nd Spawn Defenses:
-Added an alternative SMD to the Guardian SMD, called the Advanced SMD. Builds 1 anti-nuke every 3 minutes, spawns with 1 loaded, and holds up to 11. Possible to overwhelm with a Yolona, which Guardian SMD were not.

Renamed some Wave Styles to make their effects more clear. "Continuous Waves" renamed to "Even Attack Waves" and "Aggressive Air/Navy/Land" renamed to "Dynamic Attack Waves"

Nomanders Nerf (again):
-Lowered health to 18k
-DPS lowered, and weapon rate of fire adjusted so Damage Amplification not so strong
-Lowered size of default waves about 12%.
-ASF weight lowered more. Can build more ASF without triggering more NOMANDERS.

Added various messages to alert players of things. Air/Navy wave start warning. Nuke warnings 5 and 10 minutes before 1st strike. Warning if Yolona triggers a Guardian SMD to spawn.

A friend and I have been playing with this mod for the past few weeks. We love the onslaught. But there is a problem. We have yet to be able to finish a game because we keep getting game freezes after about 30 minutes of play. It's something we've never seen before this Survival Mod. By freeze I mean the game simulation just stops but the UI still functions.

I've been thinking it might be related to other mods and unit count. So I dropped unit count down, removed AI allies, and we have just one enemy AI. No help.

For mods we usually run:
NoShake
AI-Uveso
Jaggeds Infrastructure Pack v2
No Air Crash Damage
Nuclear Repulsor Shields
Reclaim Turret
SupCom T4 Edition - Resource Generators
Total Mayhem

I tried removing Jagged's, used M27 instead of Uveso, and removed the Resource Generators mod. Still freezes up eventually.

The survival mod is running mostly default settings aside from disabling Naval unit spawning (they were appearing in ponds heh). I also cranked the hit points of the enemy base up to 25 million. Though we have yet to really be able to reach it before a freeze.

@swaaye

Can you check your game log for any errors? Also, have you hit F11 to check if it is a network issue?

I haven't tested the mod with all of the mods you listed, so it may also be a mod conflict.

Mods I Haven't Tried or Tested With:
Jaggeds Infrastructure Pack v2
Nuclear Repulsor Shields
Reclaim Turret
SupCom T4 Edition - Resource Generators

I usually test with the following mods:
ACU Boost 1.5x
AI-Uveso
50% Air Crash Damage (and the alternatives 25%, 75%, 150%)
All Faction Quantum Gate
BlackOps FAF: ACUs
BlackOps FAF: Unleashed
AntiNuke 50% Cost
Hive Engy Stations for All
Wreck Reclaim 50% (and the alternatives 33%, 67%)

You could try hosting with the above mod list and see if the issue persist. But best would be to check the log for possible errors causing the game to stall. I'll try a run with the mods you used and see if I get any issues.

Added a new option under Special Wave Responses

ACU Hunters:
-Spawns modified BRICKS that aggressively seek out ACUs and SACUs. They are fast, have a high rate of fire (so Damage Amplification makes them even more dangerous), explosive death, and are effective on land and water. Their numbers increase as teams build more SACU. Their weapon range is limited, so they have to get in close. Great option on Hold to Win games or Team ACU Elimination games. When they begin to appear can be set in options.

A few bug fixes. When disabling Arty/Nukes/Sat, it should now stay disabled instead of enabling at endgame. Nuke warnings won't show if nukes disabled.

Hunters are good, they're not overwhelming and having a few endlessly spawning after the waves were over was fun
What's the sACU/Hunter ratio ? Will you add an option to increase/decrease it ?

btw the Colossus can grab them, effectively killing them instantly, I'm not sure if it's intended or if it's even possible to change that. I don't mind, though.

@retributer

Ratio is 1 Hunter to every 5 SACU, increasing to every 4 SACU post EndGame. Also has a base spawn of 1.5 hunters for each player, with an additional hunter for each ACU still alive post EndGame. I should be able to add an option to adjust spawn rate. I haven't had a chance to really balance test them yet. The idea is they aren't supposed to be a threat if your defenses are intact, but will start to hunt down your ACU/SACU's if you can't stop them.

Good point on Colossus. That is an easy fix.

@rama said in AI Wave Survival Mod Information:

@swaaye

Can you check your game log for any errors? Also, have you hit F11 to check if it is a network issue?

I haven't tested the mod with all of the mods you listed, so it may also be a mod conflict.

Mods I Haven't Tried or Tested With:
Jaggeds Infrastructure Pack v2
Nuclear Repulsor Shields
Reclaim Turret
SupCom T4 Edition - Resource Generators

I usually test with the following mods:
ACU Boost 1.5x
AI-Uveso
50% Air Crash Damage (and the alternatives 25%, 75%, 150%)
All Faction Quantum Gate
BlackOps FAF: ACUs
BlackOps FAF: Unleashed
AntiNuke 50% Cost
Hive Engy Stations for All
Wreck Reclaim 50% (and the alternatives 33%, 67%)

You could try hosting with the above mod list and see if the issue persist. But best would be to check the log for possible errors causing the game to stall. I'll try a run with the mods you used and see if I get any issues.

We decided to wipe all our FA & FAF data files (programdata, appdata, mydocs) and redownload everything. We tried a few games with your mods and some games with a mix of yours/our usual mods. We haven't had another freeze yet. Maybe it was some kind of file corruption or version mismatch.

I played a game just now to try some stuff and I noticed you added the Doom waves, I love it
I only got the Colossus, Megalith and Ythotha for now, gonna try later and see what you did with the others, but that's a great idea, also the fact that you can damage the HQ by killing these bosses will be a lot of fun!

New Endgame Feature:
Doom waves are an alternative EndGame option, using extremely powerful T5 units. Destroying a wave will damage the HQ by whatever percentage set by the player. Doom Waves will respawn after 1 minute, and waves will continue until HQ or players are destroyed. There are multiple settings, so players may fine-tune the final difficulty.

4a: DOOM EndGame Wave:
-Sets the size of the initial Doom Wave. Setting to "Off" will disable the waves completely.
4b: DOOM HQ Damage:
-Sets the % health the HQ will lose every time a Doom Wave is defeated. Can be set anywhere between zero and 100%.
4c: DOOM Wave +/-:
-Causes waves to increase or decrease in size when respawning. Start with a large Doom Wave, and then have it grow weaker as the HQ is damaged. Or have it grow stronger!
4d: DOOM Health Boost:
If the Dooms just aren't tough enough for you, feel free to boost their base health by up to 1000%. Dooms also receive health, damage, and speed boosts from the standard BOOST settings.
4e: DOOM Crawlers On/Off:
-Enable/Disable Doom Megas and Doom Fatboys from spawning in Doom Waves.
4f: DOOM Walkers On/Off:
-Enable/Disable Doom Colossus and Doom Ythotha from spawning in Doom Waves.

Also added a new setting for ACU Hunters, per a request. And made them immune to Colossus claws.

ACU Hunters Wave Multi:
-Adjust the amount of hunters that will spawn, if you like your SACUs to die. Can also reduce wave size.

@Retributer
Yeah, I've been planning out the Doom Waves for a while. Felt there needed to be an alternative way to win other than spamming arty or Hold to Win. Now feels like a proper EndGame. I still need to balance, so feedback is appreciated. Also added in the ACU Hunter Wave Muti, since you liked fighting those guys.

@swaaye
Good to hear you haven't had any more issues after redownloading mods. The situation you described, with the game frozen and the UI still functional, usually happens when the script gets caught in an infinite loop. Sometimes an error can trigger that.

We went through a game with Doom Waves on but we set the whole difficulty too low so we just spawnkilled them. Next time we'll try setting 5 waves with +1 Doom each wave, that should be a good start.
What worries me is that each Doom unit is basically a walking HP pool with long range, maybe you should give each of them their own gimmick (Colossus pulling units fast with its arms, Fatboy periodically spawning group of enemies, (if that's even possible) for example). Also, as usual, an option to set their respawn time (or remove it completely) could be nice !

We haven't tried with endless waves and bosses either so maybe they work best with these on ! In any case I like the idea and this will make the endgame much more fun

Some bug fixes and changes:
-Nuke and YoloBoss attack scripts redone. Nukes are still random, but will be much more likely to target game enders. Also will target naval units and coms if bases are destroyed. YoloBosses will attempt to reach game-ender threats.
-Fixed error in attack scripts, causing units to not aggressively pursue player's few remaining units.
-T4 EMP Tacs are now cheaper and faster to build.
-Dooms will deploy platoons of units on their destruction.

New Options:
Doom Minimum Wave Size:
-Restrict Dooms smallest wave size.
Doom Storm Spawns:
-Will spawn electrical storms randomly all over the map. There is a 50% chance storms will form every time a Doom wave is defeated. Number of storms can be set with the multiplier. Default is 15 storms on 20+ km maps, 8 on 10km, and 5 on 5km.
Salvation Player:
Sets what player is salvation player. If salvation player loses/suicides ACU, entire wave will be destroyed. Salvation can be set to kill everything, spare Dooms, or spare Dooms and T4 units.

@retributer
I usually play with bosses and endless waves on, so the Dooms are certainly harder to deal with than on their own. I have, however, improved them a little. They now deploy a platoon of units on destruction (not really a threat unless defenses have been breached). And there is an option for random storms across the map whenever a wave is defeated (very much a threat, set it to 5x and prepare to party!). Doom walkers will also behave a bit different than the crawlers.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Nice ! Gonna try this tonight and I'll let you know how it went, that sounds fun !
We actually disabled endless waves because reaching the HQ with groups of T4 spawning around it was a pain, but I think I'll try turning it back on with the Doom waves.