The Superior FAF Experience Mod

Evildrew

Hello everyone,

Many of you have been hoping FAF would get better over time and that the efforts by the Balance Team would make things better, not worse. For those of you who have squared with the disappointing reality or can't be bothered with the constant random changes and are thinking about hanging up your FAF boots for good or already have, there is a new beacon of hope shining in the mod vault that will bring forth a Superior FAF Experience that you can believe in, including crucial bugfixes, completed features, repealing many questionable changes from the past years and much more.

To the point, I started working on my newest mod (Superior FAF Experience) about 5 months ago with some hiatus here and there. Some may call it a balance mod but it is much more. Therefore I wanted to take this opportunity to announce its publication in the mod vault and post a short overview of it.

But first: Before I get into the details I want to point out some individuals who have made many things in the mod possible with their individual input.

First and foremost there is DrunkenChaos who has been my closest ally from the start, who's commitment to the cause motivated me to pursue this mod in the first place and later go way beyond my initial goals. Without his coding expertise and support, there would not be this mod. Words cannot capture the full extent of the value flowing into this mod during our cooperation through this one man’s genius alone, which is why I am forced to make one up, cosplashtacious. Secondly, Psixollon's support with modeling was indispensable. Many of the standout improvements were only possible through the combination of these 2 individuals. People like Balthazar, Jip, Fichom and Hdt80bro also were very helpful, be with their input, assistance and explanations as were others every now and then in the FAF-modding-general discord, when it came to problem resolution for some of the finishing touches.
Also many past contributors' work and accomplishments such as Exotic Retard (who’s initial work on the mobile factories in the Equilibrium mod in 2016 or 2017 laid ignored for years) and DrNuklearizer (who helped me fix the UEF cruiser hatches and other smaller things 5 years ago) are featured once more as they were in my previous mod (FA RTS).

Second: Some may ask why is this mod necessary, couldn't we integrate its content into the current version? The answer is no and the explanation quite simple. The balance team has been changing the game to their choosing, steering it in a direction undesired by many and a very different experience from what were the original developers’ conceptions and always making sure their interests and those of their friends are prioritized when changing the game and not even properly testing things before patches go live. Some may wonder why they have this privilege in our community and what they have done to earn it, who decided they were best suited and why don't they have to compete in the market place of ideas with their mod and have exclusivity rights to the TMM and ranking system especially since their mod is an incomplete work in progress with seemingly no clear end goal or defined vision? Some may like this approach of constant random changes nerfing every legitimate strategy and promoting a very passive defensive play style in hopes it will eventually help make it so they can win more often or make their skill limitations less obvious, but not everyone wants this and not everyone buys the nonsense about balance advancements or skill expression to justify bad changes. This is why creating the Superior FAF Experience was necessary in the first place, to create an alternative that focuses on fast paced action driven gameplay where offence vs defence are more in equilibrium as well as economy vs military. Some might wonder how so much could have been done properly in such a short period of time and therefore doubt the quality based on what they have seen with patches in the past. How can SACUs have been reworked in less than half a day when the balance team still has nothing to show for after over 2 years on this topic. The answer is dedication and focus.
So to the mod: There are 2 main aspects to the mod. Firstly, it follows an originalistic approach, meaning that the modifications are meant to be in the spirit of what is believed to be the vision of its original creators, infilling what was not completed or missing and secondly only adding enhancements where it augments the gameplay's optionality, i.e. making it more strategically diverse or improves functionality. The added features and resulting unit changes are based on a sound methodology that I do not want to get into since just about no one really will care to read it and most will rather let the product speak for itself while playing it. Listing a changelog is also futile in the light of the patches that keep coming out changing the base of comparison that most would be comparing it to. Suffice it to say, I have looked at almost every single unit in terms of ensuring they have adequate stats, factional diversity is respected where possible and identifying and resolving bugs to improve gameplay.
Since the modifications are extensive in their numbers and not all listed here, playing this mod should be seen as exploring the game like you did the very first time you played and discovering it afresh with the beneficial advantage of knowing that it will not change radically every 3 months due to some random nobody you have never heard of complaining about how he was beat and demanding a tactic or unit to be nerfed.

Key features (Just the tip of the iceberg):
Complete (part 1):
Mechanics:
*Lazer weapons hit moving targets almost always.
*Overcharge has a dynamic recharge time (rate of fire) based upon the HP of the unit it is being fired upon.
*The UEF cruiser has a homing cruise missile and the bombardment missiles system autotoggle (can still be improved) + the hatches.
*All known and identified bugs on the mobile factories were resolved:
-The Atlantis has a mobile factory plus the sams and flak from the promotional video, plus torpedo defenses.
-Megaliths can poop eggs on the go (all T2 and T3 units buildable).
*The GC sucks up units and drains their HP to add part of it to its own.
*UEF frigates have a hedgehog weapon added (depth charges).
*The firebeetle is cloaked and stealthed while stationary.
*All Subs have vision reduction while submerged and T1 subs also have speed reduction while under water.
*The post overcharge jerk around of ACUs is fixed
*Strats do shield damage plus normal damage.
*No hoverbombing is possible.
*No more free intel from dead planes flying into enemy bases.
Other noticeable unit changes and balancing:
*The T3 torpedo bomber mechanics vastly improved
*T3 missile subs have a more useful multi muzzle missile launcher making them useful beyond nukes only.
*T2 and T3 “tanks”' combat stats have reevaluated and adjusted where necessary.
*SACUs are reworked to offer other options than just making RAS coms.
*Ecoing as a strategy for sim city players is nerfed (no ctrl k advantage on T3 Mexes, increased buildtimes+buildrate on tier 3 mass yielding buildings where applicable).
*Overcharge is nerfed through the adjustable reload time and a lower area of effect to compensate for energy cost between 5,000-20,000.
*T2 Torpedo bombers are slower, have lower HP.
*Cruisers have a bit more HP to make them less fragile and more useful with improved sea to sea combat stats and abilities (UEF cruise missile, Aoen stun effect on main gun).
*The Fatboy is bigger, stronger, more expensive, can build units on the go, with a minimum range on its main guns to give it a new weak point.
*The Aeon MML does more damage over time with the green cloud effect but deals less damage to shields, the Absolver is a T2 unit so both can complement each other.
*The Ahwassa is smaller and has a lower DamageRadius and for its bomb with adjusted for lower crash damage.
*All T3&T4 artillery and game-enders are more expensive and less effective.
*T2 shields are weaker and very hard to hold with engineers.
*The UEF battlecruiser has a cannon instead of a TMD on the front deck cannon.
*UEF battleships have torpedoes.
*The UEF destroyer has 10x low damage short range torpedoes per firing cycle.

Future developments (part 2):
The following are implementations I would like to feature in part 2 for which I just wont have the time and energy in the near future to work on. The issues are mostly understood and solutions partially work or mostly exist at the conception stage, meaning, they just need translating into code that compatibly works with other elements consistently throughout the game.
*A TML nerf based on the overcharge mechanics splitting damage to the HP of buildings/units and applying a 20% multiple on the remainder that hits the wreck.
*Improve handling of the UEF and Cybran cruisers dual weapon system.
*Missile ship should have automatically toggling weapons system, 1 vs navy with homing missiles, the other the standard bombardment option.
*Unit selection inconsistencies - A comprehensive redesign of the display of units selected since it is inconsistent and messy.
*Splitting of submerged and emerged units of the same type.
*T3 & T4 Artillery shells should have inner and outer ring damage.
*Make the beetle explode in the GC's claw.
*Unit numbers or weight on transporters impacting the transporter’s speed
Other things that bother me and I would like to improve:
*Proper veterancy system.
*The walled T1 point defence issue.
*The T3 navy rolloff issue.
*Prevent transporters from being able to drop non amphibious units onto water.

Bugs, issues, feedback:
Anyone can post or message me directly on discord (Daddy_Drewsky#3551) if they find something that is broken, bugged or have issues with. I can imagine people wont find the mobile factory or know how to use it, the solution to this is simply to either hover over the unit and press 'h' or zoom out and click/double click the factory icon.

Common issues at current and expected into the future:
As the Development team and Balance team keep making changes (modding the base game), there will likely be issues in the future. Maybe the mod breaks completely or some features that did work break. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about this and my suggestion that they make their own mod so content creators like myself are saved the hassle from updating our files all the time to neutralize the bugs that get transmitted from their modifications was rejected. This is another reason why many mods that people liked to play and had a lot of work put into have disappeared.
The mod will only be playable in custom games on FAForever. Unfortunately due to anti-competitive policies it is not available in TMM and games wont rated.

Prospects for a better FAF experience:
It has always been my hope to have competition and fair elections decide who leads the balance team since they claim the right to modify the game according to their preferences beyond the bounds of just balancing stats. Unfortunately that is not the case and conspiracy theories about the Russians taking over have been forwarded among other excuses to justify the oligopoly in place. As I have accepted that it wont change I have been forced to make this mod to offer an alternative and more importantly, a superior experience.
As of today it is available to be played through the FAF mods vault yet I cannot guarantee that this will always be the case.
My other ambition is to keep the gameplay through this mod relatively consistent over time. Users should not have to reevaluate the game every 3 months or lose strategies they enjoy because someone in a position in power does not like a legitimate tactic or strategy being used against them or the humiliation associated with getting beat by it. The list of changes in part 2 are at this time the only planned alterations, however any other bugfixes that do not alter the game but just improve it can always be added.

Complaints and copyrights:
I know there will be a bunch of clowns who yap a lot to gain prominence in the community and contribute next to nothing in actual value to the game with not bargaining power just like a failed crypto exchange asking why I wont released the elements of my mod into the public domain for anyone to use them. After all, they also would like to have all the good stuff for free and not have to play my mod because in the end as we know that for them it is all about control and not about making the game better for anyone but themselves. However, that is not how competition and intellectual property rights work. I do acknowledge the property rights of the contributors to my mod and to use their own contributions in their own mods or pass it on to others if they choose to do so. However I will never make available their contributions to this mod open access to anyone without their consent and since many elements of the mod is intertwined between varying contributors it is difficult to attribute wholistic parts to one person alone. Therefore the only place where players will be able to enjoy the collection of the mods components in its entirety will be by playing the mod itself.

snoog

Without going into how some changes might affect current live balance, I like a lot of it and question why parts aren't part of live.

My favorite two being
*No hoverbombing is possible.
*No more free intel from dead planes flying into enemy bases.

TheVVheelboy

Evidlrew trying to make his mod relevant. Take 4.

FtXCommando

So you made a post to the balance forums section and end it with "NO STEALING"

This should be moved to the mod subforum instead.

Fichom

Just lock this thread, so no one can steal it *smirk*

Deribus

Move to mod forum

Sladow-Noob

Jesus the amount of braincells I've lost reading that. I started to quote and deconstruct some shit you said but it's not even worth the effort tbh cuz I know you won't change your behaviour / opinion in any meaning anyway. So I'll just redirect you to the balance-patch-feedback-forums and wait for your GREAT insights!

Ngl I hope you might find the way ComradeStryker did. He's doing an absolutely amazing job at arguing for changes and I'll definitely refer to his post when proposing a balance change. Simply the fact that you think they're promoting defensive gameplay after literally nerfing the mex and PG hp and the units leave less reclaim which makes raiding way more efficient just shows that you apparently don't inform yourself enough.

Crotchcritter

@sladow-noob said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

Jesus the amount of braincells I've lost reading that. I started to quote and deconstruct some shit you said but it's not even worth the effort tbh cuz I know you won't change your behaviour / opinion in any meaning anyway. So I'll just redirect you to the balance-patch-feedback-forums and wait for your GREAT insights!

Ngl I hope you might find the way ComradeStryker did. He's doing an absolutely amazing job at arguing for changes and I'll definitely refer to his post when proposing a balance change. Simply the fact that you think they're promoting defensive gameplay after literally nerfing the mex and PG hp and the units leave less reclaim which makes raiding way more efficient just shows that you apparently don't inform yourself enough.

Here's a wild take, quote and deconstruct his changes other than the wordy paragraphs. Have any problem with that? Sera T2 PD overshooting/leading units has been an issue for years. He fixed it. Scouts no longer providing intel after death, making you want to have to shoot em down? Fixed. Hoverbombing? Takes skill, but tilts the scale in such a manner that if any other unit had that sort of OP, it would've immediately been fixed. Mobile Factories ACTUALLY work while moving now?! Done.

Hate him all you want, but at least he's trying to fix shit that should have been done a while back.

Sladow-Noob

I love how you mentioned stuff which was going on in development for quite a while now and will even come out soon as well for FAF :cube_dude:
Love how you apparently didn't read the part where he said players X, Y helped him out while doing so, assuming it's entirely his work

FtXCommando

"go thru the changes and say why they're bad"

Impossible because some of these changes could be answering problems his own changes made lol. I have no idea what "rebalancing t2 and t3 tanks" means and I have no idea if him rebuffing t4s like gc is reasonable because of it. It isn't reasonable for current balance, that's for sure.

"Hoverbombing? if any other unit had that sort of OP, it would've been immediately fixed"

Groundfiring Subs
Groundfiring PD to abuse AoE
Halting fire on gunships to lower below shield and kill the shield structure
Manually dispersing gunships to avoid flak
Manually dispersing janus to avoid flak
Dodge micro via BS to cause enemy BS to overshoot
Microing Aeon lab to kill a tank

Crotchcritter

@sladow-noob said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

I love how you mentioned stuff which was going on in development for quite a while now and will even come out soon as well for FAF :cube_dude:
Love how you apparently didn't read the part where he said players X, Y helped him out while doing so, assuming it's entirely his work

Ah, yes. God forbid he fix things that were "in development for quite a while now" as you said, while ignoring the fact he fixed them...before they did.

I also fail to see how giving credit to the people that helped him is somehow a knock against the work....isn't that how credit works?

Crotchcritter

@ftxcommando said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

"Hoverbombing? if any other unit had that sort of OP, it would've been immediately fixed"

Groundfiring Subs

Groundfiring PD to abuse AoE

Halting fire on gunships to lower below shield and kill the shield structure

Manually dispersing gunships to avoid flak

Manually dispersing janus to avoid flak

Dodge micro via BS to cause enemy BS to overshoot

Microing Aeon lab to kill a tank

Glad you found one thing you could actually give reasons for, but it's wild how everything you listed isn't near as effective, or would take place much later in the game when it would be your fault for not reacting, vs. hoverbombing 1:30 in.

BlissfulNoob

Don't let Drews or your own standoffish nature distract from the good.

There is bad, and there is ugly. This mod is his vision and his preference.

But... The crab has a sick animation for shidding out eggs now. Like, thats epic.
The fatboy too.

I suggest taking a look at it.

FtXCommando

@crotchcritter said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

it's wild how everything you listed isn't near as effective, or would take place much later in the game when it would be your fault for not reacting, vs. hoverbombing 1:30 in.

I’ve ended games or had my games ended by all of these.

Hoverbombing doesn’t end games at min 1:30, the only thing you’re getting hoverbombed is pgens, which:

is right in your base where your land fac would be for aa
your fault for being greedy and not spacing out pgens
Most likely isn’t even the best target for a early bomber

Hoverbombing engies has countermicro of getting the engie behind the bomber so you fuck up the hover micro and it’s less efficient since there is less guessing about which engie is being attacked. That’s bad when half the damage of first bomber is stopping expansions and queued up orders.

How are you supposed to react to me dispersing my 15 janus so your flak can only hit 1 at a time btw?

Crotchcritter

How are you supposed to react to me dispersing my 15 janus so your flak can only hit 1 at a time btw?

I build more than one

TheWeakie

I see we're back to "elitist balance team just make changes to make up for their lack of skill". 4head

FtXCommando

@crotchcritter said in The Superior FAF Experience Mod:

How are you supposed to react to me dispersing my 15 janus so your flak can only hit 1 at a time btw?

I build more than one

You can kill up to 4 with this, and I can’t remember the last time I saw more than 4 stationary flak built anywhere.

A Former User

I will get interested when veterancy is removed.

Jip

It is great to see so much effort being put into the game, whether that is through a mod or otherwise

But I wish you followed the best practices with regards to hooking existing Lua code. At the moment instead of hooking the mod overrides several critical files / classes, such as:

/lua/sim/unit.lua and /lua/defaultunits.lua, overwriting the code basis that all units rely on
/lua/sim/defaultprojectiles.lua and /lua/defaultantiprojectiles.lua, overwriting the code basis that a lot of projectiles rely on
/lua/ui/game/unitview.lua, overwriting the code of the unit info as you hover over a unit and all interactions with it
/lua/ui/game/construction.lua, overwriting the code of the construction menu and all interactions with it

As a consequence, if we'd make any change to any of these files / classes then your mod will simply overwrite them. Other files / classes may rely on those changes, and error out accordingly.

One such example is the spread attack alternative, which adds one function to the unit class. That function would not exist in your mod. And therefore the code would error out. That change will be released on the 24th, removing the old spread attack implementation. And the alternative won't work in your mod the way it is setup now.

As an example, take the second item of the modification-resources channel on Discord:

https://github.com/The-Balthazar/SupCom-Mod-Tutorials/wiki

And specifically:

https://github.com/The-Balthazar/SupCom-Mod-Tutorials/wiki/103-—-Blueprints.lua-hook

Which explains you exactly how to do it, along with some good fashioned humor of Balthazar. It is a good read, even for those that are not into making mods

As you mention copyrights at the end of your post - the repository has no license. Some files have a specific header indicating a license, such as with the navigational mesh. When no such license exists the default copyright laws apply, which you can read about here:

https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/licensing-a-repository

Some of the files that you copied from top to bottom are taken from the repository. You technically don't have the rights to distribute those through the vault. To quote the license you agree on when uploading content to the vault:

In particular, you represent and warrant that the User Generated Content was originally created by you (or, with respect to a User Generated Content to which others contributed besides you, by you and the other contributors, and in such case that you have the right to submit such content on behalf of those other contributors).

You can read the vault rules / license here:

I don't mind that you're taking files that I worked on. The moral of my response however is to encourage you to properly hook the files you're working with. That way your mod will not break the game starting on the 24th of August. And your mod will only contain the code that it needs to function, reducing the copyright issues mentioned above to a minimum.

And with all of that said - I'd love to know how you fixed beam weapons occasionally missing a target. A lot of attempts have been made in the past and none of them really fixed the problem

deletethis

I see Fixed in Equilibrium, I like.

Shame for the attitude.

Could you eventually consider making eq-like changelogs?