Im definitely the oldest user who still checks these forums. Ive written up the history once or twice before. I was also the author of the original FAFpatch. When zep first wrote in gpgnet chat that there needs to be an alternative for when gpgnet eventually fails, which I think he wrote in 2009 or 2010, I immediately understood what he ment and threw my unwaivering support behind ZEP and faf.

Zep did the client side faf development, and I did the FAF side lua modding. I was never a fantastic coder (Im not a programmer in my day job) so most of my work was finding the best FA mods and including them in the FAF patch. The first one was the shipwreck mod. Then I adapted it to work for hover wrecks and aircraft wrecks in water. Then I added the community bugfix patch that I found in the gpgnet vault (and which more talented modders than myself had made).

The only 3 large FAF features which I coded myself were the air/hover wrecks in water, the anti-offmapping script, and the shield interference script to nerf shield stacking.

Faf is still my favorite game ever, I just cant play it much anymore because I have 3 young children, so I can't just spend all day on my PC anymore ;-(

Aeon sucks. Here's why:

1. The Aurora is hot garbage because of the paper armor and slow speed. It's the only T1 tank which dies en-masse to single bomber and medusa hits. The Medusa is faster, longer ranged, and costs only 36 mass but one shot can obliterate 4+ Aurora costing 52 mass apiece. This wouldn't be so bad if bombers didn't mass-OHKO them too. Did I mention they also always miss their first shot? And high alpha is supposed to be one of their advantages...
2. The fervor sucks. Only advantage is best raw DPS against structures, which is a poor trade off for being completely useless against units.
3. The beacon (T1 frigate) sucks. It's the most expensive, can't use full DPS forwards, has no AA, and has very low HP. Only advantage is modest anti torpedo.
4. The shard (T1 AA boat) sucks. Despite being a dedicated AA boat, it's AA is worse than Cybran Frigate AA. I've watched this miss literally every shot against T2 torp bombers. It's useless.
5. The simmer (T1 bomber) sucks. It has the lowest damage of all T1 bombers. 4 bombs are required to kill a UEF T1 pgen or mex. UEF bomber only takes 2 passes to kill an Aeon T1 pgen or mex.

Now onto other tiers:
6) The T2 transport sucks. Lowest carrying capacity of all T2 transports. Can only carry two T3 units.
7) The T3 bomber sucks. Trades enormous AOE nerf for minuscule damage buff. As a result, it's no better against structures than Cybran T3 bomber but far, far worse against units and ACUs. Also, Aeon T3 bomber lacks a secondary weapon.
The T2 shield generator sucks. Expensive but with a tiny area of effect. Can barely cover a T2 pgen next to it. Very hard to cover nearby mex with it. Can't be upgraded, either.

Okay here's how we can fix it:

1. Aurora needs a bit more armor. 140 --> 155 should do it. It'll survive a medusa shot or 3/6 cybran T1 bombs hitting it. Medusa needs a nerf, too, because it's OP as hell.
2. Fervor is probably fine as long as Medusa is nerfed.
3. Beacon should get a small HP buff (1850--> 2000) and anti-torp buff, paired with a small buff to Aeon T1 subs.
4. Shard should have muzzle velocity increase so it can actually hit stuff.
5. Shimmer bomb should track and/or have 2 second stun against T1/T2 units. Lower damage is fine if it's a guaranteed hit against T1.
6. Some advantage, such as perhaps being faster, should be given to T2 transport.
7. T3 bomber shot should track so it doesnt miss.
8. Shield gen should have greater range and/or reduced cost (480 mass --> 360 mass)

@FtXCommando Please for the love of FAF, include mapgen

You should make a rule prohibiting this sort of ad hominem nonsense that makes no attempt to address the information provided.
"I'm assuming OP just lost a game and is mad because he thinks he lost to the balance."

With the new patch on the 19th of November and the (much needed) buff to T3 mobile AA, I think we now have a good opportunity to differentiate SAMs and T3 mobile AA.

First, some history. Obviously, T3 mobile AA was not in the developer version of FAF, but it was added because it was needed. The first iteration of T3 mobile AA was minimalist in order to not change balance very much: It was essentially an exact copy of the SAM, just mobile. However, obviously that was underpowered, so it was eventually buffed.

Now, T3 mobile AA is a low-cost deterrent to T3 bombers and gunships, and a minor threat to passing ASFs and scouts. This is a great spot for T3 mobile AA. Now what about SAMs?

SAMs should be heavy anti-air. I'm proposing an increase in cost by 100% (800 mass/8k Energy --> 1600 mass/16k Energy) paired with an increase in damage (+100%), a decrease in rate of fire (~40% decrease) and an increase in maximum range (+50%), and a minimum range (of maybe 30 units). (UEF SAM example: 200 damage --> 400 damage. Range: 0-60 --> 30-90. Firecycle: 6x1/0.1 sec + 3.1 sec reload = 3.6 total --> 6x1/0.1 sec + 6.6 sec reload = 7.1 sec total.)

With these changes, SAMs will be significantly distinguished from T3 mobile AA, with T3 mobile AA being clearly better sometimes, particularly against masses of T1 and T2 air units and in the early T3 air stage. Also, SAMs that are built alone or closely together will be vulnerable to T2 gunship and will need mobile T3 mobile AA or flak to cover them up close. Also, this will buff SAMs against T3 air, mainly enabling them to One-Shot ASF, and improving performance against experimental air units.

Thoughts?

It's just so much fun. Makes me want to neglect my other responsibilities just to play.

Side note, is there anybody still working on the map gen? It sometimes produces buggy maps, but overall the quality is very high.

See subject. There's little point in putting in a lot of effort into making a new balance thread (see guidlines) unless it's something the balance team actually cares about. It would be nice to see the new balance councilor post some thoughts of his about current balance and areas he might try to improve.

I think the comparison images are unfair because the second image has way more units/structures which obscure the terrain.

That said, I think I like the mapgen version better. The contour lines on the GPG map are more clear, but elevation isn't important to know. I think the mapgen version makes it more clear which areas are passable by land and which are not, and obviously higher areas are lighter. This is much better.

T2 Mobile Missile Launchers (MMLs) for all factions are terrible. This is bad for gameplay as it makes the most interesting tech level (T2) also the worst for turtling. MMLs should therefore be greatly improved.

First, let's note that MMLs fill a similar role in Tech 2 that T1 mobile artillery fills in Tech 1 and then state clearly why MMLs are so awful:

• For Cybran, T2 MML DPS/cost ratio is much worse: ~1 versus about ~0.3. By contrast, for Cybran T1 bot and T2 tank, DPS/cost is ~0.5 and ~0.3, indicating a reduction of only 40% raw paper strength from T2 to T1. This would suggest that MML raw damage should be doubled so that T2 to improve DPS/cost to ~0.6, a reduction of ~40% from the ~1 DPS/cost ratio for T1 artillery.
• T2 TMD and mobile/stationary shields block MML shots. The previous bullet suggests that MML are underpowered even in absence of missile defense and shields. Missile defense and shields serve to aggravate this problem further.
• T2 MML shot linger time - the time between a missile being launched and a missile hitting the target at maximum range - varied from about 6 seconds (for Seraphim) and 12 seconds (for Aeon). Compare this to T1 artillery shells which linger for about 8 seconds.
• T2 MML damage radius is very small at 1. T1 artillery (other than Aeon) damages in a radius of 2-3.

Now let's talk how to fix these problems:

• Low DPS can be fixed by improving raw damage. Raw paper DPS suggests a 100% damage buff is necessary. Analysis of damage radius and shot linger time suggests another 50-100% beyond that would also be warranted. Also, there's no reason why MMLs shouldn't one-shot T1 pgens. The Aeon MML can 1-shot Cybran and Aeon pgens, but all MMLs should get a buff so that the Seraphim MML (405 damage) can one-shot even UEF T1 pgens (720 hp), so perhaps 810 damage total.
• The T2 shield/TMD combination renders a fire-base all but immune to MMLs. Due consideration should be given to the idea of missiles passing through shields (similar to how strategic missiles do) although this may not be needed if DPS is improved substantially.
• MML linger time cannot be set directly because it is a product of the missile's performance values (muzzle velocity, acceleration, maximum speed) and it's guidance script, but effort should be made to reduce UEF/Aeon MML shot linger time to <9 seconds, reliably. Also, UEF is the only MML with an unpack animation, this unpack should be made faster to improve the MML's responsiveness.
• If MML raw damage is only doubled, improving damage radius from 1-->2 would make sense. If MML damage is improved by a factor or 2.5x or 3.0x, more damage radius is not necessary.

Additional notes:

• It has recently been stated that TMLs are OP. I disagree generally. They only seem OP because they are so much better than MMLs that they are used to siege much more often. If MMLs are made to be good, TMLs versus MMLs will feel like a real choice rather than obvious selection of the superior siege weapon (TMLs currently).
• Adding a minimum range to MMLs to give tanks some breathing room would make sense. Perhaps 10-15, perhaps as high as 20.

@speed2 Yes. I made the first several Forged Alliance mods and implementations of the reinforcement script. (If it's coded poorly, that's because I'm not a programmer )

Oh, and I also wrote a lot of script to support predeployed units for GALACTIC WAR. Sadly, galactic war was very short-lived and will probably never come back

Im definitely the oldest user who still checks these forums. Ive written up the history once or twice before. I was also the author of the original FAFpatch. When zep first wrote in gpgnet chat that there needs to be an alternative for when gpgnet eventually fails, which I think he wrote in 2009 or 2010, I immediately understood what he ment and threw my unwaivering support behind ZEP and faf.

Zep did the client side faf development, and I did the FAF side lua modding. I was never a fantastic coder (Im not a programmer in my day job) so most of my work was finding the best FA mods and including them in the FAF patch. The first one was the shipwreck mod. Then I adapted it to work for hover wrecks and aircraft wrecks in water. Then I added the community bugfix patch that I found in the gpgnet vault (and which more talented modders than myself had made).

The only 3 large FAF features which I coded myself were the air/hover wrecks in water, the anti-offmapping script, and the shield interference script to nerf shield stacking.

Faf is still my favorite game ever, I just cant play it much anymore because I have 3 young children, so I can't just spend all day on my PC anymore ;-(

I havent seen a Billy in over 20 games. I'm sure it's fine as it is.

There's no good reason for it. I just quit games that start on these maps.

I no longer play FAF because I have kids. If not for their needs, I'd be on ideally everyday. I'd even participate in a tourney if I knew the real pros were "too busy" to show XD

I haven't changed my username is years on FAF. (PSN made me change it because it was offensive though )

@magge said in Kindergartener wording and design of the main page:

for whatever reason, the conversation veered off track into negativity

Yes, FAFers are quite the argumentative type lol

In my experience making missions, difficulty/challenge is a very hard thing to implement. Because FAF's economy is exponential, it's basically impossible to keep a consistent level of challenge without harshly punishing success. That is to say, it would be easy to simply nuke the player's base if they achieved more than 50 mass/sec income, and this would retain the challenge.... but it's also such a bastard, asshole move to do

@thomashiatt said in This idea will make you angry (don't read it):

Most 1v1 games you ma

The second half of the idea is (soft) requiring a T2 pgen for T2 mex upgrades as well.

Another one down. It's hard to keep at it.