Posts made by ComradeStryker

Looking forward to it!

How long until the full release of your mod?
I just redownloaded FAF after my hiatus and remembered your mod.
It was a blast to play with the previous versions!

One of my original suggestions was to swap the base unit HP with the shield HP.

• Current: 12,500 Base HP and 20,000 shield HP.
• Suggested: 20,000 Base HP and 12,5000 shield HP.

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One of the benefits I mentioned was in reference to the veterancy system.
In two main ways:

In HP per vet:

• Current: 1,250 HP earned per level.
• Suggested: 2,000 HP earned per level.

As well as Max HP after a full vet:

• Current: 12,500 Base HP to 18,500 Max HP.
• Suggested: 20,000 Base HP to 30,000 Max HP.

This change has the benefit of a larger health pool in the long run, without altering the unit HP in the short run.

(It also affected the HP of the wreck. Arbitrary damage wouldn't destroy as much mass value.)

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Though some argued that a 'siege' unit shouldn't have that much HP.
IE: Sniper Bots, Mobile Arty, etc.
Anything with range usually has a smaller heath pool as a drawback.

And so, my last suggestion on my 2nd Fatboy post was to even out the numbers instead.
The change suggested then was 15,000 HP on both the unit and shield.

Again, increasing the base unit HP for a tad more veterancy potential.
(Albeit, this last suggestion also had some shield modifications, as well.)

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Though both suggestions I made had a modicum of support, nothing ever came of them.

I would still like to see if anything could come to fruition.

@thorkan12
If you're referring to the Kyro's Lobby 'mod'... it's not a mod one can download from the mod tab in the FAF client.
It was more of a plugin that was shared here and there on Discord and whatnot.

Unfortunately, that 'mod' has since been abandoned and no longer works.
The owner was MIA last I heard, and the mod is in disarray as it hasn't been updated in years, at this point.

This is amazing work.
I'm so happy you keep adding more and more.
I'm surprised you haven't run out of ideas yet!
Keep it up!

@indexlibrorum said in Allow "Refit" of Commander upgrades to increase tactical variety:

Give com T2 a 15% mass/energy discount on whatever it builds.

That'd be nice.

I like the idea! A few concerns but interested in seeing where it goes, nonetheless.

If I may throw in an idea as well:
Why not increase the muzzle velocity (projectile speed)?

That would seem like a good option that affects Damage consistency without affecting damage per second, and it would improve the feeling and reliability of the unit without the need for drastic alterations or reworks.

@noble_ice said in Absolver:

@ftxcommando we dont have a balance team, we have despots. it's easier to throw out cybran faction.

Hey, hey... No need to get mad at them.
They're fans of the game just like you and me.
They understand the game far better than any one of us.

If they make a change, they share a reason why, and if it doesn't work out, they revert it.

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Also, the Cybran faction has had some serious improvements over the last few balance patches. (2023)

Some notable ones:

• Salem range & HP increase
• ACU Regen increase + Nano upgrade
• Deceiver stealth range increase
• Brick & Wagner torpedo damage increase
• Brick range increase
• SoulRipper Rework

etc. etc. etc.

You can find the patchnotes for everything else here.

@melanol

The cooldown also makes some weird behavior. Like you order your com to shoot, but Billy is on cooldown, so you order the com to do something else, like walk somewhere, and then it shoots while you walk!

Now that's a problem I have seen many times, yes.
The Billy fire order is bugged with the cooldown.

The removal of the cooldown, although nice, would probably be too much.
A reduction of the cooldown time would be more reasonable and realistic.

I like the idea... perhaps a mod can be created so we can test it out?

I am also having mixed feelings about the change for the Bubble Shield, though I didn't want to be the first to say something without having tested them in-game.

However, now that others have spoken, here are my two cents:

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Resource costs and regen time are a huge buff, yes, but the lack of shield HP is what was the main issue to begin with.
As far as I can tell, almost no one had any issue with resource costs or regen time, but rather with the SHP and SHP-related ratios with the associated resource costs.

To put it bluntly, what's the point of the upgrade if the Shield will collapse sooner due to a lack of HP during a push?
Sure it'll regenerate sooner, but, by then, 60 seconds of time without a shield, that's detrimental.
(Just ask the Cybrans).
If 2 or 3 Parashields can obtain the same protection for FAR cheaper, then I'll gladly take the Personal Shield over the suggested changes, regardless.

"Oh, but Overcharge Protection"
Yes, that's still one benefit of the Personal Shield, but that tradeoff is still not worth 2,000 HP.
I'd also argue that even if a mobile shield dies to OC, it paid for itself because it still protected the units anyway.

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I quote myself from this Github Post:
(The balance changes suggested for the upgrade have been updated since this github post, but the information I mention is what I am referencing.)

The Bubble Shield's SHP-to-Mass ratio is still absurdly low when you compare it to the Personal Shield's ratio.
Bubble Shield (Current): 9,000 HP for 2,300 (3.913)
Bubble Shield (Suggested): 9,000 HP for 2,100 (4.285)
Personal Shield: 19,000 HP for 2,300 (8.261)

Even with the very slight decrease in mass and build time, the tradeoff between Bubble and Personal Shield is still far too great.
Personal Shield will still take precedence over Bubble Shield.
For 200 mass, you more than double the HP of your Shield.
No one would pass that up. Saving 200 mass is not worth losing out on 10,000 HP.

If I may offer, a more realistic approach would be to have Bubble Shield at around 12,000 SHP for a Mass cost of 1,500.
This would grant it a SHP-to-Mass ratio of 8.0. (Energy and BT costs can be adjusted to match.)
Slightly worse than the Personal Shield's ratio and stats (7,000 less HP), but still enough to make it a lucrative upgrade when compared to the Personal Shield.

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That said, Bubble Shield and Personal Shield are not the same upgrades and should not be treated as such.
One is meant to protect one unit, while the other is meant to protect multiple units.
But, at a current HP of 9,000, it doesn't do much other than offer a few extra seconds of protection.

Regardless, I am happy the upgrade is still a focus to better adjust.

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As for the Stinger... nothing on the Preloaded LAB idea from the Discord Server?

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~ Stryker

@p4block

basically anything that's not an actual proper internet connection to their home and PC.

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I believe this applies to me.

As I live in a slightly remote part of my area; not many providers can reach all the way out here to my location,
so, at the moment my best option is Starlink.

With Starlink, I am accustomed to seeing moderately high pings (~150-200) when players connect with me in FAF,
but lately, these averages have increased.
I have noticed an average shift almost nearing 250 ping, per player.

This could also be due to the fact that Starlink is bringing in more traffic as time goes on, but, seems unlikely with infrastructure that costly;
Seems strange that it would be affected this drastically. (+66% in latency)

For comparison, my ping in other (competitive) games is quite low, averaging around 30-40 with the highest I've seen at around 80-100.
But then again, those games are hosted on larger, more dedicated servers, I imagine.

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In FAF, about 70% of my matches go without incidence, I'd say.
With the other 30% of matches, I find someone hiccuping, and partially dropping connection.
And since my network is constantly swapping between Novax satellites, it's practically impossible to reconnect to said players.

This situation usually ends up with:
"Who's lagging the gam- STRYKER!"
-Geneva (2023)

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That being said, whether my internet has anything to do with it or not, the overall number of connection problems, in my experience, has gone up in the last month or so.
Quite significantly, I might add.
That 30% connection issues I mentioned, that number used to be around 10% at most, in my case.

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Hope my feedback helps in any fashion.

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~ Strkyer

That Cybran Centipede looks flippin' sick!
And the Aeon Tripod?! The Aircraft Carriers?
The Battlecruisers? Everything?!

Jesus, man! All of it looks amazing!

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~ Stryker

Transports going over flat terrain:
Transports going over a tiny difference in height:

They're slower when changing altitude than my thought process...

It's quite a bummer what some people do.
Some try to help, but others use that help to exploit something else.
It's a shame, really.

I can only hope the Author replies soon.
I quite enjoyed that ASI, and have gotten used to it, so much so, that it feels unnatural to me to use another icon mod, or vanilla icons.

Does anyone know of any other icon mod(s) that are nearly identical to ASI?
Or at least, similar? There are so many out there, and I have only had the time to test out a few, but so far...
they just aren't the same.

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~ Stryker

Jamming on air units is far more difficult to manage now.
It's only useful for bluffing rather than actual combat effectiveness.

ASF vision has always been larger than their weapons range.
Not to mention, that the last balance patch increased most unit's vision.
That vision change affected ASF, and that change also affected Stealth and Jamming directly.
The change made both of these intel abilities less effective, though Jamming more so because of how it interacts with vision and radar vs Stealth.
(For lack of a better word, what I mean by this is that stealth just works better in-game.
It's just how it interacts with the units and target priorities and so on.)

The fake blips disappear before the units get into weapon range.
A little sooner now with the vision increase, which means Jamming will almost never absorb a weapon's attack.
Technically, this does also affect Stealth, but with Stealth, you can still sneak up on a target, unlike Jamming.
This happens because of what I mentioned previously in how Jamming operates in FAF. ^

This does not occur with land and sea units as their weapon range is far greater than their vision hence this makes Jamming far more difficult to use on air units.

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~ Stryker

If I may give my two cents:

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I believe the biggest 'issue' with Jamming is how it interacts within the game, and not how it works or operates on the surface.

What I mean by this - and I was shocked to find out about this (Just ask @Jip) - was that Jamming blips are actually ignored by enemy units UNTIL the main unit, the one with the jammer, moves into weapons or attack range of the opposing target.

Let's make a quick scenario to help demonstrate:
Blue and Red to distinguish opposing armies and sides.

Blue has a T2 PD and a T1 radar.
Red has a Sparky (with Jamming)
Red places the Sparky just outside the max range of the PD, but not inside of its radius.
Blue will see some fake blips move into range of the PD, but nothing will happen - the PD will not auto-engage unless manually ordered to do so.
It is only when Red's Sparky makes it INTO range of the PD, that all blips become 'active' and are shootable.

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This is already a big issue, as all units with Jamming need to be in weapons range for their ability to be active, rather than effective.
However, another drawback here, is that all units will focus on known units over unknown ones.

If we go back to our example and give Blue a T1 scout to obtain vision on the Sparky;
Blue now sees the Sparky, and its fake jamming blips, but the PD will prioritize the Sparky over the other, (nearest) jamming blips.

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The fake blips remaining inactive until weapons range; correct me if I'm wrong @Jip, but it was a sort of engine optimization, and removing it would be very difficult if I'm not mistaken.
And, the scouted unit being targeted over the fake blips is taken by the engine as target priority and threat level, I believe.

Both of these 'mechanics' will always hold back Jamming's true potential.
And even if it had these benefits going for it, Jamming would still fall short to Stealth.
It's an old game, with an even older engine.
Stealth takes advantage a little better of all of this more than Jamming does.

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~ Stryker

@sylph_

You can always host a map with preset civilian armies, just make sure they are set to be an enemy.
Then just start the game in sandbox, and you can swap between armies with cheating enabled and spawn stuff in for each and play around like that.

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Alternitavely, and easier if I may say, you can just host a custom game, again, with cheating,
plop in an AI player, and just delete their ACU as soon as the match starts so they don't build anything you don't want them to build.

Now you have your sandbox gamemode with 2 armies you can swap between. (Yours and enemy's).

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~ Stryker

@sylph_ said in Non-Cybran stealth:

Seems to need 'stealthed' added to the list of reasons for a blip to remain.

Maybe I'm following you incorrectly, here, but... Stealth doesn't hide structures UNLESS the opposing player(s) have not obtained vision on that structure to begin with. (Or Omni.)
Hence why I didn't mention stealth in that list.

Vision and Omni will break the illusion.
Omni will only reveal the blips.
And vision will grant you the identity of the structures and units and whatnot.

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The intel side of the game, barring everything else, is actually quite complex, yeah.

Funnily enough, even with how complex it is behind the scenes, it's actually quite simple and straightforward in gameplay terms.

You either see something, or you don't.
You either know it's there, or you don't.
If something is greyed out, use your best context to figure out if it was upgraded, gifted, or destroyed.

Intel alone is 50% of the battle.
You can't fight (effectively) what you cannot see.

Keep scouting!

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~ Stryker