My thoughts (as someone who has spent the majority of their games on Astro - please don't judge!)

1. On the original Astro there's an issue I've occasionally had where there is some sort of invisible wall that stops commander shots - e.g. I overcharge an enemy building and shoot it with my gun, and it hits some invisible object in front of it (this is in the 'middle' area). No idea if subsequent versions fix it. Unfortunately it's a while since it last happened so I also don't have a replay ID to hand, but thought I'd mention for if there's an easy way to check for something like that.

2. Some astro variants allow access to the water (from rear of base and from mid), most don't.

3. There's a '4 teams' version of astro which is a bit like a copy of the astro land being rotated 90 degrees with a larger middle area - I'm assuming the aim of the map wouldn't cater for this. Another variant I've sometimes seen is a 2 teams style with 4 starting locations, where each team's core base is split into 2 craters (i.e. 2 start positions per crater, each crater alongside each other). I've not played this version myself though.

4. Another version I've only played occasionally effectively cuts off the ocean into 2 parts, by having the core base 'crater' extend to the edge of the map (so ships can't go from one side to another). Most astro maps I've played don't do this, but some presumably would like the option.

Re your query on the cliffs/'ring' around the core base, from my experience it's high enough to cause pathfinding issues for planes (they can fly over it, but can sometimes get caught in the cliff, and if you try and send a bomber over the cliffs with an attack command too near to the cliff it's bomb will usually fire into the cliff). E.g. strats would need to go down the 'middle' to get a clear shot. It's also high enough to block some but not all missiles fired by a T2 cruiser that target something a bit further inside the crater. I.e. to do a strategic bomber snipe you have to send strats through the main entrance of the base. However, t2 bombers can approach over the cliffs and do some damage (if you target further inside). I'd see not being able to do a strat snipe from the sides as being a core part of the design (at least on the 3v3 and 4v4 standard ones - There might be some variants with a larger spawn area where it's possible to strat snipe the opposite end of the base by going over the cliff, but it's not something I've seen or tested).

Summary of points I'd written before since I don't want to retype:
I joined a few months ago, some of the things that almost made me quit and things that could be done to improve things:
-Toxic players - not much you can do, every multiplayer game has them
-Specific map expectations - having a high level summary/guide of expectations for some of the most popular maps and expectations of what you do if you start somewhere could help
-1v1 - initial matchups were horrible, start new players out against low rank players instead of high rank players
-Being kicked for being grey - Rank/game quality should be based on the displayed rank, not the 'trueskill' value. E.g. a rank 0 with 4 games in multiplayer is seen as similar quality to a rank 1000 with 200 games. Maybe if it was based on the displayed rank (e.g. rank 0 is treated as rank 0 not 1000 or so) then people would be less likely to kick newer players

I only just realised that when a new version of the FAF client is released, there's no obvious notification of this, other than a strange icon in the top right that doesn't seem to bear much relation to the point. Since others have also posted (e.g. in the thread asking for feedback from new players) of not being aware of this, my suggestion is simple:

• in the login page, have a message displayed in the centre of the screen (not hidden away somewhere) if a new version is available
  -In the news page, at the top where it currently has the banner message about a temporary fix for a nvidia driver issue, have a message similarly highlighted if the current client version used is out of date

Until I saw a post from someone mentioning about some icon in the top right that you had to click to update your version I was left puzzled by the news that a 2v2 team matchmaker had been released yet no 2v2 option was showing up as an alternative to the 1v1 and custom tabs, and I doubt I'm the only one.

Tried getting games on the2v2 matchmaker yesterday (party of 2) but it involved long waits - at one point there were 12 people queuing at the end of the countdown so I thought we should get a game but it ended with all but 4 of us getting a game (me and my teammate were negative rank so I presume everyone else was very high rank). The couple of games we did manage we were completely crushed though, so it could just be the issue with too few people queuing meaning it's not possible to find balanced games. However, after waiting through several cycles of matching with no game I'd prefer any game to no game - is it possible to increase the range allowed for a valid match each time you fail to be allocated a game?

With a larger player base I'd be in favour of such a matchmaking idea. My concern though is that you'll only end up with a small number of people queuing at a time (except for very busy periods) similar to the existing matchmakers, and you'll inevitably have some people who are very good at whatever custom mode is highlighted compared to a new player.

That said, one of the biggest issues I have with both the 1v1 and 2v2 matchmakers is that the maps are too much like hard work. That is, if I get a 1v1 map there's a good chance it's some large sprawling map with mexes everywhere that requires me to do a crazy amount of actions a minute to keep up with t1 land spam being mandatory (except on huge maps or naval ones), which ends up being stressful not fun. In 2v2 from what little I've played it's similar, but with the added pressure of a teammate who will be angry that I don't perform as well as they'd like.

I think this is a large part of the reason games like gap, astro, dual gap, pass etc. are popular - you dont have to focus on as many areas of the map at once, and so there's more chance to just have fun, and it's alot easier to get into as a new player. Even setons and isis mirror this to a large extent (ignoring the players who will make your life miserable if you don't conform to the expected way of doing things when starting in a particular slot).

Therefore I like the idea of having lots of different 'fun'/different types of modes that will make a change in gamestyle from the standard 1v1, especially if they include vs AI challenges, I'm just not sure how to solve the issue of too few new players wanting to do it leading to those that do try getting crushed by pros. One possibility might be to showcase it on the news page (e.g. you have a different mode each week, and the news page features it prominently).

I thought it was a valid tactic to ctrl k to kill the enemy com-it stops them gaining vet from killing you and surviving, and from being able to run away from you if they have some spam to block you. I’ve done it myself a number of times and would feel very aggrieved to be banned for it (until now id presumed it would count as a draw). If the actual issue can be fixed then great, but if not it shouldn’t be punishable because it should be a legitimate tactic to obtain a draw instead of a loss. Id be happy with a punishment that just involved a manual rating change as well since that would just be an awkward way of fixing the issue.

One query though-some have suggested pausing and offering a draw. how do you get a draw? One game my opponent had to leave so we agreed to have our coms shoot each other to death to draw; is there a better/easier way?

Provided whatever game mode had a spotlight in the news which explained what it was and how to play it, it could encourage new players to try it out. For example, I've never played a phantom game (and have only seen a couple of casts of phantom games) so I'm put off joining one as I'd be relatively clueless and probably face alot of anger from the players when I play badly. Similarly I won't even consider various other mods since I've little idea of what they do.

I expect it would in part come down to how it's marketed/pitched - if it's promoted as something for new players, to let them experience different types of game modes in a non-competitive setting, with experienced players encouraged to be helpful and play for fun, I suspect new players would be more likely to queue into it.

Replay ID was #14478019

Replay ID
time stamp: 25-26min (mega dies just after 26m mark)

A laser com killed a megalith but barely gained any veterancy.

The Com pre-the megalith dying had 2 kills and was 574/1000 in veterancy, lev 0

After killing the megalith, it had 3 kills and was 1574/2250 in veterancy, lev 1

I'm guessing (but could be wrong) that it's only registered the damage the com dealt with its basic weapon, rather than the laser. I was expecting given a megalith costs 37.5k mass that the Com would get significantly more veterancy.

T2 torpedo defence feels like it needs a buff. In most matches that get to T2 tech you see T2 PD being built, but I've yet to see T2 torp launcher being built. It's not like T2 PD being good makes Eco the strongest option on matches, and you don't even need to buff T2 torp launchers to that level.

Provided you don't boost their range, then they'd still die easily to T2 navy, and so would only be of use if supported by T2 navy, and only then for defence. Even then, unless there was a key choke point or location of strategic importance they wouldn't be good since your opponent would have the option of ignoring them and targeting another location.

Giving them a DPS or health boost, and/or a mass cost decrease, and it would add an extra option/strategic decision. Ideally you'd combine it with a buff to subs who would be made even worse by an improvement to torpedo launchers though.

With a larger player base I'd be in favour of such a matchmaking idea. My concern though is that you'll only end up with a small number of people queuing at a time (except for very busy periods) similar to the existing matchmakers, and you'll inevitably have some people who are very good at whatever custom mode is highlighted compared to a new player.

That said, one of the biggest issues I have with both the 1v1 and 2v2 matchmakers is that the maps are too much like hard work. That is, if I get a 1v1 map there's a good chance it's some large sprawling map with mexes everywhere that requires me to do a crazy amount of actions a minute to keep up with t1 land spam being mandatory (except on huge maps or naval ones), which ends up being stressful not fun. In 2v2 from what little I've played it's similar, but with the added pressure of a teammate who will be angry that I don't perform as well as they'd like.

I think this is a large part of the reason games like gap, astro, dual gap, pass etc. are popular - you dont have to focus on as many areas of the map at once, and so there's more chance to just have fun, and it's alot easier to get into as a new player. Even setons and isis mirror this to a large extent (ignoring the players who will make your life miserable if you don't conform to the expected way of doing things when starting in a particular slot).

Therefore I like the idea of having lots of different 'fun'/different types of modes that will make a change in gamestyle from the standard 1v1, especially if they include vs AI challenges, I'm just not sure how to solve the issue of too few new players wanting to do it leading to those that do try getting crushed by pros. One possibility might be to showcase it on the news page (e.g. you have a different mode each week, and the news page features it prominently).

i5 11600k (no overclocking) with 16gb 3200mhz RAM took about 13m7s to run the replay (pausing the game at the start, setting +10 sim speed, then starting timer and unpausing)

What about a non-game reward/recognition say every month for the person who plays the most ranked games with <50 game players as host (or alternatively just as host or player)? A cheap way would just be a simple headline in the news section giving the name of the player who achieved this (more effort would e.g. be a custom avatar).
This assumes there'd be some way of easily/automatically tracking this.

Updated to correct the mass cost (I forgot to multiply by the 6s of every shot!) and to factor in estimated natural (free) shield regen so its a bit more accurate:

Thanks, if I'm reading the "drain per 1 bt mass" as meaning the mass cost of an engineer assisting with a build power of 1, then I think the actual values might be different to this now - I did a bit more testing with other shields using the same method as before, and trying to get the no. of engineers need to assist a bit more precise (so it's probably within 1 of the correct value) and got the following:

However it sounds from your post that it was intended that it should cost more mass to repair damage via assisting a T2 shield than repairing the same amount of damage via a T3 shield (even if the values appear a bit different) such that a change to this would belong in the balance section rather than bugfix?

After a bit of searching, it looks like EnhanceTask.lua might contain code relating to assisting a building construction, but I couldn't see anything for adjusting a shield's health:
https://github.com/FAForever/fa/blob/7542596ea1c16be28615fdc40cc9bf9c8bb5481a/lua/sim/tasks/EnhanceTask.lua

I also found the following but they appear to relate to AI commands for assisting/AI logic more generally:
https://github.com/FAForever/fa/blob/7542596ea1c16be28615fdc40cc9bf9c8bb5481a/lua/platoon.lua

https://github.com/FAForever/fa/blob/7542596ea1c16be28615fdc40cc9bf9c8bb5481a/lua/sim/EngineerManager.lua

Reclaim appears like it might be covered in Prop.lua:
https://github.com/FAForever/fa/blob/7542596ea1c16be28615fdc40cc9bf9c8bb5481a/lua/sim/Prop.lua

Github then decided I'd triggered an abuse mechanism with my scrolling through search results so I can't look any further to see if there're any other scripts I've missed that might affect a shield's health or an engineer assisting more generally.