@NomenNominandum You can (try using a text marker to ask)

v223 Update
8 changes mostly relating to improving M28's response to a comdrop attempt:

• More inties should be built if an enemy T2 transport is detected
• Various adjustments to inties+asf micro when engaging enemy air targets
• Emergency PD's build location should be reassessed if the PD is going to be built in range of existing enemies and the engineer is sitll moving to the build location.

Acknowledgements

• Chucups replay where 4 M28 lost to a 2 player T2 comdrop

Personally my modding related contributions are down to the following factors:

• Wanting to implement ideas I like
• How difficult I think it would be to implement based on my skillset
• Admin and time related delays likely to see the changes incorporated
• Risk of changes being rejected
• Whether the changes will see any use

Partly why 99% of my modding has focused on AI mods - I get to implement my own ideas; they're achievable with my skillset; I can make updates live as soon as the changes are ready instead of waiting for the next quarterly FAF release; the only risk of time being wasted is if I decide my idea makes things worse overall, and enough people are willing to search for AI mods/play games with AI mods that I wouldn't be the only user (unfortunately it's much harder for other sim mods to gain much traction though).

The fourth point I think is of most relevance for balance related issues - if I think there's any significant risk of work being rejected I'm unlikely to consider because it's not worth spending potentially 10s of hours on a change only to find after spending all that time that it was wasted because someone vetoes it. I expect it's the same for others contributors, meaning you'd need someone very motivated about a particular idea (or the idea being very simple to implement) to likely want to take the risk that time spent prototyping/doing proof of concept may be on something not ultimately used.

Off the top of my head the only workaround I can think of to address this for this is some sort of system where certain features or changes are 'approved in concept/principle' by the balance team as being something they will accept if someone can figure out a way of implementing (and then people could always browse such a list if they were interested in contributing with confidence that if they can get something that works, it's highly unlikely to be wasted effort) - e.g. having an additional tag to the balance tax on github for issues and PRs to indicate this.

The problem this causes though is that there will be some ideas or features that sound good on paper, get approved, and then when it comes to playing in-game with the changes it's realised that actually it would be a mistake to implement. To some extent this is inevitable, but the key would be keeping such instances to a minimum.

There's also no guarantee that such a system would increase contributions (it feels like it should since it'd help mitigate a potentially significant barrier to people wanting to contribute, but each person will have their own motiviations for why they want to volunteer/contribute).

v221 Update
13 changes, including:

• Island factories should build land scouts in teamgames and be less likely to pause
• Indirect fire units should try and attack if the nearest enemy is outranged and not protected by friendly enemy units.
• Adjusted t3 arti targeting to reduce the value of heavily shielded zones when assessing the best zones to do a detailed check on
• T3 facs should in some cases be ctrl-k'd for mass late-game

v222 Update
10 changes, including:

• More PD builders
• ASFs should shadow friendly strat bombers even if the enemy has AA nearby
• Naval factories should be more likely to get engineers if they have higher tech than land/air
• Units should transfer on death (relevant for QUIET+LOUD)

Acknowledgements

• C04spoon – v218 QUIET replay
• Azraeel – v218 QUIET replay
• Vortex – 3 v220 QUIET replays

Wouldn't it be simpler to just do a mod as proof of concept?

If it was to be nerfed (e.g. by reducing speed, range, or giving a VFX to indicate the target when zoomed in) I hope that the minimum time between firing 'feature' could then be removed due to how unintuitive it is

I also worry that anything good the UEF gets is nerfed because when viewed individually it is strong (billy nuke, novax), with nothing else given to the UEF to compensate. I.e. whether a unit is too strong shouldn't just be considered in isolation, but also in the wider faction context.

Plus, in terms of counters, Aeon TMD ignores the billy nuke health (albiet billy can just go over its head to strike further back targets); Cybran just needs a single loyalist; Seraphim has mobile T3 shields that [edit: Looked up the wrong shield before: have 10k health (testing in sandbox 2 overlapping mobile shields meant a billy nuke dealt 250 damage to units under the shields)] and UEF in theory could make a shield SACU to cover most of their army as an alternative to TMD-creep

@Mr_Blastman
To use your own numbers for mexes, but doing a more efficient replacement of T3 shield with T2 shield with an average cost of 600 mass
8 shield gens x 4 players on opposing team = 24 shield gens required
24 x 600 = 14,400
That leaves c.21k for a gateway with 3 RAS SACUs which both give more than enough power to cover the shields, and generate extra resources to more than compensate for the very slow rate at which the novax could kill the t2 mexes (or 2 RAS SACUs assuming you have an air player that wants some t3 shielding to cover their air grid).

It's annoying to counter, because you have to build all those shields quickly enough, rebuild any shields and mexes if they decide to target them, increase the shielding if they get a second novax, and have issues if you have fatboys or low health high cost unshielded units you want to attack with. 72-81k cost would make it completely unusuable and you'd be better off getting t3 arti or more units or eco.

@Sainse If upgrading protected novax, then it'd be 2 commands - double-click on t3 mex (to select all mexes); press upgrade hotkey (maybe a 3rd command of then pausing some other production while you wait for the upgrade to complete)
SMD targeting would take a bit more time and effort (probably want 3-5 per team depending on map size), but it'd have the added benefit of protecting from nukes (something players often do preemptively anyway)

Vs currently where (if shielding with t2 shields) it's:
-Find nearest T2+ idle engineer (if you dont have one, then find non-idle engineer)
-Press hotkey for shield
-Potentially place in location that covers multiple mexes
-Find other mexes nearby for that engineer to go to that it can realistically reach and queue up shield build order
-Repeat above process a few more times with other engineers, until you've queued up shields to cover the main mexes you want to protect
-Potentially build a transport, load engineers, drop onto plateau, and have them build a shield (for any plateaus with mexes you want to protect)

I don't get your expense argument - a T2 shield costs 500-700 mass; you could build 10 of them and it's still a fraction of the novax cost. It's not perfect novax defence, but it's good enough (and you can get a t3 shield where it'd cover 4 mexes or to cover t3 pgens). You'd need relatively large teamgames, and assuming players aren't going to get any shielding at that stage of the game, for it to cost more to defend the novax (e.g. in a 4v4 where each player gets a t3 shield to cover core base, air player gets another 1-2 t3 shields, and then yo uadd on the t2 shields cost ontop of that then it starts costing more)

The impression I get is the main issue most people have with the novax (outside large teamgames on maps with lots of spread out mexes) is the apm required to shield mexes and rebuild any killed by the mex, than the strength of the novax if they had infinite apm, which is also consistent with my experience when I'm on the receiving end (unless I have a fatboy, but then fatboy can get countered by air anyway). Dealing less damage to shields wouldn't solve that issue (e.g. personally I just get t2 shields over all my mexes since while they dont fully counter a novax, they make it take so long it becomes very inefficient).

However, giving a low apm counter to the novax would solve the issue; low apm counters that wouldn't need to completely rewrite how the unit works could either be an offensive counter like SMDs having a manual toggle to fire at novaxes (with the novax satellite cost set to be the same as an SMD missile), or giving mexes a personal shield upgrade (that would give a similar effect to if they had a t2 shield covering them).

The latter (personal shield) would require almost no apm to do, and would just need a build time long enough that if you wait until the novax is already out and attacking your mexes you will suffer some losses, but if you scout the novax early in its construction then you should largely counter the novax's ability to do significant damage. E.g. if 800 mass upgrade for a T3 mex gives you a 5k personal shield with 120 regen, 26s recharge time, and -100 E drain then that's only likely to be worth getting to deal with an enemy novax, and it'd take a novax roughly 93s to kill a t3 mex (vs the current 27s).
As a simple comparison, for the same cost as a novax you could get a gateway+5 RAS SACUs that yield 55 mass per second, or 5.1k mass in the same timeframe (plus giving build power and energy). With a mex costing 4.6k (or 5.4k with the upgrade option) that means you could end up ahead if they tried targeting your mexes with the novax while you'd just got RAS+shielding (and the personal shielding for mex option means that the apm required for this woudl be negligible).

I also can't see anyone getting such an upgrade outside defending against a novax - t3 arti tends to target power grids since they're much easier to hit and spark a chain reaction (vs trying to kill a lone t3 mex), TMD would be far cheaper (and more effective) to counter enemy TML, and combat units will usually be in large enough numbers that the extra health would barely make a difference. So the balance implications should just be limited to a lowering of the novax's strength through lowering the apm required to counter it.

v218 Update
5 changes, including:

• Fixing a bug in QUIET where mobile SMD would be built instead of spearheads
• Units should be more likely to engage enemies near the frontline that they outrange.
• Improved ACU build order so it is less likely to build the 5th+ mexes at the start

v219 Update
15 changes, including:

• Various improvements to Aeon missile ship usage, including making them less likely to fire at units protected by cliffs
• Civilian buildings in water will now be considered for capture
• Fixed a bug where water zone locatiosn could be considered as land zones
• Fixed an issue where if the asf support location was too near the frontline (with the enemy having ground based AA near the frontline) they'd ignore all enemy units

Acknowledgements

• Relent0r - Replay involving Aeon missile ships

v220
Hotfix with 4 changes, including:

• Fixed a major bug with torp bombers that meant most of the time they wouldn't attack
• Fixing a couple of ACU related errors where the ACU was in a different plateau to nearby units
• Fatboys should be more likely to attackmove in LOUD and QUIET

Acknowledgements

• goblinsly2 - Highlighting issues with M28 torp bombers
• Vortex - QUIET replay involving fatboy

@goblinsly2 Thanks, unfortunately the replay doesnt work but I've been able to reproduce an issue with torpedo bombers not targeting naval units on that map so should be able to investigate.

For strats and exp bomber I expect the issue is the unit is too far underwater.

Playing offline should be similar to playing through FAF, the main differences being the replay wont get saved to FAF (so unless you rename your lastreplay it gets overwritten when you start a new game), and you need to create a game through FAF after any update to benefit from the changes in that update.

Hi, I'd recommend M28 for better mod compatibility. Although in theory M27 should work with unit mods, I'm not actively looking to expand it's compatibility, and in the case of BrewLAN as the FAF vault version is broken (at least the last few times I've checked) it's not something I'd be looking to fix at this stage (although if the FAF vault version does get fixed then I'd be open to investigating the issue you mention of M27 not working at all with the mod enabled)

v216 Update
11 changes, including:

• Improved selection of transport drop locations when dropping on the same plateau, so the number of mexes in the target zone gets factored in.
• Fixed compatibility with the flying engineers mod
• Renamed 'M28: Enable helpful teammate logic?" to "M28: Helpful teammates?" (to deal with text overflow issues)

Acknowledgements

• Fearghal screenshot highlighting text overflow issue on the helpful teammates game option

v217 Update
18 changes, including:

• Fixed some bugs with inties/asfs logic so they should no longer pursue enemy inties/asfs that are out of range (unless they think they can win the fight)
• Surface naval units should consider attacking the nearest enemy naval unit if it's outranged (even if the enemy has longer ranged units in the general area)
• Improvements and fixes to ACU logic when using splash upgrade or laser (so it's a bit less likely to build things or get reclaim)

What about reducing the speed a bit so players have more time to shield against it and slightly encourages defensive use (per its name). An E cost for its weapon usage would also be ok I guess but probably not that impactful.

It's already in a nice spot in T3 arti wars where 1 can be good but 2+ bad (which encourages unit variety); and on maps without lots of spread out mexes it's not very good. Removing its damage or making it be shot down by SMD makes it a really weak experimental, when UEF already suffers with its experimental options, while the SMD mechanic is also unintuitive and so is yet another non-new player friendly move.

My main issue with it is on certain maps even if you scout them building it early on and start shielding your mexes it's still tough to counter it, while the cost and build time means that it's going to be much harder to get a victory (and ignore novax defence) vs say a t3 arti. However, nerfing the novax damage then makes it weaker generally.

Only thoughts I have on ways to make it more 'counterable' either with shields or a land push without introducing some completely new mechanic would be:

• Have it take longer before it can threaten mexes - e.g. one way is the speed nerf suggestion above; another way is to increase the cost and damage by the same amount (although I'm not as big a fan of this as it becomes less distinguishable from T3 arti the closer it gets in cost)
• Decrease the individual damage but give it a significant aoe - would require VFX changes, be quite a deviation from the original unit design, and make it more like t3 arti so again overall doesn't feel great (my thinking for this was a way of having it be better against mobile units but worse against shields, so it could be used more defensively - so T2 shields could counter the novax even better than currently, but it would still have a useful role in helping deal with groups of enemy land units)
• Introduce personal shield upgrades for mexes, which would give an easy way to protect mexes from novax (you could cost these similarly to a t2 shield for a similar or even weaker effect, that only protects the mex, or alternatively only the mex and adjacent storage). This solves the main annoyance I have with dealing with a novax (need to spend a while shielding mexes), and is unlikely to have major balance implications outside of novax matchups since it'd be much more efficient to just build a t2/t3 shield to protect a particular group of mexes. It'd only help make things easier for protecting t3 mexes though.

If it was to be nerfed I hope that it'd be combined with some slight improvements to UEFs other experimentals to compensate

v215 Update
New configuration "M28: Enable helpful teammate logic?" game option to disable the following parts of M28's logic:

• Gifting asfs to the air player
• Gifting eco buildings when it completes a paragon
• Gifting power generators if built adjacent to a teammate’s air factory/smd
• Gifting mass storage if built adjacent to a teammate’s mex.
• Transferring stored resources to a teammate on death.
• Gifting a t1 mex if M28 builds it in a teammate’s base
• Assisting a teammate with building an experimental/T3 arti/nuke

5 other changes, including various adjustments to 1st bomber micro (so tanks that can be 1-shot are considered, and damaged power generators are given a higher priority), and having engineers no longer idling if they want to reclaim but the reclaim is in a different plateau.

Acknowledgements

• Zwaffel - comments and replay relating to M28 early bomber.

v214 Update
14 changes, mostly relating to extra voice taunts:

• Campaign AI should ignore its assigned start position and record a different one if the mission's start point for it has no factories or ACU
• 9 voice taunt additions for various niche scenarios
• 3 QUIET specific adjustments, including having Czar use manual attack orders instead of attack-move orders

Acknowledgements

• c04spoon replay where Czar failed to use its main weapon

Also try playing with shared armies enabled, which means M28 will assume your units will fight with it (as opposed to assuming it’ll be going alone with any attack)

v213 Update
11 changes, including:

• Support for M28 personalities in campaign - to apply M28 personalities to the allied or hostile campaign AI, you can specify in game options (in place of the previous option for applying M28Easy, you now have a selection of the different M28AI personalities). Note that this is likely to be less impactful than in a normal game, since a significant part of the effect of the personalities is how many and what type of factories to build, whereas in campaign missions the AI often has the factories pre-built for it.
• Support for experimental PD and AA buildings, including where they need building by SACUs (QUIET+LOUD)
• Added in tracking for AirAA kills and deaths to make M28 more cautious if it has taken bad air fights, along with fixing some bugs with tracking gunship and bomber kills and losses

Acknowledgements

• c04spoon replay against v211 M28AI (where it failed to beat restorers with its air force)

v81 Update
Fixed another bug from the navigational mesh changes which resulted in M27's initial build order being messed up (with the ACU not building any mexes)

Acknowledgements

• Relent0r - Noticing M27's early game performance was significantly weaker than before

v212 Update
15 changes, including:

• Various fixes and improvements to how M28 plays the enemy AI on Black Day (including no longer having the rally point for air units based on the AI's start position if that location is in range of enemy cruisers), and fixing some errors on campaign maps more generally.
• Fixed a bug with bombers that meant if bombers were getting more kills than losses they'd avoid enemy units with ground based anti-air.
• ASFs should no try and protect strategic bombers as a priority target
• Fixed some issues that could cause short ranged units to suicide into longer ranged ones on land.

Acknowledgements

• Vortex - QUIET replay
• Samofflive – Replay and highlighting a bug with M28’s SACUs in campaign