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

v211 Update - Naval experimentals
Various changes relating to using SACUs in ponds to help build naval experimentals - in the case of FAF this should mean M28 starts on a naval experimental a bit sooner if it builds SACUs and is a naval personality (or is on a naval map), while it should be more impactful for LOUD and QUIET which prevent engineers building experimentals.

4 other changes relating to fixing some issues with engineer build logic in some niche scenarios (including better support for mods that add units with an unusual size)

v210 Update
13 changes mostly relating to unusual maps and mods:

• Various adjustments to fix and then improve how M28 handles maps with no mexes
• Improved speed of getting upgrades if a 'low cost upgrade' mod is enabled (and fixing some bugs that would cause ACUs to get stuck in an upgrade loop)
• Reducing the mass cost limit at which to consider experimental shielding, and adding better support for QUIET/LOUD experimental shielding (in the event they were to be cheap)

Acknowledgements

• Chucups - Highlighting a no mex map where M28 wasn't working

v80 Update
Fixed a bug from v79 that caused M27 to no longer build navy

Acknowledgements

• Relent0r - highlighting that M27 wasn't building navy on a naval map

v209 Update
12 changes, mostly relating to improving how M28 plays with certain mods, including:

• If a mod adds a unit with really good shielding M28 should build that shielding in preference to T3 shielding (or its special stacked T3 shielding for protecting game-enders), and should be more likely to build game-enders.
• Fixed an issue with a mod that added multiple upgrades to T3 mexes, including an experimental mex, resulting in M28 thinking the experimental mex was a paragon
• Added a redundancy to better support mods that have upgradable PGens

v208 Update
Added logic for sharing engineers, along with a couple of bugfixes:

• M28 should now gift an engineer to teammates who ask for one. To request one, use a marker on the area where you want the engineer and say 'M28 please would you be so kind as to give me one of your Engineers' in the marker (or just say 'Engi pls' or some variation thereof). If M28 has a nearby engineer that doesnt have any high priority tasks he should give it to you.
• Added a bunch of redundancies to try and fix rare error messages that would appear when a unit died in a pond
• Fixed some typos with the naval logic that in some cases would result in M28's naval logic erroring out

Acknowledgements

• Vortex - v207 QUIET setons replay

V207 Update
11 changes, mostly relating to the Skadi RC finals game, including:

• More adjustments to t1 bombers to prioritise engineers that haven’t had bombs fired at them
• Fewer land factories should be built by M28 when its base is on an island
• Delayed T3 air if torp bombers are wanted for a nearby enemy naval threat

Acknowledgements

• waffelznoob - notes on M28’s early bomber approach
• Fearghal - RCVIII

Makes sense, thanks

v79 Update
After one of the Rainbow Cup games on Adaptive Flooded Tabula Rasa where one of the M27 ACUs thought it could walk to another plateau (and ended up getting stuck underwater while its base was destroyed) I've updated M27 to make use of FAF's navigational mesh. Unlike M28 (which was ddesigned from the ground up with use of this navigational mesh in mind) M27's use of it is limited and also has the risk of unforseen issues, but my hope is that it ends up being slightly faster and a bit more accurate than M27's previous approach.

v206 Update
7 changes from 1v1 games against M27 on maps where M27 was initially winning, including:

• Added logic for tanks to do an all-in push to kill an enemy ACU
• Significant increase in the global MAA M28 should consider building.
• ACU should be a bit more aggressive vs enemy air
• Land units should be more aggressive if they outrange the nearest enemy unit and the enemy doesn’t have longer ranged units close by.
• A second air factory should be built on 10km+ maps even in t1 spam mode.

Acknowledgements

• Relent0r - providing a mapgen and a non-mapgen map where M28 was losing to M27 1v1

@waffelzNoob I'm not clear what you mean/what scenario it was easy to beat - are you saying that expanding engineers should be ignored altogether and the bomber should just try and find clumps of engineers (and if it cant it keeps looking)? Or just that it should prioritise groups of engineers over single engineers? If the latter, then that's what the quoted change aims to achieve (although it does depend on whether the AI has intel of the engineers).
Engineer targets should also get reassessed when the bomber isn't that close, but once it gets to a certain difference it needs to retain its target to avoid the risk it gets stuck in a cycle of switching targets and never actually dropping a bomb.

v205 Update
Update for the first rainbow cup finals match (amongst others) with 30 changes, including:

• Swamp City (RC Semi-final) - 5 changes, incl PD placement adjustment, and logic to drop engineers to capture neutral civilians
• Kolbut (RC Semi-final) - 7 changes, incl improved T1 bombing of engineers where M28 hasn't gone first air (with clumps of engineers prioritised, and use of micro to increase chances of dropping bombs), and delying T2 land for navy personality
• Fortress Ascent II (RC Final) - 12 changes, incl more aggressive GCs when underwater; greater use of PD for turtle AI; more aggressive subs when enemy lacks anti-navy units; and fixing some issues caused by M28 inheriting a far away base (and thinking it can send its air units to that base)
• 2 Radde mpagen replays - 3 changes, incl a bugfix that made ACUs too aggressive when on full health
• 3 other general or mod specific changes (slightly decreased the advantage M28 wants to engage with outranged units, it should build a higher ratio of asfs to gunships when lacking air control, and slightly adjusted its initial build order for QUIET and LAND)

Acknowledgements:

• Radde – Mapgen replay
• Azraeel – Highlighting M28 heavily stalling mass with its QUIET build order
• Fearghal – Rainbow Cup VIII