v302 Update

• New sim city mode - M28 handles giving combat units orders while you focus on ordering around engineers and deciding what factories will build. Available as part of the "M28: Combined AI-Human armies?" game settings (along with the MOBA mode)
• 3 changes based on AI survival replay, including making units less likely to suicide into an enemy firebase, and prompting if the players haven't allowed M28 full control of attack waves
• 17 changes for Cybran Mission 6, including making aircraft carriers run sooner from enemy naval threats, mobile sonar no longer receiving orders as though it is an amphibious unit, and gunships and torpedo bombers being more likely to attack a nearby enemy if it is too far forward from AA defences in the area (even if the AA defences are too much for a more general assault)

Acknowledgements

• Rama - Highlighting M28 replay involving the AI survival mod

v301 Update

• 20 changes based on Cybran Mission 5, including M28 having a chance to treat another location as its core base if its core base is destroyed (so it's not completely out of the game); Land units that outrange the enemy navy should proceed with attacking other land threats if the navy is out of range; ACUs should engage non-combat enemies in their range instead of ignoring them when building; Cybran destroyers owned by players can toggle amphibious mode when built if M28 has control of them; Land units should be more aggressive against short ranged direct fire units that they can't see (and hope they get visual of them) rather than retreating and waiting for radar.
• 4 fixes for games in LOUD, relating to some error messages, Seraphim unit callbacks not triggering, and recognising the range of units with a depth charge attack.
• 5 changes to reclaim, including fixing an issue where engineers were meant to be prioritising high value reclaim in a nearby area but were instead getting the closest reclaim.
• Various changes to eliminate several error messages periodically appearing (relating to 'invalid args to yield' and 'call expected but got number') which mostly related to where I was trying to exit a function early by doing 'return nil'.

Acknowledgements

• Nomander – Providing a solution for toggling amphibious mode on player controlled Cybran destroyers
• Heaven1508 – Providing a log containing some error messages in a LOUD game relating to M28

Realised I forgot to post the v299 changelog

v299 Update

• 9 changes specific to Cybran mission 4's logic for not attacking the mainframe (due to it causing mission failure) to make units a bit less cautious around outlying areas and hence less likely for M28 to be stuck in a stalemate
• 11 other changes from Cybran mission 4, including fortifying the mainframe nodes, allowing M28 to get slightly closer to the unit cap before self destructing units, and having ACUs be aggressive if they are pushed to the edge of the map (so they dont just keep trying to run while being fired on)
• 2 Changes from other replays tweaking some changes made in recent updates

v300 Update
Since it's version 300, this was a very special update!

I forgot to disable debugging options when uploading v299, realised an hour later, and so v300 is just removing those debugging options...

You can do the same with gunships - group them up with distribute orders, and you can stack 80 gunships in one spot! If the group now attacks an enemy they only see a few gunships, so 80 vs 80 specter gunships the grouped will always lose. Generally it will be the ungrouped may lose 10 units.

@ZooDoo4U How is it unfair if both players can do it and there is a clear tradeoff to doing it?

They stack 80 subs, you do splash damage and kill/heavily damage 80 units with a single shot (the tradeoff/risk of doing it)

Or, they stack 80 subs, you stack your 80 subs, you're both roughly equal on the fight.

I also don't see how something is a cheat just because it is considered unfair.

@Defiant https://forum.faforever.com/topic/10117/player-modifier-pcx-balance-games-between-different-rated-players

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/9118/faf-statistics-megathread-2-statistics-boogaloo

It'll be in the mod folder, e.g.:
C:\ProgramData\FAForever\user\My Games\Gas Powered Games\Supreme Commander Forged Alliance\mods\PlayerModifierPCx

It applies a resource buff to every resource generating unit when that unit is created, with the buff being a factor determined by the game options

If you need help on modding more generally I'd suggest asking in the modding discord channel part of the FAF discord:
https://discord.com/channels/197033481883222026/832710161847287819

v298 Update

• 14 changes from Cybran M3, including having amphibious and naval units consider if they can path along the entire travel path to get to the zone they plan on targeting, having the Cybran trucks run to the gateway, adding support for missions like this that add unit and upgrade restrictions after the start of the game, fixing a bug that meant a zone would fail to request reinforcements in some cases, and fixed a bug that could cause subs to get stuck in a loop of attacking and consolidating if the nearest enemy was in the opposite direction to the enemy base.
• 8 changes from an M28 vs RNG replay, including increased ACU aggression where ACUs have lots of upgrades, greater ecoing by the air/eco slot in preference to front combat slots, and getting T2 sooner on plateaus once they have lots of T2 or T3 mexes
• 2 bugfixes from pull requests by art-wiedzman (relating to building away from T2 arti and reclaiming T1/T2 pgens)

Acknowledgements

• @art-wiedzmin - Spotting 2 bugs a bug with how M28 got the average position of units and calculated whether it could reclaim t1/t2 pgens, and providing PRs with fixes (the PRs were provided back in March but I only just noticed them!)

You could alternatively reduce the resources generated by such buildings by using a sim mod and applying buffs to the units either when created or on an ongoing basis
Eg resource generation of the nth building is max(1, 100 - n) / 100%

The PCx mod is an example of using buffs to modify resource generation values

I'd expect it to be compatible with mods that change blueprint values on units to alter their resource generation values.

It might be compatible with mods that change resources/similar it might not (I've not tested, but if I was to guess I'd expect it to be compatible).

v297 Update

• 4 changes from Wonder replays, including fixing a bug where M28 in an air slot would rush a land experimental instead of trying to build up an air grid, and capping the amount of T2 arti to get in response to nearby enemy fixed shields
• 2 changes from M28 vs M28 replay, including fixing an issue where engineers could search for reclaim in an area with none
• 4 changes from Cybran M1, including air units idling on the ground sometimes to gain fuel
• 6 changes from Cybran M2, including fixing an issue where frigates were being treated as anti-air units instead of combat units

Acknowledgements

• Radde - Wonder replays and a Xander replay

The Player Modifier PCx sim mod allows you to set build rate and resource modifiers (similarly to an AIx player). With the mod enabled if you go to game options you should see options to change the modifier applied to each player based on their player slot:

For example, you could use this to balance out games involving players with significantly different skill levels to give each player/team a decent challenge. As a very rough guide, playing against someone around 400 rating lower than me I found a 1.1 build and resource modifier gave us both a reasonable chance to win.

Another example of how it could be used would be to give one player a high modifier and have them solo a team of players with a normal modifier.

History:
v1-2 - Release
v3-4 - Expanded game options to allow 0.1 to 0.4 modifiers
v5 - Modifiers should now apply to units when they get a RAS upgrade

v296 Update

• UEF M4 - 6 changes, including sending sweeney to the gateway and building the 3 t2 radar
• UEF M5 - 2 changes, including sending trucks to the gateway; a separate change was made to the PC AIx mod to allow 0.1-0.4 modifiers so I could check just how low a modifier M28 could use and still win
• UEF M6 - 13 changes, including building more RAS in campaign, atlantis surfacing to release stored air units, grouping amphibious units like fatboys in the same zone when preparing for an underwater attack on nearby land
• Xander replay - 8 changes, including making ASFs commit to an air fight more than before, but also being more reluctant to engage if they'd previously lost an air fight
• 2 misc changes, including that subs should surface to use their deck gun on undefended Aeon engineers

Acknowledgement

• Radde - Xander replay used for some of the above changes, and prompting me to make subs use their deck gun

If you're playing solo, with friends, or vs AI there's a sim mod that lets you give your scouts to the AI to control for you (M28AI with the combined armies option enabled - toggle the icon when selecting your scouts to hand control of them to the AI for as long as you want).

It's unrelated to this topic though so if you had further queries on this best to ask in discord or the separate thread on M28AI.

Beetle’s 1100 is an aoe so if we’re talking theoretical max damage that aoe could be packed with say 35 units, meaning abut 40k damage for just 190 mass.

Hence why realistic scenarios and likely practical results are much more valuable to assessing things than theoretical best case scenarios

CanPathTo should also work
One way to check if it makes a noticeable difference would be GetSystemTimeSecondsOnlyForProfileUse
E.g. create a test function that runs the check 100k times, compare GetSystemTimeSecondsOnlyForProfileUse() before and after running, using the two methods, and see if there's enough of a difference.

I've not checked the code for CanPathTo but my assumption would be it wouldn't take noticeably longer

You can check the amphibious pathing using the NavUtils functionality which should tell you if the sloep of terrain is passable.

For water, one approach is to check if the surface height is higher than the terrain height (although it returns a false positive on maps like theta passage that have an arch/tunnel units can go under). You could also check if it's pathable by naval units using navutils.

For example:
if (NavUtils.GetTerrainLabel('Amphibious', {x1,y1,z1}) or -1) == NavUtils.GetTerrainLabel('Amphibious', {x2,y2,z2}) then
'I can path from location 1 to location 2 with an amphibious unit
end

GetTerrainLabel considers the precise position, GetLabel adds a bit more tolerance I think (e.g. if the precise position isnt pathable but is by pathable locations)

v295 Update:

• 5 changes from Xander replays, incl fixing a bug with transports requesting engineers when idling (leading to engis being overbuilt); Raiders being less likely to run from Cybran T1 MAA; and removing a cap on MAA when a land experimental is being built
• 5 changes from Wonder replays, incl fixing a bug with land factories building engineers prior to an upgrade if another nearby land factory started a factory upgrade in the meantime; having very low health ACUs of low rated players have a chance of being sniped; and fixing a bug with T2 arti firebases not being recorded (leading to sniperbots suiciding into them)
• Mexes that aren't upgrading shouldn't be paused (as a workaround for an issue where the order to pause a unit, when given from the SIM side, means mexes generate mass for no E cost while paused)
• M28Rush should continue trying to spam t3 units after it has built a couple of experimentals.

Acknowledgements

• Radde - Various Xander and Wonder replays
• Relent0r, Ajamajan, and Grandpa Sawyer - highlighting the issue with mexes not costing E when paused and discussion on alternatives

v294 Update
20 changes:

• 2 further improvements to UEF M2 so gunships should be better at escorting civilian trucks to safety, and if the enemy ACU ventures out of his base they should consider sniping them.
• 6 improvements to UEF M3, including prioritising getting MAA at the start of the game and fixing an issue that meant M28 would try and capture arnold's black box (instead of reclaiming it).
• 7 improvements from a Radde Xander 1.2/1.0 game, covering scenarios where M28 has 2 ACUs to the enemy's 1 early on, and adding a chance of rushing T3 air more aggressively than before
• 5 improvements from a Radde Xander 1.0/1.0 game, mostly covering tweaks to MML and T2 arti targeting when dealing with an enemy firebase.

Acknowledgements

• Radde - providing replays forming the basis of the non-campaign related improvements, and highlighting how late M28 is to getting T3 air