@IceDreamer said in Fire beetle balance suggestion:

There is no balanced state for Firebeetles to be designed around the old snipe role. It simple isn't possible, there is no combination of stats which will make them neither OP nor UP.

You are essentially saying there is no balanced state for a one-use weapon... we really can't go there without talking about mercies.

So why do mercies work or not work when firebeetles are just "broken pls delete." ?

@Khada_Jhin I think looking at how a unit is used in an individual game might be more meaningful than saying "This player is trash; therefore, no game they play will ever be used as an example."

I feel similar about Novax than I do about t3 arty:

• It's annoying to shield everything
• If my opponent spent that much mass, I should probably have something to counter it

...except Novax costs half as much as t3 arty. IMO that's the annoying/potentially OP part.

If it were the same cost it would just be an accurate T3 arty that looks different/shoots from space instead of the ground. But it costs half as much. So it's... an early, less powerful t3 arty with pinpoint accuracy?

Are you using any mods?

Are you comfortable posting your dxdiag as well?
https://mtgo-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000972706-Creating-a-DxDiag-File

EDIT 9/25: minor changes and re-uploading files due to server deleting all files

tl;dr I made it so selection deprioritzer DOES select assisting engies.

0. Download Selection Depriotizer from the vault if you don't have it already.
1. Download these:
   SelectionDeprioritizer.txt
   SelectionDeprioritizerConfig.txt
2. Change extension to .lua (forums only allow uploading as .txt)
3. Move to C:\Users[your username]\Documents\My Games\Gas Powered Games\Supreme Commander Forged Alliance\mods\SelectionDeprioritizer\modules

Explanation:

I recently acquired selection deprioritizer. Along with setting a hotkey for "select all fighters," it has made life much, much easier. SDP deselects air when I want to select land only, and I used ctrl+f to select fighters. That was the big thing. It's not an exaggeration to say I have lost games because I couldn't select one or the other fast enough. Stuff happens fast in the heat of the moment.

The smaller changes I'm still getting used to. I like that it auto-deselects assisting shields. Nothing like kiting your ACU only to find you accidentally ordered the assisting shield all the way back to your base, amiright?

I have also deleted the code to deselect exotics, since I prefer to have my snipers, t3 maa, etc. selected in with everything else. Just not having that code in optimizes it, but as a result, there is no on/off switch—it's just always off. Easy enough to add back in, however, if you want it.

So I added a list of engineers to config.lua:

-- Pearl12 9/19/20 don't filter assisting engineers
local engineerIds = {

	-- uef
	"uel0105", -- t1
	"uel0208", -- t2
	"xel0209", -- sparky
	"uel0309", -- t3

	--cybran
	"url0105", -- t1
	"url0208", -- t2
	"url0309", -- t3

	--aeon
	"ual0105", -- t1
	"ual0208", -- t2
	"ual0309", -- t3

	--seraphim
	"xsl0105", --t1
	"xsl0208", --t2
	"xsl0309", --t3

}

and I changed the base lua's filterToNonAssisters function to always include engineers, regardless of whether they are assisting (see if isEngineer additions):

function filterToNonAssisters(selection)
	local changed = false
	local filtered = {}

	-- if its a double click on an assister, select all fellow assisters
	if isDoubleclick(selection) and dblClickUnit:GetGuardedEntity() then
		for index, unit in selection do
			if isEngineer(unit) then
				table.insert(filtered,unit)
			else
				local isSame = unit:GetGuardedEntity() == dblClickUnit:GetGuardedEntity()

				if isSame then
					table.insert(filtered,unit)
				else
					changed = true
				end
			end
		end
	else
		if selection and table.getn(selection) > 1 then
			local guardedUnit = selection[1]:GetGuardedEntity()
			local allSame = true
			for index, unit in selection do
				if isEngineer(unit) then
					table.insert(filtered,unit)
				else
					if unit:GetGuardedEntity() then
						if unit:GetGuardedEntity() != guardedUnit then
							allSame = false
						end
						changed = true
					else
						allSame = false
						table.insert(filtered,unit)
					end
				end
			end

			if allSame then
				changed = false
			end
		end
	end

	if changed then
		return filtered, changed
	else
		return selection, false
	end
end

(in addition to minor changes elsewhere such as variable initialization)

I'm open to criticism about whether there is a more efficient way to do it. Obviously this way it's hard-coded and not configurable when playing; that's okay, since it's just my version of the mod that is this way.

Otherwise, for anybody else who might want it, enjoy.

Indeed, requiring t2 air and a t2 transport makes it a much more costly option compared to the benefits (edit for clarity: this is GOOD. Otherwise the benefits FAR outweigh the costs).

If we enable this, there will be a new meta of going t1 and rushing your ACU to strategic locations... and also rushing inties to snipe opponents trying to do that. Games will end quickly with little strategy beyond "I got mid mexes first."

@Papagon2 said in Need help with my faf suppcom:

Okay, so I moved my supcom to a SSD drive

You "moved" it? Like, by hand? Copy-paste?

I would try uninstalling and reinstalling. Even now that it's already moved. Probably something didn't move or didn't get moved properly.

IIRC camera pan is the only command that cannot be remapped.

But please look and prove me wrong, I'd hate to lose a player to misinformation.

If indeed I am correct, my advice would be to use zooming out and in to move the camera around. It will always zoom in wherever the mouse is. I think in the long run you will find it more versatile (you can move to the opposite side of any map with one zoom out and one zoom in), as well as having more hotkeys closer together (ie. using WASD for other things). It takes some getting used to but if you watch the pros POV casts you will see they never pan, only zooming in and out.

As a side note, there is a mod that lets you set camera positions with shift+tab and move between then with tab. Useful for saving the enemy base as a camera position and quickly going there when you have scouts overhead. There are other helpful shortcuts like comma to zoom to your acu, etc.

@Spy_Emanciator said in Large Unit Clumping and Unresponsiveness:

Spy asks for some glint of support for a good idea, then gets peppered with internet salt and unfettered anger by mostly unqualified and unidentified forum trolls.

We'll let the adults read through this mine yard.

Spy asks for people to put all the work in to make his dream become a reality, without doing or having done any work himself. When people suggest they might listen to him if he was willing to do some of the work himself, he responds with ad hominem.

Indeed: every faction and every unit has its strengths and weaknesses, whether that be on different maps or vs different units. I've named a few strengths, you've named a few weaknesses. Sounds pretty balanced to me.

If you're playing a huge map, maybe you should put factories up front or rush t2 for blazes?

Learn to play them. Aurora OP, you just don't know how to kite.

Set the cheat factor lower.

You have answered, "does FAF have more unique players that play at least one game a month than it did in the past?"

Great!

If that is the only question you care about, then the following is not directed at you. You and I both have better things to do than repeat ourselves at each other endlessly; let's respect both our time but not doing so.

That is not to say it's not a meaningful question—it is. And I'm glad you've answered is. But "is faf growing" is about more than unique players that play one game.

How many unique players play more than one game? How many stick around for more than a month? When do they play? How do I play with them?

If the graph I chose is confusing to you because you're not sure how it applies, then it's the perfect graph. The graph you chose to is confusing to me because I'm not sure how it applies. You understand exactly how I feel.

@FtXCommando said in Is FAF growing?:

Just for some napkin math, we have about 300 concurrent games at the peak hour of FAF. If all those games are 1v1 games and no one plays more than 1 game a month, that is already 18,000 users. Of course, there is more than 1 hour in a day and there are many games on FAF that are not 1v1. So essentially, there is no real reason to doubt the integrity of the numbers.

Retention isn't relevant to a basic growth question so I didn't look into it.

All your arguments are based on each unique player playing one game a month.

I don't understand how you don't understand retention isn't relevant.

If 2 million people play one game each next month, yes... technically FAF is growing. And we (myself included) would all love that.

But do you really want people that just play one game and then leave?

I would rather have 1000 new players next month and retain all of them (they all play 10 games a month and continue to do so for infinity) than 10,000 and retain none of them (they play one game and then leave).

What I am missing that retention is "not relevant?"

Let me re-iterate that I am not doubting the numbers aren't real ("integrity"). I believe that 18,000 unique players logged on in July. But that they may or may not be meaningful.

I did not, thank you for pointing that out. It would be more obvious if the axis label was more detailed or had an asterisk to indicate it was explained below. I honestly thought that was part of his signature, and thus, ignored it.

So in what looks like July 2020, about 19,000 unique players played at least one game?

I believe it (because it's a pretty graph, and confirmation bias), but... where are they? Last Saturday at primetime there were about 1800 people online. Let's say 25% of them were unique (had never logged on in the past 30 days)... in a 30-day month, that would mean 13500 unique players. And not every day has an 1800 player primetime, nor does every player in the lobby play.

Also, how many people play in a given month that also played the previous month? Because retention is as important as (more important than?) "this many people played one game."

BTW I'd love to have a hand in coding this if someone wants to point me in the right direction.

@FULL-POWER-BENIS I don't like telling people how they "should" play; if someone wants to use WASD then I won't stop them, especially if they wouldn't play otherwise. Arbiting peoples' play styles can push them away. But I suspect that most new players who don't use the mouse wheel for strategic zoom that stick with the game will, eventually (or very quickly), migrate away from WASD and towards strategic zoom.

The y-axis label is insufficient.

Unique players... registered, ever? Great—how many actually log on?

More meaningful would be "average number of unique players that log on each week." If that's what you mean, label it so.

Even better would be "average number of unique players that play a game each week."

Just make siege tanks really good at killing walls. 1000 dps vs walls. Then they are siege tanks. Problem solved.

IIRC camera pan is the only command that cannot be remapped.

But please look and prove me wrong, I'd hate to lose a player to misinformation.

If indeed I am correct, my advice would be to use zooming out and in to move the camera around. It will always zoom in wherever the mouse is. I think in the long run you will find it more versatile (you can move to the opposite side of any map with one zoom out and one zoom in), as well as having more hotkeys closer together (ie. using WASD for other things). It takes some getting used to but if you watch the pros POV casts you will see they never pan, only zooming in and out.

As a side note, there is a mod that lets you set camera positions with shift+tab and move between then with tab. Useful for saving the enemy base as a camera position and quickly going there when you have scouts overhead. There are other helpful shortcuts like comma to zoom to your acu, etc.

@archsimkat So, select both land and navy if either are present, and only select air if neither land or navy are present?

I don't code lua very much so consider this pseudo-code (i.e. do NOT jump into a game expecting it to work, but you are free to make it your own), but to hard-code that would be something like:

function filterToDomain(units, requiredDomain)
	local filtered = {}
	local changed = false
	local airOrNavy = false
	if requiredDomain == "LAND" or requiredDomain == "NAVAL" then
		airOrNavy = true
	end
	for id, unit in units do
		local domain = getDomain(unit)
		if airOrNavy and (domain == "NAVAL" or domain == "LAND") then
			table.insert(filtered, unit)
		else if !airOrNavy and domain == "AIR" then
			table.insert(filtered, unit)
		else
			changed = true
		end
	end
	return filtered, changed
end

in the base .lua.

You could add an integrated option for it but that would require more integrated changes throughout both files. This is the quick and dirty, as the lowly newbie FAF developer that is me sees it.

I don't play many navy maps and find a hotkey for selecting fighters sufficient; I rarely need to select "all air." So just having it set as Land > Air > Navy has met my needs so far. But I am aware I can change it mid-game if I want to.

I did not see the option to turn off the deselection of assisting engineers, nor do I see in the unmodified code how that could be done (but I'd love to learn if you want to point it out). Turning off the deselection of all assisting units, yes, I see that.