Double Allied Tournament 3 is a 2v2 tournament scheduled for 26th October. This is the third time we're making this tourney. Again new map pool, >100$ prize pool and even more special!

Prizes (105$ by Neytron):

• 60$ for the 1st place & custom avatar
  
• 30$ for the 2nd place & custom avatar
  
• 15$ for the 3rd place & custom avatar
  

Tournament date:
13.00 UTC, Saturday, 26th October
in-client channel #dat3

Tournament Format:

• Games are played between teams of 2
• Combined rating cap for each team is 4200. Rating calculated based on best section as of 13th October. If player has less than 20 rated games last year, the section that has >20 rated games is taken instead.
• Combined rating floor for each team is 3500. Your team should have no less than this amount of combined rating
• Rating cap per player is 2400. Player's rating above 2400 counted just as 2400 even if it's 2600
• First stage. Swiss system. 6 tours. No elimination. You can start from 2 losses in a row, then get 3 wins and have a good chances of getting into a second stage.
• Final stage. Single elimination Bo1 or Bo3
• 1/4 teams progresses into the second stage
• If number of finalists greater than 4, final stage is played with Bo1, if 4 or less - Bo3
• In-client channel is #dat3

Registration:

• Sign up here in pairs or single. Write your FAF nickname here. Make sure your team fits the rating cap. Registration will end on 25th October 23:59 UTC.
• Don't feel shy to sign up solo, organizers will try their best to help you with finding a suitable mate (no pun intended)

Description of union control:

If one of commanders dies, the player can switch via Alt+F2 to his ally and continue to help his ally. Alt+F2 won't allow do anything besides it (won't allow giving yourself Paragon or Mavor). So if one of teamates dies, both player will control all the units they have. For example, one can play land and other play air to divide responsibilities.

It essentially eliminates APM penalty for a commander's death. In order to compensate it, full share is changed to partial share. Partial share works as full share except it doesn't share military units, only buildings and engineers.

"HQ SACU" mod description:

T3 land/air HQ can produce stock SACUs (without upgrades). The factories cannot, only HQs.

Tournament rules:

• If the team is 30 minutes late after start of event, team gets disqualified.
• If one of team members cannot participate, it can be replaced during the tournament by other pre-registered participant. You can register your reserve player immediately, if you want to.
• Rating of player who replaces cannot be more than 100 points higher than rating of the player he is replacing. Sam with 1400 rating can replace Bill with 1600 rating, but no vice versa.
• Win = 1 score point, draw = 0.5, defeat = 0
• In case of uneven amount of teams at any stage, team gets a bye (free score) in the following precedence: least rating per team, then least amount of wins.
• No one gets a bye more than once per stage (if possible)
• Early withdrawal in stage 1 makes all played and not played games of this team lost
• Stage 1 initial seed is based on combined rating. Match ups during the tournament decided by current score (Swiss system).
• Stage 1. Same teams match ups won't repeat more than twice. Second exact match up won't occur before round 4.
• Any conflict or critical bug should be immediately appealed to the organizer. This implies pausing current game, if necessary

In-game rules:

• Common control - multiple armies, union control
• Share conditions - partial share
• SIM-mod "HQ SACU"
• Unlimited timeouts
• Do not transfer your entire base or entire army before your commander dies. Transfering some units is allowed; exchanging bases is also allowed
• Do not Alt+F2 to change view after your death and before your base is given to an ally
• No in-game spectators other than players, organizers and streamers are allowed
• Name your lobby in format like "DAT3 ABC vs XYZ"
• It is recommended to not choose similar colors as your opponent (pink/red, light blue/dark blue); similar colors for allies are OK. Here is the tutorial
  

Map pool
Every slot that isn't explicitly mentioned below is closed. Again: if slot is neither 'playable' nor 'spawn mex', then it is closed.

First stage:

• Swiss Tour 1. Miracle. Playable slots: 3,4,7,8
• Swiss Tour 2. Lake zero adaptive. Playable slots: 7,8,9,10. All other slots: spawn mex
• Swiss Tour 3. Adaptive sandy valley. Playable slots: 9,10,11,12. Slots 3,4,7,8: spawn mex
• Swiss Tour 4. Primus Alpha Mini. Playable slots: 3,4,5,6
• Swiss Tour 5. Point of Reach v4. Playable slots: 1,2,3,4
• Swiss Tour 6. Abrogation. Playable slots:1,2,5,6

Final stage:

• Wonder open 6v6 v2. Playable slots: 5,6,7,8
• Adaptive Project Dust. Playable slots: 3,4,5,6. All other slots: spawn mex
• Adaptive Project Albus. Playable slots: 1,2,3,4. All other slots: spawn mex
• Stella Maris. Playable slots: 5,6,7,8
• Hrungdaks Canyon 4v4. Playable slots: 1,2,3,4
• Asteria. Playable slots: 1,2,5,6

In extreme case final stage can be postponed by one day (to Sunday 27th October) or one week (to the next 2nd November) depending on the availability of finalists. However initial schedule is planned to be a single day. I've changed the format to hopefully make tournament more swift and less waiting in-between rounds.

Registered teams list:

• Lunyshko aka Banani & Aranei (2256+1938=4194)
• WilloWisppsi & IMakeWarOnU (2143+2023=4166) 18.X
• Nuggets & Rhaelya (2069+2089=4158) 18.X
• Swatoslav & ikigami (2108+2043=4152)
• Chisato aka Yudi & Tenshi- (2400+1741=4141)
• Pavor- & Overrated-Player (2400+1724=4124) 18.X
• Resistance & Neytron (2180+1911=4091) 18.X
• Paradox_of_War & Starchasm_nyx (2049+1936=3985) 18.X
• Vindex & archsimkat (1867+2078=3945) 18.X
• ZLO & eXxited Created_in_abyss (2221+1758=3979) 18.X
• LimeZ3_ & White_Owl (1993+1666=3659) 18.X

Vacant players:

• Deli (2130)
• Created_in_abyss 1758
• KriegMarine(1700)
• Cunningfox (1678)
• LoliChan (1452)
• Bloo_Dream (1426)

Contact

• PM me for any questions or suggestions in Discord @sainse.row. This includes organizational, stream coverage questions & prize contribution suggestions.

Results

In order to pass into final stage team should have scored 4/6.

First (swiss) stage manual table. Round 6 was finished early cause the remaining two teams who didn't play round 6 already got 4/6, making them play against each other would make no difference. Also 2.5/6 won't pass into second stage anyway. So I've decided to end it a little bit earlier.

Swiss Table

Legend

W = Win, L = Lose, D = Draw, B = Bye, F = Forfeit, Auto = auto-won (opposite of forfei, + = registered before 18th October (priority in getting bye)

Single elimination table

Replay numbers

Final stage

Performance table

Both stages. Rating at the moment of registration is taken into account. Rating is re-evaluated after each tournament game. Forfeited, auto-won or byed games are not taken into account.

The final stage single elimination BO1 is also available at
https://challonge.com/dat3s2
Every game was played except 3rd place match

Double Allied Tournament is a 2v2 tournament

Tournament Format:

• Games are played between teams of 2
• Combined global rating cap for each team is 3600
• Tournament played in 2 stages
• Stage 1 - best of one
• Stage 2 (after 7 or less teams remained) - round robin

Date:

• 1st June 14:00 UTC

Prizes:

• Avatars for 4 best performers (3 custom avatars & 1 standard (any faction standard icon avatar))
  
  
  
• Update: 50$ USD for the best team

Registration:

• Sign up here in pairs or single. Write your FAF nickname and global rating. Registration ends on 31th May 00:00 UTC.

In-game rules:

• Common control - multiple armies, union control
• Share conditions - partial share

Short description:
If one of commanders dies, the player can switch via Alt+F2 to his ally and continue to help his ally. Alt+F2 won't allow do anything besides it (won't allow giving yourself Paragon or Mavor). So if one of teamates dies, both player will control all the units they have. For example, one can play land and other play air to divide responsibilities.

It essentially eliminates APM penalty for a commander's death. In order to compensate it, full share is changed to partial share. Partial share works as full share except it doesn't share military units, only buildings and engineers.

List of registered participants:

• I. Karateka + vena202020
• II. Neytron + Explosive
• III. FFF + LoliChan
• IV. FTX + TheWheelie
• V. Tryth + Derp
• VI. archsimkat + Babel
• VII. Pivnishko + YURICH
• VIII. Wifi_ + attakator
• IX. Pavor- + Nyx-
• X. TheVVheelie + ActiveBackIash Strydxr
• XI. White_Owl + LimeZ3_
• XII. Deli + Toka

Registration has finished. Tournament table posted here.

Remember to enable "partial share" & "multiple armies, union control" settings. Map list:
1. Single elimination: Miracle, slots 3,4,6,7
2. RR round 1: Desert Arena - FAF version, slots 1,2,5,6
3. RR round 2: Adaptive Project Dust, slots 3,4,5,6
4. RR round 3: Wonder open 5v5 v3b, slots 5,6,7,8
4. RR round 4: Sands of Ablicka 5v5, slots 1,2,4,9
4. RR round 5: Corinas hourglass, slots 1,2,5,6

Note regarding adaptive maps: don't disable mexes, set "closed - spawn mexes" for unused slots in the lobby.

About draws:

• Draw is death of all commanders or signed through diplomacy.
• If draw occured in stage 1, game should be replayed until achieving the decisive result.
• If draw occured in stage 2, both teams receive half a point.

About tie breaks:

• They are likely to occur after finishing stage 2, info on them be added during tournament based on participants' results.

If you have any additional questions before or during the tournament, PM me in Discord @sainse.row

Ranked (rated) FAF stats

Goals and methods

I would like to contribute by providing more graphs focused on competitive gameplay. So all images you are going to see are for rated replays. I've used the same API interface IndexLibrorum had described in the initial post. Thanks to him for helping out with the initial setup.

AI, coop, sandboxes as well as unranked games are excluded from my analysis. Data scope is between 1st January 2017 until 31st July 2025. It's about 23 GB of .json data later converted to .parquet for processing.

Total number of games

The total number of rated games on a yearly basis ranges between around 250k to 400k. FAF peaked at the middle of pandemic with 395k games played in 2021. In 2025 there has been 138k games played by the end of 31st July. On average around 60-65% rated games are played by this date. That allows to make an approximate projection that by the end of 2025 the amount of rated games should reach about 235k.

Total total numberof all FAF games in 2018-2019 was around 1.25 million. It allows to conclude that around 20% of FAF games are rated. However it does not mean that 80% of FAF is coop/ai/survival, as there are many more reasons for game to not become ranked, such as desync, con issues or being a sandbox game.

Rated games

The peak year was in 2021, but what about peak month? November 2020 with 40 099 games.

New players

The best way to "zoom in" new players dynamics without downloading pre-2017 data is to consider first 3 months players to be "old" players. This is still not accurate for first 3-6 months, but after that point it better shows ups and downs. You can see that amount of new players somewhat increased between 2020 and 2021, but not drastically if compared to 2018-2019 levels.

New and unique players

Note that the data points for new players aren't accurate for the first couple of months. The unique players are accurate for the entire image.

Players and ratings

Note that there are two Y-axis. The left one is number of games (tens of thousands and no less than 16k), the right one is amount of new/unique users (thousands).

Leagues distribution

For simplicity’s sake I call game type/game mod/rating type a ‘league’. In the past the only game types were global and 1v1 ladder. In 2021-2023 to the matchmaker were added 2v2, 4v4 and last but not least 3v3. 2v2 never got any significant share of games. 4v4, on other hand, was pretty significant - until it got eaten by 3v3. Ultimately 3v3 TMM grabbed some share from global and 1v1.

Number of games

Percentage share

Global

Note than median and average are not the same. Median means that 50% of players are below and another 50% of games are above median. Top players drive the average significantly higher than median.

Average/median rating and new/unique players

Arrival of new players drives both average and median games rating down. The lack of new players does the opposite, since skilled players are more likely to remain. There is no other observable factor to rating "inflation" or "deflation".

Number of avg rated games

In global almost every game with an average rating higher than 500 is also higher than 1000. In 2017-2020 they were almost perfectly matched. Today they are a bit more spread apart, but still surprisingly close.

Average games rating, percentage

Ladder

Players and ratings

Number of avg rated games

Ladder is the only league with a significant amount of games with average rating less than 500. The share of games with average rating between 500 and 1000 is ladder is also much higher than in global, where 500-1000s players are much more likely to get teamed up with 1500+ in some big lobby. As a consequence, in ladder both median and average are around 300-400 points smaller compared to global.

Average games rating, percentage

Top ladder

Amount of ladder games with an average rating above 1800 has peaked at over 1000 games per month at the end of 2018-beginning 2019 and decreased ever since. It did not benefit from the increased player activity during the pandemic.

Number of avg rated games

Share of games

Table

Here only Januaries of every year are compared, not every month or every year. With the overall decrease in games the ratio of >=1800 to >=2000 games increases, as two 2k players are becoming more likely to be matched against sub-2k player during the overall shortage of activity.

2v2 TMM

Players and ratings

Number of avg rated games

In 2v2 surprisingly share of 500-1000s games is even less than in global. There is also virtually no <500 games. Average and median are only slightly below global levels.

Average games rating, percentage

3v3 TMM

Players and ratings

Number of avg rated games

Average games rating, percentage

4v4 TMM

Players and ratings

Number of avg rated games

With introduction of 3v3 the amount of 4v4 games has significantly decreased. Most people queue both for 3v3 and 4v4, and 3v3 inevitably fills faster than 4v4.

Average games rating, percentage

Double Allied Tournament 2 is a 2v2 tournament scheduled for 7th July. This is the second time we're making this tourney.

Group stage
https://challonge.com/dats2faf
Round robin stage
https://challonge.com/dats2fafrr

Prizes (105 130 150$ by Neytron):

• 80$ for first place & custom avatar
  
• 30$ for second place & custom avatar
  
• 20$ for third place & custom avatar
  
• 10$* for 4th place & custom avatar
  
• 10$* for 5th place
• 30th June 13:00 UTC - first half
• 7th July 13:00 - second half

• • *10$ are given depending on number of teams who will play second half. Last 2 places won't get prizes. I.e. if 7 players will finish playing second half there will be additional two 10$ prizes for 4&5th place, if 6 players - one 10$ for 4th place. There additional prizes are added as a compensation for inconvenience of prolonging tournament for another day.

Tournament Format:

• Games are played between teams of 2
• Stage 1. Double elimination
• Stage 2. Round robin if 5-7 teams remained, double round robin if 4 or less remained.
• Combined rating cap for each team is 4000 (400 more than previously). Rating calculated based on best section as of 9th June. I.e. if you're 1766 global and 1912 1v1, your rating for this tournament is seen as 1912.
• In-client channels are #dats2faf for players & #dats2stream for streamers

Registration:

• Sign up here in pairs or single. Write your FAF nickname here. Registration will end on 29th June 23:59 UTC.

Tournament rules:

• In case of uneven number of teams, previous winner team or top ranked team gets free win.
• In case of early withdrawal all following games of team automatically lost
• If early withdrawal in stage 1 creates uneven number of teams, top ranked team with no free wins gets a free win
• Early withdrawal in stage 2 makes all played and not played games of this team lost
• Equal score for 1-4 places leads to Bo2 tie breaks. If there is chain of tie breaks, Bo1 played instead.
• Any conflict or critical bug should be immediately appealed to the organizer

About draws:

• Draw is death of all commanders or signed through diplomacy.
• If draw occurred in stage 1, game should be replayed until achieving the decisive result.
• If draw occurred in stage 2, both teams receive half a point.

In-game rules:

• Common control - multiple armies, union control
• Share conditions - partial share
• Unlimited timeouts
• Do not transfer your entire base or entire army before your commander dies. Transfering some units is allowed; exchanging bases is also allowed
• Do not Alt+F2 to change view after your death and before your base is given to an ally
• No in-game spectators other than players, organizers and streamers are allowed
• It is recommended to include "dats2" in lobby name to help keep track of games. For example, "dats2 ABC vs XYZ"
• It is recommended to not choose similar colors as your opponent (pink/red, light blue/dark blue); similar colors for allies are OK. Here is the tutorial

Short description of union control:

If one of commanders dies, the player can switch via Alt+F2 to his ally and continue to help his ally. Alt+F2 won't allow do anything besides it (won't allow giving yourself Paragon or Mavor). So if one of teamates dies, both player will control all the units they have. For example, one can play land and other play air to divide responsibilities.

It essentially eliminates APM penalty for a commander's death. In order to compensate it, full share is changed to partial share. Partial share works as full share except it doesn't share military units, only buildings and engineers.

Stream coverage:
Russian based:
@Robogear - https://www.youtube.com/@Robogear
English based:
@TheWeakie aka Farmsletje - https://www.twitch.tv/stellartactician

Contact

• PM me for any questions or suggestions in Discord @sainse.row. This includes organizational, stream coverage questions & prize contribution suggestions.
• @Neytron is my deputy (co-organizer). His answers & decisions have the same authority

Game Version 3818 (14th of February 2025)

This is the first major patch of 2025. The balance and game teams are looking forward to releasing major balance patches every three months. This patch nerfs the extremely oppressive Seraphim T2 destroyers and T3 subhunters. Same goes to Bricks – they are no longer straight up better version of Percies. This patch also slightly nerfs Aeon and Seraphim T2 PD, buffs Snipers speed. Improved the behavior of Czar’s anti-air, buffed shield recharge and vision. Increased the effectiveness of mobile shields against Ahwassa. Anti-torpedo behavior has been enhanced. And many other less significant changes that you can read below.

Table of Contents

• Balance Changes
  • Air Units
  • Naval Units
  • Land Units
  • Structures
  • ACUs
• Features
• Bug Fixes
• Graphics
• Other Changes
• Contributors

Balance Changes

Air Units

• (#6415) Ahwassa Bomb Collision:
  Make Ahwassa’s bomb ignore collisions with ASF, same as strategic bombers.

• (#6563) Ahwassa Damage Consolidation:
  Combine Ahwassa’s final 3 damage instances into 1 damage instance.
  Greatly improves the effectiveness of stacked low HP shields (such as the UEF and Aeon mobile shields) and fixes Ahwassa not overkilling units as much as it should. It means that now Ahwassa leaves less reclaim wreckages.

• (#6448) Air Projectile Collision Fix:
  Fix projectiles colliding with dead air units.
  From a balance perspective, this increases the effectiveness of SAMs against groups of aircraft flying directly at them.

• (#6560) Vulthoo: T2 Gunship Adjustments:
  Adjust several minor stats to better align the Vulthoo with its role as a ‘Tech 2.5 unit’.
  Vulthoo: T2 Gunship (XSA0203):
  Physics

  • FuelRechargeRate: 5 → 10 (15 for Tech 3 Gunships)
  • FuelUseTime: 400 → 600 (800 for Tech 3 Gunships)
    Air Crash
  • Damage: 100 → 200 (300 for Tech 3 Gunships)

• (#6595) Vulthoo Weapon Bug Fix:
  Fix a bug that prevented the Vulthoo from hitting units directly beneath it.
  Vulthoo: T2 Gunship (XSA0203):
  Heavy Phasic Autogun (x2)

  • TurretPitch: -20 → -40
  • TurretPitchRange: 60 → 90

• (#6551) CZAR: Experimental Aircraft Carrier Improvements:
  Improve the performance of the currently underused Czar by increasing its survivability and improving the targeting of its flak cannons.
  CZAR: Experimental Aircraft Carrier (UAA0310):
  Intel

  • VisionRadius: 70 → 100
    Defense
  • ShieldRechargeTime: 120 → 100
  • ShieldRegenRate: 180 → 240
    Fizz Launcher 1
  • Damage: 240 → 140
  • DPS: 960 → 560
  • FiringTolerance: 3 → 10
  • HeadingArcRange: 120 → 90
    Fizz Launcher 2
  • Damage: 240 → 140
  • DPS: 960 → 560
  • FiringTolerance: 1 → 10
  • HeadingArcRange: 120 → 90
  • PrefersPrimaryWeaponTarget: true → false

Naval Units

• (#6437) Cybran Carrier Rotation:
  Automatically rotate the Cybran Carrier towards its target when idle or attacking so that all its weapons can fire.
  Units rotate in place while aiming, so formations do not get disrupted.

  (#6649, 6558) Uashavoh: T2 Destroyer (XSS0201): The Seraphim destroyer is currently too powerful due to its micro potential, but severely nerfing its main stats like range or damage would make it weaker than it already is when not micro’d, which would be unfun at lower levels. Considering this, the underwater speed is reduced to allow counterplay potential without heavily affecting lower level gameplay: Aeon and Cybran destroyers can catch Seraphim destroyers that overcommitted, and all destroyers (particularly UEF) can flee from submerged Seraphim destroyers and get out of torpedo range.
  To prevent it from becoming too weak against Tech 2 Torpedo Launchers due to moderate frontal turret nerf, its torpedo defense is buffed by improving its targeting and reload time. This should also make the unit more resilient against sub spam.

• Uashavoh: T2 Destroyer – Frontal Turret Nerf:

  • Front Ultrachromatic Beam Generator
  • Damage: 50 → 45
  • DPS: 137 → 123
  • Underwater speed: 5 → 4.5
    Ajellu Anti-Torpedo Defense
  • FiringTolerance: 90 → 180
  • MinRadius: 15 → 5
  • Reload: 3.3s → 3.0s
  • UseFiringSolutionInsteadOfAimBone: false → true

• (#6607) Anti-Torpedo Weapon Improvements:
  Improve the functionality of several anti-torpedo weapons by giving them a minimum range and altering their targeting. The addition of a MinRadius prevents locking onto projectiles that cannot reasonably be intercepted. In particular, the torpedo defense of the Aeon T3 Sonar should perform noticeably better with these changes. Audio queues are added to the torpedo defenses of the Seraphim Tech 1 and Tech 3 submarines.
  Aeon T3 Sonar Platform (UAS0305):

  • Quasar Anti Torpedo:
    FiringTolerance: 2 → 180
    MinRadius: 0 → 5
    UseFiringSolutionInsteadOfAimBone: false → true
    Sou-istle: T1 Attack Submarine (XSS0203):
  • Ajellu Anti-Torpedo Defense:
    FiringTolerance: 0 → 180
    MinRadius: 0 → 5
    UseFiringSolutionInsteadOfAimBone: false → true
    Audio queue added
    Yathsou: T3 Submarine Hunter (XSS0304):
  • Ajellu Anti-Torpedo Defense (x2):
    MinRadius: 0 → 10
    Audio queue added
    Barracuda (XRS0204) and Megalith (XRL0403):
  • Anti-Torpedo Flare:
    MinRadius: 0 → 5

Land Units

• (#6437) Othuum Rotation:
  Automatically rotate Othuum towards its target when idle or attacking so that all its weapons can fire.
  Units rotate in place while aiming, so formations do not get disrupted.

• (#6606) Sniper Bots Buff:
  Buff the power of sniper bots, which have become too expensive and micro-intensive relative to saving for a T4 to counter Bricks and Percivals. The changes improve speed and firing accuracy.
  Aeon and Seraphim Snipers (XAL0305 & XSL0305):

  • Speed: 2.2 (Seraphim) / 2.4 (Aeon) → 2.3 (Seraphim) / 2.5 (Aeon)
  • Firing Tolerance: 2 (Aeon) / 3 (Seraphim) / 0.5 (Seraphim sniper mode) → 0 (all)
  • Firing Randomness while moving: 0.4 (Seraphim) / 0.3 (Aeon) / 0.2 (Seraphim sniper mode) → 0.18 / 0.1 / 0.05
    Seraphim Sniper (XSL0305):
  • Sniper mode speed: 1.65 → 2.0
    Note: The speed was unintentionally reduced from 1.8 to 1.65 due to a previous nerf. This is reverted and further buffed to 2.0; additional tweaks may follow next patch.

• (#6641) Nerf The Brick Against T3 Units:
  Nerf The Brick as the 32 → 34 range buff from #5547 made it obsolete for Percivals and too strong against Harbingers/Othuums, leading to an overuse that hindered Cybran diversity.
  The Brick: T3 Armored Assault Bot (XRL0305):
  Heavy Disintegrator Pulse Laser

  • Max radius: 34 → 33
  • Damage (DPS): 125 (312.5) → 118 (295)
  • Turn rate: 68.75 → 75
    The slight range reduction forces Bricks to rely on faster reaction times, improving micro potential and mitigating DPS snowballing effects.

Structures

Shields

• (#6464) Shield Assistance Timing:
  Make engineers assisting a shield start repairing the shield in 0.1 seconds instead of 0.7 to 1.1 seconds.

• (#6589) UEF T3 Shield Generator (UEB4301) Regen Timing:
  Increase the UEF T3 shield’s regen start time from 1 second → 3 seconds to align with other shields.

Point Defenses

(#6590) T2 Point Defense Damage Reduction:
Reduce the damage of Aeon and Seraphim T2 PDs, as they have better DPS/mass compared to the UEF PD, with differences in muzzle velocity and weapon type.

Aeon T2 Point Defense (UAB2301):

• Damage: 600 → 560 (DPS: 150 → 140)

Seraphim T2 Point Defense (XSB2301):

• Damage: 605 → 550 (DPS: 151 → 138)
  For comparison, the Triad offers 124 DPS; all three systems cost the same.

ACUs

• (#6591) UEF ACU Drone (UEA0001) Buff:
  Buff the rebuild costs of the UEF ACU Drone by halving the previous upgrade cost.

  • Rebuild mass cost: 160 → 60
  • Rebuild energy cost: 1600 → 800
  • Rebuild time: 10 seconds → 200 buildtime (based on the ACU’s build power)

• (#6605) ACU Upgrade Descriptions:

  • Cybran ACU Nanite Torpedo Upgrade:
    Update the description to reflect the new DPS value.
  • Cybran SACU Gun Range Upgrade:
    Fix the description so it correctly states +10 range (total 35) instead of +15 range (total 40).

Features

• (#6576) World Camera Preservation:
  When switching to/from split view, the primary camera (left camera) is now preserved to reduce disorientation.

• (#6620) Damaged Air Unit Docking:
  Add a feature to only dock damaged air units. This behavior can be accessed via hotkeys or by right-clicking the dock button.

• (#6634) Introduction of the New ‘Wasteland’ Biome:
  A collection of textures dedicated to Supreme Commander map makers, featuring a drab, abandoned aesthetic.
  Includes albedo, normal, and (for many decals) specular versions. Designed for optimal appearance at scales between 15–30, though blending with other layers is recommended to minimize repeating patterns.

• (#6642) Map Preview in Matchmaker Lobby:
  Enable the map preview which provides a campaign-like overview of the map along with faction starting positions.
  A Grafana dashboard (thanks to Brutus5000 and Sheikah) helps track lobby success and evaluate the preview’s impact.

• (#6643) Paused Session Resume Delay:
  Introduce a 10-second enforced delay before a paused session can resume (applies to all players except the one initiating the pause).

Bug Fixes

• (#6405) Transfer Unit Upgrade Progress:
  Transfer unit upgrade progress in modes outside full share, excluding share-until-death.

• (#6434) Frametime (FPS Cap) Improvements:

  • Now properly applies when starting a new game session.
  • Windowed mode is no longer forced to 100 fps; fullscreen is no longer capped at 60 fps.
  • Minimum frametime decreased from 4 ms (250 fps) to 2 ms (500 fps).

• (#6449) Death Animation Fix:
  Fix mods causing units to get stuck dying due to invalid death animation file paths.

• (#6510) Key Action Warning Fix:
  Restore warning when user key actions are overwritten by default actions.

• (#6532) Projectile Impact Correction:
  Fix excess projectiles impacting entities that die in the same tick (e.g., 6 tactical missiles hitting a shield when only 3 are needed).

• (#6543) Post-Death Collision Fix:
  Fix dead units colliding with projectiles and beams for 0.1–0.6 seconds after death.

• (#6544, #6651) Unit Transfer Weapon Lock Fix:
  Prevent unit transfer from enabling weapons locked by enhancements (such as the TML of the Seraphim SACU).

• (#6572) Bomber Altitude Bombing Fix:
  Fix bombers missing when bombing while changing altitude.

• (#6578) Megalith Command Queue Correction:
  Fix Megalith’s GetCommandQueue to return its own command queue rather than a hidden factory rally point queue.

• (#6583) Shield Reflection Fix:
  Fix personal shields reflecting above the water surface.

• (#6602) AI Factory Manager Cleanup:
  Remove unused personality function calls in the default AI factory manager and platoon former manager.

• (#6604) SACU Gun Range Upgrade Fix:
  Ensure SACUs with gun range upgrades stop at max range during attack moves (adjust GuardScanRadius accordingly).

• (#6606) Seraphim Sniper Turret & Attack Fixes:
  Fix issues with the Seraphim sniper’s dummy weapon overriding the real turrets’ yaw speed, stopping on underwater targets during attack moves, and misaligned GuardScanRadius.

• (#6617) Silo Hard-Stop Order Error Fix:
  Fix an error preventing silos from pausing missile construction when given a hard-stop order.

• (#6629) Fatboy Dying Error Fix:
  Fix a rare error that prevented the Fatboy from finishing its death sequence.

• (#6630) ACU Facing Correction:
  Fix ACUs spawned on the right side of the map not facing toward the middle.

• (#6636) Air Factory Build Effects Fix:
  Fix an error where build effects for Cybran land and air factories would not appear.

• (#6645) Distribute Order Error Fix:
  Fix an error when using distribute orders on a unit that dies shortly after.

• (#6647) Buffer Overflow Exploit Fix:
  Fix a buffer overflow exploit in the InternalSaveGame user global.

• (#6651) Megalith Hack Peg Launcher Fix:
  Fix the hack peg launcher becoming enabled after a unit transfer (it is the origin of the bright red beams under the Megalith).

• (#9999) Documentation Workflow Fix:
  Fix the documentation workflow expecting at least one snippet.

Graphics

• (#6328) Death Animation Speed Enhancements:
  Speed up the death animations of several Seraphim structures:

  • T1 land factories
  • T2/T3 land support factories
  • T3 land HQ
  • Air staging
  • T2/T3 anti-air
  • T2/T3 radars
  • T3 artillery

• (#6621, #6648) Terrain Shader Enhancements:
  Add new terrain shaders for improved texturing of mesa-like terrain and apply slight tweaks to existing shaders.
  These changes have no immediate effect on existing maps, as virtually no maps use these shaders yet.

• (#6622) Seraphim Sniper Barrel Rotation Fix:
  Fix the Seraphim sniper’s barrel not rotating when using the lower fidelity model (typically noticeable when zoomed out).

• (#6636) Factory Build Effects Fix:
  Fix missing build effects for Cybran land and air factories.

Other Changes

• (#6575) Base Weapon Class Annotations:
  Add remaining annotations for the base weapon class file.

• (#6596) Scripted Tasks Documentation:
  Annotate files related to scripted tasks, such as the Scry ability of the Eye of Rhianne or unit enhancements.

• (#6598) TransportSpeedReduction Blueprint Documentation:
  Add documentation for the recently added TransportSpeedReduction unit blueprint value.

• (#6600) Worldviews Functionality Annotations:
  Annotate functionality related to worldviews.

• (#6612) Localization Update:
  Add missing localization entries and update Traditional Chinese translations.

• (#6626) Enhancements Sync Annotations:
  Annotate the synchronization of enhancements.

• (#6627) Collision Beam Entities Annotations:
  Annotate code related to collision beam entities.

Contributors

Coding:
Nomander, Basilisk3, Jip, Uveso, Yuchenjimmy, MadMax, relent0r, sting-2, BlackYps, Balthazar

Balance team:
Rhaelya, Turin, Farms, Tagada, Sainse, Nomander, StormLantern, Orb, Archsimkat, SpikeyNoob

Tournament results:
I. Karateka + vena202020 (5 points)
II. Pivnishko + YURICH (3 points+ won tie break)
III. LimeZ3_ + White_Owl (3 points+ lost tie break)
IV. Pavor- + Nyx- (3 points, didn't play tie break)

Thanks to all players for participation.

UPD 04.06: prize money & standard avatars have been given to winners.
UPD 19.07. custom avataars have been given to winners

Double Allied Tournament 5 is an official 150$ round robin 2v2 tournament scheduled for 19th July.

Prizes (150$ by FAF):

• 150$ split between top-3 teams based on round robin performance. Fractional numbers rounded up to be divisible by 5 in favor of top teams. For example, if top-3 teams score 6, 6 and 4 points, they get 6/16x150=56.25~=60$, 60$ and 30$ respectivaly
• 1st place custom avatar
  
• 2nd place custom avatar or faction face/faction logo avatar
  
• 3rd place custom avatar or faction logo avatar
  

Tournament date:

• Round robin. Saturday 19th July, 13.00 UTC. Convert to your local timezone here
• Tournament organizer & director: Sainse
• Challonge: https://challonge.com/fafdat5

Registration:

• Sign up here in pairs or single. Write your FAF nickname & rating here. Registration will end on 19th July 9:59 UTC.
• Combined rating cap for each team is 4400. No rounding.
• Rating calculated as of 15th June. Global/3v3 is taken, whichever is higher with at least 10 rated games this year. 1v1, 2v2, 4v4 are not counted.
• Rating cap per player is 2400.

Tournament Format:

• Games are played between teams of 2
• Round robin. Double round robin if 5 teams or less teams participate
• No ties in the first stage is possible. Ties in second stage are resolved by Bo1 for 1-3nd places (the only difference is avatars) and Bo3 for 3-4th places (the difference is money prize and avatar)
• If three or more teams tied, they are narrowed down to two best teams using Buccholz system first and then Bo played between them. Tie break wins do not increase points calculated in money prizes. Two teams with tie for 1/2nd place will get exactly the same money prize
• In-client channel is #tourney
• Additional guidance (maps & table) will be provided in a special Discord thread

Tournament rules:

• If the team is 30 minutes later after start of event, team gets disqualified.
• If one of team members cannot participate, it can be replaced during the tournament by any player that is not higher-rated than the original player
• Win = 1 score points, draw = 0.5, defeat = 0
• In case of uneven amount of teams in first stage, the lowest rated team gets a bye (free score)
• No one gets a bye more than once per stage
• Any conflict or critical bug should be immediately appealed to the organizer. This does include in-game pause. It means both pausing in case of critical problem and keeping game paused until official resolution.

In-game rules:

• Common control - multiple armies, union control
• Share conditions - partial share
• Do not transfer your entire base or entire army before your commander dies. Transfering some units is allowed; exchanging bases is also allowed
• Do not Alt+F2 to change view after your death and before your base is given to an ally. Wait around 30 seconds and then you can switch
• Odd vs even
• Unit cap: 1500
• Unlimited timeouts
• Games should have ranking enabled (be rated)
• No in-game spectators other than directors and streamers are allowed
• Name your lobby in format like "DAT5 ABC vs XYZ"
• It is recommended to not choose similar colors as your opponent (pink/red, light blue/dark blue); similar colors for allies are OK. Here is the tutorial

Description of union control & partial share:

If one of commanders dies, the player can switch via Alt+F2 to his ally and continue to help his ally. Alt+F2 won't allow do anything besides it (won't allow giving yourself Paragon or Mavor). So if one of teamates dies, both player will control all the units they have. For example, one can play land and other play air to divide responsibilities.

It essentially eliminates APM penalty for a commander's death. In order to compensate it, full share is changed to partial share. Partial share works as full share except it doesn't share military units, only buildings and engineers.

Stream coverage

TBD

Contact

PM me for any questions or suggestions in Discord @sainse.row. This includes organizational, stream coverage questions & prize contribution suggestions.

Thanks to all participants for playing. Congrats to:
@turbo2 1st
@zlo 2nd
@swatoslav 3rd
@wifi_ 4th

To qualify for LoTS 2025

All replays from the tournament are down below
LoTS2025Q2Replays.zip

Balance team is going to add beetle energy consumption next patch.
https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/6897

Standings

Teams

1. Swatoslav & ikigami (2092+2002=4094)
2. Chisato aka Yudi & amy_1130 (2409~2200+1890=4090)
3. Nuggets & FtXCommando (2148+1935=4083)
4. Lunyshko aka & Terminal (2200+1871=4071)
5. Neytron & az4t (1998+2064=4062)
6. Popiska & SiilentBug sorry_no_air (2412~2200+1850=4050)
7. Wifi_ & Tarnow11 (2354~2200+1808 = 4008)
8. ZLO & Vindex (2200+1770=3970)
9. WilloWisppsi & vena- (2149+1700=3849)
10. GingerbreadMan & F-Odin (1955+1881=3836)
11. PhantomSamurai & Aranei (2000+1700=3700)
12. White_Owl & BlinChik (1600+2038=3638)
13. AmonRa & XlebyLLIKoB (1893+1723=3616)
14. CunningFox & Finisterre (1770+1559=3329)

Vacant players

You could be here

• LimeZ3_ (2000)
• Eco-player7 (1829)
• Lolichan (1664)

Bracket

Swiss stage

Legend

W = Win, L = Lose, D = Draw, B = Bye, F = Forfeit, Auto = auto-won, Play = result of match is not decided yet

The following commands passed into the second stage. Due to having high amount wins versus stronger teams, teams Nuggets and Neytron automatically pass into semifinals. Everyone else plays quarterfinals BO1.

Final stage

Single elimination bracket as of 29th March 19.00 UTC. It will be changed due to external reasons

I've been informed by moderation & tournament team that team Nuggets & FTX cannot proceed to participate in the tournament. It creates a difficult compication for the tournament bracket, since if it continues to be playes at is it, there will be only three semifinalists.

After careful consideration I've decided to re-adjust the bracket in a way that I consider to best serve keeping the tournament competitive and fair. Losers of quarters finals will be granted an additional BO1 versus one another to decide, which one of whem will face team Ginger in semifinals BO3. This way I re-introduce 4th semifinalist in order to compensate for the lack of team Nuggets.

General notes: losers of quarterfinals get "second chance", but after losing they need to win 3 games in a row to get into finals (no chance of mistake). On another hand, team Ginger need to win only 1 game to get into finals.

Final stage. Final table.

Map pool

First stage. Swiss

Round 1. Phenom Spartiate v2. Playable slots: 3,4,5,6
Round 2. Adaptive Moon. Playable slots: 3,4,7,8
Round 3. Adaptive aloren. Playable slots: 5,6,9,10. Closed: 1,2
Round 4. Adaptive Ndera. Playable slots: 1,2,3,4. Spawn mex: 7,8
Round 5. Adaptive tabula rasa. Playable slots: 5,6,9,10. Spawn mex:1,2,13,14,15,16
Round 6. Adaptive Wonder Open. Playable slots: 5,6,7,8. Closed: 11,12,13,14,15,16. All other: spawn mex

Final stage.

Round 1 (BO1)

Adaptive Project Albus. Playable slots: 5,6,9,10. Closed: 7, 8. All other slots: spawn mex

Semifinals (BO3)

Adaptive Fields of Great Proenix. Playable slots: 3,4,5,6. Slots 7,8,9,10,11,12: spawn mex
Adaptive sin. Playable slots: 3,4,5,6. Slots 9,10,11,12: spawn mex.
Funeral plains. Playable slots: 1,2,3,4

Finals (BO3)

Seton's Clutch. Mid+rock.
Adaptive Canis River. Playable slots: 5,6,9,10. Spawn mex: 1,2, 7,8.
Adaptive Kusoge. Playable slots: 3,4,9,10. Closed slots: 11,12,13,14. All other: spawn mex

Map table

Wrong dychotomy. It's not "t1 gameplay vs t1/t2/t3/t4 gameplay". It's "turtle gameplay vs dynamic gameplay". Dynamic games generally don't last as long cause any mistake gets punished immediately, so games tend to be shorter. But long dynamic games are the best.

Identify a Problem

Novax is a powerful and versatile exp, especially when en masse. Arguably somewhat overpowered, as reported by many players. It's both mobile laser beam and T4 scout that cannot be destroyed. It's mostly built as a laser beam station and gets insane Intel stats for free.

Novax has 60 radius omni and 200 radius radar. For comparison T3 scout has 28 omni and 96 radius. The actual difference is even more than this, since Novax have no inertia (no turnabouts like with T3 scouts) and cannot be killed. It allows him to choose any path regardless of AA & ASFs placement, which are a huge concern for T3 scouts. Consequently it not only has more than 2x radius than T3 scout, but also can utilize it more efficiently.

Having Novax usually removes the necessity to make T3 scouts at all, since Novax can see almost an entire base to choose targets on it's own.

Mass considerations

The above mentioned fact is not to be underestimated. It indirectly saves a lot of mass. T3 scout costs 200 mass, and usually you will send at least 5-10 of them through different direction to get a chance to see something. 200 x 10=2k every time you need scouting. It's also 2k x 0.7=1.4k mass less donated to the enemy since T3 scouts are doomed to land on enemy territory.

This is 3.4k mass per one scouting party, and there are multiple of them as long as game goes. Cumulative effect of these savings can easily go beyond half or even entire Novax cost.

Showcase the Problem

#22881789 3v3 ladder. The player in the bottom left corner has no t3 scouts (and never did), no t3 radar. However having Novax coming out of his base is enough to catch the enemy cloak commander, giving an easy kill.

If Novax didn't have omni, it would be a good lesson for noobies to build T3 scouts & radars, not only game enders.

Find a Solution

Novax satellite:

Omni removed
Radar radius: 200 -> 96 (same as T3 scout)
VIsion: 60 -> 45

Justify the solution

45 vision is still more than enough, 1.5x more than 32 fire range. Removed Omni wouldn't allow to spot cloak coms by luck (or intentionally). Reduced radar and vision would force Novax to rely on scouts built by players. Players will be more inclined to continue build T3 scouts to spot potential targets for Novax, not just using it as a two-in-one T3 arty and T3 radar.

Final stage results.

I'm glad to announce that all teams managed to finished the tournament.

Winners are:
I. hybrid & Deli with unmached 10 points (5 wins) getting 80$
II. BlInChIk & Neytron got 8 points and won Bo3 tie break to secure 2nd place along with 30$
III. Wifi & Toka got 8 points as well, getting 3rd place and 20$
IV. Lunyshko aka Banani & Finisterre with 6 points getting 4th place and 10$
V. Zlo & OCA got 5th place with 10$

All 1-4th places will get custom avatars as well.

Thanks for all participants, especially those who played both stages. Congratulations to winners.

@xclkvnspoijfoisn said in 15minutes of gaming?:

@Sainse said in 15minutes of gaming?:

long dynamic games are the best.

That makes no sense. And you too fail to see the larger point.
Long game does not = turtle game.

Well you failed to see a basic point that I didn't claim "Long game does not = turtle game", I even directly stated "long dynamic game" is a thing. My point was that dynamic games tend to end faster, so most of them is relatively short as a result.

You could just read other people's messages carefully before claiming they fail to see something

The tournament is over. Congratulations to:

1. Nuggets and Rhaelya taking 1st place
2. Swato and Ikigami going at 2nd place
3. Vindex and Archsimkat with 3rd place secured

Thanks for everyone who participated or watched the event. Thanks for registrants who warned beforehand about being a little bit later or not being able to participate. It has made simultaneous management of table match ups much easier.

I was pretty happy about the format and the mod. The mod wasn't intended to be super strong in every map provided. Yet we've saw some pretty good combat SACUs even on some less expected maps. And that's without breaking game balance. The Swiss with rolling rounds allowed for swifter match ups, which was already noticeable at 11 teams and would be even more noticeable if we had 16-20 teams like in DAT2. I'll look forward to perfect it in the future. Maybe I'll make a separate math/stats/discussion post about tourney formats later on.

Add 3v3 to the website leaderboards

Double Allied Tournament 4 is an official 2v2 tournament scheduled for 29th & 30th March. Two stages: swiss and single elimination.

Prizes (150$ by FAF):

• 70$ for the 1st place & custom avatar
  
• 50$ for the 2nd place & faction face/faction logo avatar
• 30$ for the 3rd place & faction logo avatar

Tournament date:

• First part. 13.00 UTC, Saturday, 29th March
• Semifinals & finals. 13.00 UTC, Sunday, 30th March

Registration:

• Sign up here in pairs or single. Write your FAF nickname & rating here. Registration will end on 28th March 23:59 UTC.
• Don't feel shy to sign up solo, organizers will try their best to help you with finding a suitable mate (no pun intended)
• Combined rating cap for each team is 4100. No rounding.
  Rating calculated based as of 10th March. Global/3v3 is taken, whichever is higher with at least 10 rated games this year. 1v1, 2v2, 4v4 are not counted.
• It means that if you have 2098 global with 15 rated games and 2232 3v3 with 5 rated games, 2098 global is taken into account. But if both have less than 10 rated games this year, 2232 is taken into account.
• 10 rated games should be dated between 1st January and 10th March 2025
• Rating cap per player is 2200. Player's rating above 2200 counted just as 2200 even if it's 2400.

Tournament Format:

• Games are played between teams of 2
• First stage. Swiss. 6 tours. Teams with 4+ points will progress into second stage.
• Initial seeding: top half vs bottom half
• Depending on table score standings team may face the same opponents twice (unlikely, but possible)
• Teams with the most amount of wins will have a priority in getting free round at final stage. In case of ties Buchholz will be used
• Second stage. Single elimination Bo1, semifinals & finals Bo3
• In-client channel is #dat4
• Additional guidance (maps & table) will be provided in a special Discord thread

Tournament rules:

• If the team is 30 minutes later after start of event, team gets disqualified.
• If one of team members cannot participate, it can be replaced during the tournament by any other pre-registered participant. You can register your reserve player immediately, if you want to.
• Replacement should be within rating cap specified by tournament.
• Replacements outside of pre-registered players should be manually approved by Tournament Director and should not be higher rated than the original participant
• Win = 1 score points, draw = 0.5, defeat = 0
• In case of uneven amount of teams in first stage, team gets a bye (free score) in the following precedence: previous tournament winner, then lowest team rating.
• No one gets a bye more than once per stage
• Any conflict or critical bug should be immediately appealed to the organizer. This does include in-game pause. It means both pausing in case of critical problem and keeping game paused until official resolution.

In-game rules:

• Common control - multiple armies, union control
• Share conditions - partial share
• SIM-mods "HQ SACU" and "TwoACUs"
• Replay ID to download the mods: https://replay.faforever.com/24460565
• Prebuilt Units: on
• Unlimited timeouts
• Do not transfer your entire base or entire army before your commander dies. Transfering some units is allowed; swapping bases is also allowed
• Do not Alt+F2 to change view after your death and before your base is given to an ally. After 30 seconds since your death has passed, you can change the view and help your ally, but not before.
• No in-game spectators other than directors and streamers are allowed
• Name your lobby in format like "DAT4 ABC vs XYZ"
• It is recommended to not choose similar colors as your opponent (pink/red, light blue/dark blue); similar colors for allies are OK. Here is the tutorial
  

Tournament settings

Description of union control:

If one of commanders dies, the player can switch via Alt+F2 to his ally and continue to help his ally. Alt+F2 won't allow do anything besides it (won't allow giving yourself Paragon or Mavor). So if one of teamates dies, both player will control all the units they have. For example, one can play land and other play air to divide responsibilities.

It essentially eliminates APM penalty for a commander's death. In order to compensate it, full share is changed to partial share. Partial share works as full share except it doesn't share military units, only buildings and engineers.

SIM mods description

HQ SACU. T3 land/air HQ can produce stock SACUs (without upgrades). The support factories cannot, only HQs.
TwoACUS. At the start of the game you get two ACUs instead of one.

You can see both of these on the screenshot below. Since I chose UEF, I got two UEF ACUs. Nothing else has been added.

Contact

PM me for any questions or suggestions in Discord @sainse.row. This includes organizational, stream coverage questions & prize contribution suggestions.

The tournament is over. Thanks everyone for participating. Congratulations to:
@Neytron & @Ctrl-K for winning 1st place, custom avatar & 70$
@Lunyshko & @Terminal for taking 2nd place, faction face/logo avatar & 50$
@GingerbreadMan & @F-Odin for taking 3rd place, faction logo avatar & 30$

I've been overwhelmed by multiple requests from players. Someone didn't show up, someone was late, someone forfeited, someone get banned in the middle of the tournament. This lead to making difficult decisions to ensure competitive & fair bracket for everyone. Maybe it's unusual and harder to read compared to challonge tables, but I'm sure it was better from a competitive standpoint. I still believe no-bracket-stalling formats like rolling rounds Swiss and Round Robin are the way to go, but I will look forward to writing some scripts on automatizing Swiss to ease the burden of being a TD.

Next time I'm likely to host tournament with less mods, higher rating cap and improved format. You can write me the feedback in Discord PMs about what you've liked/disliked about the tournament, it may affect my future plans.

Qualifier ended, results as follows.
https://challonge.com/2025sioq

Congratulations to the following players, who qualified to play in next stage:

1. TheEmperorTime (Vena)
2. Blast_Chilled
3. Rhaelya
4. ZLO
5. Unknow
6. Neytron

Thanks to all participants and viewers, including providers of stream coverage Razana & Strydxr, Grimplex and Robogear

Sign up Sainse 1541