Best posts made by wikingest

Make friendly nuke launches sound different from enemy nuke launches. Or just make friendly nuke launches without sound.

If someone builds t3-t4 arty, and it gets sniped, and 80% of the mass stays in the spot in almost indestructyble way. Then this person probably has build power (and build power to build build power), to throw up another one close by very-very fast. This means that killing gameenders would become much less efficient, and game would become much more turtly. Less fighting outside bases, and more t3 arty-gameender building in bases. And I dont think it is good thing.
It is true that it is hard to estimate the hp of a wreck, and even to understand sometimes, what unit left the wreck. But the actual mechanic that wreck's hp is related to units hp is quite solid (and not filled with exceptions, like some other mechanics) and easy to remember. Players are mostly concerned with wrecks from their direct opponent or one next to him. Players are mostly concerned with wreckes on battlefield they have created themselves. And that gives the possibility to remember more or less what got killed there.
So I would say that making game hugely more turtly or adding exceptions right and left does not seem a good idea. Rather keep it as it is?

Suggestion do load nukesubs automaticly. If basicly everybody builds nukesubs for nukes (and not for other things), why do we need to start loading manually every time? Tml's, antinukes, nukes on land etc. load automaticly. But with nukesubs, we need to keep eye on factory, to see when it is ready, sometimes find the nukesub in the middle of other things, and start loading manually, every nukesub. Seems like artificial difficulty, that should be easy to change.

Aurora not only have half the hp of other tanks, but also tends to miss a lot and cant shoot much upwards-downwards. And needs scauting or radar to use its range. And huge amount of micro. Depends of the map, but on big open landmap, I think most players are unable to use Auroras effectively. New players even less.

Aeon also has worst t1 frigat and quite useless aa boat. T1 mobile aa on land has slightly more health and dps than tanks (not to mention t2...), but Shard (t1 aa boat), is so far from the same comparison with frigats.

Not so much of a problem, but Aeon t1 arty is the only one that can shoot only in front side. So you cant run around and shoot as easily as with other nations. Can be a problem for kiteing, to follow Auroras...

So getting over the beginning, t1 stage, of the game when playing with aeon can be quite difficult. I think this is what most people dont like. Aeon has best destroyer, useless t3 gunship, bad t2 fighter, no fighter bomber, etc. Those are factional differencis, you can compensate with other units. But t1 is hard to avoid.

I dont really see why people would not like to play against Aeon. Might be, that if someone actually chooses Aeon, it might mean that he knows what he is doing and has very good micro.?

Democracys tend to be more stable than dictatorships. And hugely more effective. And as @Eternal well said, stability at the cost of everything else, is not the objective. And of course, meritocratical systems tend to be hugely more effective too.

Concerning antinuke. I agree with words of @archsimkat. But I point out, that not having mobile antinuke, seems to make many massheavy maps totally turtle type (some DualCap, Astro?). Once your army or navy value is bigger then value of nukes neccessaire to destroy that army or navy (so that army/navy cant dodge those nukes). It forces the games to go into "build big gun, everything else does not matter" style. Having mobile antinuke could add lots of possibilitys and gameplay. And reduce turtle-eco-build-big-gun, type of games.

I am not talking antinuke on nukesub, but maybe new unit that could go on land and water. More expensive than static one of course, but maybe reduce the price of static anti nuke a little?

Whatever you do, do not reduce the number of colors. People actively choose colors to not have similar colors side by side. Having three similar colors in 16 player game is not a big problem, if one is in left, another in mid, and last one in right. But having only 16 colors, means that last one can end up with very similar color to his neighbor. And that is a problem.

Also many players have their favorite color. And if that is not available, they choose similar colors. This makes it much easyer to memorise/remember players in 16 player games. Of course this is quite irrelevant in 2v2, but it helps a lot in 16 player games.

Also there is probably some other, personal reasons for some players. They chose a color, or similar color, that they see better or are more used to or like better etc. This does not mean, that they will deliberatly put two very similar colors side by side, but only that they have some choice. And playing a game rather than looking at tv is something to do with wanting to have choices, maybe.

And it is not like those games do not exist. 16 player survival was very popular lately, and some 8v8 maps are regularly played. too.

On the "color naming problem". People use names, half the name, first 3-4 lettres of the name. Or the spot of the player, if available. No need to invent special very long names for colors. People dont use those today and probably wont use those in the future.

I think no need for more screenshots?

There is also a very easy and not fun way to adress those problems that you pointed out.
Rise the hp and reduce the range of Aurora. Makeing it similar to other t1 tanks. Same range, and (more or less) same hp. Keep the hover to go over water and dodge, keep the fireing problems related to elevation and slow speed. It will still be faction specific unit.
Not sure if this is good idea, but it might make low-to-medium level players use it as they use other nations... Also almost no balancing to do, and easy to learn for players.

So 4v4 means 8 minutes of real time needs to pass for game to be ranked? Including pauses? Why not to have some game time necessaire too. In noob games no one really looks at real time and people take time to react, then they discuss about f11, then they discuss who is lagging, why is lagging, then they pause (or not) and try to fix it etc. game with only one minut of game time and no shots fired can be rated. I do not know the raisoning behind this rule, but it seems that those games should better not be rated. Maybe 8 minutes of real time and 4 minutes of game time? Or only 5 minutes of game time necessaire for game to be ranked?

@bogdganku There is UI mod called "ACU Self Destruct Confirm". Personnally I never tried it.

Aeon destroyers were the best destroyers, at least until the last path, but that does not mean that they were overpowered. Aeon has largely the worst t1 navy. And almost no navy fighting or bombing capacity on croisers. They dont have much else on t1-t2 level. For someone who dont know how do play (or rather knows less than enemy), and gets crushed by Aeon navy, it might seem, that he lost because of destroyers. While in reality navy is much more than only building destroyers.
In perfect micro conditions you can dodge all Aeon destro surface shots. And in real game it is not rare that they miss around 50%. While Sera destros are supposed to hit 100%. So haveing beam weapons on Sera destros is a big advantage on navy, and true, as you said, can be disadvantage on navy-to-land in some conditions. But note also, that Sera croisers can hit far inland, kill plane waves and force navy to move/micro.
Personnally, when fighting someone at my level or stronger, I would prefer beam weapons (that dont miss), because winning navy is usually harder and more important than hitting beaches in most effective way.

1. How about notifications on map. No changes in any units or game mechanics. But basic notifications with emplacements on map. If player have not scouted enemy for x minutes from the game beginning, short notification on enemy base to scout. If player have forgotten to take mexes for x time, notification over those mexes. If not reclaimed a valuable reclaim field, notification on that spot. If too much mass(income) and not enought energy (before lag?), notification on home base (or behind base) to build power. If for x time and y condition no upgraded mexes, notification to upgrade starting from base mexes. Followed by mass storage build notifications and then t3 mex suggestion with time. Possibly suggestion if not enough tanks or factorys or fighters or aa. etc.etc.
2. The same thing, but done by AI. Some not very grazy AI giving suggestions on map. AI estimating situation and rather than playing, giving suggestions/notifications for player. Build tanks here, raid there, upgrade mexes , protect this etc.

Of course, those suggestions would often be wrong. But this should allow -200 player to play as 200 and learn in-game. This should avoid someone not having any power generator at 10 min. Or not upgrading any mexes. Or having one uncapped t3 mex and others t1. Or not reclaiming at all. etc. This should avoid a moment when player does a huge mistake over and over, that does not let him go forward in learning, and as he does not find this mistake, he quits. Also, for example if he sees that takeing mexes is good idea, next time he will do it already before notification, and so the notification will not pop up. Good player should be able to play with this (mod) basicly without any notifications coming up. So it should not give bad habits, because units and game mechanics are the same, and no real advantage over good players. It would only allow to avoid big mistakes, learn faster, learn playing, and not to be obliged to go through tonnes of learning materiel before being able to play a game.

You can run FAF in Windowed mode.
Options > Video> Primary adapter> Windowed

With multiple nukes spread out and narrow terrain, you can not move out of the way, as I already pointed out. And this type of gamers are not looking "to come back from the situation". They are doing it on purpose. 4 nukes at 60k mass (not considering launchers), against 20 experimentals (or something else) at 400-700k mass... People play like that in purpose on some maps. This is the actual balance that makes it like that.

It is possible to have mobile antinuke that is not transportable. So you cant move it fast by air in front of nukes path.

Ctrl+click on "small guy" icon on scoreboard asks for engi already. The same with asking power and mass. Shift+click gives unit, or in case of power/mass, gives 25%.

Most of on screen messages I have seen are easy to understand/universel: ACU, nuke, antinuke, mavor, tml, eco, yellow ping for assist, blue for move and red for attack... People use multiple pings for more precision: Blue ping on unit (group) you want to be moved, followed by blue ping in place you want it to be moved to.

Official FAF language is english. I am not native english speaker, but as most players I respect to use of english ingame. Even when there are players from my nationality ingame, I speak english. As almost all other players (ecxept russians somtimes). And I dont use my langauage to make worst teams for other nationalitys. Or to bully them. Or to insult them.

Stalling power for long time.
Forgetting to eco or doing it in wrong way. Ringing t1 mexes and not ringing t2-t3 ones.
Not scouting.
Not reclaiming.
Being very polite. Much more than high rated players. Thanking for e. Thanking for units. Thanking for help on battlefield. Thanking in many words for teaching the game, in the end. etc.
Never complaining. Never accusing or insulting. Never of course is bad word, but I don't remember ever seen someone new to game complaining, it usually comes much later.
Very open for teamwork. Tell him to build eco, he builds eco. Tell him to build t3 air, he builds t3 air. Tell them to push all together in south, they push all together in south. If they don't know, they (sometimes) ask and discuss to learn.

I think it was just an example, and people usually do not spend their games filling shields with t2 pd's.
But if example on FAF's "chessboard" is not good, then:
Aeon t2 shield 20203.14=1256 superficy
Sera t2 shield 28283.14=2462 superficy
Sera one covers 1.96 times more surface. Considering space lost underneath the shield also, two Aeon shields covers less useful space than one Sera shield. And two Aeon shields cost total of 960 mass, and consume/drain 300 energy. While Sera one costs 700 and consumes/drains 250 energy. And of course you dont always have space to put small shields everywhere. Much easyer to have overlapping and "blinking " shields with bigger shields. And not so many units that can totally (and always) miss an Aeon shield bubble. I suppose t3 arty can miss it, but can also fall two times in the same place...
So, I would like to point out, that shield size can be huge advantage, on static as well as on mobile shields.

edit: calculation marks have dissapeared.? I mean 20 multiply 20 mutiply 3.14 and 28 multiply 28 multiply 3.14

Just an idea, could we just cut the existing sound? "Nuke launch detected" for enemy, and "Nuke launch" for allie?

Going further on this. If multiple nuke launches follow in very short time, will every new notification stop earlier one? I mean for 3 nukes: "Nuke nuke nuke launch detected"? In this case both notifications should start differently. So it would be possible to differencie in spite of overlapping notifications. "Nuke launch detected" for enemies, and "launch detected" or "n-launch" for allies. So in overlapping case it would be: "n-lau n-lau nuke launch detected". So it would be possible to understand only from hearing, that there was two friendly and one enemy nuke launched.

@fiercelv If I may try to help:
"GIVE ME AN ENGINEER" (or other) text markers have color on top of them, showing who made them. So you know who want engie etc.

"Rampant, unpunished lagers. REHOST 24/7 Self explanatory." And "Lobby Kicks" / "CPU Snobs". Those are two sides of the same problem. Might want to learn how to use f11 ingame, to determine who is lagging, or is it you. And what type of maps and player count your computer can handle. Smaller maps and less players and smaller unit limit of course are easyer on CPU. If necessary you can pick smaller maps, and also tell in lobby, that you have played/ you know you can handle this type of map. Lieing of course can make joining later much harder.
Also you can ask joining lobby, if your score is a problem. Some players/ greys too ask that.

You can host your own games.

And you can choose games you join. If host is bad, as you described. Remember him and dont join any more. And if host is good, remember him and join his games. Same applys to accepting toxic players in your own games. This can be quite effective way. Especially if lots of people would acknowledge theyr impact on game. I have seen bad hosts later wait for hours and never getting game full.

Best wishes

T2 subs crush all destros if in big quantitys. Little less against Aeon maybe, but it is still convincing. 1 Sera destro agains 2 Cybran t2 subs, destro wins with barely some health left. And that is kind of equal echange, as destro is slightly more expensive mass wise. But 20 destros against 41 t2 cybran subs, destros get totally wrecked.

T1 subs also crush against all destros in big quantitys, maybe less than t2 ones, but still. Note that what sandboxing I did was without particular micro or kiting.

My point is, that Sera does not even have anything to fight against t2 subs in t2 level. Making subs stronger seems like bad idea.

In the same time, the fact that navy has no units capable to fighting efficiently torp bombers, seems like a huge problem. What is the point of navy anyway, if torp bombers can efficiently kill all croisers and hunt down the rest of the ships?

I would suggest to make torp bombers weaker. Maybe two times more expensive, with same dps. And eventually up to two times stronger, if necessary. As it would reduce efficient suicide torping, while not reducing too much overall value of torps. This is just a very general suggestion.