Jump to content

FTD Mod


dpelectric

Recommended Posts

The "Furies and Terror and Dreadnaughts, Oh My!" mod is now opening for business. Please note that this is a non-union shop, in fact no wages whatsoever shall be paid, and universally recognized sweatshop business models shall apply. Hours of operation to be completely unpredictable.

For anybody interested in providing helpful input, feedback, testing or development, the ideas behind this mod can be found here:

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/10935-I-don-t-get-Furies

Thanks and we hope to gain your interest! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, Max, following what you stated in the previous thread, it seems that you are envisioning having an AC element joined to the destroyers and dreadnaughts. As stated in the case of a Fury intercept, there really wouldn't be any combat involved, as the singularity torpedo has 20K airspeed, standoff range, and overwhelming destructive capacity. Once a Fury launches its torp, it's over.

So any real AC would involve Marauders. If so, the X-59s would first have to have a chance of catching the new UFOs. Then you'd have a situation whereby either the combat is impossible for the Marauders to win so all of the GC assets currently (as far as I know) not in the game wouldn't have to be created, or where they could win, and those assets (internal UFO layouts, etc.) would have to be made.

If the GC assets do, in fact, exist, or if somebody was to make them, then well and good, and this would add another element to things. I personally was thinking along the lines of making destroyers and dreadnaughts only successfully prosecutable by Furies, to add to the X-120s utility, make lategame terror sites and base attacks hard to stop, and avoid the work involved in making GC assets.

Are you thinking of giving Marauders a legitimate chance of shooting down the new/reintroduced UFOs? Will there then be a strong possibility of the player losing Marauders, with all of the implications of that? Or would the enemy ships use PD turrets, as you suggested as a possibility, to give the appearance of AC without ground asset work and/or the risk of losing Marauders...?

Edited by dpelectric
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally, I'd be inclined to make the new UFOs vulnerable to Marauders but make it exceptionally difficult (i.e. need 3 of them, and most if not all of their ammo to boot). That way, you don't *have* to have Furies, but alternatives are exceptionally difficult and costly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally, I'd be inclined to make the new UFOs vulnerable to Marauders but make it exceptionally difficult (i.e. need 3 of them, and most if not all of their ammo to boot). That way, you don't *have* to have Furies, but alternatives are exceptionally difficult and costly.

I'd also add impossible to take down without taking significant damage, forcing extended downtime. Or even losing one of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agreed, that would be optimal, but if the new UFOs are shot down you would, of course, have to be able to generate crash sites. And I don't know how to do that, or if you or Max know how to do that, or if it would be worth the effort. Would you need to get into those pfp (panorama factory project) files?

My other concern is the risk engendered of losing your Marauders. These are, of course, high-value, high-cost assets to the player, and losing a couple could mean mitigating air supremacy and possibly extending the lategame. Both good things in my opinion, and they would also give enhanced value to hitting battleships, which right now are often ignored after getting a praetor, to farm resources and rebuild your air force losses. Does that sound desirable?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep I cant wait until is finished, I follow the thread very near, I feel the same about fury.

Hey, if you have any input by all means jump in. I know you're already buried in 300 other things, but any tips from an experienced modder sure couldn't hurt!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agreed, that would be optimal, but if the new UFOs are shot down you would, of course, have to be able to generate crash sites.

You can set UFOs so that they don't produce crash sites (like Bombers and Strike Cruisers). Along with a suitable in-game explanation (someone posted a good one on the other thread), job done.

Although, long term, working on the crash site thing (hopefully, anyway. Depends on how the whole modular UFO idea pans out).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, well if the UFOs don't produce crash sites, that would keep things simple. Which is what I personally am striving for; to make this as easy to pull off as possible. Again, I have limited if any skills, and everybody that DOES have the skills (you, Max, TD, etc.) all have multiple irons in the greater community modding fire already.

So Marauders have a chance, albeit at great risk, of downing destroyers and dreadnoughts. Which would give the player a risk/reward assessment in intercepting them, in addition to the cost/benefit calculation behind building Furies. Interesting. And, properly balanced, still the enhanced chance of getting lategame terror missions and base defenses.

I like it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Preliminary thoughts on properties:

- Marauders are already established, they stay as they are.

- Furies are unlocked/researchable with a cruiser datacore. Cruisers appear at ticker value 450 (late midgame). Thus, to give the player time to build at least one X-120, destroyers could appear at maybe value 500 (~two weeks) dreadnaughts 550 (~four weeks). This is assuming 40 engineers (that's what I usually have anyhow) which at the current 187 man-day production timetable would be roughly five days to build one.

That may seem like a rather small window relative to destroyers, but of course there is only the chance that one would make its entrance right on the very first wave, and even if it did this could incentivize the player to begin thinking of how he/she wants to counter the new threat. There would be three options:

a. resources being needed too badly for weapons, armor, etc., let the destroyer land and deal with the terror site (which does gain experience for your troops)

b. forget a Fury for the moment due to its cost, and keep focusing on Marauders, despite their dicey chances vs the destroyer

c. invest in an X-120 asap

- A Marauder right now costs $400K, 20 alenium, 20 alloys. By comparison a Fury is $600K, 50 alenium, 30 alloys. I'm ok with the cash and the alloy cost, but think the 50 alenium is exorbitant, particularly for late midgame production (which is considerably earlier than GHs envisioned time frame). I think the alenium should be cut to 35-40. Also, right now a Fury requires a singularity core to produce. I'm torn between eliminating that prereq entirely, or replacing it with, say, an anti-gravity generator to introduce another (somewhat) limiting factor.

- A Marauder's top airspeed is currently 3850kmh, Furies 5500. If we're going to give X-59s a chance to intercept, then the new UFOs might have a speed of generally around that, like 3400-3700 (battleships are 3300), keeping in mind the fact that enemy ships always hang around for a while instead of beelining for their objectives.

- Marauders with two plasma torps and a plasma blaster can inflict 3000 dmg on full depletion; with fusion torps and a magstorm 4000. Now, I'm assuming few players are going to have 3 Marauders sitting at any one base unless it's quite lategame. More likely one, or at most two, with some Foxtrots and/or Corsairs around (which would be irrelevant, as their airspeed would make it impossible for them to catch the new UFOs). So, perhaps it's reasonable to assume the player could get one or two Marauders, together or chained, to the destroyer or dreadnaught in time. So, if they're to have a chance, the new UFOs HP should be in the range of a battleship's, 7000. To differentiate them from battleships they would be, as suggested, a couple hundred kmh faster, and should be more of an offensive threat (crazy stuff similar to vessels in Max's Flying Circus, perhaps). The idea again being that X-59s can take down these ships, but at high risk and manual combat skill, with the clear alternative of building X-120s.

- The new UFOs would have autoresolve strength higher than a battleship's (say, 8000).

Edited by dpelectric
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having read the previous posts and read the other thread as well, you have to consider what role the Fury would take in the mind of a player. It's an instant win aircraft that leaves nothing behind it, so it's not going to be the first, second or even last choice for a player seeing as you can at least get some alloys and alenium from UFOs that don't leave a crash site. Consider the Fury as a "fuck this" aircraft - something that's launched after all other options have been considered and dismissed.

Regarding high-speed UFOs. I'm not certain you'd get too warm a response. You can rest assured that players will try and chase destroyers and dreadnoughts around (because they want the goodies) and get horribly frustrated when they can't catch them. The number of posts that are made by new players when they realise the Scout is way faster than the Condor is testatment to this, and the fact that it's possible to catch most UFOs with Foxtrots up to and including the Cruiser creates an expectation that all UFOs are catchable. But this is your mod so I'm happy to do it however you want.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some points for consideration:

1) Is there going to be sufficient difference between the two new types to actually make it worth having two UFO types? At the moment I haven't seen anything that makes a noticable difference between a Destroyer and a Dreadnaught; both huge UFOs that can only realistically be shot down by Furies (with Marauders having a shot maybe), generating no crash site (and so no tech). I think we only need the Destroyer in that role, which would potentially free up the Dreadnaught to do something a bit different...

2) One possibility regarding getting the Fury out the door earlier without requiring complete rewrites of much of the lore would be to separate the Fury and the Singularity Torpedo. Have the Fury become available with the Cruiser datacore as above (or research into an item from the Cruiser, as not much research generally unlocks from datacores; the Cruiser comes with a new engine type I think?), but with a new super-heavy torpedo with enough juice to one-shot a Carrier, for example. Then researching the Singularity Device unlocks the torpedo as a weapon upgrade in the same way as the other weapon upgrades.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey, if you have any input by all means jump in. I know you're already buried in 300 other things, but any tips from an experienced modder sure couldn't hurt!

When theon review the aircombat system we reach to the conclusion that the vanilla aircombat is a only some kind of paper cut in pieces. In the practice and at the same way Max pointed out the fury was intented to deal with a UFO greater than Battleship. We find out that is better set different kind of "Tier" when aircrafts become obsolete and the player need to "Dissembling" the most powerful ship "at the moment" to develop an option.

If you want to make something inovative make a complete mod that introduce a "Capital ship" that can be only destroyed by Fury. Other alternative is make a aircraft to pair the marauder, a torpedo ship like (Mig31 Fox).

The vanilla make Corsair and Marauder too much OP for some reason....and remove sarracen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some points for consideration:

1) Is there going to be sufficient difference between the two new types to actually make it worth having two UFO types? At the moment I haven't seen anything that makes a noticable difference between a Destroyer and a Dreadnaught; both huge UFOs that can only realistically be shot down by Furies (with Marauders having a shot maybe), generating no crash site (and so no tech). I think we only need the Destroyer in that role, which would potentially free up the Dreadnaught to do something a bit different...

On that point, you could have the Destroyer appear first and then have the Dreadnought as an upgrade to it later on.

I just had a thought about balance as well. Since Destroyers and Dreadnoughts are replacing UFOs which ordinarily you could shoot down and assault for loot, they're actually reducing the amount of resources you can collect late game. It's not a massive difference, since Terror Missions and Base Attacks aren't that common, but I thought it might be worth mentioning in case you think it matters enough to do anything about. (I don't really know what the late-game resource situation is like as I don't tend to play that long. So I don't know how important it might be.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On that point, you could have the Destroyer appear first and then have the Dreadnought as an upgrade to it later on.

I just had a thought about balance as well. Since Destroyers and Dreadnoughts are replacing UFOs which ordinarily you could shoot down and assault for loot, they're actually reducing the amount of resources you can collect late game. It's not a massive difference, since Terror Missions and Base Attacks aren't that common, but I thought it might be worth mentioning in case you think it matters enough to do anything about. (I don't really know what the late-game resource situation is like as I don't tend to play that long. So I don't know how important it might be.)

I've only played late game on Normal, and I was fairly resource rich by then. You could make the new UFOs drop a small amount of resources on being shot down (much like fighters). It also adds to the impending sense of doom that resources are running low and you are unable to get new supplies.

How would you upgrade the Destroyer to the Dreadnaught? What would be the difference in their capabilities?

The only reason I'm asking about this is that I had a vague idea for the Dreadnaught being a genuine game-ender; something that only shows up to force you to complete Operation Endgame or lose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Max: First and foremost. I do not and would not consider this "my" mod. Even the concept wouldn't exist without kevin and kabill's ideas in the initial thread. And I do not have the expertise to pull it off by myself. I see myself as the coordinator, or more accurately perhaps the moderator, of everybody's input, but that's about it. I'm just trying to keep the ball rolling, kind of the head cheerleader :P

Having said that, to me it is a question of what this mod is seeking to achieve. In my mind, the priorities need to be clarified. I personally considered the top goal to be breaking the monotonous lategame cycle of nothing-but-crash-sites, and really only nothing-but-carrier-crash-sites, once relative air superiority is achieved. I would think, as a side note, this is at least partially the vision behind your Flying Circus as well. I don't like the way the challenge level drops off once you develop a sufficient number of Marauders. The exact opposite should be happening: the fight should be even more desperate as the aliens belatedly realize they've badly underestimated us and start to take off the kid gloves. As I've noted before, it feels like you're doing nothing but marking time until you can launch the final mission.

That perceived priority is why I was thinking of destroyers and dreadnaughts primarily in terms of vehicles to generate terror sites and base defenses. The (re)introduction of these UFOs and the Fury being ultimately means to achieve that end. From this point of view, the UFOs should be relatively unstoppable, brushing aside Marauders and having a good chance of getting to their objective before an X-120 gets to them.

However, you can also envision destroyers and dreadnaughts as full-fledged enemy combatants in their own right, and not just as delivery vehicles. In that case, Marauders have a legitimate, if difficult, chance to down them. This is a considerably more complex, but possibly "cooler", approach. Frantic air combat against really formidable opponents, and a true expansion of the enemy fleet. However, this necessitates generating and balancing all of the AC variables, and consideration of the implications of players losing Marauders (at least more frequently than they do now). And I would also be concerned at any meaningful reduction in the UFO's capacity to achieve their stated objectives.

I think this overarching conceptual framework has to be voted on and pinned into place before everything else can proceed. The crux of the matter is: if we have two powerful new UFOs, what exactly, and how exactly, can they be intercepted and countered? Can Marauders take them on? With roughly what kind of chance of success? Will success compromise the desired end of more terror sites and base defenses? Will losing throw a player's air force into disarray (not necessarily a bad thing, in a considered dosage)? Should the X-120 be nerfed to fulfill a super-Foxtrot-like role, instead of being a doomsday machine?

And a hundred other choices, but again all branching off from the key decision if the new UFOs are essentially only stoppable by Furies. This choice feeds all the other implications and complications

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How could that possibly be a good thing?

Every now and again you get people who say that the story of the game is rubbish because you can just keep holding out and shooting everything that comes down, and so there is no actual threat. This would be a counter to that; something that if you play for too long and try to hold out will just turn up and beat you.

IIRC the game has a time out where if you play for too long you automatically lose (I might be wrong on that though); this would effectively replace that. So instead of the game saying "You took too long - game over", you would actually see the aliens crushing you.

Not massively invested in it as an idea; it was just a thought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mr. Pyro: I personally was thinking of the destroyer being a dedicated terror ship, the dreadnaught being a dedicated base assault ship. One, to differentiate them, and two to keep the strings in the game files simple.

However, I've been thinking the same thing as you, with battleships thrown into the mix too. If Marauders are able to intercept and take down the new UFOs, then you have to give these vessels parameters within the X-59s capabilities. You want to make the air combat a challenge, so the parameters should be at the upper end of what a Marauder can do. However, a battleship already, to some degree, occupies this position, and now you'd have three UFOs too closely clustered together in terms of performance specs.

Perhaps the destroyer could be within the Marauder's reach, but the dreadnaught beyond it. The destroyer is introduced around the time of cruisers, and a bitch, but do-able, by X-59s. Like an early battleship, and as such significantly increasing the chance for terror sites, incentivizing the X-120, and imperiling air superiority. The dreadnaught could be introduced around the time of carriers, or maybe closer to that of battleships, and be truly a "dreadnaught"; nothing has even a remote chance of stopping it but a singularity torp. This could break the three-ships-all-roughly-the-same situation?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kabill: Laughing over here. I don't know how you do it. You seem to be in all places at all times with insightful input to all threads, on top of working on a slew of maps and mods all at once. Dude, do you ever sleep...?

In response to your concern about mitigating the amount of resources available due to lack of crash sites, I liked your earlier idea: simply add to the maximum number of UFOs potentially generated per wave. The new UFOs would be an addition to, not a replacement of, the current vessels (on average).

In general, since you say you haven't played much of the late game, I personally usually have excess cash and adequate alloys by that point in the game (I've gotten to the endgame 3-4-5 times, mainly by not restarting every time GH released yet another build). Alenium is the one thing that's a bit tight, primarily due to Marauders. I am slightly concerned about the X-120's alenium cost, and unsure how much sacrifice should be demanded of a player to build one or two. Alenium can definitely be used as a control on the player's air capabilities.

Edit: In fact I think that was what alenium was specifically designed for, since it's not required in any appreciable quantities for anything else but advanced aircraft and Hyperions

Edited by dpelectric
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...