conKORD's imbalance pack + Claustrophobia

Do the long range units still backpedal? 

Sounds awesome! I mean, I'm a turtle player for the most part, but these are all changes the base game should be using. Especially the Substrate one.

Hey nice work, good to see other people experimenting with balance!

1. Nice idea with the slow Substrate heal, might actually implement that.

2. I think you'll find some huge balance issues caused by the changed to range. For example, if Reapers stay at the maximum attack range they are unkillable wby the short range Zeus. We're aware that the current range profiles isn't performing as we would like it, it's strange for long range units to close into medium range and not make use of their full attack range, but the way movement is setup, long range units will keep backpedalling away from enemy units which makes them really hard and frustrating to kill. We are looking into a fix for this, like making it so backpedalling in combat has a much lower movement speed or none at all.

3. Some interesting ideas with air units, will have a play and see how it feels.

As for Radar, I was thinking about lowering the Quanta cost of the Radar and Building Health upgrades. 

Yes, they do. If unit can use range advantage - unit should use it.

I played a last mission in Genesis campaign and a few skirmishes. And I had no problem with unkillable ranged units. Maybe because I knew about new unit behavior and didn't used short ranged units alone. Only mixed with ranged units. In this case short ranged units became kind of damage soakers*, but ranged usually survive and provide firepower.

I agree that single Zeus vs singe Reaper will loose, but such situations are rare in battlefield.

*therefore they need HP and shield buff. I believe 30% will be ok, but I need to test it.

None is too much. But 30 - 50 percents slower will be ok. You can use modern armored vehicles as example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_2

Nice work!

After a few Artemis and Cronuses attack you might change your stance on it, it's quite frustrating.

Nice work on the mod though, always good to see some.

• Flying height doubled

You can do that?! A while back I played some Supreme commander after playing a lot of Ashes. It made me realise how low the planes in Ashes were, too low.

To be honest I think the planes could be higher and then perhaps leave the 2 gunships at the current level. 

There is a lot which could be done here, gunship level, normal plan level, high altitude bomber, and then you have different AA which can combat a mixture of those heights, or if that is too complicated then instead at least have different heights that they are optimum against while still being able to hit other height targets.

Will definitely give this a go.

I like this! ive always disliked the idea of air having so much hp, and have always wished for a "fix" other than reducing range on the long range units.

it doesnt solve the problem it just remedies a symptom...

it still doesnt fix the problem, but at least long range units work as long range units..

on the same note i havent played the game for ages except to try out the titans..

Did anybody get this working as a mod rather than copying over the original files?

I am probably missing something stupid but I can't get it to work, any help much appreciated, cheers.

Oh, flocker templates (what effects movement and height for planes) is not yet supported for modding. The file in the mod folder will not be override the one in the base game.

Allowing this is already done and will be a part of the 2.4 update. This is what we mean when we keep saying we are working on modding support.

In the meantime, putting it in your steam directory will work, but backup your files first or prepare to  validate game files when you want to go back to vanilla. 

I've experimented with modifying height values for planes. I tripled the height of the Fury, and the Sky Cleanser seemed completely incapable of hitting it. 

This no doubt effects performance of anti-air weaponry. 

So does the air height effectively work like a reduction to range (I'm imagining a dome for the range of the turrets)? If so, that could be an awesome tool to balance things. Make gunships super tough, but fly very low (So they'll be at risk from everything). Bombers at medium height, fighters/scouts up high (So they basically evade most turrets). Increase the range of AA turrets all around.

I am not sure how exactly range factors into engaging air targets. I played around for a while and I noticed tripling the height of Furies made Sky Cleansers miss every shot against them and incapable of damaging them despite firing at them regularly.

I realised I would need to examine and measure the performance of AA units extensively in changing this, so I have left it for now.

Presumably though you have access to programmers who could extend AA range if necessary (if it was a code issue).

Thanks for the explanations to why the OP's changes didn't work in mod form. Glad to hear mod support is growing in the near future.

Did you change the projectile speed of AA weapons (as in this mod)? If air unit fly high and have enough speed - then weapons with slow projectiles won't be able to hit.

Yes, archive with the mod contain backup of original files.

Changes since first version:

Updated to 2.4

1) Units with max range greater than 500 will try to stay at maximum range of their weapons (but not greater than 800 - enough to outrange other units)

1) Units with keep range, where they can deal at least half of total DPS.

2) Air rebalance:

• HP, shield and shield regen halved
• DPS of anti-air weapons halved

These changes are part of 2.4 update.

3) Doubled range of stationary radars

3) Range buffed by only 50%. With reduced cost of radar upgrades it's enough

4) Not changed

5) Drones have engagement range equal to sight range of mothership.

Results:

• Drones feel more aggressive.
• Motherships will be more like a modern carriers that use strikecraft to engage remote targets.

6) Engineers can be built in factory and assembly.

Results:

• It should be easier to expand and maintain remote outposts.

New mod:

Claustrophobia

Weapon range, sight range, radar range and drone engagement range doubled.

Just for fun

Download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwQXBzhWm95QR3VoM05DbDQydWs/view?usp=sharing

 Updated to 2.5

Major changes:

1) Units will keep range, where they can deal at least half of total DPS.

Removed small sight range buff for long range units (this was not listed)

2) Air rebalance:

Not changed

3) Range buffed by only 50%. With reduced cost of radar upgrades it's enough

In 2.5 radars have enough range

4) Substrate got hull regen equal to 1/5 of shield regen now. It worth nothing in battle, but provide option to heal nexus or damaged 5-starred dreadnought at base.

Not changed

5) Drones have engagement range equal to sight range of mothership.

With 2.5 this rule granted to drones even more attack range.

6) Engineers can be built in factory and assembly.

Not changed

Claustrophobia

Updated to 2.5

Download:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwQXBzhWm95QR3VoM05DbDQydWs/view?usp=sharing