ROTR: Tactics, A tentative submod discussion Options

[Zarax]

Hopefully this is the right place for it...
I came to love ROTR faction and unit variety but at the same time I feel that the fast pace (or maybe I'm getting old, who knows) tends to leave short windows to enjoy the various unit peculiarities, while the greater number of units tends to overload the engine (I know it's SAGE's fault), creating a laggy experience even on powerful machines.

After fiddling with the INI files for a while (something I'm still learning with trial and error) to learn how much this can be potentially changed I think a nice sub-mod could be made, offering an alternative experience while retaining ROTR unique feeling.

Here are the basic ideas:

1) Radically increase vehicle and most buildings cost and production times
2) Improve armor and weapon specialization
3) Increase tiering detail, creating a more gradual unit unlocking system

What I'm aiming at:

1) Making infantry vital early on and key on map control in later phases
2) Greater importance of economy management
3) (A lot) Less vehicles around but much more relevant and feeling less fragile and more of a force multiplier
4) An improved feeling of escalation, where you don't feel like you have a mini version of a MIC but rather of an army that gets gradually heavier resource allocation
5) A stronger quality VS quantity choice in strategy for most factions (GLA and ECA would be the exceptions as they are specialistic factions)
6) Specialized units and weapons, where bringing the wrong weapon against a certain unit will be much more cost ineffective.

I will be slowly working on this on my own but any help and feedback would be extremely welcome, especially from more experienced members.
What do you guys think?

Alpha 1 is now attached, this is a simple first cost revision

How to install:

1) backup your rotr_ini.big
2) extract this into your rotr folder

This post has been edited by Zarax: 11 Jul 2015, 11:52

Attached File(s)

 _Rotr_INI.rar ( 912.65K ) Number of downloads: 1

 

[Megazord]

Yeah, that's a great idea. I thought about prepering that kind of mod myself, but I always hesitated because of the current state of RotR. You never know when the new version will be released and what changes will it bring.

Anyway, I recommend waiting at least until the next stable release. And log everything you do in a separate file

[XAttus]

You are of course free to make your own adjustments but keep in mind that you won't be able to play multiplayer without the original INIs and a lot of people here (including myself) are focused on pvp based gameplay - that works pretty well with the current setup and it's a vastly different from ZH.

As an experienced member (I think xD) I'd say don't do it and learn to play multiplayer - where your intended goals already shine if you know your way in the game. But of course this is only my subjective opinion and I too found it fun to tinker with INIs so I can understand that too.

Everyone will add their own ideas to this discussion and you'll quickly end up with a mess of suggestions so make sure to set what you want to achieve and filter out others' opinions accordingly.

[Zarax]

Yeah, that's a great idea. I thought about prepering that kind of mod myself, but I always hesitated because of the current state of RotR. You never know when the new version will be released and what changes will it bring.

Anyway, I recommend waiting at least until the next stable release. And log everything you do in a separate file

What do you suggest using for modding?
I've been dabbling with finalbig so far and it seems to work although it crashes on some stuff (like AI inis).
It would be also helpful to know what are the maximum values for price and build time as I tend to get startup errors in many places.

[XAttus]

Notepad++ is great for editing the files themselves, and you don't have to repack them into a big, if you extract everything into your data folder it will work and you can edit the files right away. For this it's really useful to make a clean copy of your original game folder and do the experiments there.

Incase you didn't know, if the game crashes then you can find out more in releasecrashinfo.txt, it's in your Documents/ZH data folder.

As for max. values, I don't know but I believe that they are well above the longest reasonable ones and you should not think about increasing things that far.

This post has been edited by XAttus: 9 Jul 2015, 8:53

[Zarax]

Notepad++ is great for editing the files themselves, and you don't have to repack them into a big, if you extract everything into your data folder it will work and you can edit the files right away. For this it's really useful to make a clean copy of your original game folder and do the experiments there.

Incase you didn't know, if the game crashes then you can find out more in releasecrashinfo.txt, it's in your Documents/ZH data folder.

As for max. values, I don't know but I believe that they are well above the longest reasonable ones and you should not think about increasing things that far.

Depends on your idea of reasonable, I'm considering 10x to 20x cost values for many things...

[Knjaz.]

x10-x20? With current gathering rates?

Ugh... okay. I guess you'll end up with total rebalance of everything as well.

This post has been edited by Knjaz.: 9 Jul 2015, 9:05

[Zarax]

x10-x20? With current gathering rates?

Ugh... okay. I guess you'll end up with total rebalance of everything as well.
I can only recommend a "realism" approach, at such rates.

Look for "Cold War Crisis" mod for more clues on what can be done....

That was the idea from the start, making the player use a lot more infantry for map control and saving armor for strategic pushes.
To counterbalance, for example throwing conscripts at a tank won't work almost at all even when garrisoned, while an unit effective against super-heavy tanks won't be very effective against a bunch of light vehicles.

[Fulcrum]

I like the idea, I had a similar one recently - infantry/small scale tactics.

I think increasing costs is a poor way to change the focus. Instead add some other limit. Maybe have it so instead of power plants powering building you have capturable fuel depot (power plant) used to power everything including vehicles. That way you are forced to compete for parts of the map and then have to assign resources differently, you can afford a tank but if you do it might stop you building some other type of unit until you capture another depot/lose a unit.

[Zarax]

I like the idea, I had a similar one recently - infantry/small scale tactics.

I think increasing costs is a poor way to change the focus. Instead add some other limit. Maybe have it so instead of power plants powering building you have capturable fuel depot (power plant) used to power everything including vehicles. That way you are forced to compete for parts of the map and then have to assign resources differently, you can afford a tank but if you do it might stop you building some other type of unit until you capture another depot/lose a unit.

That's a good idea but beyond my current modding capabilities...

[Fulcrum]

That's a good idea but beyond my current modding capabilities...

Hmm I think the power and tank thing might be a hard limit for the engine...

Having power limited to capturable buildings would cause a different type of gameplay though.

Also if you had capturable defences - like in rotr the oil pumps rebuild there could be a capturable defence building which when destroyed turns into a full health, neutral, capturable base defence again. Likewise for long range artillary, possibly airports or vehicle production. Probably out of the scope of your projects ideas though.

[Cracky]

Judging from your aims and ideas, it seems your trying to make it more micro demanding.

[{Lads}RikerZZZ]

Judging from your aims and ideas, it seems your trying to make it more micro demanding.

Nothing wrong with that

[Cracky]

Nothing wrong with that

Why do I always end up getting contradicted by you.

[Zarax]

Judging from your aims and ideas, it seems your trying to make it more micro demanding.

Not necessarily, I'd say just more tiered.
ROTR already has all the pieces, it just needs a way to make games longer to enjoy them all.

[Sanguivorant]

Infantry tend to lose their relevance pretty quickly, I agree.

After five minutes, infantry only gets used in special cases, like when you're doing a fast bombardment (pioneer/lynx/gunship combo), or using conscripts to re-enter your damaged but reclaimed vehicles.

Some units you just don't see again. A bomb truck is superior to a hoard of terrorists, who are only used for terror rushes most of the game.

the rest of the game is all about tank management, proper timing and air micro.

[SiR Chaff]

Infantry tend to lose their relevance pretty quickly, I agree.

After five minutes, infantry only gets used in special cases, like when you're doing a fast bombardment (pioneer/lynx/gunship combo), or using conscripts to re-enter your damaged but reclaimed vehicles.

Some units you just don't see again. A bomb truck is superior to a hoard of terrorists, who are only used for terror rushes most of the game.

the rest of the game is all about tank management, proper timing and air micro.

[XAttus]

Infantry tend to lose their relevance pretty quickly, I agree.

After five minutes, infantry only gets used in special cases, like when you're doing a fast bombardment (pioneer/lynx/gunship combo), or using conscripts to re-enter your damaged but reclaimed vehicles.

Some units you just don't see again. A bomb truck is superior to a hoard of terrorists, who are only used for terror rushes most of the game.

the rest of the game is all about tank management, proper timing and air micro.

This is completely invalid in PvP gameplay.

So please, to all of you... try it out in multiplayer and put some effort into learning it or you will be missing a great part of this mod and the area where it shines the most.

[Zarax]

This is completely invalid in PvP gameplay.

So please, to all of you... try it out in multiplayer and put some effort into learning it or you will be missing a great part of this mod and the area where it shines the most.

I know this is a MP focused mod but there's also a niche of players that just want to relax rather than compete...

[Grim Tuesday]

This is completely invalid in PvP gameplay.

So please, to all of you... try it out in multiplayer and put some effort into learning it or you will be missing a great part of this mod and the area where it shines the most.

I agree with you XAttus.
Whenever I see those biased posts I am like WTF. But usually I dont respond to them, because there is too many of them and if you write so short answer like you do, they wont understand how to use them anyway, so I would have to write tons of text.
You see the response anyway: "I know this is a MP focused mod but there's also a niche of players that just want to relax rather than compete..."

To Zarax: It is reeeeeeeally easy to use infantry. You know the nice unit called troop crawler? Fill it with Redguards, then buy another TC and fill it with RG again, then buy three battlemasters and few gattling cannons. You will see how much dmg can infantry do. (Hint: A LOT!)
And no skill is needed.

[Zarax]

I agree with you XAttus.
Whenever I see those biased posts I am like WTF. But usually I dont respond to them, because there is too many of them and if you write so short answer like you do, they wont understand how to use them anyway, so I would have to write tons of text.
You see the response anyway: "I know this is a MP focused mod but there's also a niche of players that just want to relax rather than compete..."

To Zarax: It is reeeeeeeally easy to use infantry. You know the nice unit called troop crawler? Fill it with Redguards, then buy another TC and fill it with RG again, then buy three battlemasters and few gattling cannons. You will see how much dmg can infantry do. (Hint: A LOT!)
And no skill is needed.

Yes but then you can wait 10 minutes and just send 10 fully upgraded overlords to deliver even more devastating results.

[Grim Tuesday]

Yes but then you can wait 10 minutes and just send 10 fully upgraded overlords to deliver even more devastating results.

A lot of things can happen in 10 minutes. BTW, 10 inferno cannons with upgrade > 10 overlords

[M.P]

Yes but then you can wait 10 minutes and just send 10 fully upgraded overlords to deliver even more devastating results.

Dude, All you're saying fits in SP gameplay not MP

Remember, in that 10 mins, a lot of things can happen. Your 10 overs can easily get beaten.

Each one costs 1800 (I think it was 1800 in the latest test build). 10 overs cost 18000. Upgrades cost more. (We say 35000 total)

Now, what can you do with 35000 to counter Overs?

Russia: Spam Golems, Sentinels + RPG Conscripts, Shock troopers, Missile Kodiak spam, Hinds + Goliath, Hellions + Goliath (This one works better).

GLA: Demo traps, BUGGIES! (Which can hard counter them), RPG troopers' TNT charges (Or you can put them in overs path to explode them, and considering u unlocked the GP), Angry mobs.

USA: AT Drones, Tomahawks, Raptors, Paladins + HTL + Comp armor, Jevelins, Termite Drones.

ECA: JAGD MAMMUTS!, Gun turrets, C4 Charges, Mines, Mole mines, Harriers.

So?

This post has been edited by MPGM: 11 Jul 2015, 1:16

[Zarax]

Dude, All you're saying fits in SP gameplay not MP

Remember, in that 10 mins, a lot of things can happen. Your 10 overs can easily get beaten.

Each one costs 1800 (I think it was 1800 in the latest test build). 10 overs cost 18000. Upgrades cost more. (We say 35000 total)

Now, what can you do with 35000 to counter Overs?

Russia: Spam Golems, Sentinels + RPG Conscripts, Shock troopers, Missile Kodiak spam, Hinds + Goliath, Hellions + Goliath (This one works better).

GLA: Demo traps, BUGGIES! (Which can hard counter them), RPG troopers' TNT charges (Or you can put them in overs path to explode them, and considering u unlocked the GP), Angry mobs.

USA: AT Drones, Tomahawks, Raptors, Paladins + HTL + Comp armor, Jevelins, Termite Drones.

ECA: JAGD MAMMUTS!, Gun turrets, C4 Charges, Mines, Mole mines, Harriers.

So?

So like I said I'm aiming for relaxing SP rather than competitive MP, I'm afraid this is apples VS oranges...

Look, it's pretty simple: I love ROTR design and features but I don't have the kind of uninterrupted free time that is required for MP so I'm trying to create a slower paced single player experience.
I'm not asking the dev team to change anything in regular ROTR so this won't affect anyone playing MP.

[Zarax]

Double posting to announce the first version is out, details in the first post.
Please note that it's a VERY rough first attempt and balance is going to need several improvements.