Balancing, a tricky situation.

Anyone can say "This is unbalanced, you should fix it." But actually going through and making changes to exsisting forces is not as easy as it sounds. For one, your opinion and my opinion of what a unit should be could be entirely different things, so when I say "I fixed this" you may go "It didn't need fixing".

I bring this up because right now Doug and I are working on rebalancing the entire CNC3 game, from ground up, with our own designed system. This is very important because the current game system works as follows.

There are 5 different armor types. Gun, Sniper, Grenade, Rocket, and Cannon. We are wanting to change it to Gun, Grenade, Rocket, Cannon, Beam, Flame, Missile, Laser, Rail, Mega Partical. A big difference thats for sure. But look what else we have done. We went from having 60% of the armor types dealing with infantry to 30%, just this one change makes the game shift from an infantry focus to a vehicular focus which, in all honesty, is what it should be right?

We may go even farther and add Plasma based versions of the weapons to the game as well. That would expand it even further. All of these new weapon types of course lead to a huge issue with balancing. The idea is to give players even more control over their armies and more depth to the game. Do you build the units that are spicificly designed to deal with your enemys super units or do you build the slightly weaker yet universally better units? Do we make the Scrin Shields effective against kenetic types of weapons only, or make them good universally? If we do make them kenetic only shields, what does that mean for GDI who's weapons are mostly kenetic based?

Ah, your starting to see our issue. As such, I want to let everyone know that there will be many changes going on with the balancing, so be prepaired for a lot of "fun" changes. We're trying to make things better, but if we go too far thats what your comments are for. Don't be afraid to say something, the worst we'll say is "no" right?

Our choice of engine and an interesting question.

Someone recently asked my why we decided to go with the CNC3 engine instead of one of the more "popular" game engines out there like Company of Heros or Dawn of War 2. My first knee-jerk reaction was to say "Because the original mod was on CNC Generals", but then I thought about it.

There are a lot of different game engines out there that players can choose from if they want to build a mod. CNC is definatly not one of the nicer ones out there, requiring a player to recompile the mod after every little change just to see if it went into effect properly. Talk about annoying. Other game engines like the original Dawn of War are much more user-friendly in that they use Lua Scripting instead of XML. So really, why CNC3?

The truth is once I started thinking about it I think CNC was actually the proper choice, though we may not have realized how good of a choice it was at the time. Games like Company of Heros and Dawn of War 2 are amazing games, full of great replay value and strategic choices to make to win the game. But if you step back and tried to put a Gundam into these games, it wouldn't work. These games are designed around squad level tactics and you would end up with either games being about 4 or 5 mobile suits vrs 4 or 5 other mobile suits or they would simply be too big to field on the maps the games come with.

The other engine that was very popular at the time when we started was Supreme Commander. This engine would have actually been a good choice in a lot of ways, huge maps (I mean HUGE maps), and 2 very straight forward resources (vrs CNC's Limited Resource and As much as you have space for and can afford resource). However, have you ever actually PLAYED a game of supreme commander? A 45 minute game feels like it took 2 hours, and a 3 hour game feels like it took all day. On top of that a lot of the game is played from such a high view most of the time that you just see dots moving around on the screen. In the end, it's not the effect we were wanting to go with, on top of the bigger question of "would the models we already have be compatible with it?"

CNC3 is showing that it has quite a bit of potential left in it. The only unit cap is what your computer can handle, and the AI is being found to be easy to manipulate as long as your careful (read - make back up copies after every verified working change).

So yes, the CNC engine was a good choice, and we're definatly not moving on from it. Honestly the engine I would want to make this type of game on doesn't exsist, but if you want an idea to what it would be like try to go back and play a few games of "Empire Earth", and then imagine that with a very healthy dose of "Command And Conqure Generals" and the stability of CNC3. That would be my ideal choice.

Xenoforce 9d release!

Here is this weeks update, really it's just the link to the MOD! Download the latest version of the mod here!

Please read the readme on the instructions for the game.

http://www.mediafire.com/?eyujfpfrss24d11

The next step on the mod

So now that we're almost at the next release of the mod, which will only contain UC (sorry SEED/AW fans) it's getting to be close to the time to look at what the future holds for the Earth Federation. I've been watching Gundam a lot recently trying to get new sound effects and some things have come to my attention.

UC, SEED, and AW will play very different from each other. It's almost not fair to group them all under the banner of Earth Federation. Almost lol. They will share a lot of the same basic buildings, but the more advanced buildings will be different and allow for unique feeling armys and not "cookie cutter" versions of the same army.

UC's design is based around building a wall and holding off your enemies until you have built a big enough force to go and attack. Normally if their line starts to fall then there is little you can do to stop it, but cracking that wall is a tough challenge to say the least. They have a nice mix of beam and kenetic weapons, with a heavy focus early game on artillery units.

The plans for AW are still solid, which means we know what we're going to be doing and we know how we are going to do it. Finally, we know how to do it (I think lol) so it should be VERY VERY interesting to see it come together. The AW force will be based around units. They don't have a large selection of units, but they can expand their bases rapidly and their basic units are also able to be produced rapidly early game. Late game they can switch over to an advance "Gundam" unit setup allowing them to be the army that can truly field a large "Gundam" army. Also the AW side will have access to the "Newtype Training Facility" allowing the players to build very expensive but much more powerful and quicker "Elite" units instead of having to level the units up to gain the experience. Finally AW will have access to DOME for their main defense.

Finally we have SEED. Seeds design again will be different from the other armies. Where UC focus's on defenses and AW focus's on massive unit rush's SEED will focus on specialty units. A lot of units will have a spicific roll on the field or a special ability that makes them unique. For example, you will have units that focus on firepower like the Dopplehorn Daggers, or units that foucs on kenetic resistance with Phase Shift armor like the Strike Gundam. Finally, where SEED will be very different, is that you will get a choice at some point to choose an ally. This will work from the spellbook, you either choose to research ORB as your ally or Blue Cosmos. Depending on who you choose will unlock different powers and units. ORB will give you access to an airport building giving you access to their vast arsenal of transformable mobile suits along with allowing you to call in the Archangel with the Justice and Freedom gundams. Blue Cosmos will give you access to their powerful mobile armors like the Destroy Gundam. Yea, things will definatly hit the fan when you move 4 destroy gundams out onto the battlefield (assuming I can get a model/make a model that will fill the roll of course).

So thats' our plans in a very limited nutshell. We have other ideas that we plan to implement that will continue to make these 3 sides feel alike and yet vastly different. After this release I plan on moving on to AW next, so here is hoping that I don't have to go back and do anything drastic to fix UC after this release right?

Ranks and their importance.

Normally in these games a unit ranking up to rank 4 is a "nice" bonus for a unit, but not a real goal. However in the current build of the mod that will be releasing soon I have been spending a lot of time working on making this a very important aspect of the Mobile Suits.

What this means is a rank 4 mobile suit will be something of a goal for some players. An example would be the Powered GM's. I find I use them as a kind of "fill in the gaps" defensive team during the 3rd timeline. Once I move on to the 4th timeline I use these now more advanced units (for some of them have gained ranks due to all the killing they have been doing) as a hit-and-run tactic. I send them into an undefended section of an enemy base, kill a few targets, then run away.

Why are they better ranked up? Well, in the original game as a unit ranks up it gains some basic level bonus's. Each unit in GDI for example when it levels up gains a bonus to fire rate, health, and reload speed. That's it. What the Powered GM gets is a major increase in speed, taking it from a fast mobile suit at rank 1 to a mobile suit that can actualy out-run most enemy retaliation strikes. For example, the only GDI unit that can actually hurt a rank 4 Powered GM that is running away is the Storm Orca. This is because both the normal orca and firehawk fire weapons that do not track their target, missing because by the time the weapon gets there the GM is already long gone. And other GDI units are just too slow to catch up. The storm orca can both keep up with it's enemy and fire the gattling guns while moving, making it the proper counter to hit-and-run army tactics.

We're working with a number of different ideas at the moment on what kind of bonus's a unit should get. This is our current thoughts.

Direct-Fire Artillery Units should become more accurate as they rank up, so a rank 4 artillery unit will always hit it's target.

Indirect-Fire Artillery Units should be able to fire faster as they rank up, so a rank 4 indirect unit will get 2 shots off in the time a rank 1 gets a single shot off.

Front line units will gain stat increases that help them keep alive as they fight. This means they will gain health, fire rate increases. They will also get a one time auto-field repair when they rank up.

Certain units will gain new weapons at rank 4.

Thats about as far as we've gotten. So yea, we'll see how it plays out. If you have any thoughts about this, feel free to say something.

Almost done balancing.

Whew, a full week and I'm still messing with this stuff? What am I, lazy?

Well, yea, but that's not the point.

It's actually a lot harder doing this than you may think, but I think I'm almost done with it. The major issue on the EF side wasn't just redescribing all the units and rebalancing their health/weapons/armor/cost but modifing the Experence System and it's bonus's.

What we're doing with the EF leveling is different than your typical unit when it lvls. Each lvl a unit gains a spicific bonus in any number of key areas. This could be anything from 10% health and armor boosts per level to gaining new weapons and abilities. Something we're looking to do spicificly for Gundam X is that the Gundam X unit will not be able to fire it's Sat Cannon until it reach's level 4.

So this has taken me a lot longer to do than I expected. Still, I'm almost done, now all I have to do are the Command class units (RX78, Nu Gundam, the like).

Now I'm sure your going "Command Class?" Yes, there are 5 class's of units. These are

• 
  Command
• Elite
• Troop
• Fast Attack
• Heavy Support
  

Looks familiar if your a warhammer 40k fan doesn't it? This is how it will break down.

A command class unit is a very unique unit to see on the battlefield. These units are unique, meaning you'll only ever see one of them out there at a time. This could be because they are so expensive to produce that only one or two were ever made or becuase it's a special charecter unit. Command units also have access to many special powers or upgrades, making them even stronger on the battlefield if a player invests in them.

An Elite unit is a specialtist unit. It fills a very spicific roll on the battlefield, and is very good in this roll. They are more expensive because of this, and if you send them off to do a job they're not designed to handel they will not come out on the winning end. Sometimes they even have access to one or two special powers.

A Troop class unit is a frontlines unit. They don't normally have special powers to activate, but they are well balanced and cheap units. They can fill a number of different rolls depending on the situation.

Fast Attack units are units that have given up armor and health for speed. They are ment for hit-and-run tactical attacks. They can be expected to get the first hit in in a battle, but are not designed for prolonged exposure to enemy fire.

Heavy Support units are the big monster units you see on the battlefield. Sometimes slow, always heavily armored and equipped with powerful weapons, these guys are great fire support units. However, they are also very costly.



So thats how things break down here and thats what I've been working on. I've also been working on making certain types of weapons more unique. This is how that chart is breaking down.

• 
  Gun - Machine Gun type weapons, typically used for anti-infantry usage.
  

• Grenade - Grenades are great anti-infantry weapons, doing decent blast damage and used to clear buidlings.
  

• Cannon - Kenetic based weapon, strong vrs vehicles.
  

• Missiles - Rocket based damage, small blast radius but strong impact power.
  

• Rockets - Rocket based damage, larger blast radius than missiles but the blast damage is gernade based.
  

• Beam - Beam based weapons are typically used by Mecha, they are high damage output with long reload rates.
  

• Laser - Beam based weapons, typically low damage but fast reload rates.
  

• Indirect Artillery - Cannon/Rocket based, does an even number of points of each in damage and has a high blast radius.
  

• Direct Artillery - Cannon/Grenade based, does high kenetic damage and decent blast radius damage.
  

• Flamethrower - Beam/Grenade cross weapon. The funnel effect is grenade based, but the center line of fire is low damage beam based.
  
  

So instead of 5 different types of weapons we now have 10. Makes things a bit more interesting doesn't it?

State of the balancing

So I'm currently working with Doug on a class system for the units. We've been working on this kind of thing for awhile now, basiclly it breaks down to a few important things.

We need to keep it balanced.
We need to keep it feeling right.
We want to make things fit the actual cannon of the units better.


If we can do this I think things will be fine. The biggest problem though will be the fact that we are mixing 3 drastically different Sci Fi Universe's together. CNC, Gundam, and Robotech all have advantages and disadvantages to each other so it should work well in the end, but at the moment we're having issues getting Gundam to fit properly.

And last night I think we figured out why. What it comes down to is we're trying to use CNC's system and make everything fit to that. But that would not be fair, this would give CNC an advantage as the system is theirs to begin with. So what this means is we're going to have to come up with our own system to try and get this to work, and that means overhauling everything.

Unfortunatly this means we have to go back and change the stats on the GDI/NOD/Scrin too. Ugh, extra work.

But we're making progress. If we can get something down things should work out for the better, and that's what matters right? I mean, in the end, the most important thing to us isn't the models or the material that we're pulling from, it's a balanced game with many different options given to a player.