Nexa34

:'( Oh that's really a shame... :'( It looked like such a cool mod, especially with all the tleilaxu units. Oh well, at least we filled up 3 pages of ideas ;D And Aristeas finished his mod, so it's not all lost. While we're at it, maybe if you have the files for some of the new Tleilaxu units, give them to Aristeas so he can fiddle with them and incorporate them into his mod??? They seem pretty balanced after all our discussion about them, after all...

[JulesG mod] I don't think APCs will have the crush ability; I thought they'd have hover? Though how would that work with the Tleilaxu one, I have no idea... But Aristeas has a good point; what's to stop a player from spamming 50 APCs and rushing someone? They'd get through the base defenses by unloading infantry outside and mortaring turrets, then send the APCs in and literally "crush" all resistance. :'( And even a missile tank would be overwhelmed by enough APCs rushing it; since the missile tank takes so long to ship that becomes a serious balance issue. But the Tleilaxu one hovering would seem weird, and it not crushing infantry would seem even weirder... The other two houses could easily have hover APCs, however, so they would be balanced. [Aristeas mod] Wow, it seems like you really got that mod of yours going! Sounds great fun to play. :)

[JulesG mod] The cloaked trike sounds like fun, but will it not be imbalanced? I mean, the other tanks are at least detectable; you know your enemy's got them, so you can try to counter them with hordes of infantry or your own tanks... But those trikes could just infiltrate a base, they are pretty small after all. Combine that with the fact their guns will do a lot of damage up close... I think I'd take them every time, compared to the other tanks. I'd like to see people choosing different tanks and everything, not just maxing one type. How about extra weapons? Laser, flame, missile, whatever sound like fun (just not sonic, or else why bother with the sonic tank? :D) On the same note, if we need to add an extra tank to make up for the campaign reinforcements, then your initial idea is great. The tank's nice and slow, can easily be deviated, etc. and it looks just too good. However, I say play around with laser, sonic, inkvine, and flamers, see what looks the coolest; we need some new weaps and a flame gun would nicely complement a medium range laser/missile (that can hit air).

[JulesG mod] I'm not so fond of scouts equiped with a ranged weapon, mainly for ballance issues. At the speed and cost of a scout, plus it's superb line of sight and cloaking ability, giving it a gun, even a weak one, would be a very dicy thing to do. However, in keeping with Sardukar doctrine, I would still give it a weapon; I propose the knife. Maybe try it and see if that's ballanced. I think scouts should not carry range, it's not a scout then, it's a sniper. Engineer guns should be weak. Nothing close to an infantry gun; it's just for "fluff" reasons and those odd 1 in a million shots that wins you a game. :O I don't think Corrino should be allowed to build tanks, even if that tank is even weaker than in COTL, just to keep infantry the focal point of the mod. (It's speed vs. firepower wasn't much use in assaults, but it was great for base defense, as a turret of sorts)

Okay, because we'll now be sharing the forum between two mods, I propose we put the mod we are going to talk about in brackets at the beginning of our posts. [JulesG mod] Something that just crossed my mind; about the Corrino engineer, make him carry a gun, like the Harkonnen engineer. The Sardukar troops despise being unable to defend themselves and their leaders, so it seems characteristic for their engineers to still be able to shoot. Besides, the gun itself (unless I'm mistaken, never tried shooting with the Harkonnen engineer) is weak. It's just as a nice extra touch, to stay in character, and should be easy seeing as Corrino = Hark in your new mod. Tleilaxu unit balance; how are things looking? Guild units: could you give us all more explanations about their units, for example general info about their weapons, what you've changed etc. please? So that we can see how it all fits in?

On the sniper sandtrike; I say extend the range of the original one. I think that's all there needs to be done, they already instant kill infantry. It gives a solid alternative to stronger tanks; they're relatively cheap, have long range, and are fast. Since all the other tanks (thopter not included)are far slower, someone who wants to outmaneuver a group of infantry or have a rapid reaction force against harvester raids can. As well, they outshoot AA troopers, making them more safe than the other 3 options (missile tank has range but no real stopping power against a handful of AA troopers). So they'd need to be rushed; suddenly it looks like a very enticing option! All in all, there's not a "super order combo" that'll wipe out the enemy if you order it; it depends on your playing style and on your opponent, which is a good thing. Once again, though, make delivery times long or else we'll be playing a very weird game of rock paper cissors. ;D

On the sandtrike; let's look at what would be wanted: something fast, to make up for the infantry's slowness to redeploy (even with an APC it takes time) something able to outrange the sonic tank by a long shot (or else why bother?) something able to kill infantry in 1 shot something weak so that if hit by the enemy, dies quickly (for balance issues) So a sniper sandtrike works; just it's gun should have a semi-fast refire rate, or else it's a waste of money and shipment time. (If it reloads as fast as an orni, and the orni insta-kills as well, then no-one would buy it) As a side note, thinking about the flame tank; what if allying to one of the old major houses would give you the ability to ship 1 tank they usually have from the starport? They are after all more powerful still than the other subhouses... Though of course this entirely depends what the limit on tanks is; we don't want it becoming a mech fest in the end :D

About the CHAOM starport units: -Flame tank isn't for when you ally with Harkonnen? I think it makes more sense if Hark keeps a monopoly on all the flame things, unless it's a balance issue, just as an extra incentive. -CHOAM beam tank, upon reflection, would be way too good in an infantry mod. I can take down an AI base with 3 in COTL, so... -Instead of flame tank, a missile tank might work; long range AA + long range against turrets to break up sniper/turret camping, plus it's weak against infantry so needs a permanent escort -Ornithopter was pretty much agreed on, it's a good idea -Sandtrike sounds good as a cheap anti infantry option; though if Quad doesn't have AA ability, what's the point of ordering them? It's not like there's going to be a lot of tanks...And would you really bother shipping a Quad when you could have a flame tank/missile tank? (Depending which one stays) -How about replacing both the Kobra and the Quad with a sonic tank? It's short range, therefore easy to counter, and would have to be used very carefully with your troops. It would protect the missile tanks, and so a 3 missile 3 sonic tanks would prove a good end-game combo, supported by infantry. -Sandtrike would need to be cheaper than the others, as well as more resilient to infantry fire/have a slightly longer range, to make it a viable option. (If you could take a sonic tank with about the same range, why bother?) To sum it up, here's my suggestion: -Missile tank -Sonic tank -Sandtrike -Ornithopter As you can see, only 3 tanks and 1 plane! I think that that would really emphasise the infantry's role. Appart from that, the Tleilaxu unit changes look good, and I agree for the choice of lvl 3 veterans that can go back into the barracks. (BTW, I totally love the idea of a mini-leech without weapons as a scout)

I really like the new veteran idea; seems very balanced to me, and would be strange to see a contaminator teach another ;D I agree with the new Thopter idea. I for one would go for CHAOM tanks, seeing how good they are in COTL, but three Thopters would reduce them to wrecks quite fast... Therefore making it balanced because 10 AA troopers would protect my tanks, while a superweapon would sadly get rid of them. It really sounds great so far, I think all the lists came out nicely. What's the progress of the mod? On that note, is there ANY hope of new maps?

If you can build thopters, even with a looong build time, there would still be those who would spam snipers and turrets until they had 30... Weakening thopters, maybe, but if that's done it might be unrealistic. I think it would be a question of balance, once again. Therefore, I say reinforcements only for thopters would be a good idea. But can you make reinforcements available in skirmish mode? On that line, what would the other reinforcements be? I'm thinking along the lines of veterans, (2 to 3 stripes maybe) your faction's infantry superunit, or units that are usually campaign only. (For example, extra types of gholas for the Tleilaxu 8)) On veterancy, I think that being able to build veterans would unbalance it; I love the idea, but why build a non-veteran when you can spam lvl 3? Even if they take more time, they'd be so much better :O However, how about making all barracks (or infantry constructing buildings, whatever they're called by the new factions)like the Atreides barracks; you can send lvl 3 soldiers back into it, allowing you to build that type of infantry at 1 veterancy lvl higher than usual. I think this should give you the feel of a more realistic battle; mechs are very expensive, only excalating battles would warrant their deployment as they would weaken other areas' defences. Infantry being trained by their peers is realistic; obviously in such a war lvl 3 veterans would become very valuable to train the next generation of soldiers.

I don't think CHOAM would have specific TL planes in stock ;D I'd say a cap of 3, if possible, and make them expensive plus have a long build time, but not that you have to order them. That's just for the graphics; I'd like to see a TL plane, an Ix plane, etc. for a little variety. Oh, and speaking of stopping contamination: add Suboids to Ix, make them immune to goo, contamination, and deviation, make them cheap and fast to build, but very, very bad. Maybe make them have range 0 but a strong sword/gun, or a weak range and a weak gun. With TL and Ix at each other's throats for so long, I think they'd have gotten adequate protection from their dirty weapons; besides, look at how bulky the Suboid work suits are! If it can handle Ix weird chemicals and machinery construction, then it would offer the best protection against TL as possible. Against non-TL opponents, they'd be nice cannon fodder; the way you'd take down a nest of lvl 3 snipers.

:'( Whoops, I made an error in my list; the heavy contaminator should read: -Heavy contaminator (extra armour and health, walking bomb) Srry for the confusion...

Here's what I came up with: -Scout -Sardaukar Clone -ADVFremen Clone -Short-range deviator Engineer (stealthwhenstill) -Long-range deviator Kindjal -Normal Contaminator (fast build and cheap) -Heavy contaminator (extra armour and health, slowly dies) -Leech -APC -TLWorm- spits poison splat (Leech attack graphic, Death Hand goo) [Campaign extra clones] Now, it looks like a very fun force to play with! :) A good balance between deviator, goo damage (i.e. remains in play) and contaminators, plus normal attacks from the cloned units. Only to clarify 1 thing; the Sardukar is the advanced one, right? Or else we've got an AA problem... Could you post the other two faction's lists like that please? So that we might see how balanced the Tleilaxu list would be?

How about making the TLworm spit the radioactive goo? Leaving the big tleilaxu tank thing as an APC. TL would already have 2 solid deviator units anyways.

Speaking goo vs. deviator, a little change in weapons type would be nice. Stealing other units is fun, but sometimes extra damage is better, for example against buildings, which the bomb would be designed to knock out. But definitely go for the most balanced. There's nothing as frustrating as a superbly designed mod that's sadly unbalanced. About the superdeadly unit; it sounds almost too good. I know it's a super unit, extremely slow and expensive and all, but in an all-infantry game it seems it could take on an entire army; if you get attacked, just send one out; the enemy has to retreat all the way back to his base. If you're attacking, he has to stay behind flame turrets the entire time while you pound the turrets out of their range! So basically there's nothing he can do. If he tries to come out, and the supercontaminator touches even just one soldier (not a hard thing to do) then they now have 2 to kill. And could you imagine an assault led by an APC carrying 5 of those! :O Maybe make touched enemies become regular contaminators? Then again, not sure how good the other superunits are; maybe this is to balance them out. Maybe get a friend or someone else from here to make a few maps; nothing massive, even just 1. It would be a very refreshing thing to play with new units on a new map!