New Emperor Mod - Infantry Based

[JulesG]

Ok lets start the talk about using guns...

you said "AT light infantry with ATpillboxgun" and that Chem trooper uses one of the Ordos turret guns (not sure whether it is the gas turret or the popupgun turret).

If you scroll through the RULEs file you will come to the listing of WARHEADS (eg HMG_W) which dictate the damage levels a bullet does by each type of armour (in %) then the BULLETS (eg HMG_B) which tell you the amount of damage a bullet does, splash area, speed, (-1 means instant hit), whether it is accurate (homing), damage to friendly units, sfx effects and what WARHEAD it uses.

Next you come to WEAPONS eg [ATPILLBOXGUN] which determine the BULLET used, sfx effects, whether it has to reload (ornithopters only) AND ROTATION.

All infantry weapons do not have ROTATION (Y is horizontal, X is vertical), so giving the ATR Infantry the ATPILLBOXGUN without disabling rotation (use // in front of the line to disable) allows the unit to fire while facing AWAY from the enemy!

SUBHOUSES - IX and TL and GUILD

I expect that Sniper disabled these three buildings search for [TLFLESHVAT] or [iXRESCENTRE] or [GUPALACE] look for a line //PrimaryBuilding =

Remove the // and the buildings will be constructable again.

The reverse process within each infantry definition eg [ATINFANTRY] will stop the production of that unit.

[Nexa34]

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?

[Aristeas]

I agree but I would think that any military engineer would carry at least a handgun.  I would make an engineer into an infantryman that could also take over buildings.

Aristeas mod

I've attached the rules file that I've been playing on.  I haven't fixed the issue with the Guild, TL, and Ix being able to be built. 

All units are now Elite = TRUE

No Scouts

Snipers have been given the view range of scouts and can stealth when still upon creation. Equipped with Fremen Warrior guns.

Fremen Warriors now only buildable by House Atreides.  Increased view to the same as scouts.

Harkonnen Light Infantry now have all the same capability as Sardaukar except that they have Hark Infantry armor and 200 less health than a Sardaukar.

Atreides Infantry have Sardaukar guns

Ordos Chem troopers now have the turret gas gun.  Increased speed to 9. Can attack at range with gas turret gun or up close with their traditional attack. No armor. Low health...575.  They're very powerful, especially in groups.  Maybe overpowered. 

Sardaukar Elites now use Sardaukar guns instead of lasers.  Still have the knife.

Sarkaukar regulars have been removed from the game

All houses get Harkonnen engineers

 

Atreides Units:

Fremen Warrior

Infantry

AA Trooper

Engineer

Harkonnen Units

Infantry

Flamer

Sniper

Trooper

Engineer

Ordos Units

Chem Trooper

AA Trooper

Sniper

Engineer

Imperial Units

Kinjals

Elite Sardaukar

Fremen Units

Feds

Mortar

Rules.txt

[JulesG]

I agree but I would think that any military engineer would carry at least a handgun.  I would make an engineer into an infantryman that could also take over buildings.

I like the weak engineer, it balances instant capture (unlike C&C Generals or BFMEII where armed units take time to capture).

[MyMod]

Busy at work (only Business Advisor, other two off sick and on hols) means I have had little time recently, however I found time to complete the rough building textures for all GUILD buildings (including GuPalace) on the CHOAM textures in COTL and create a new looking GuBarracks (derived from ATR barracks). All building damage models to do of course. Units for Guild ended up as:

//GUILD Infantry

Scout

Chemical Trooper - as anti-contaminator unit

Sniper with slow weaker lr weapon going to fast weaker lr weapon at tier 3

Engineer

Plasma Mortar unit

Heavy Beam Trooper - range reduced to 10 and anti-infantry effect reduced since first tests.

Guild Captain with IMSardaukar machinegun

GU Sandcrawler APC (campaign, non-build)

GU Sandcrawler APC

GuMaker with increased armour (Light) and health (now 1750)

GuNIAB Tank (std unit)

Just started inital work on Corrino and unit plans look to be:

//CORRINO Infantry

Scout - I wonder if this unit as a Sard should have at least a pistol...

Flamer unit - as anti-contaminator unit

Sardaukar

Engineer

Mortar Unit

Heavy Flamer (campaign only non-build)

Sardaukar Sniper which is a slow heavy damage lr weapon but no weapon upgrade at tier 3

Co Sandcrawler APC

ADVSard

Corrino General

Corrino Terror Tank - thinking of what I did in my very first mod where I had a Devastator with Lasers and Hawk missiles...it slowness and if I make missiles and lasers short range would make it vulnerable to Guild Beam Troopers and Tleilaxu Deviator Kindjal or Deviator Leech.

[Nexa34]

[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)

[JulesG]

No progress recently on mod as I have been playing C&C3 campaign mode.

Thinking about previous comments:

Missile Tank and Sonic Tank are both quite "weak" tanks in many ways so to buff up the snipertrike to same level of desirability I will make it stealthed, but the sniper gun will then become short range very-heavy damamge weapon.

Corrino Devastator - A number of Hark missions airlift in Devs so perhaps instead of the dev we could have a second lightly armoured APC (in addition to heavy armoured sandcrawler APC) that carries an ATPillBox gun (longer range Sardaukar machinegun)...

[Nexa34]

[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).

[Aristeas]

Jules' Mod

Is there a way to make it so APCs can't cush infantry short of making all infantry uncrushable?  A small fleet of them could work hell on an army running toward your base...a little too much hell IMO. 

A cloaked trike, unless everyone can get them it seems like it would be a bit much to me too. But is kinda nifty.  I'd like it better in a different kind of mod.

Aristeas' Mod

I fixed the issue with the Subhouses. They're all active now.  I'm having to do some more balancing though. 

With the sniper/scouts....it really isn't a balancing issue if everyone has snipers.  As it stands all scouts are disabled.  I feel that they're a superfluous unit and not very realistic. In the real military "scouts" are very often just infantry on recon missions...often these are also snipers. (just wanted to explain the how I came to the decision for getting rid of scouts).  HK and OR get snipers (with FRWarriorgun) with view range 20 (same as a scout).  AT get Fremen Warriors with view range 18.

I think I'm close to being done with everything I'm going to change except for the chemtrooper.  I want every house to have a "super unit".  The AT get the Fremen Warrior, the Harks get Sards (in the Light infantry model) and the Ordos will get the suped up chemtrooper.

A question for you Jules...actually 2.  How can I change the default color of the AI enemy?  I really hate pink. 

And is there a way to make an "Atreides" sniper into and Ordos or Harkonnen sniper.  When someone playing House Harkonnen hovers their mouse over one of their snipers it would be nice if the label said "Harkonnen Sniper".  Neither are big deals really but they'd be nice touches.

[Nexa34]

[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.  :)

[Aristeas]

Yeah, but I'm not doing any where near what Jules is doing. I'm pretty much just switching around some of the units. I'm also changing some of the speed and capabilities of a few units but I'm not creating any new ones. But it is fairly fun so far...hell...modding the game is turning out to be fun within itself :). Hopefully I'll be able to finish it up this weekend though and I'll post the whole file.

Now that I'm able to use all of the sub houses I've selected their units:

Ix: infiltrator and the ordos dust scout (extended build times and higher cost)

Tleilaxu: fast contaminator (with slightly extended range) and the ordos saboteur. (I might give the TL their leeches back though to counter the dust scout offered by the Ix. Then just make Contaminators available in the Starport)

Guild: maker and ordos eye in the sky (the eye in the sky...c'mon...that should have been a Guild unit to begin with. Did the people that made the game bother to read the books?)

Starport units: Regular Sardaukar, Ordos Saboteur, Ordos Mortar troops, AT Kinjals.

Might add a few other infantry units to the starport. I did have it so that you could buy harvesters from the starport but I had to take that out. For some reason the AI kept buying harvesters from its starport instead of units and...well...that just annoyed the hell out of me. Well...it did this when I had 2 IA enemies. One of them seemed to not use the starport at all where the other one kept buying harvesters. On the other hand, maybe the AI knew what it was doing because crowding its base with harvesters made it harder to take down that base with infantry.  I kept having to take out harvesters while the base guns mowed down my troops.

[JulesG]

[Julesg mod]

I have decided to abandon development of the mod - I am not enjoying creating it. I am also very busy at work and in my free time I am finding relaxing with C&C3 is much more fun than fiddling with the mod.

[Aristeas]

Thats too bad.  What you had so far looked interesting. 

On a brighter note, I'm done with mine and I'm going to post it tonight.  Just need to make the readme file.  So Jules, at least another mod came out of your abandoned one.  Hopefully folks will dig it. :)

[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...

[Aristeas]

Well...here it is.  You should just be able to extract it to C:WestwoodEmperorDATA. 

The goal here was to take existing units and disperse them amongst the houses and subhouses to balance the game for infantry only.  I ended up having to modify some units.  I also tried to take out at least a little of the micromanagement by making buildings and harvesters selfrepairing. (not sure how much that actually helps)  Hope you enjoy it.

InfantryMix.zip