[CNC] progress on the mod & future directions

[psydev]

Changes I am working on in CNC, and the rationales for them. (Edit: updated changes that have been made and possible future tweaks)

CNC is a bit different from RA, mostly because RA has changed so much from its classic form. Some things have changed in CNC, though, too.
My goals in general have been to give a role to each unit, such as the Jeep and infantry, which play a minimal role. Currently, I am trying to add some variety by creating multiple tech tree branches (like in RA, where various buildings are required as pre-requisites). In CNC, it is just -> Communications Center -> Temple of Nod/Adv. Comm. Center.

Changes made in the past by others or myself:
- Giving players who build a Communications Center an airstrike weapon.
- Making the Airstrike appropriately destructive, and making the plane scout the map.
- Artillery and MLRS given long ranges (comparable to RA), and balanced out. (Artillery explodes).
- APC now has an anti-aircraft gun.
- Adjusting building HPs according to air strikes and ion cannon/nuke strength.
- Chemical warriors were made to be somewhat effective against vehicles, to differentiate them from Flamethrowers.
- Increased the transport helicopter's capacity from 5 to 10, to allow large-scale infantry transport without lots of micromanagement and tons of helis.

The major changes to the balance. (I now consider major edits to the game's unit stats is now basically complete. Future changes will be minor tweaks.)
People have often complained that C&C is "too armored" (tanks would take forever to be killed, especially by other tanks, making it hard to control territory) and that it's fairly unbalanced (e.g. annoying reliance on bike spam). I tried to add some tactical possibilities to the game by rewarding units able to get behind enemy lines and kill vulnerable units (e.g. artillery) before getting annihilated. I also found that the machine gun on the Hum-vee and Buggy was next to useless--it is now more powerful vs. infantry and also has a chance to destroy a light vehicle. Tank firing rates were pretty slow and they missed a lot, and didn't do much damage, especially against lighter units. I think that the boost to their firing rate is needed, and won't make units in C&C too easily killed.
- Machine-gun on Hum-vee and Nod Buggy considerably buffed vs. infantry and light vehicles
- Previously underpowered Rocket Troops (E3) damage vs. heavy armor increased from 8 to 15 dmg/sec.
- Bike Rocket damage vs. heavy armor increased from 9 to 23. (It's not as drastic as it sounds, since tanks get a firing rate boost). Rocket bike cost increased from $400 to $500.
- Stealth Tank missiles now do +50% damage vs. heavy armor. Small burstdelay added to firing, to add some risk to the second shot.
- Tank firing rate increased +50%. Damage rates are now close to RA values. Damage vs. light vehicles raised from 75% to 100%.
- APC's anti-aircraft gun now fires at ground units too. It is good vs. vehicles, ok vs. tanks, and poor vs. infantry. It is designed as a soft counter to rocket bikes and artillery, and to transport rocket soldiers to the front line.
- Transport helicopters reduced in price from $1500 to $750, to make use for infantry transport not prohibitively expensive. Helipad reduced from $1500 to $1000.
- Burst delay added to MLRS, so that vehicles have a chance to avoid its second shot.
- Infantry detect cloaked units at range=1, like in C&C 95.
- Grenade throw speed increased from 5 to 12
- Hum-vee HP increased and Buggy HP decreased, in order to justify their cost difference
- Towers increased in defense value, to provide decent defence against early base rushes: Range of Guard Tower increased from 5 to 6, to match range of rocket soldiers & bikes, and damage vs. vehicles increased. Advanced Guard tower range increased to 8 (to match Stealth Tank's range, and as a general buff)
- Flame tank firepower brought back up to C&C 95 levels.
- Some unit speeds adjusted: Bike from 11 to 13, APC from 10 to 9, Light Tank from 9 to 8, Flame Tank from 9 to 8, MLRS from 6 to 8, Med. Tank from 7 to 6, MCV from 6 to 4. While all vehicles get +25% speed on roads, Recon Bike gets a +50% speed bonus on roads. Untracked vechicles are slightly slower on tiberium.
- Unit rotation rates increased for fast vehicles and light tanks
- Damage of towers/turrets vs. buildings reduced to discourage basewalking

Some possible future tweaks that may be required: (edit)
Overall I like where the game is now, but players might discover through playtesting that some units are slightly overpowered. If you do, here are the tweaks that I suggest as the best fixes to those units likely to be unbalanced:
- If MLRS is too deadly against vehicles, reduce its spread from 15 to 12 or even 9. If its range is too long, reducing it from 14 to 13 would be fine.
- Advanced guard tower has historically been a bit OP. If people still feel that it is, they should either increase its cost to from $1000 to ~$1500 or reduce its HP from 600 to ~400.
- Grenadier grenades have always been pretty slow, and thus miss vehicles. If people want to buff it vs. vehicles, increase the throw speed from 12 to 16. If this makes them too good vs. infantry, then reduce damage vs. infantry.
- Napalm airstrike: I love the airstrike, and I think its damage radius is fine, but infantry get roasted at a much farther distance from impact than vehicles do. If the airstrike is too strong vs. infantry, then reduce napalm's damage vs. infantry.
- Artillery: if people feel that it chews up infantry too well, consider reducing its damage spread or its damage vs. infantry. Reducing projectile speed or inaccuracy also an option.

Possible less-important future balance adjustments:
- Rocket Bike: consider increasing HP from 120 to 140 or 160 (C&C 95 level)
- Machine Gun: maybe increase power vs. light vehicles, or adjust vs. infantry. Maybe increase power vs. armor and buildings (currently very low)
- Orca: add 1 more ammo, so that 2 orcas can kill a light tank or flame tank
- Refinery: slightly reduce cost, since an ion cannon can destroy it, and since refineries are crucial to the economy
- Helipad: reduce cost, since an airstrike can kill it, or else add HP.
- Flame tank: add heavy armor? Adjust speed if necessary, if it's too fast or slow to get to the frontline where the enemy infantry are.

Some wild ideas for the future:
- Add a mobile SAM launcher vehicle for Nod. (GDI already has anti-air APC)
- Create two new tech buildings: the Tech Center for GDI and the Bio-Lab for Nod. Tech Center will unlock the Mammoth Tank (and any future units), while the Bio-Lab will unlock Chemical Warriors. This might make chem warriors more useful by making them accessible earlier in the game (for those who want to go down that tech tree quickly).
- Create two additional factions per side, with each faction having a unique trait or two, and maybe an upgraded or unique unit.
- I made a hum-vee that can carry a passenger. If the passenger is a Grenadier, then a high-speed grenade launcher fires from the turret. If the passenger is a Rocket Soldier, then a rocket fires from the turret. I thought this might make GDI able to reasonably defend itself from armor without producing its own tanks
- I made a lot of units a long time ago which, while kinda cool, almost certainly will not be added to the main game. You can find them here: http://cncplus.tumblr.com/
They are: Flying Soldiers (GDI), Tiberium Tank (Nod), Chemical Scud launcher (Nod), Mobile Detector (GDI), Laser Tank (Nod) - 'obelisk on wheels', Recon Trike (GDI).

If anyone wants to playtest with me and provide feedback, please msg me on IRC.

[Sleipnir]

I'm concerned that you'll turn C&C into 'RA with Tiberium' if you go down this path. These ideas go against the two main principles the C&C mod was based on:

1. Gameplay should be faster and more uniform that RA, with a full match lasting for about 20 minutes.
   I considered the RA mod to be boring and slow, with long periods of people sitting in their bases building tanks briefly broken by short intense periods where they throw their forces against each other (this may have been fixed since).
2. Westwood developed a strong fiction behind the three Tiberium wars, but were limited by the fact they were basically inventing the RTS genre as they went along.
   We should incorporate features from later games where they improve gameplay (e.g. fog of war, tech structures, unit experience), but these changes should integrate with the fiction that is in place.

The original C&C doesn't have enough units to implement differentiated tech trees like RA now has, so I organized the units into tiers (before hq / after hq / after advanced hq) which were (in theory) balanced so that either side could win at any of the 3 tiers.

This is tied in with the C&C lore/fiction by vehicles being constructed largely off map, and brought in fully assembled (Nod) or in crates for final assembly (GDI). Building heavier vehicles is then a factor of communicating with bigger depots and gaining clearance for higher tech.

People who understood this difference in play style generally found C&C more enjoyable than RA (or at least, that's what they told me). I had some fantastic matches with Mancano and hamb, and would recommend you consider their opinions if they are still involved with OpenRA.

If your goal is to stop people from sitting in their base until they have advanced tech, then you may want to consider the rank concept I was at one point thinking around for C&C. Rank was a combination of game time, tiberium harvested, and kills/deaths, and the player would need to hit certain thresholds before they could build the communication center or advanced tech. Taking it a step further (I was less sure about this) it could be a spendable resource (like C&C Generals) used for tech differentiation (should I unlock the Ion Cannon first, or Mammoth tank?). I believe I may have discussed this with you at one point via IM.

Many of your new unit ideas violate (2), as the technology for jumpjet infantry and laser tanks didn't exist until many years after the first tiberium war. Similarly, I don't understand why GDI would use bikes when scouting is one of the primary functions of the humvee (and GDI is supposed to be at a disadvantage compared to Nod in this area).

[psydev]

I think you're right, C&C does not have enough units to develop separate tech trees. I guess we'll have to shelve that idea. Perhaps if we develop a CNC +Plus mod in the future, which has more units, then the idea might be revivable.

What do you think of the idea of having a Nod mobile SAM-launcher vehicle? It would use the same graphic as the SSM vehicle (with the two missiles on the back), and would have a weapon similar to the SAM site. Its purpose would be to combat orcas/helis, without having to resort to bike spam as the only option for self-defense.

[reaperrr]

What do you think of the idea of having a Nod mobile SAM-launcher vehicle? It would use the same graphic as the SSM vehicle (with the two missiles on the back), and would have a weapon similar to the SAM site. Its purpose would be to combat orcas/helis, without having to resort to bike spam as the only option for self-defense.

This was the original purpose inntended by WW for the Rocket Launcher, hence why its graphics are called MSAM. That's also why it was available to both sides in MP.

[Sleipnir]

What do you think of the idea of having a Nod mobile SAM-launcher vehicle? It would use the same graphic as the SSM vehicle (with the two missiles on the back), and would have a weapon similar to the SAM site. Its purpose would be to combat orcas/helis, without having to resort to bike spam as the only option for self-defense.

I think this is definitely worth trying. You'll probably need to write a new Render trait to have the turret display correctly though.

[Generalcamo]

Mailaender already said he would fix that, as it would be needed for the Classic Mod.

Few more things to hopefully implement:
EMP for ion cannon (This will bring it back to the intended role as a support weapon, as discussed back in 2011)
Support for unmanning vehicles (Microwave tank anyone?)

[psydev]

What do you guys think of the idea of factions in RA and CNC? The idea really appeals to me. I think it should be an option in the game lobby.
In classic RA, you would choose from the following factions with unique traits:
Russia: 10% lower prices
Ukraine: 10% faster units
England: 10% more armor
France: 10% greater firepower
Germany: 10% increased firing rate

I would really like to see something like this implemented. It would be nice if game code allowed you to make factions really easily, and specify them in the game rules. Like:
PlayerFaction: Allies1
[tab]FactionName: England
[tab]UnitDiscounts: 10%
[tab][tab]Units: 1TNK, 2TNK, APC, ARTY
[tab]StructureDiscounts: 10%
[tab][tab]Structures: WAR, BARX
[tab]UnitHPBoost: 15%
[tab][tab]Units: E1, E2, E3
[tab]UnitDamageBoost@Infantry: 15%
[tab][tab]Units: E2, E3
[tab]UnitDamageBoost@Vehicles: 10%
[tab][tab]Units: 1TNK, 2TNK, ARTY
[tab]UnitFiringRateBoost: 10%
[tab][tab]Units: ^Vehicles
[tab]UnitSpeedBoost: 10%
[tab][tab]Units: *

This would have to save the user who is making/adjusting factions from having to manually edit .yaml and make separate copies of units/structures/weapons for each faction.

[psydev]

For CNC, I would like to see something like:

GDI 1 (default)
Vehicle cost -12.5%

GDI 2 (elite armor)
Vehicle firepower +10%
Vehicle HP +12.5%
Factory cost: $1750 (from 2000)

Nod 1 (default)
Infantry cost -20%
Infantry build time -20%

Nod 2 (elite infantry)
Infantry firepower +15%
Infantry HP +15%
Infantry tiberium resistance (damage to infantry reduced to 25%)

And maybe:

GDI 3 (air)
Air units cost -15%
Air units build time -10%
Helipad cost: $750 (from 1000)
2 airstrikes (second one provided by advanced communication center)