4.0.1; suggestions Thread - Forged Alliance Enhanced Campaign AI mod for Supreme Commander

So far I finished them with the Cybrans on hard difficulty. I never play the campaign on lower difficulties, so sorry, but I can't test or give suggestions about anything that happens or appears only on normal or easy difficulty. I will go through them with the other two too, to see if there is anything different with them, but these are what I've found so far.

M1: if you can please remove the camera snapping to the two UEF command units when they die.

- I really hate them, even the vanilla camera snapping to event that in most cases are really not that important. Additionally, this is something personal, whenever a 'cut scene' ends all range markers are turned on to be visible all the time, which slows down my machine as if I would have reduced the sim speed to at least -5. One time it even crashed the game to desktop because there were more than 1000 stuff already moving around.

M2: Celene doesn't always leave because of the attacking units, sometimes because it gets hit by the nukes from the 'cut scene'. I guess it depends on what it is assisting or whatnot. Maybe you could script it, so that it doesn't move to or moves away from the nuked areas. That way the player would actually have a chance of protecting her commander unit every single instance.

M3: At the last phase the princess says that she has to conserve her resources and bla bla bla. There are some structure wrecks in her base which never get rebuilt, like a T3 power generator or the outer defense lines, but at the same time she does have enough to produce a few units and attacks with them.
How does that work? Where's the logic in that? There's none.

- She should at least always try to rebuild her base completely. Focus more on defense, even at the expense of offense, that's the player's job anyway.

M4: As I wrote somewhere in the main page posts once..
Dostya is scripted to survive no matter what until her scripted 'in-cut scene' defeat. There is no reason to make her so weak that she can't normally defend her base on her own.

- I suggest either reducing her attackers' numbers or beefing her forces and base up, enough so that she can hold her position together with her base on her own just fine. If nothing else, give her 1 or 2 patrolling Spiderbots, that stick closely to her base. If one gets blown up she should build a replacement. That way the core of her base would survive most attacks.
- Another possibility would be, if you don't want to let her forces to have a strong defense after her death, just provide a bunch of Bricks, Trebuchets and some good mobile anti-air against the bunch of strats periodically pounding her base.

M4: I think that the enemy should always try to rebuild at least the two small forward bases that are optional targets at the first phase.
Sometimes I play that map very defensively, turtling for the last phase. At those instances there is more than enough time and opportunity for the enemy to rebuild those two small forward bases or even the base from the first phase and attack from there too.

M4: James, although has 'little' power, he has a T3 shield generator, a T3 air factory and 5-6 T3 mass extractors.. why is his land factory only T2?

- I get that he might not have the power to produce enough T3 ASFs and bombers ( btw. he doesn't build any T3 bombers), but he should have enough resources to easily upgrade that factory to T3 and produce T3 units. Compared to what the enemy sends from the second phase on, even if he would only produce Percieval strike forces it wouldn't have that much impact.
- He should prepare, at least from the second phase on, land strike forces composed of both T2 and T3 units. He should also keep some T3 air units close to his base (at least) for defense, like a few gunships or bombers; especially for the last phase. -otherwise he's just a liability at the end game as he tends to blow up right in the middle of the player's base or defenses, which ultimately cause more harm than good.

M5: Fletcher still sucks. An easy skirmish AI builds a better base than he does. If his base management could be swapped for that of a balanced AI's or maybe a balanced Sorian AI's, that would be much more useful than he is now.

- The Cybran buddy is only good until the last phase, when that comes he busts open to a spiderbot, fatboy or galactic colossus, whichever comes first.

Something you could try for the last mission to vary things a little: if the player is Aeon or UEF aligned, then change the starting support commander of the same faction to a Cybran one. If it is too much to change the starting structures too (the ones "tied" to the changed SACU) that is fine too, but it would be nice if the SACU "tied" structures would be Cybran too if changed - none of them are special, all factions have their own exact equivalent.

OR/and ... but that might be harder.. I don't know..

..make the two starting stuff AI controlled. but since at that point the enemy has mostly T3 and T4 stuff, they wouldn't be of much help making mostly T2 and sometimes a T3 or two.

Edited by: Zsombi

I'm sorry for not responding, since I've started university, this project didn't get enough of my attention...

Mission 1:
Of course I can do that, I just created those snapshots of their death because I wanted to send a clear message: "The Seraphim are getting closer and closer."

Mission 2:
I've tried many things for this issue, but the 'Add Expansion Base' doesn't really work... I mean, it sends an engineer once and only once. So if the engineer gets destroyed by some bombers for instance, the base won't be rebuilt. I even tried sending engineers there via air transports as 'reinforcements', but that just didn't look natural.. I don't know what to do with it...

Mission 3:
She has increased rebuilding and does send engineers towards her defense lines for rebuilding. Not sure if that is in the update however, now you mention it... I've also replaced two of the air factories with land factories, sending mostly weak attack waves. We don't want her to be able to fend for herself. Well, I also only test on hard, so I guess she is perfectly capable of that on easy mode xD

Mission 4:
- She can defend herself perfectly at this moment, without experimentals. She does constant rebuilding of her defenses, and I've never seen her base destroyed. Adding monkeylords is not an option, as it overpowers her for the cutscene. Then she just blows up without units attacking her :p I've tried this once before
- It's a good idea on itself, however.. This just resets the player's progression from the first part, which is exactly why I haven't done it before. I've tried it many times on the different maps, but it doesn't make sense somehow... You have completed an objective to destroy the base, but then the base is back xD
- Now you say it like that... He does have a lot of mass available indeed... He is the very first new player I managed to add to a map, which is why I didn't want to delete him xD Because honestly, I don't even want him in there anymore :p It's about rescuing the player, not James Not sure what to do with him either...

Mission 5:
What is it precisely about him that makes you say "he sucks"? The way he builds up his base? It does take a while, yeah, but it's not a small base I've edited Dimitri for increased survivability in the last mission already, so I got that one covered!

Mission 6:
Haha, that's a coincidence! I've been working on that for the past days! Not the faction switching, but these starting bases are now indeed AI controlled. The sACUs have been turned into regular ACUs and they have some base management added. They both build 4 factories (2 air and 2 land). To make things simple, I've made sure the UEF commander doesn't blow up inside the base. He warps out at the beginning of the second phase, after which St Croix rebuild Romaska's structures in the Aeon variants, so the Aeon then has 8 factories! However, that Czar is still present, so unless you support the Aeon there, it'll be a swift death.

I hope this answers your questions and/or give you an insight of what I think of some stuff. Again, I'm sorry for letting you wait a year... It's not been easy for me lately :s

Hey there!

M1: you could just make one or two consecutive "red pings" on those locations. In multiplayer that is usually enough to get people's attention.

M2: can't you do the same as what the enemy does? If left alone they will always rebuild most of their stuff.. at least the seraphim AI does so.

The enemy should have a more active navy going for the player. I'm not saying battleships, but T1&2 spam would make sense, I think it would have the resources. Destroyers can walk too. These would also keep certain players busy, hindering them more from assisting the new Aeon helper.

M3: .. I also only play on hard mode

You could make the Aeon helper make a forward base around halfway on the map and start producing mostly from there.

You could also make the enemy attacking the princess to start making two or three naval factories at its back-beach when the island commander is defeated, and start making navy - mostly T2, maybe T3 subs. Not carriers or battleships, those take too long.. or have just 1 factory occasionally make a battleship, but not before another finishes one.

M4: well, last time I played, last week actually, after a few minutes half of her base got destroyed, and the enemy started flowing to my base. She was doing her stuff with a health bar fluctuating at 0 and ~5000 from the pounding she was constantly getting. She only survived until the scene because she is scripted to not die before that.

- No, I did not mean an insta-base-teleport, I meant sending builders to do the building. The player may not always have the possibility to stop such moves at those phases, or at least in the last phase.
It would make sense for the enemy to keep trying to "corner" the player by taking back lost territories and attacking from those as well.

M5: yes, I like Dimitri now. But Fletcher still sucks. It's not ablout base size, it is more about what the base is used for.

M6:
You could remove James from M4 and add as helper in one or more of the missions alongside or "after" Fletcher's "help", because even when that guy is an ally he barely does anything that useful - apart from M1.

Like in the last one, after he gets finished James could get in to replace him as an ally, taking over whatever Fletcher had left and rebuilding the rest (of just building a useful base) - and be a useful ally, at least as much as he is/was in M4. He could provide air and or naval support, since the Aeon ally is mostly broken by that point. ... or mostly naval and only slightly air. The player covers the land and some or most of the air even now.

Another idea is: there is a small Seraphim forward base at the first stage, you could perhaps add Dimitri to get in there when the area is clear. He could provide the same kind /and level of support as he did in the previous mission, M5. - but now would also use T3 land with a few Bricks and Trebuchets as well (even 4 per squad is not that much of a power from the second phase on).

That way.. the player would have the former Cybran base location to build at, then could take the stage1 enemy place, and so on.

The map is big, so if the land helpers would use transports as well in the later stages, for example with a drop off point somewhere around the BlackSun control center (that is about halfway on the landmass).. maybe just outside its former defenses, towards the current enemy main base.

I miss TML structure use. I remember in SC campaign the AI had them and used them like in a skirmish battle. They could be used to deny the player from expanding, so it would have to take those out first or make some counter.

These are all before trying out v5, I'll give feedback on that later.

-----25072016
I recently finished the new version with the UEF.

There were nice changes, like at the beginning of M2 there is now a tiny enemy base in the north.

In M3 the ally has a much easier time beating back the enemy navy, in fact during the 1st phase she covers at least 60~75% of the area in relatively short amount of time. With only a little support against the t3 subs and shielded t2 defensive emplacements, she can clear it as well. Then she takes more of a supporting role than all out offensive, though doesn't stop that entirely either. Which is nice.

The absence of the Scathis from M5 was a pleasant surprise. Although it greatly lowers the counterattack threat level, this change actually relieves the player from the burden of "always" having to go all out full blown game-ender t3,4,5 experimental p__is of doom and what not on several of the missions just before the last or second last phase out of fear /caution of being done in shortly after the cut-scene.

Though this above "problem" cannot really be resolved in M3's 2nd phase. It is nearly impossible to do that if the player did not invest in t3 air and/or a lot of supporting build power before the cut scene. A navy-only oriented player, for example, will fail that part, because the durable and long ranged heavy hitting ships are too slow, while the fast ones break too soon.

Overall they were nice.
Another thing, if you could change, would be in M6, there are the two friendly support neighbors who send their troops right through the free areas left for the player. The problem is that anything build there, like a base with a bunch of idle units, will more or less complicate their pathfinding.

Soon I will be starting it again with another faction, if I see anything new I'll give feedback on that as well.

-----30072016
M4: I don't know if it is also a new thing (or I just realized now), but in phase 1 the two enemy forward bases don't have a shield as soon as before, which makes taking them down much easier ... it is nice.

The second phase should be fixed. I have mentioned this before, either here or somewhere in the comments, that there are almost two really unimmersive events.

First: Dostya should not be attacked so much, or better yet not at all from the Northern and North-Northwestern bases. As of now, she and her base is easily overwhelmed within 10-15 minutes from when she mentions the enemy scout plane, then obliterated a few minutes later.

Those bases should be inactive. This is also supported by her constantly saying, that she feels /thinks the enemy forces are close to her base ready to attack ... meaning that she is not engaging them, meaning they are not coming just yet ... not until the cut scene, where they come in full, then she explodes.

Second: If you activate the Eastern and West-Northwestern bases and allow the player to engage them in this phase, then I suggest you either make them fully active and engageable or not at all. During the 3rd phase it is revealed that each of those bases have 2 or more T4s patrolling the area. Their partol path also includes the rest of the base, not just the back parts where the missile silos are.

So.. if their patrol route is like that, how come they are not seen during phase 2 at those two bases? Therefore, I suggest to either revert that part and make them stay hidden and inactive until the final phase, or show and activate them completely. Which would also allow players to take them out completely, which would mean 2 less bases to worry about and get attacked from during the last phase.

M6: The Aeon ally says in the last phase, that the enemy has crippled her base so much that she cannot really provide as much support as before, but looking at her stuff anyone can see, that is not true, her base is almost intact .. the things that matter are completely intact.

She should either not say that, or actually suffer some heavy damage which she would need to recover from, but even then, once finished she should be able to keep up the same level of support as before. Also, even though she cannot provide support with units, she has the funds to keep making nukes ... which are not cheap by the way. Sending units would be much more useful actually than the 1 nuke in every several minutes, since the enemy bases are dotted with SMDs, so nuke missiles aren't as useful as one might think.

It would be interesting if there would be more faction specific optional and/or mandatory objectives. It would add more variety.
There could also be some objectives that would "look the same" but may have to be completed differently depending on faction; or objectives that would have more than one ways of solving them with different useful rewards (rewards that can be made use of right until the end of the respective mission).

Edited by: Zsombi