Old Republic mod for Forces of Corruption. Exactly as it says on the tin.
Adding upgrades back into the game.
Trying to come up with interesting ways to make upgrades not auto-click buttons. One of those is mutually exclusive upgrades, the other is to just make them insanely effective and insanely expensive. I decided to go with the insanely effective + insanely expensive route.
I split the spacestation upgrades into 2 variants, offensive and defensive. The offensive ones govern weapon systems and spacestation garrisons (the units that spawn for free) and defensive cover armor, shield points and shield deflection. The 50% deflection means that now 50% of all lasers shot at the shield will just bounce off, like the consortium ships had in vanilla. Go figure why it's so expensive.
You'll notice that capital ships don't gain from the weapons bonus, this is intentional to artificially increase the effectiveness of smaller ships in the lategame.
You'll also notice that armor goes up by 50% while weapon damage only increases by 25%. Also very intentional, this 1. gives players a cheaper upgrade alternative to upgrade their starships without having to spend untold amounts of money, and 2. in the lategame ships will last longer, giving the player more time to micro and unfold strategies. And the longer the battle lasts, the more strategy impacts a battle. say if 2 turblaser shots destroy any hardpoint, things like unit positioning don't matter since if your ship, even if surrounded and out positioned, gets a few shots off it can destroy a whole ship anyway. The ship would keep its effectiveness even if the other player enployed a good strategy (surrounding the opponent). Now say hardpoints last a lot longer, the difference in effective firepower between the 2 players actually matters because hardpoints don't instantly blow up, and the player that has the other surrounded will always win. This further rewards good strategy.
Still have to code all of this, I'm still in the planning phase. And for once I'm actually open to suggestions.
So if you have an interesting idea for an addition to the upgrade list, feel free to share it!
this brings the gameplay to a whole new lvl
never seen this before in a mod, cool idea!
You should consider splitting different buffs into separate upgrades instead of having different levels of an upgrade with the same name, which also seems like you're buying the same thing from the first level over and over again.
For example instead of having Station Offense I, II and III you would have:
Station Damage, Station Range, Station Garrison upgrades. This would allow for more combinations because you could have Station Damage and Garrison without Range, or Range and Garrison without Damage, thus saving some credits. And when you consider the upgrades from Station Defense, the number of combinations rises even higher.
Just my two cents.
you got a point
I was already going to give them different names, not sure about splitting them into different upgrades though, I'll think about it.
Think about this: all of the current upgrades contain up to 3 buffs and there are 3 upgrade levels. By having separate buffs you don't raise the number of selectable upgrades but you raise the number of possibilities the player can chose (a lot!).
It will also be a lot easier to balance the prices for the upgrades.
Why?
Consider following scenarios:
You unlocked the final tech level and want to buy Station Offence III.
1) You don't have I nor II.
You don't have any offensive buff, you pay the 4500 and get all the buffs.
2) You already have II.
You already have the damage and/or range buff. But instead of paying just 3000 for the additional garrison which is worth 3000, you need to pay the same 4500.
Now that doesn't really feel like an "upgrade". More like "pay+build everything all over again and then add a bit".
I thought about it for a while, but then came to the conclussion that that'd be a bad idea. The idea is that for the really cool **** like the reflector shields or the garrison increase you have to get all these other upgrades...like advancing through a tech tree. So that would kind of defeat the whole purpose of the upgrade system. It's an upgrade, not an addon. Thanks for the suggestion though, I do hope to get more.
Oh, sorry I didn't understand that I & II are required for III (and, presumably I for II). OK then, that makes sense.
Just one thing then: why does Offense III cost 4500 if the only thing it adds is not 4500 but 3000 worth of garrison troops?
Edit:
Another idea - Shields upgrade
More ideas:
- "Add some special ability to some unit type"-type upgrade
(like: stealth, large sensor range, power to shields...)
- Some kind of a hero upgrade
It's the previous 1500 + the 3000 new garrison credits, same in skirmish with the jump from 3000 to 6000, same with the other ups progression I tried to estimate what each upgrade would be worth on its own and then added that on top of the previous up cost.
Adding special abilities is a really good idea, only (and I hate this) it ins't possible to do so within skirmish or a single gc battle. Unless I'm missing something. Which is entirely possible. What I also know is possible is to give certain heroes upgrades, I've been playing with this idea a lot, but can't really find any suitable upgrades for any particular heroes. Maybe my imagination is just bad ;)
Well, if the previous is already bought and installed, why buy it again? Kind of goes against the term upgrade.
For example: when Windows 8 came out, you could either buy it at a full price, or if you already have 7, upgrade it for half the money.
If the previous one weren't a requirement, I would understand that, because you would save money and skip some step(s). But since you are upgrading, you really should be buying only the new stuff.
Now that doesn't mean that the new stuff shouldn't be more expensive. And currently it is - cool. But, the only illogical thing in the current price scheme for me is the 4500 for 3000 thing.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I can easily modify the XML when the mod's out, I'm just trying to understand why would it be better not to.
Well basically this: If I don't price them continuesly more expensive, you get a lot cheaper upgrades which make for an insanely overpowered starbase. Take Defence III, you have 50% more armor, so basically 50% more health on all your actual hardpoints. Then 50% more shields, and on top of that a 50% chance to reflect any fire that would otherwise hit the shield. So basically you have 225% of the original shield points. That's a rediculous amount of HP to go through for any ship or fleet of ships. This shouldn't be an upgrade you just get because you have money laying around, it should be a very consious decision that for the money of these 3 upgrades you can buy various battleships. About the same combat value for cost this way.
No, I understood that, the only thing that bugged me was the Station Offense's jump from 1500 to 4500, but I think I got it now. (the garrison consists of 3000 worth of units, but like other garrison units, even if they die, they will reappear in the next battle if you win this one so the upgrade is really worth more than the sole units)
And about hero upgrades, vision range and additional paladin style health/damage/speed(for land) unit buffs is the first thing that comes to my mind.
How about giving negative affects too? Such as 50% increase on armour but has a 10% reduction in speed because it is has more mass? Might make things more realistic and make having every upgrade stupid as they would cancel out
Stuff like Increasing damage but decreasing accuracy or range are interesting indeed
That would be a way to customize your units to specific tactics, not a way to upgrade them, I'm specifically looking for upgrades. Not a half-bad idea, but not what I'm looking for.