Overall suggestions Thread - Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) for Dawn of War

Some questions for the team, first off I love the mod and this IS NOT hate. It is meant to come off as constructive criticism. So I have put a few dozen hours into this mod and while most things are great, several other things stand out as being rather irritating.

First things first, the Space Marines, loyal and traitor but especially traitor, are made of tissue paper in comparison to their "real" counter parts. I understand you can't make them realistic because each individual would carve through 500 imperial guard before dying, but they feel a bit too nerfed. They are better than most units but they still seem pitiful compared to what they should be. The necron have obscene build times, I would think SM's would be the same, colossal build times for colossal troops. As only a handful of chapters contain more than 1000 marines and they rarely deploy their full force at one location, I think it is appropriate for an average game to only see 300 or so marines from an individual player. However, these marines should be more than capable of bludgeoning thousands of cultists, fire warriors, guardsmen, etc if used properly. The same of course goes for chaos SM's.

Second, I have found the myriad weaknesses and strengths of the various factions, but the Tau confound me to this day. Lore does state that everything Tau has obscene range so I accept their cross map bombardments, but I get really irritated when one squad of fire warriors holds the line against something that should shred it apart. The Tau seem well balanced in most places, but their "standard" infantry have no rival of any standard or even some pre elite units. Even space marines are a rough bet to win unless upgraded and full strength. Tau are already difficult enough without their standard infantry shredding everything in their path.

Third, melee. Melee units do damage fine, work fine, etc etc, but they have the durability of wet tissue paper. Worse than the space marines. I never get melee units unless I can ambush or drop behind an enemy already engaged, and even then they are cut apart in seconds. I don't ask for a damage buff as ranged units should stand a chance in melee if they are strong enough, I just ask for a health buff or something to prevent imperial guardsmen or fire warriors from chewing up some big bad daemon warrior as soon as he appears from the fog. This is just with SM's to, I'm afraid to know what would happen if I got melee units from other factions like the IG.

Finally, just a few small things. Ork boomy platforms tear through literally everything, even my terminators are slaughtered by them in two or three shots. Anything short of a tank or Tau battlesuit is doomed to die in huge numbers, especially seeing as it opens fire from a huge range. Same for fighta bombas. Necron are being revamped so I won't bother bringing up anything from them. Daemons could be a little stronger but that ties into melee guys being cupcakes. Sister's could use a bit of a health buff, anything ranged kills them very quickly. One final thing, tyranid spore attack. It kills entire units and regens super fast. Very irritating.

I believe that's it, thanks for reading and keep up the great work.

Forgot one thing, the Eldar night spinner is the most over powered thing in creation. Anything less than a space marine dies in a full squad (this includes shielded fire warriors) and SM's die by the quarter squad. Eldar are advanced and thus do heavy damage, but those things just one hit everything, my friend's battlesuits are no exception.

Ok my friend Ben and I have been playing against the eldar all day with various factions and the night spinner (hereafter referred to as Khorne's will) is definitely an embodiment of Khorne himself. The only thing capable of defending against Khorne's will is an earthshaker from the imperial guard, everything else get's one hit before getting close, even Tau arty.

Aside from that I have a quick question, once in a while I'll be fighting an eldar guardian squad and my entire squad will die no matter what they are. It's early game so I know it isn't Khorne's will. I assume that's just a grenade or something, whatever it is it's straight terrifying.

Update #1 - Looted tanks in lore are literally as named, "looted."
Warhammer40k.wikia.com"Orks will usually enhance their looted vehicles with more weapons, armour, and garish paint jobs which match their "unique" aesthetic style. However the Orks' incompetence with ranged weaponry has drastically decreased the effectiveness of the tank's main weapons."They aren't as good as a standard Leman Russ, however I understand that there are potential balance problems there.

I think it would be best to just get rid of ork boomy platforms altogether in favor of waagh banners being the "defense turret" for the orks. The banners however should not have rokkit upgrades, they are too powerful for how many banners there always are.

Update #2 - Ben's Tau x89 bodyguard just tore through 2 baneblades in under 10 seconds with the fusion gun upgrade or whatever it's called. I expect low survival rates from the IG but that is a bit much.

Rokkit waagh banners shoot through shields, killed my reaver without much trouble. Again no rokkit upgrades. Lootas need to be toned down a bit, they cut through guardsmen faster than a hot knife through a vacuum (the space kind not the appliance).

Right so I didn't find anywhere else to put this so here's my only concern so far with this game: difficulty gaps.
I'm an avid strategy player playing everything from age of empires to starcraft, sin's of a solar empire to sid meyers. I'm well versed in the glorious RTS genre... but when I'm playing easy mode and don't get attacked period and say "This is boring lets turn up the heat!" and I'm so far buried in ordinance that not even the god emperor himself could scrape my butt off the bottom of the reaver that curb stomped me. If there could be some balancing work that would be cool because I didn't notice this much of a gap in the vanilla game....
Oh and if I didn't get the message across THIS MOD HAS REAWAKENED MY LOVE FOR WARHAMMER GAMES. Seriously fantastic work on the models animations and overall feel of the game. It feels good to burn the heretics again.

I shal "up the beat" for easy difficulty.

Edit: done, expect some "better" results in 1.74.

As for #k's post, I did indeed fix some things he mentioned long, long ago and some of what he discussed will be in the initial 1.74 release.

Some IG-specific improvements that are probably just a pipe-dream:

- an upgrade option for the Tactica Command that will increase the armor/damage resistance for the non-turret structures (including Listening Posts) for Tier 2 or 3?

- Upgrade options for Infantry Command that would remove its ability to create units (with two exceptions) and turn it into either A) Heavy Bunker, B) Repair Bunker, C) Medical Bunker, D) Mortar Bunker, C) Forward Command Bunker. There could be a maximum of one of each upgrade on the field at one time with the exception of the Heavy Bunker, which would be two or three.
* A) The Heavy Bunker would have increased armor/damage resistance over the Infantry Command, in addition to increased hit points. It could have up to four infantry units garrisoned -- each unit garrisoned would do the following: At 1 unit it would obtain Lasgun fire, at 2 units it would obtain Plasma pistol fire, at 3 units it would obtain Heavy Bolter fire, and at 4 it would obtain Lascannon fire.
* B) The Repair Bunker would have the same armor/damage resistance and hit points as the Infantry Command, but would extend out an aura that would automatically repair Vehicles (but not buildings/turrets) at about the same rate as a single Enginseer. It could have up to one unit garrisoned, where it would receive lasgun fire. It can produce Enginseers.
* C) The Medical Bunker would be exactly like the Repair Bunker, but the aura would heal infantry within its radius. It can produce Medics.
* D) The Mortar Bunker would have the same armor/resistance and hit points as the Infantry Command, but is armed with a Heavy Mortar -- Damage and AoE would be approximately 1.5x's that of an infantry mortar, but RoF would be approximately 25% faster. Range would be equal to about 1.5x's that of the infantry mortar (LoS would be the same as a Turret). It would have one garrison slot.
* E) The Forward Command Bunker would have the same armor/resistance, hit points and garrison slots as the Infantry Command. It would have the ability to call in Air Strikes, and would have an aura that would give a Morale boost over a decent-sized area, as well as the ability to Rally Troops.

Interesting...

Mainly the ideas sprang from a combination of DoW2 IG (with their bunker and heavy turret use) and my own idea (which may or may not be shared) that the Imperial Guard are masters of attrition warfare, both on the offensive and defensive. If they're on the offensive, they flood the enemy with a sea of tanks and infantry. When tasked with holding a position, they dig-in and build-up an array of defenses that, given enough time, can stop an advancing army dead in its tracks, hopefully buying enough time for allies to arrive in-system -- or at the very least blunt the assault to the point where the cost of dislodging the valiant defenders is considered too high.

Perhaps they could all be linked to a "Defensive Doctrine", so there would be a trade-off...