Comments - MasterReaver

Hello team,

Thanks for all your hard work on making this game the best it can be over the years.

I've been playing/testing the single player campaign as of v6.9.25 and it seems like Unification still partially has an AI bug in there that I'd found a fix for in the previous Bugfix mod:

The AI bug in the BUGFIX MOD was this:
1. Dark Eldar Wyches never use their Combat Drugs ability (even though the AI commands tell them to)
2. Dark Eldar Wyches only stand and shoot unless they are actively being engaged by the enemy in melee (and even then they don't seem to really seek them out the way they should)

In UNIFICATION, it looks like you guys have fixed (1) but not (2) - in other words, in Unification the AI Wyches do seem to use combat drugs, but they don't actually engage in Melee and instead fight at range (where they suck).

The solution to both (1) and (2) in the BUGFIX MOD was:
Modify Data/attrib/abilities/dark_eldar_combat_drugs.rgd
set target_self to FALSE
set target_ground to TRUE

This seemed to have no impact on the functionality of the ability (it still worked exactly as before) but the AI both used it, and the Wyches no longer stood around like idiots shooting rather than getting into melee.

Might be worth checking if the above is something you need to add to UNIFICATION as well?

No, the number of strongholds conquered has no effect. My attempts to recreate the issue consisted of reloading the same game (just before selecting to attack the stronghold) 5 times. 4 times it worked fine and the Regimental Command building was there - it was only missing the first time. I didn't do anything different between those different attempts that I've been able to find yet.

Adding a second HQ might mean we end up with two of them, plus since we don't know what causes it to disappear in the first place that's still a very 'dirty' fix that might not even work, which is something I'm not keen on.

I've been trying to see if different ways of interacting with the in-game cinematics (eg, skipping the one where the gun activates, or cancelling them early) might be in some way to blame for the disappearing building, but so far I haven't found anything conclusive.

That's the thing:
1) The bugfix mod doesn't touch the scar file for the stronghold in any way.
2) The issue occurs when the Regimental Command building isn't there and you get close enough to 'see' that it's not there. But this doesn't always happen (I've tested it 5 times, and it's only happened once. The other 4 times I had to destroy the Regimental Command building before the mission would end).
Being close enough to see that it isn't there is also what triggers the conversation between the commanders, so it's no coincidence the two overlap.

Since the mod doesn't touch the script for the Imperial Guard stronghold mission and I'm not able to consistently recreate it, I'm at a loss as to how exactly to fix it.

So, it looks like something sometimes causes the Imperial Guard Regimental Stronghold building to either not spawn properly or to get destroyed before your troops get there.

If that happens, the final cinematic will trigger the moment you reveal the fog of war in that area and show the building is gone.

However, it's not consistent - I've had it happen once with the Necrons, but only once. All repeated attempts to recreate it (bugfix mod or no) have failed.

Unfortunately unless I can figure out what's causing the Regimental Command building to disappear I can't really fix it either...

Can you give me some more details of the problem?
What happens exactly?
How can I reproduce it?

I don't want to promise anything (got a toddler now that eats up pretty much all of my spare time) but if it's something I can easily fix I'll try to give it a go.

I got pretty excited to see this mod has been released, and I have to say I felt an immense swell of pride when the Glaive Tank rolled out with my righteous voice at the helm.

Glad I was able to contribute and I hope everyone enjoys the mod!

For the Emperor!

Hah, yesterday I booted up the modding tools to create a new armour pierce addon for the Unification mod, only to find that the armour pierce fixes are already incororated into Unification by default!

That's great to see (and quite flattering), since it saves me having to make a separate addon.

Could you please add me ("Soul Reaver") to the credits list? I assisted with a few fixes in the bugfix mod aside from the armour pierce addon (fixed AI for Dark Eldar Wytches not using combat drugs, added consistent death explosions to vehicles etc).

And yes, I did voice the Warp Talons for the Emperor's Children mod. Keep an ear out for my dulcet tones in some other upcoming mods as well. :P

Thanks for the reply Gambit_1!

Those things with the Necron Lord unfortunately weren't possible for me by just editing unit values back in the day. It's awesome you've got it fixed more cleanly.

Did you manage to get The Deceiver to use 'Deceive' as well though (you didn't mention it)? That's his signature ability and without it the Deceiver is underpowered compared to the Nightbringer - it was the main reason I didn't bother to make the AI turn into the Deceiver, since it felt kind of pointless without an available AI call for that ability. If not I'd rather have the AI Necron Lords not using the Deceiver transformation at all...

The weapon armour pierce value issue can be most clearly seen in the Imperial General's "Strafing Run" ability. As I'm sure you know it's pretty unimpressive in-game (especially compared to equivalent high-level abilities from other commanders, like Orbital Bombardment). If someone uses it against me I barely care, and the long windup time makes it super easy to avoid. If you read the tooltip, it says it's good against infantry, but that's not actually true...
..except if you check its armour pierce values, they're all set to 300% against infantry. The game just treats this as 100%, but it makes me think the attack was originally intended to do a lot more infantry damage than it actually does. So I made my addon that increased the infantry damage by x3 and set the armour piercing value to 100% to simulate that.

Personally I found it a lot more fun in-game. You actually have good reason to try and dodge a Strafing Run now, and it feels appropriately powerful for an endgame ability on the army's general.

Using the same thinking and making the corresponding adjustments, Harlequins become real commander-killers, and the missile pod for the Tau Crisis Suit becomes more useful against light/medium vehicles.

But you're right that it does affect balance (though the same could be said for a number of the bugfix fixes too, to a greater or lesser extent). In my opinion it affects it positively by improving units and abilities that were underwhelming to begin with, but I always felt it was best kept optional because I was sure not everyone would want it.

Personally I still think it should be an option.

Lastly, thanks for the invite to help some of the teams out, but I just used Corsix ModStudio for everything I did, modifying values and using what was already in the game, then packaging it with an installer. I've never used AE before. I'm also worried I probably wouldn't have the time I'd need to dedicate to a big project at the moment - especially the testing - since I'm a new dad now, and I'm not left with a lot of spare time nowadays.

Before my son was born I did contribute to some of the race mods in another way - you might hear me voicing a few units here and there (eg, the Warp Talons in the Emperor's Children mod) ;)

I notice the unification mod incorporates the bugfix mod...

I made two Addons with standalone installers for the bugfix mod. One fixes AI-controlled Necron Lords so that they actually can turn into the Nightbringer (SS broke that functionality by adding in the Deceiver, so without the fixes he never transforms into anything at all) and a second addon that fixed a bunch of illogical (over 100%, thus just set to 100%) armour piercing values, particularly for Imperial Guard.

Both changes make sense but both should be optional - the first because a side effect of the fix removes the (aesthetic-only) Necron Lord corpse that normally sits there at the start of the game (for both player and AI-controlled computer) while the second affects game balance (eg, makes Strafing Run actually useful).

If you've incorporated the addons, let me know. If not, also let me know, as I'd like to make the addons work with the Unification Mod if I can.

New version up. Fixes a potential Fatal Scar Error, corrects the Tau campaign commander's speed boost from the jetpacks research, adds a Daemon Prince commander icon to the Campaign map screen and corrects some English text.

Hello Arphen,

I've sent you a message with details on the proposed Bugfix mod changes....

This should fix a major SCAR error bug in the Necron Stronghold when you're playing as the Imperial Guard (which was introduced in the bugfix mod v27).

Also includes some dialogue fixes for the Chaos stronghold mission (re-adding dialogue that previously didn't play) courtesy of Arphenior.

While the Armor Pierce addon is pretty awesome and made by a cool guy, if you want to remove it (unless Kasarkin has done something to change it significantly) you can do the following:

- Download the Armour Pierce Addon from this site
- Install the Armour Pierce Addon (yes, I know this sounds counter-intuitive)
- Use the Armour Pierce Addon uninstaller

That should restore the default values for you. :)

There are several reasons I think they're a downgrade:
- They seem to lack a 'strategic point capture' animation (at least, they do for me) - while walking up to capture the point, the models become invisible. During capturing, the models are there but are 'shrunk' to a smaller scale. It looks very odd.
- Their gunfire effect is extremely distracting. The particles are very large, very numerous and very bright, and spray over huge distances. The default Obliterators are a bit more low-key (but still get the point across that their weapons are very powerful).
- The textures of the large fleshy 'lumps' on their bodies are very blurry and low res and their colour often contrasts strongly with the rest of the armour.

And I don't think they're particularly more CSM-like than the originals. Although the armour is somewhat CSM-like, the additional horns and spikes make them look more daemonic.

I've currently edited the art and attrib folders so that I'm just using the default Obliterator models/voices for both races, which is fine by me - after all, they share some other models too (Horrors, Bloodthirster).

Hi Gambit_1,

The main reason I don't like it is because it feels like an unnecessary graphical and audio downgrade for the Chaos Marine faction. The new models are fairly good, but not as good as the originals, and their voice acting is definitely worse. The change feels (to me) to be entirely to the detriment of the Chaos Marine faction.

I also know about the similar change made in IDH, and I don't like it there either (and at least there there's a bit more of a lore-related reason why).

I might edit the files a bit myself to swap the models around (restoring the originals and using the new ones for the Daemons instead) - I've done some DoW modding so probably won't be too tough.

But please don't misunderstand: overall I still think this mod is excellent.

Your mod is overall excellent and I like a lot of the concepts, like how instability is implemented.

However, please, PLEASE don't modify the existing races (ie, Chaos Marines) - while I enjoy and want this mod because it adds a new race to the game, I don't want it changing the existing races. I recommend using the new models for the Chaos Daemon Obliterators instead and leaving the Chaos Marine Obliterators alone.

This was updated to fix the Necron tutorial from getting 'stuck'. Everything else works like before. Enjoy!

Aw, and I had it all finished up and everything.

Anyway, great to hear you'll be incorporating it. :)

Hey Corncobman, I've actually made the exact fix being requested here for myself ages ago (it was actually the very first custom fix I ever made for Dawn of War) - it sets both human and AI player health to 100% on Hard difficulty for the Campaign.

I made a little instruction readme to help people with the install, but to ease things further I could make a small standalone installer if you like.

How's that sound?