Hello All !
It's time to roll-up a summary of all the little bits and pieces that have collected since the last official update to the LOUD Project for Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. As usual, these updates are available thru the 'Check For Updates' button on the SCFA_Updater/Launcher.
There has been a great deal of behind-the-scenes work on the LOUD Project this month. We have migrated all of the project over to GitHub, and at least, for me -- that's been a learning experience. I've coded for over 30 years now with the same tools, a notebook, a pen, and a sense of humor. So it's quite a change.
Our community, and the number of people we've heard from about LOUD has absolutely exploded since Axle first suggested we utilize a Discord server. Now, there is some correspondence for me to chase down every single day - between here at ModDB, Discord (LOUD Project Discord Server) and our thread on the Forged Alliance Forever forums (LOUD thread on Forged Alliance Forever forum), answering a wide variety of questions and just generally trying to be helpful, consumes a lot of time.
Having said that, the team and I have still managed to get some work done, and while we aren't religious about posting update notes, yet, we have a good list of things to report on.
- -- the SCFA_Updater is now at ver 3.46. with some new features
- -- AI Amphibious behavior has been revamped for better production and attack focus
- -- AI Transport Manager has been revised to better respond to combat platoon demand
- -- AI Transport behaviors have been tuned to better understand and avoid threat conditions
- -- AI Naval behavior has been tuned to increase responsiveness to 'No Enemy in Water' situations
- -- AI Naval behavior will streamline and switch production as focus goes from Attack to Bombard
- -- Increased and revised economic threats from factories, power and mass structures
- -- Revised AI priority on adding second factory at start (will now start sooner)
- -- Increased base eco needs for AI factories to start (minimizes eco stalls)
- -- Increased storage in factories (both M & E in some cases, but not always)
- -- Revised transport flight stats to improve drop sequence (still in review)
- -- Small damage buff to T1 Interceptors (about 10%)
- -- Added pure T2 Fighters and T2 bombers to AI Unit categories for expanded future use
- -- Additional updates to maps: CityWars, The Pass, Asteryion Abyss - AI markers
- -- New map: Hills of Havoc Wet - An Amphibious map but unsuitable for naval units
- -- Introduction of 'Man in the Middle' time-limited challenge mode for CityWars and Havoc wet maps
- -- Minor de-buff to top end naval weapon ranges (Dreadnoughts only)
- -- welcomed Balthazar, author of BrewLAN (BrewLAN on ModDb), into LOUD team
- -- improved code for resource-placement around start positions
- -- added 4000 unit cap option
- -- costs of transition to T2 building options increased by roughly 20%
- -- ACU can no longer be transported by T1 transports
- -- AI ACU will no longer try to self-enhance while his base is under alert
- -- AI Air Production will transition more smoothly thru T2 and into T3
- -- AI Air Production T1 units will cease production at the first appearance of T2 AA of any kind
- -- Added pure T3 Land Scouts to AI Unit categories for expanded future use
- -- AI Base Manager will now better respond to threats in order to prioritize building base defenses
- -- (ie. - if you don't threaten the AI then he'll put more production into attacking you)
- -- revised prediction code for AI nukes to improve accuracy and target selection
- -- AI Platoon Movement revised to better manage transport calls and get the platoon 'moving'
- -- added new sub-mod called 'Enhanced Commanders' - focuses ACU upgrades upon combat
- -- substantial data reduction review, decreased memory footprint and increased performance
- -- additional unit restrictions for air allow full flexibility in restricting air units by class
As you can see, a great deal of background work has been going on. To that end, the LUA update released today represents the beginning of the LOUD Project - Version 5.0. We'll be focusing primarily now upon completion of the Bombardment behavior, reintroducing language localisation, adding BrewLAN units into the LOUD Project, and introducing a small number of 80k maps for our hardcore players. Enjoy !
Sprouto
