General Suggestions Thread - Republic Assault: The Clone Wars mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption

I've noted a few things so far, and have some ideas, and some things that need to be fixed (probably all minor). I note the items that I have screenshots for, they are all on my Steam profile, so let me know and I can pm the links, you should be able to see them.

I recently built a big fleet of 20 or more ships that has had to defend multiple planets. Unfortunately, this means that as many ships as can fit in the pop cap are already spawned in the map. This isn't fun as I get quite a bit of slowdown initially, more ships than I need (and often, more than I can manage), and ships are often in...inconvenient locations. My Mandator is always below my other ships (essentially next to the planet), not a problem, except for the fact that I usually can't see the model, and going into its BattleCam looks...weird. This is really only a problem when defending, but I can see my suggestions helping for attacks when you forget to have someone jump in ahead of the rest of the fleet.

My suggestions:

1. Have no ships spawn in, and increase the Line-Of-Sight radius around the space station, or if there is none, just make an open area to put ships into. I think this is the easiest to implement.
2. If you've played Total War games, you have an infinite period to set up your troops, and move them around within a box of space. You could split the space map in half, and provide some drag-and-drop tools to drop ships into the map, back into the reinforcement queue, and around the map. I think this is probably very tough to implement. You could perhaps limit the time allowed for placement, or not. The time we get to place ships doesn't really make a difference. Once ships are placed, you click a button to start the battle, and fog of war returns.

I've noticed on some mods (The Clone War Mod 4.0 specifically) and yours that so many units are available that they aren't visible. This has been a pain because I can't seem to find the MTT on TCW 4.0 (Recently found out he never actually put it into his binaries, but he had made it...), and units show up on your mod as I select buildings. I would suggest making a horizontal scroll feature in the build menu for both rows. Each unit or building gets a slot, and buttons on both sides to scroll back and forth. I have no idea how difficult this is to implement.

1. Jedi/Sith and some other heroes need auto-heal. Not a big one though.
2. Acclamators shouldn't be cheaper than Arquitens and Jedi Consular frigates. Although, I definitely do not mind cheap frigates .
3. Fleets should not be able to cross hyperspace lanes. This isn't a thing in some other mods I've tried, or at least those paths are never chosen. Canonically, crossing hyperspace lanes was dangerous (the Purrgil did this, and many people have died, and many ships have been damaged). I didn't expect this, and got attacked seemingly out of nowhere by the CIS Holdouts. Additionally, I noticed that if your default path from Planet A to Planet C required you to go over Planet B, it was possible to skip over Planet B if its orbit was occupied. I have a screenshot for this. While very convenient, I don't think this is a good idea, but this isn't a big one for me.
4. On Mechis 3, and I'm guessing other volcanic planets, troops automatically lose health. While this would be a boon to defending forces, I think this should be removed. I was using the 501st legion for the first time (the models look awesome, and I love how many of them are, as well as unit variety), and had a very tough go at keeping them alive long enough to split up the legion with an even mix of troops in each group.
   • In the 501st, there's a trooper with a Force Attack ability (that doesn't work). I have a screenshot.
   • In the campaign overview the 501st legion is called Green Company
   • Rex's model is awesome.
5. MPTLs should be balanced with the Empire's SPHA artillery. The MPTLs have a significantly greater range than the SPHAs, which is quite annoying, and makes me sad. I like blowing up rebel scum from long distance, and now I can't. Perhaps there's a canonical reason for this, if there is, I'm not aware of it. If so, ignore this.
6. Personally, I think Acclamators are too weak. In BF2, and other times, they are portrayed as being essentially equivalent to Munificents, but I've noticed that even two Acclamators have trouble with a single Munificent. I've also watched an Umbaran Support Shuttle or two wipe out an Acclamator. I think perhaps the imbalance that I see is probably a product of the mod not being finished, but just thought I should put it out there.
   • I noticed that the Acclamator has two hanger hardpoints on the rear of the ship, where I assumed I would have seen engine hardpoints. I attempted to retreat from a battle before any fighting had started, and lost my undamaged Acclamator. I'll to reproduce it to verify, but I think this may have been because it didn't have engine hardpoints.

As an observation, I currently have old Tarkin and young Tarkin defending Kuat at the same time. I assume this will be ironed out eventually. Also, it was odd having Obi-Wan Kenobi kill C-3P0 and R2-D2.

I think that's it for me, for now at least.

"I recently built a big fleet of 20 or more ships that has had to defend multiple planets. Unfortunately, this means that as many ships as can fit in the pop cap are already spawned in the map. This isn't fun as I get quite a bit of slowdown initially, more ships than I need (and often, more than I can manage), and ships are often in...inconvenient locations. My Mandator is always below my other ships (essentially next to the planet), not a problem, except for the fact that I usually can't see the model, and going into its BattleCam looks...weird. This is really only a problem when defending, but I can see my suggestions helping for attacks when you forget to have someone jump in ahead of the rest of the fleet.

My suggestions:

Have no ships spawn in, and increase the Line-Of-Sight radius around the space station, or if there is none, just make an open area to put ships into. I think this is the easiest to implement.
If you've played Total War games, you have an infinite period to set up your troops, and move them around within a box of space. You could split the space map in half, and provide some drag-and-drop tools to drop ships into the map, back into the reinforcement queue, and around the map. I think this is probably very tough to implement. You could perhaps limit the time allowed for placement, or not. The time we get to place ships doesn't really make a difference. Once ships are placed, you click a button to start the battle, and fog of war returns.
I've noticed on some mods (The Clone War Mod 4.0 specifically) and yours that so many units are available that they aren't visible. This has been a pain because I can't seem to find the MTT on TCW 4.0 (Recently found out he never actually put it into his binaries, but he had made it...), and units show up on your mod as I select buildings. I would suggest making a horizontal scroll feature in the build menu for both rows. Each unit or building gets a slot, and buttons on both sides to scroll back and forth. I have no idea how difficult this is to implement."

Interesting ideas, could indeed be hard to implement for sure but could be quite useful in-game, especially in a battle, and could allow players to stragetically place their ships and use them accordingly in said battle, this would certainly be a useful feature, and your scroll feature for the build menu would be nice to have.

Edited by: CT-1119

CT-1119 wrote:

Interesting ideas, could indeed be hard to implement for sure but could be quite useful in-game, especially in a battle, and could allow players to stragetically place their ships and use them accordingly in said battle, this would certainly be a useful feature, and your scroll feature for the build menu would be nice to have.

I can write C and Java, but I've never had a go at modding. If I had the time, I'd start learning and just write at least the scroll feature myself. But too much to do, not enough time.

Ugh, I usually get a notification for a new thread.

Anyways, as for some of your ideas. While I appreciate some of them, I need to shoot some down right away.

Have no ships spawn in

Best you can do is send an advanced unit in before your fleet. EaW is hard coded to force you to send in either the entire fleet, or one unit in advance.

If you've played Total War games, you have an infinite period to set up your troops, and move them around within a box of space. You could split the space map in half, and provide some drag-and-drop tools to drop ships into the map, back into the reinforcement queue, and around the map. I think this is probably very tough to implement. You could perhaps limit the time allowed for placement, or not. The time we get to place ships doesn't really make a difference. Once ships are placed, you click a button to start the battle, and fog of war returns.

There's really no way to do this either. Like before, best you can do is deploy one company, pause the game, place you troops, and unpause.

suggest making a horizontal scroll feature in the build menu for both rows

It was originally planned, but Petro decided to cut it. Best I can do is create a filter, which might not be planned.

Jedi/Sith and some other heroes need auto-heal. Not a big one though.

Gotta disagree, heroes should play like somewhat better infantry. If you're foolish enough to throw a hero into a giant pack of enemies, there will be consequences.

Acclamators shouldn't be cheaper than Arquitens and Jedi Consular frigates. Although, I definitely do not mind cheap frigates

Yeah... That's, uhh....

I'm still working on trying to balance everything

Fleets should not be able to cross hyperspace lanes

Hyperspace lanes are being fixed completely. No more ability to jump to random systems, you need to use charted lanes.

troops automatically lose health

Once again, I gotta disagree. The player needs to plan ahead, and change their tactics.

Force Attack ability

Hardcase probably, from my understanding, that triggers a special attack

the 501st legion is called Green Company

Yeah, text is WIP

Rex's model is awesome

All credit goes to X2. But he's getting replaced....

artillery in general

These really need to be rebalanced as a whole. I hate those things, but one side should have certain advantages over the other

Acclamators are too weak

Balance is completely WIP

two hanger hardpoints on the rear of the ship

It might, but not anymore. The model has been replaced.

As an observation, I currently have old Tarkin and young Tarkin defending Kuat at the same time. I assume this will be ironed out eventually. Also, it was odd having Obi-Wan Kenobi kill C-3P0 and R2-D2.

Certain heroes, and units were left as placeholders, or role fillers. But some did get left in.

Though I really do appreciate the feedback.

Okay, I'll have to figure out how to manage defensive space battles better.

Ungeheuer1 wrote:

Okay, I'll have to figure out how to manage defensive space battles better.

Ah, the issue was with defense battles. Yeah, the sad thing is, there's not much you can do.

Sergeant wrote:

Ungeheuer1 wrote:

Okay, I'll have to figure out how to manage defensive space battles better.

Ah, the issue was with defense battles. Yeah, the sad thing is, there's not much you can do.

Forgive me if this is an ignorant question:

If we assign a ship to the orange box (the one that makes that ship jump into an offensive battle first), would it be possible to have the game make only that ship appear initially during a defensive battle? The code for that should already exist, could you invoke that when a defensive battle starts?

Ungeheuer1 wrote:

Sergeant wrote:

Ungeheuer1 wrote:

Okay, I'll have to figure out how to manage defensive space battles better.

Ah, the issue was with defense battles. Yeah, the sad thing is, there's not much you can do.

Forgive me if this is an ignorant question:

If we assign a ship to the orange box (the one that makes that ship jump into an offensive battle first), would it be possible to have the game make only that ship appear initially during a defensive battle? The code for that should already exist, could you invoke that when a defensive battle starts?

It might be possible, but only if it's lua/xml based. If it's actual basic game code, than it's a big 'ol no on that. Unless Petro decides to resupport the game, and adds something like that.

Sergeant wrote:

Ungeheuer1 wrote:

Sergeant wrote:

Ungeheuer1 wrote:

Okay, I'll have to figure out how to manage defensive space battles better.

Ah, the issue was with defense battles. Yeah, the sad thing is, there's not much you can do.

Forgive me if this is an ignorant question:

If we assign a ship to the orange box (the one that makes that ship jump into an offensive battle first), would it be possible to have the game make only that ship appear initially during a defensive battle? The code for that should already exist, could you invoke that when a defensive battle starts?

It might be possible, but only if it's lua/xml based. If it's actual basic game code, than it's a big 'ol no on that. Unless Petro decides to resupport the game, and adds something like that.

I don't know shit about about scripting for games, but what scripting languages would I need to learn to make that scroll bar I mentioned above, and the orange box thing? I'm guessing at this point that neither of those are really on your radar for goals, so if I don't get through em, it isn't a loss for you, and if I do, everyone wins.

Ungeheuer1 wrote:

Sergeant wrote:

Ungeheuer1 wrote:

Sergeant wrote:

Ungeheuer1 wrote:

Okay, I'll have to figure out how to manage defensive space battles better.

Ah, the issue was with defense battles. Yeah, the sad thing is, there's not much you can do.

Forgive me if this is an ignorant question:

If we assign a ship to the orange box (the one that makes that ship jump into an offensive battle first), would it be possible to have the game make only that ship appear initially during a defensive battle? The code for that should already exist, could you invoke that when a defensive battle starts?

It might be possible, but only if it's lua/xml based. If it's actual basic game code, than it's a big 'ol no on that. Unless Petro decides to resupport the game, and adds something like that.

I don't know shit about about scripting for games, but what scripting languages would I need to learn to make that scroll bar I mentioned above, and the orange box thing? I'm guessing at this point that neither of those are really on your radar for goals, so if I don't get through em, it isn't a loss for you, and if I do, everyone wins.

Honestly, unless Petrol releases source code, or someone manages to decompile the game. It's not really possible.