Archimedean Dynasty Augmented Mod (1.2 released!)

[spekkio]

Oh, in case somebody's interested:

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02201: SECTOR B OF THE FIRST RING

- changed AI settings for all BNT boats: they will keep patrolling the area infinitely,
- 10*"ATL-Scout": PD & ED changed from 400%-600% to 500%,
- 3*"ATL-Bomber": PD & ED increased from 300% to 400%,
- 1*"ATL-Polar": changed model from mk1 (max impact turrets) to mk2 (plasma turrets); changed its initial state from "don't act" to "patrol"; added "must survive" trigger,
- ALL BNT-Gun-Turrets in this mission were nerfed (PD & ED < 100%) - now "fixed"

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02202: THE ATTACK ON SECTOR C

- fixed non-showing tip in BRF
- 1*"CLA-Bengalia": changed its initial state from "don't act" to "patrol" (BTW - it is now equipped with plasma guns...); added "must survive" trigger (it is now destructible); changed its AM entry - Bionts will now attack it and vice versa; moved it a little bit higher (most of its gun turrets are in its lower part),
- 1*"ATL-Polar": changed its initial state from "don't act" to "patrol"; changed model from mk1 (max impact turrets) to mk2 (plasma turrets); added "must survive" trigger,
- changed many "appear" triggers (units will appear in order now)
- changed AI settings for many units (both allies and enemies): they will keep patrolling the area infinitely now,
- 2*"MER-Boat": PD & ED increased from 120% to 500%,
- 2*"ATL-Scout": PD & ED increased from 120% to 500%,
- 1*"ATL-Bomber": PD & ED increased from 120% to 400%, reduced it's speed on the way to SOB (original value made him stay near Polar),
- 5*"CLA-Boat": PD & ED increased from 200% to 500%,
- 2*"CLA-Boat": fixed AI trigger (made them stop right at the beginning of the mission -> instant suicide)
- 5*"SHO-Scout": PD & ED increased from 200% to 500%,
- 2*"SHO-Bomber": PD & ED decreased from 600% to 400%,
- 1*"SHO Bomber B": changed its initial position (originally, he was unable to reach his patrol area due to high walls),
- ALL BNT-Bombers, BNT-Scouts & BNT-Gun-Turrets in this mission were nerfed (PD & ED < 100%) - now "fixed"
- 3*"BNT-Battleship": they will now attack all "allied" boats, not just Flint,
- 1*"BNT-Battleship 01": fixed its position, so it covers one of the entrances properly now (previously 2 battleships were overlapping),
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Second mission took me 2 days to fix - it's the single biggest mission in the game (mission file is almost 200 KB big).

 

[trais]

All right, I'm gonna flip-flop - it actually looks good as it is. Especially, I can't wait to see those fat cows (Polar and that other one) actually being useful for a change.

Although I think that replacing some of the biont turrets with biont bombers and scouts would make those last few missions more fun overall. Killing stationary targets is boring.

 

[spekkio]

^
Adding even a single object without an editor is a royal pain in the ass.
Besides, final missions are what the devs wanted: total clusterfuck, full of narrow ducts and filled with >9000 turrets.
But yeah - I like the missions against the Bionts in the Shogunate much better than the final ones.

Still: what a great game!

 

[trais]

Aquanox is terribly dumbed down compared to AD, but I still like it.
Well, I like it all the way up till the ending, because both Crawlers and Squids are retarded ideas. But the atmosphere of Aqua is still in that game. OTOH Aquanox 2 is complete shit, despite its gameplay being a bit more interesting than first Aquanox.

 

[spekkio]

Another mission done:
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02203: SECTOR D OF THE SECOND RING

- fixed non-showing tip in BRF,
- 1*"ATL-Triton": changed (fixed?) identification trigger - it will now attack Bionts and vice versa,
- slightly changed position of ATL-Triton and one of the BNT-Gun-Turrets: after activating, Triton was able to deal with first 3 turrets on his own...
- 8*"SHO-Scout": PD & ED increased from 40%-300% to 500%,
- 4*"SHO-Bomber": PD & ED changed from 50%-600% to 400%,
- 1*"SHO-Bomber B": fixed its activity triggers (originally it was switching to 'stop' the moment Ping died),
- 10*"MER-Boat": PD & ED decreased from 600% to 500%,
- ALL BNT-Bombers, BNT-Scouts & BNT-Gun-Turrets in this mission were nerfed (PD & ED < 100%) - now "fixed"
- unified engines of Biont units: BOM 5 -> 3, SCO 0-5 -> 4, TUR 0-5 -> 4,
- changed AI settings for all BNT boats: they will keep patrolling the area infinitely,
- changed patrolling routes for 3 BNT-Scouts: originally they were patrolling at great height, which made them prone to getting stuck in walls,

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Two remaining ones should be easier - they are much smaller (less objects, simple triggers).

 

[spekkio]

BROS, the campaign is finally done!



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02204: THE ATTACK ON SECTOR E

- 1*"ATL-Polar": changed its not so effective triggers (attack 3 cruisers sequentially then stop) to something more effective (3 x patrol the area),
- 1*"ATL-Triton": changed initial state to "patrol"; changed its AM entry - Bionts will now attack it and vice versa,
- 1*"MER-Hong-Long": added "must survive" trigger (her boat is now destructible),
- 4*"ATL-Scout": PD & ED increased from 300% to 800%,
- 9*"BNT-Gun-Turret": PD & ED decreased from 200% to 100% (you should ignore them anyway),
- 3*"BNT-Cruiser": PD increased from 100/70/30% to 150/80/60% (Polar is now much more effective, allied boats use stronger torpedoes),
- added NAV A @ Polar (will appear when Polar gets attacked),
- changed the order of appearance for BNT bombers and scouts: originally they were appearing sequentially (#2 appears when #1 gets destroyed, and so on), which could be easily abused (paralyze all active bombers and scouts, deal with other objectives, then destroy one bomber/scout at a time); now it's a little bit more challenging...
- changed AI settings for all BNT boats: they will keep patrolling the area infinitely,
- changed mission triggers a bit: two other cruisers will appear later than originally (you have to deal with half of the bombers first),

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02205: THE FINAL BATTLE

- 2*"ATL-Scout": PD & ED increased from 500% to 800%,
- 3*"BNT-Fast-Bomber": PD & ED increased from 30-70% to 150%,
- 22*"BNT-Gun-Turret": PD & ED changed from 50-200% to 100%,
- 1*"BNT-Gun-Turret": removed (weird positioning),
- 8*"BNT-Guardian": fixed model from pirate bomber to Biont bomber,
- changed AI settings for some BNT boats: they will keep patrolling the area infinitely,

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Todo: 4 instant action missions.

After that: 1.0 release, fame, money, hot bitches, etc.
And I should finally play some other game for a change - I put my playthrough of Alice 2 on hold back in March...

 

[spekkio]

BROS, remaining 4 missions are done!

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Trai0: MOGHS

- fixed non-showing tip in BRF,
- added Turret 1, equipped with Max. Impact II & Eraser V1.4,
- added NAV A @ Svesda Wostock,

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Trai1: TANK EXTERMINATOR

- changed gun from Plasma Death III to Plasma Death II; decreased number of buzzers from 4 to 2 (default for Hiob),
- 5*"ANR-Scout": replaced "small mk1" model (#39) with "small mk2" (#88),
- 4*"ANR-Buggy": replaced "mk1" model (#2) with "mk2" (#65),

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Trai2: SAVE THE CONVOY

- changed software from Punisher V2.2 to Eraser V1.4,
- 4*"ATL-Bomber": PD increased from 100% to 300%; changed AI settings - they will keep patrolling the area infinitely,
- 4*"ANR-Bomber": changed model from small (#16) to big (#40),
- 1*"CLA-Freighter": changed model from Star of Bengalia (plasma death turrets) to Ishtar (vendetta turrets),
- changed AI settings for ALL enemy boats: instead of attacking Flint, they will now patrol the area,
- 3*"ATL-Freighter", 3*"CLA-Freighter": added "one object from this group must survive" trigger - destruction of all freighters = mission failure,

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Trai3: FREE VESPUCCI

- changed software from Punisher V2.2 to Eraser V1.4,
- 3*"ANR-Buggy": changed model from mk1 (#2) to mk2 (#65),
- 2*"ANR-Buggy": changed model to ANR-Tank, 1-barreled,
- 3*"ANR-Crawler": changed model to ANR-Tank, 2-barreled,
- 2*"ANR-Gun-Turret": changed model from 1-barreled to 2-barreled,
- 1*"ANR-Torp-Turret": changed model to ANR-Gun-Turret, 4-barreled,
- 5*"ATL-Tank": changed model from 1-barreled to 2-barreled,
- 2*"ATL-Tank": PD increased from 150% to 200%,
- changed PD & ED of enemy units from 150-200% to 100% (they have stronger weapons instead),
- changed AI settings for some enemy boats: instead of attacking Flint, they will now patrol the area,

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You know what that means:

 

[trais]

 

[spekkio]

Yeah.
I'm gonna test this shiat for the last fucking time, clean up the readme and prepare 1.0 file.
ETA: next thursday.

 

[trais]

If you're willing to upload the Release Candidate version somewhere I can help you with testing. Although tomorrow I will be quite useless due to alcohol poisoning I'm going to acquire on tonight's party, but spending whole Sunday playing AD sounds like a really swell idea.

 

[spekkio]

Release Candidate

BRO, I'm a follower of the "It compiles? Ship it!" school of programming...



Here's the final version, BROs:

Archimedean Dynasty Augmented Mod 1.0 (100% complete)

Schleichfahrt Augmented Mod 0.9 (missing some thingies, but Deepstar pledged himself to adding these; ETA - ask at ModDB or Jealous Jellyfish)

German briefings, conversations, item descriptions, object names and communication messages during missions, haven't been modified yet. But most likely they will be - expect fully compatible GER version of this mod in the future.

Let me know if everything works and what do you think about changes I made.

Bonus image: CLA-Bengalia raping the Bionts in mission 02202: THE ATTACK ON SECTOR C, using its brand-new plasma turrets.

 

[gondor]

Horraaaay! Saludos from Germany, .... and will bring this info to the jellyfish instantly!

 

[spekkio]

Thanks, mang.

I sent a PM to Deepstar, informing him that he can now start working on GER version (as long as he's still interested).

 

[trais]

I still feel slightly sick in the stomach but I downloaded the mod and I feel like MULTIHEADED DICKS ARE HITTING MY ASS AND LEG OH GOD ITS HEAVAN

 

[trais]

I encountered a small dialog related issue.
In chapter 3 (Galapagos), after you talk with Kevin Gould you can get a subtask (TaskCode = 311) to talk to Leona Rabina. But when you actually talk to her, the task specific dialog option (#0102 {KEVIN GOULD says you can tell me about the Tornado Zone.} in 003109.sen file) doesn't appear as selectable option.
I already talked to Atahualpa Jones and learned that Zorn is dead (Leona talks about Zorn in that part of her dialog), so I suspect that may have something to do with that option being disabled.

Anyway, is it possible to make it possible to ask her about Tornado Zone regardless? I couldn't find the dialog triggers myself

 

[spekkio]

AFAIR almost all dialogues in this hub are interconnected. So, depending on which options you choose during the talk with each particular charcter, you will get different dialogue with others.
I messed around with the dialogues only when something did not work at all (can't be triggered by any combination).

Main problem with the dialogues is that the .dia files are binary - I don't have a clue how exactly they work...

Try loading a save from the beginning of this hub and talk with Leona first / before talking to Jones / Nephros / Gould.

 

[spekkio]

Anyway - fuck the dialogue, how's the difficulty?

 

[trais]

I'm playing on hard and it's been quite balanced so far (up to Gibraltar). Previously easy missions are more challenging and the tougher ones are still beatable, so overall incline.
Increased torpedo spam by enemies can be a bit annoying (especially with Hiob - only 2 buzzers and no turret means a lot of bottom-hugging to dodge them) but it makes going face-to-face with bad guys more risky (9 out of 10 times you gonna get mouthfucked by a torpedo) so I prefer it this way. With Gator and anti-torpedo software it's a bit more manageable, so probably it'll get better as game progresses.
So far, no "mission lost due to RNG hating you" shit, which is awesome, but IIRC missions that can fail in this way are more frequent later in the game, so I'm gonna report on that later.

TLDR:

 

[spekkio]

playing on hard

Not that big of a difference looking from missions' scripts POV - 2-3 more boats than on medium and that's it. Still - 2 more biont bombers can make the difference.

buzzers, anti-torpedo software

it makes going face-to-face with bad guys more risky

Yeah - trying to come as close to the enemies as possible (esp. frontally) is no longer a good idea. Quite often an enemy is now able to launch at least a single torpedo, which can fuck you up p. badly if you are in front of him AND too close to shoot it down.

So far, no "mission lost due to RNG hating you" shit

For me the worst were missions where you have to protect something way too fucking fragile (tanks, boats). Now such objects have much more HP, but enemies have better weapons as well.

If you completed first mission after getting Gator (Attack on Ishtar) without problems, it should be fine.

 

[trais]

I think mission "Destroying the lock" (m00704) could use another look into it.

When you destroy the generator and meet with the saboteur, pirates gets beckup gen. online and you get the next objective to destroy gun turrets near nav point C.
As soon as you do that, the saboteur moves into the base to place bombs at the floodgate controls, but he gets thoroughly raped by gun turrets that placed next to them, as there's no time to destroy all enemy units in that area quickly enough (5 turrets, 4 scouts and a tank IIRC).

So, the easy way to complete this mission is to ignore the turrets near nav point C, kill everything near the locks and only then go back to nav C. But you learn that after restart, as your first instinct is to clear nav point C first.

So, I think it would be good idea to change the saboteur move trigger. Instead of clearing nav point C, he should only go when those turrets are down AND both pairs of gun turrets guarding each floodgate control thingy are also down.
That would also require change in [Radio5131]

rtxte = [atl-saboteur] i will follow as soon as you destroyed all gun turrets at nav c.

 

[spekkio]

he gets thoroughly raped by gun turrets that placed next to them, as there's no time to destroy all enemy units in that area quickly enough (5 turrets, 4 scouts and a tank IIRC).

BRO, I was able to destroy all the enemies without using torpedoes and I tested this mission at least 5 times...

So, the easy way to complete this mission is to ignore the turrets near nav point C, kill everything near the locks and only then go back to nav C

The easiest way is to totally ignore the objectives and complete this mission going counter-clockwise, starting with destroing the turrets close to the floodgate controls. But that's totally popamole.



AFAIR the Saboteur starts moving the moment you destroy all 3 turrets near NAV C (they use passive detection, so can be fooled easily). So: go there, disable sonar and engine, destroy 2-4 scouts first, then the turrets, then go to the contols. You should have more than enough time to deal with 2-4 scouts and 4 turrets there (ignore everything else).

So, I think it would be good idea to change the saboteur move trigger. Instead of clearing nav point C, he should only go when those turrets are down AND both pairs of gun turrets guarding each floodgate control thingy are also down.

This would make this mission way too easy (Saboteur could not be destroyed at all). And it's quite easy already...

 

[trais]

AFAIR the Saboteur starts moving the moment you destroy all 3 turrets near NAV C (they use passive detection, so can be fooled easily). So: go there, disable sonar and engine, destroy 2-4 scouts first, then the turrets, then go to the contols. You should have more than enough time to deal with 2-4 scouts and 4 turrets there (ignore everything else).

You don't need to sneak in - nav point C turrets has only 180 deg arc of fire, so you can just go behind them and kill them without taking a single hit.
Destroying the enemies near the lock isn't the problem, the problem that the saboteur has no self-preservation instinct and is wearing a short skirt in Niggerland. So you need to fly in circles around the flood gate controls to keep the turrets there from killing him in 1.5 seconds (fortunately turrets always prefer to shoot at Flint) and pray that enemy scouts' AI doesn't decide fire torpedoes at him.

So, I think it would be good idea to change the saboteur move trigger. Instead of clearing nav point C, he should only go when those turrets are down AND both pairs of gun turrets guarding each floodgate control thingy are also down.

This would make this mission way too easy (Saboteur could not be destroyed at all). And it's quite easy already...

I agree that this mission is easy if you know exactly what to do. But if someone plays it for the first time - he will fail and then he'll meta-game it on his second try. So it won't be hard either way.

 

[spekkio]

My bet is that you're using your turret to shoot down torpedoes. In "sync with me" mode you don't have to "fly in circles around the flood gate controls to keep the turrets there from killing him in 1.5 seconds", since both turrets will be gone within seconds after being attacked. Same thing with the scouts - I was able to destroy all of them (plus the tank) long before the Saboteur even reached the area...

 

[trais]

OK, fine, maybe I'm doing that mission wrong.

I have another issue - Mission M00903 (Calamary delivery) - it fails for no reason. I kill the Tankrit dudes, rush to the nav B where the freighter is being attacked, 1-shot Anarchist Bomber with one Big Bang II and while I'm killing rest of the pirates game goes "mission target missed".
I tried it couple of times, once I even got "autopilot available" followed by "mission target missed" after a second or two.
What are the victory/loss conditions in this mission?

 

[spekkio]

^
Just finished this mission without any problems. You have to destroy the ANR-Bomber before it inflitrates the freighter (you have 30 seconds to do this).

My advice: don't use so strong torpedoes, since the bomber is very close to the freighter.