MIRAGE Discussion

[MrMorgana]

New question: Tric suggested, that all flying units (except for Zeppelin) should be hero-free. So Jetpack-warrior would be available from epoch 3, but what should Taslow give the norsemen then?

Anders ausgedrückt: Ich werde innerhalb einer Woche Ideen vorlegen. Mein Gehirn zieht aus irgendeinem Grund solche kreativen Prozesse "wirklicher Arbeit" vor

Lord Quinex, have you any new idea for seas spells and special abilities since then?

[Scrat]

Wouldn't be too bad. Flying units are cool, and it's kinda sucky that NM are theonly one without a basic flying unit.

Maybe Ram for Taslow?

Or battle tank?

Of cause a little stronger than they are now.

[MrMorgana]

they are already good in mirage (ram, tank)

something new would be good, for example a new vehicle
Or maybe an instant temporarily upgrade, which equips jetpack-warriors with a ranged weapon?

[MrMorgana]

well, a ranged weapon for jpw wouldn't be bad, but i already got an idea for a new mechanic unit
but first i must see it in editor

[Deadworker]

hey,

1 question. you don't think babbit get kind of overpowered? i mean he get exo and if exo get destroyed, babbit remains. so something like a revive. sounds very unfair. if i missed something about the upgrade than im sorry.

[Entoursis]

Hi.

Oh, thats great! I didnt visit the forum for long, and sudden visit makes me so happy because of seeing just about a mod of my dream:) May I ask few questions.

1. Did I understand right that units limit is expanded to 200, but army controller is not expanded yet? Does it looks possible to modify army controller too in the future?
2. Did anyone test this mod vs AI, not vs another player via net? I ask because there were some AI failures in SEAS mod, especially on custom maps, and I really worry that chance of AI failure can increase with this mod?
3. If you don't have seas installed, you will have 3 tribes with all new mirage features after mod installation, if you have seas installed, you will have all for tribes as well as all mirage features for all 4 tribes? Is that so?
4. In main menu I can switch between 52 and 200 unit gameplay, so old version of game concept is presented in mirage as well?

Also, I am very interested in seeing some kind of a list of all new units and features. I think it is going to be useful)

I see that a lot of people post ideas there, let me post mine) Since army controller is going to be modified, I 'll give my small idea about army controller. Well, I think that current AC should be revised, to be more precise, not army controller itself, but basic levels of units. The reason is that at the same time very weak and very strong units have the same basic level. For example, both berserker and battle mamoth are level 3 units, but berserker, being very strong, however is nothing near any kind of large animal unit. The same goes to level 2 - all basic human warriors/archers/spearmans may be quite effective, especially in groups, but animal units in the same numbers are more effective. Another bright example - Norsemen's Ram is level 2, Dustriders have quite similar unit - Rammer, which is, however, owns much less health being a human. But I dont understand, why the hell it is level 3, while ram is level 2, and both units are identical, if rammer is not weaker than ram. Man should be an idiot, or an extreme gameplay lover to spend 1 3-level block on rammer, while he could put a brachio in this slot.
So what it leads to is that if a player have a choice between spending one slot on a strong animal unit or on a weak human, which was expected to be useful, but the price of an animal unit is too high, the player would definetly buy an animal, what leads to fall of diversity of game process, since most units become unused. Maybe the only exception is when the player doesnt have money to buy expensive animal or when he needs weaker units for some reason, f.ex., to fill brachio transporter with archers, but more or less, the game will lead the player to decrease of weaker units number for strong animals to fill their place. I personally use level-2 archers, warriors and level 3 poisoners, berserkers, killers mainly because I want my game to be diverse or want to make my game a little harder and interesting, whenever I have difficult times in my game, I fill all 2-level slots with anky catapults and stegos, and level-3 slots with brachios, because this army is the most effective, any human 2 or 3 level units are nothing near them.
Hope my idea is understandable.
What ways of solving this I see:
1. (Worst way) split same-leveld units by time of appearance. For example, if level 2 human warriors are available since epoch 2, and level 2 animals available since level 3, level 2 humans would have 2 pros - price and early appearance, so if you'l need an army on epoch 2, you would be forced to use weak level 2 units. Quite bad solution since it will result imballance and need of creation of aditional epochs. And if done that way, problem of imbalanced hero-level4 units is not solved.
2. (average way) - simply downgrade some units, make some of level 3 units level 2 units, especially rammers, druids, poisoners, etc. The problem is seen if we try to apply this method to level 2. If we downgrade level 2 weak units, they will need level 1 slots which are very valuable since they are for workers, also to many units are available on epoch 3.
3. (Best solution, but no guarantee it is possible) - add extra level, so now it is 6-level AC. Units are placed in this categories this way:
Level 1 - Workers, Transport Ships, Weakest Warriors, in other words, Level 1 is left in general the same it is in original.
Level 2 - includes all level2 human warriors like poison throwers, archers, warriors, spearmans, gunners etc, plus weakest animals like scouts.
Level 3 - includes all level2 animals like stegos, ankys, boars, parasaurolophs etc, plus all level 3 human units like killers, poisoners, druids etc. Zeppelin and some others also come here, but the limit of maximum one should be left as is. Maybe some of downgraded units should be cut in power a little, fex, since you now may buy more druids, speed of healing or druid health should be decreased. What we see now is that all units in this category are balanced and if I have to choose between Stego or Killer, I would think for a while (in case of mamoth and killer, I won't think for long).
Level 4 - includes all level 3 animal units like mamoths and brachios, and selected human level 3 units (but they need to be boosted in health amount and damage). Fex having a lot of ice spearmans would be imbalance since one of them can stop any other unit including titan, so it should share same slots with mamoths and brachios, but it's health and damage done should be increased slightly.
Level 5 - current level 4. Also some of units like trike transporter should be boosted slightly to have a chance to be chosen if there is a choice between titan and him (or maube trike should be downgraded)
Level 6 - current level 5

The same applies to heroes. Heroes are great, and their abilities too, but when you have enemies knoking into your gate and you have to choose between bone-crushing titan and possibility to create eusmilus riders, well, it's an easy choice. Again, I personally have 4level heroes only just for fun or in rare special situation when I really need their special (fex Zeppelin is sometimes comes useful). Best idea is to give heroes special spaces in AC (but in this way, a limit to maximum heroes amount should be made). Because, heroes are not something better or worse than titans or other units. It's just something special.

And the last, about funtitans - I think their concept should be changed, since having 3 heroes for them is not that fun:) Since funtitans are something really devastating, that can quickly change the situation on battlefield, I think it is good idea to make them somehow identical to warpgate. I mean, when you evolved your base to it's limits, have epoch 5 and a lot of resourses, and want to win quickly, you have to options: first to build warp gate (you know what it is) or, if you want quick win, but with fun (funtitan is self-explaining name in this way:), funtitan icon appears in animal farm(or other building) as well as warp gate in build menu. Funtitan is really expensive, cheaper than warp gate but for a little, and takes a lot of time to create. Whenever you order funtitan, your enemies recieve a message that you started to train funtitan (so they have few minutes to destroy your farm or build their own funtitan for defence, or they most likely will lose). I find this concept nor bad.

If needed, I'm quite sure I can help with Russian translation this time too, for Mirage, of course)

[MrMorgana]

hey,

1 question. you don't think babbit get kind of overpowered? i mean he get exo and if exo get destroyed, babbit remains. so something like a revive. sounds very unfair. if i missed something about the upgrade than im sorry.

Yes, we agreed, that Babbit won't pop out from exo if it gets destroyed =)

[MrMorgana]

Hi Entoursis! =)

Good to see you here. You have good ideas, but there are some things you should know.
First: we can't modify the AC. The AC and its limitations are in native code of the game, so not reachable at the moment (btw. you can't choose in Mirage between 52 and 200 unit limit)
Second: the 200 limit means 200 supply. This is similar to Starcraft/2, where different units cost different amount of supplies. So that a human/infantry unit cost much less than an animal or vehicle unit (like berserker or rammer costs atm 2 supplies, a titan costs 10 supplies). This way you can have a big army of weak/medicore units, or some big and strong units.
Other new thing in Mirage is, that the special units of the heroes gets boosted, some are balanced (icespearman) so that they would be really "special" in a certain way (lke dr rammer can incapacitate buildings: no attack, production, etc)
Third: if you install Mirage, you will have access to all 4 tribes, but you still need the seas-modified skirmish maps (see Big-mappack)
About the AI: well the AI have always bugs, but at least in this mod we fixed for example the seas fence bug, so that the SEAS AI will build fences to defend its base (actually it depends also from the level, on some level it does not)
The funtitan's concept are not in Mirage, but 2 of the units (Avatar, Donkey Kong) are used as special units, and they are not anymore so strong. In the other hand there are some new epoch 5 units and buildings for each tribe (like the scorpion for seas) which are quite powerful

And thank you that you would help in russian translation, i will inform you as soon as we are finished with the english texts

[Entoursis]

Second: the 200 limit means 200 supply. This is similar to Starcraft/2, where different units cost different amount of supplies. So that a human/infantry unit cost much less than an animal or vehicle unit (like berserker or rammer costs atm 2 supplies, a titan costs 10 supplies). This way you can have a big army of weak/medicore units, or some big and strong units.

I see. Damn, thats great. It seems to be a great alternative to all stuff I wrote about same level units imbalance. So if a berserker costs 2 supplies and brachio costs 4, it is a choice between 2 berserkers and 1 brach, which is a choice to think about. Did I understand this right? And amount of supply required by a unit is shown along with resourse requirement, is it?

Other new thing in Mirage is, that the special units of the heroes gets boosted, some are balanced (icespearman) so that they would be really "special" in a certain way (lke dr rammer can incapacitate buildings: no attack, production, etc)

Great also.

About AI: my worries were provoked in general because of seeing a note in booster's topic saying "AI as enemy possible but still work to do". If there are some bugs like AI failure on some maps, than it's ok (in this way I can simply delete maps I found not to work correctly), but what about other known problems?

What happened to Arena Trex funtitan?) I like this guy) Is there some kind of a unit in Mirage made of Arena Trex?

BTW about army controller: I saw once an interesting screenshot somewhere here on forum with a glitch on it: it seemed that AC became stretched for some reason, so there were 3 level5 slots instead of one, 5 or 6 level4 slots - in the other words, there were larger AC with much more slots on this screen. Maybe it is possible to represent this glitch manually and this way make army controller with more slots for more units to be shown in it.

[MrMorgana]

Did I understand this right? And amount of supply required by a unit is shown along with resourse requirement, is it?

Yes it means this, and the supplies-cost is shown newly in the tool-tip as well
So in the future we can balance the units this way too, changing their supplies costs, should a unit be too much powerful or weak (like now a brachiosaurus costs atm 5 supplies, but this may be more)

but what about other known problems?

Well, which problems are you speaking about exactly?

What happened to Arena Trex funtitan?) I like this guy) Is there some kind of a unit in Mirage made of Arena Trex?

Yes, there is a dustrider unit(s ^^), the special unit of Miyagi: the arenarex with either 2 ankylo catapults which fire tracker dinos, and has 1 slot to transport a human fighter, or its equipped with 3 gattling guns (the two forms can be converted into each other, like at stegosaurus, or ankylo)

BTW about army controller: I saw once an interesting screenshot somewhere here on forum with a glitch on it: it seemed that AC became stretched for some reason, so there were 3 level5 slots instead of one, 5 or 6 level4 slots - in the other words, there were larger AC with much more slots on this screen. Maybe it is possible to represent this glitch manually and this way make army controller with more slots for more units to be shown in it.

Yes, i remember that, because i made that tga myself, to be used in Kharg's popmod, should it ever be finished ^^


But this is simply an extended picture of the army controller, the game itself only uses the left half of it (the native code contains the limit of icons in each level and rows, thats why we can't upgrade the AC now)

[Entoursis]

Well, which problems are you speaking about exactly?

I dont know, maybe AI is working badly or smth. I think that if a note "AI possible but still work to do" was written, then there were reasons to write it. What were the reasons? Is it playable vs AI in general?


Can new arena Trex bite?) By the way, it would be interesting to make for example for one tribe some sort of exclusive - a dinosaur with long ranged weapon (like catapult or ballista), but with kept ability of close range combat.

So sad that AC is not upgradeable now...

[MrMorgana]

I see now what you are talking about ^^
Well, i don't know about any specific problems with AI, but of course we must work on it, so that the AI will also build the new heroes, and special units/buildings, etc.

And yes of course the arenarex can still bite, the catapults/gatling-guns are just secondary weapons

About the exclusive dinosaur, just check the Triceratops-titan's secondary form: it carries a log-cannon, but can fight in close combat as well (can't transport units on its back)

[Triceratops]

Yes, you can play vs the ai in mirage. But I added the info about ai limitations because the ai was and still is not taking full advantage of the new units/heroes etc. I didnt want to keep this unmentioned. Only vs human players you will be battling against all this new stuff

The newest version of mirage can be found here: http://www.para-welt.com/funmode/ The Community's Expansion Pack will be updated with new material once in a while

[Entoursis]

I see now. So AI will work ok like in original version, but it is not taught yet to use new units and buildings. Well, it's ok I think.

Thanks for all the answers.

[Entoursis]

Installed minutes ago and very happy. Great 200 supply, great new units and changed powers of old units. Also it's a pleasant surprise to know that AI became even better: I don't know why, but now it attacks and builds actively, visits distant stone sourses - it's more interesting to play, in other words.

But during my gameplay a new idea/request was born: since AC is not changable and switched of, maybe there is a way to create another army informer, at least some kind of a switchable list maybe not to control, but to always have ability to know how many for example workers you already have. Just a list or something. Or maybe there already is a way to gain info about your current army but I simoly don't know about it.

But in general, lack of AC and it's ability of quick swithing to a unit and gaining info about it's activity and health makes game more interesting and difficult - now you manually have to check all your units often to know fex if there are workers doing nothing, that's not bad.

[Triceratops]

An army info screen sounds really good. Maybe Henry has an idea how to make it. I use NUM LOCK to show all health bars during battles. Also W and CTRL+W are really helpfull to select your idle workers

[Entoursis]

Since I accidently watered my keyboard once, I don't have both controls working. As AC is abscent, and control+P is not working for me, it seems that there's no way I can select Pirate Ship. Damn))

[MrMorgana]

You can turn AC on in Options: at gameplay tab uncheck "hide army controller"
You can do this even 'ingame', but so you have to press 'Tab key' a few times to bring AC back.

[MrMorgana]

You can also change the key combinations from Ctrl+P to whatever you like in 'Keys.srf' file (MIRAGE\SCIAGE\Scripts\Game\options)
E.g: look for 'SelectAllPBS' and change the 'CONTROL' to SHIFT or make a whole new combination, just check if its unused

[Entoursis]

Thanks, changing key combination is better option)

[Entoursis]

Oh it's strange, It seems that hotkeys are not working at all, for example, I cant select a worker using w key, as well as I can't select anyting.

[MrMorgana]

can you try if the standard hotkeys are working with boosterpack?

[Entoursis]

It seems that... no. Strange. The only hotkeys working are digits to choose manually created squads related with a digit or whatever it is called.

[Triceratops]

Are there any light signals on your keyboard? ROL Lock lighted? NUM Lock?

When did this start?

[Entoursis]

Num Lock light signal is working, as well as num lock effect it Paraworld (activates/diactivates health bars under units, it works). Only quick selects of units and buildings like "go to HQ", "go to Pirate Ship", "go to worker" etc are not wotking. In general, keyboard is working excluding controls and few "F" buttons (F5 and some others), you can see that I can type text here) The problem is presented only in game. Maybe hotkeys can be switched on/of in game and I accidently switched them of, or smth like that.
When It started - I don't know, I don't use hotkeys often but I used to use them some time ago, so I can say that they were working before mirage installation, but I can't tell if this problem started after I installed mirage or even before it, because I don't remember when I tried hotkeys last time.