[N7] server - testing unlimited balance mods

[nalf]

I made several modifications, mostly suggested by CU|ams, that are aimed to balance unlimited build point servers. I need people to play it to get some feedback, so you're all welcomed to play .

All games are analyzed by TremStats. Currently, I don't have a place where to publish the results, but as soon as I get some place, you'll be able to compare your skills, view games history etc. etc. (Anybody could help with a hosting? I need PHP/MySQL hosting with external access to MySQL to periodically import analyzed data.)

Features

1. Disables grangers during Sudden death (with an exception when there is no OM). (In most games I've played for aliens, at least 1 person plays a stupid battle granger and feeds the other team, no matter how many times I asked him not to and explained ...)
2. Antifeed. REMOVED
3. Defence computer limits. Only up to 2 DCs are considered when repairing a building (the number is configurable). This way, humans can no longer build a farm of DCs that repairs their base at 100HP/s or so.
4. List team' evos by issuing a new command /listteam. Useful for organizing rushes. Works great when bound to a key. Edit: Also visible in the team overview in the HUD.
5. Acid tubes are built in 10s, turrets in 15s. (The standard is the opposite.) In vanilla Tremulous, aliens have 150bps vs humans' 100bps. In UBP, aliens lose this advantage. Setting lower build time for acids and higher for turrets compensates this.
6. The Granger dance.
7. Scaring/nade.
8. Edit: Contagion. A human touching a poisoned teammate has a 50% chance of getting poisoned too (with the same duration). The idea is to make camping harder for humans - they'll transfer the poison to their camping teammates. Most likely this needs some testing and evaluation to see if it's not too anoying. Touching a booster poisons a human in the same way as when bitten by a poisonous alien. Edit: I realized that this also helps smart dretches gain evos. If a dretch poisons one human out of a large group in a tight corridor, most likely they'll get all poisoned, and the dretch will get more evos if they eventually die.
9. Edit: Teaches players by showing them their kill/death ratio at every death.
10. Edit: Bounty bonuses for killing good players (and negative bonuses for killing bad ones).
11. Edit: Basilisk is poisonous even without a booster. But if not boosted, the poison duration is only 5s (8s for adv.), so the damage to a naked human is at most 25HP (40 HP). Aimed at making basilisk more usable, giving a better option to evo-less aliens.
12. Edit: Basilisks are very resistant to flamers.

[grmg.pl]

Features

I would say F1, but passvote is way more appropriate:D

Any chance for some anti-camp idea?

[nalf]

Any chance for some anti-camp idea?

Yes, I've already tried something. The basic idea is to give more credits/evos for kills that happen at or near the victim's base. See the mod's project page (README is at the bottom of the page).

(At the moment this is not included into [N7] server.)

[grmg.pl]

[url=https://github.com/ppetr/tremulous-gpp- ... e/anticamp]

F1

[Spl@]

Nice.

All are disabled after Sudden Death, since after SD is the intermission. Anyway… on the assumption that you mean during SD, grangers still have uses. They can spit and damage structures. Dretches can't. A sneaky granger plus an inattentive human team can result in key structures being lost.

Anti-feed – sounds interesting…

DC limits – could do a fall-off so that adding more DCs doesn't have a linear effect. Something like m DCs have full effect, and beyond that, the nth DC adds 4/(1+n) HP per unit time.

I'd have the team info displayed in the HUD. But a command is also useful, particularly if done using the menu system.

Loose? Lose.

Not sure about making acid building faster. Spam is still spam, and delays caused by retspam and acid spam… people fast-build anyway. Maybe the solution to that is for the build timer not to be cleared.

Granger dance… hmm. Point construction kit at reactor, shout “Come on!â€￾?

Scaring could be interesting. Used well, it'll somewhat diminish the advantage of grenades – but expect counter-measures.

Also, I think that you should tell the Unvanquished devs

[Lancer]

No, never tell them, nalf and AMS try to make tremulous better, not Tremz or unvanquished : <

Humans got ckit repair, so comeon doesnt make sense xD!

[nalf]

Ty for the English corrections, I updated the post accordingly (English is not my native language).

... grangers still have uses. They can spit and damage structures. Dretches can't. A sneaky granger plus an inattentive human team can result in key structures being lost.

True, but this is so rare (I've seen it maybe once or twice to have a real effect), and feeding with grangers is so common that IMHO it's worth disabling it. With UBP, humans build DCs everywhere, so a single granger's damage is immediately repaired. And if OM is up, much greater damage can be done by a sniping goon or a zapping mara, if humans are inattentive.

DC limits – could do a fall-off so that adding more DCs doesn't have a linear effect. Something like m DCs have full effect, and beyond that, the nth DC adds 4/(1+n) HP per unit time.

So you mean something like 4*min(m,n) + max(0,n-m)*4/(1+n)? Anything is possible. The current solution is quite simple, so it seems it can work well. If I should choose a progressive non-linear formula, I'd probably choose some logarithm, something like 4*log(x+1)/log(2).

I'd have the team info displayed in the HUD. But a command is also useful, particularly if done using the menu system.

I was thinking about that, see this post. Another problem is that modifying HUD could possibly require client code change (I'm not 100% sure about that, but it's likely). In this case, players would have to download and install a modified client, which is something I don't want.

Not sure about making acid building faster. Spam is still spam, and delays caused by retspam and acid spam… people fast-build anyway. Maybe the solution to that is for the build timer not to be cleared.

I don't understand how you mean it. If the build timer is not cleared, you cannot build any more structures.
Otherwise I agree that people spam structures a lot. For this reason, the N7 server is not really completely unlimited, it has a large limit for BPS (1000H and 1500A).
One solution would be to increase range+damage of exploding (human) buildings, so that they would easily chain-react. This would force humans to create their bases more wisely and not spam so much. But Lancer told me that this wouldn't work - people would spam anyway and human bases would simply die in large explosions . (I'm not sure if the same idea for aliens wouldn't weaken them aliens. Since acids/hives can be killed from far distance, there are usually only a few spots that are effective and so aliens have to put most of their acids/hives there.)

Also, I think that you should tell the Unvanquished devs

As Lancer said, our aim is to make Tremulous better. But of course, Unv. devs can use the modifications, it's all open-source.

[grmg.pl]

They can spit and damage structures. Dretches can't. A sneaky granger plus an inattentive human team can result in key structures being lost.

1DC>lame-ass granger spit.

And it ain't so rare to tk or kick battlegranger.

AMS

But Lancer told me that this wouldn't work - people would spam anyway and human bases would simply die in large explosions

True and that will either lead to improving building skills or builder-wars:D

Can a turret have a "no-build-zone" with a radius, for example, of "one turret width"? (in other words - no xxx but x_x). Force the ckits to spread the rets usind "no-build-zone".

Lol. That could have been put simpler

[Redman]

Another problem is that modifying HUD could possibly require client code change (I'm not 100% sure about that, but it's likely).

QVM handles all the user interface.

[[{USATREM}] !Gunther!]

Could it be possible to deny the usage of Granger class to one person via vote? Like "denybuild" only...."denygranger"?
I've found a granger slightly usefull in SD, for spawning and killing lone ret, so this way if person is feeding, make it admin command+vote and it won't affect entire team.

[nalf]

Could it be possible to deny the usage of Granger class to one person via vote? Like "denybuild" only...."denygranger"?
I've found a granger slightly usefull in SD, for spawning and killing lone ret, so this way if person is feeding, make it admin command+vote and it won't affect entire team.

What about making it even simpler - an alien with building rights revoked would not be able to spawn as a granger (no matter if it's SD or not)?

[grmg.pl]

What about making it even simpler - an alien with building rights revoked would not be able to spawn as a granger (no matter if it's SD or not)?

How many times does a denybuild pass?

Disable granger after SD completely. Theres is absolutely no reason for granger after SD.

[Spl@]

They can spit and damage structures. Dretches can't. A sneaky granger plus an inattentive human team can result in key structures being lost.

1DC>lame-ass granger spit.

And it ain't so rare to tk or kick battlegranger.

One granger consistently hitting and damaging a building > any number of DCs. But miss once, and the DC wins.

[Lancer]

Spl@ is right there, the only way to win this granger war is....a poll for 5 days?

[nalf]

I added another feature suggested by Lancer:

Posion contagion: A human touching a poisoned teammate will get poisoned too (with the same duration). The idea is to make camping harder for humans - they'll transfer the poison to each other when camping. Most likely this needs some testing and evaluation to see if it's not too anoying. Touching a booster poisons a human in the same way as when bitten by a poisonous alien.