I don't know about you, but I was feeling a certain void in the tech 3 land armies; the ability to reliably fend off pesky advanced bombers, and to a certain degree lend assistance to the Air Forces protecting the armies from real threats. Mobile flak is nice and all, very powerful for it's price, but in the long run it will contribute more for bumber cars and pretty fireworks, and those bombers are still eating your army. I know the solution! ASF spam! But it gets boring when the late game is all about the biggest horde of ASF, with land owned by the air dominance and little way of getting back on your feet against the angry swarm of hornets.

I didn't see anyone giving much of a go for it, so I decided to give it one. And here they come: Tech 3 mobile anti-air units, for every faction, with faction diversity in mind (I don't like clone units, even if it means perfect balance).

And now to the more fluffy part: Introduction!



Bouncer, a crude but effective Cybran tech approach. Firing a pack of simple guided missiles and ensuring the hit with a target painter. All mounted on a steady mobile platform for reliable shots on the move. The Bouncer AA bot is a welcome addition to the Cybran land force relying on mobility and performance.


Cougar, a traditional UEF approach on bringing down better armored aircraft. Armed with dual turret mounted long barreled gatling AA cannons, the Cougar sets to fill the sky with hot hybrid slugs rather than attempting delicate solutions. What it saves in complexity it gains in sturdiness, the UEF way.


Redeemer, Aeon's answer to the arms race to improve land armies' AA capabilities. Protected inside it's smooth armored covers it carries a high powered anti-air version of the favored Serpentine tactical warhead. Sacrificing payload for better engines and a guiding system, the missile is extremely well suited for picking out the fastest of aircraft. The Aeon have a certain way of elegance, and so the Redeemer sets to do one thing, and do it well, without unnecessary fireworks.


The Seraphim tend do things differently, more often overdoing the whole concept in the process. With unfathomable forces at their disposal, the Seraphim engineers have created the Uyanah, basically an uncontained power core mounted on a stabilizer ring on a mobile platform. When removed from the stabilizer the power core can emit vicious lightning arcs much alike the ones emerging from the power residue of a fallen Ythotha. These arcs can connect to both flying and grounded targets, making the Uyanah useful even outside it's primary role as an advanced AA unit.


So there you go, these thingies are available in the stores near you and also on post order... no, actually here

Updated version v3-4
Direct download

Delete the older version before using the newer one, and recheck it is on on the mod manager.

Note: This mod is best used with Community Patch mod, since the beam weapon fix affects the Seraphim Uyanah! This mod is also now included in the package of the Community mods for your convenience!

Changelog v2 -> v2-2
-slight rescaling to fit them better to T3
-rework on textures to make them more crispy especially when zooming out, also made the Aeon one less dim compared to other Aeon units
-so purely graphical improvements now, as no idea of balance issues of yet

Changelog v2-2 -> v3
-Bouncer has had it's fire cycle altered to be more Cybran-like
-Bouncer's weapon can now also be toggled to ground fire
-Megalith can now build Bouncers
-Fixed issues with unit collision sizes, mainly caused the Bouncer to get stuck in factories completely surrounded by power generators
-Uyanah has had it's ground lightning slightly buffed to make it clearly better than the Bouncer ground fire
-Selecting no downloaded from the unit manager will prevent these units from being built

Changelog v3 -> v3-2
-Added Sorian AI 1.4 custom unit support stuff: version 1.4 Sorian AI's now use these units, big thanks to sorian!

Changelog v3-2 -> v3-3
-Cougar has had it's muzzle velocity increased to 90 and it's reload time lowered very slightly (still not fool proof vs. ASF, but a bit better vs. gunships as trade-off)
-Uyanah ground lightning has a slower RoF, making a dps of 80. Range reduced to 26 (same as Ilshavoh). Ground lightning effect made a bit slimmer to look weaker
-Uyanah is no longer considered direct fire preventing it from ending up in the front row on formations
-Bouncer has had it's tracking laser graphics redone; it now uses a fading constant beam

Changelog v3-3 -> v3-4
-Fixed a bug in the Uyanah's ground lightning that prevented it from scorching the ground as supposed to
-Added a Mod Manager icon for the mod (finally)
-Fixed some grammary problems in the unit descriptions, so Mooilo doesn't get a headache anymore



I am no programmer, and I started learning modelling around the time I first started making the Bouncer. So yes, they have a lot of witty reuse and scripting done half on pure luck and perseverance

As guidelines for making these I had first and foremost:
-Ability to reliably destroy strat bombers and even ASF's
-Offer the above in a more sensible package than huge swarms of flak
-Not contest the ASF for most valuable AA (pretty much covered, as these units provide consiquences, whereas ASF full prevention)
-Not exceed the stationary SAM as means of areal AA (these should have lower dps/mass, hp/mass and range than SAMs so those should still be #1 choice for base defence)
-Follow faction diversity, and work in different ways (I certainly didn't want to simply slap a SAM tower on top of a tank, and call it a new unit)
-Look cool and fit in the surrounding army formation


I urge you to give constructive criticism and balance suggestions, and not come in yelling how T3 mob AA should not exist, as you can always just not use the mod . But I personally would like to get these tuned to the sweet spot that to my perception excists there in late game air-land threatre. Hope you enjoy them as much as I liked making them.

Additional credits go to one friend of mine, not actively on this forum for actually helping (yeah you others just liked to nod and say it needs more gunzorz...), and PhoenixIV for the general inspiration on modelling by recycling and trying a lightning type weapon. Also I'd like to thank brute51 for providing valuable change ideas.

I love the models, I'll download asap.

EDIT: No glitches, it all looks nice, although I would prefer if the Cybran's tail laser wasn't like the Cerberus and more like a constant fire targeting laser that does no damage.

I liked the walk animations too, good quality. (Of course the Aeon one isn't really yours, cause it has the same walk animation as the sniper bot, or it is yours and looks very similar)

wow those models blow my T3 AA outta the water XD, very nice, if you dont mind i may want to include these in my next release(after i change values and such to suit my taste of balance)

But then I'll have nothing to do.....

Mike

nice kitbashes!
Looks like you beat me to making these...

I like the fluff on the seraphim one

then make me some better ones than the crappy ones i made ,

add it to the list

But the list, it scares me at night when I try to sleep.....

Mike

lol, anyway, lets stop spamming this thread.

and why aren't you online!!! i has need of speaking with thee!!

Really nice models! Do you mind if I take a look at your script for the Seraphim unit?

I just cannot download anything from FileFront, i don´t know why, always said that my download failed...

Can you host another link?

Epic mod! Awesome models,

downloading soon!

P.S Will the AI use these units?

Thanks for the replies.

Merak: I guess I'll have to see if for example Legion Darrath would be nice enough to add the pack to his hosting for an alternate mirror. If not, maybe I could have a friend mirror it through his uni webspace, as mine use secure access network hard drives.

Mooilo: Hmm someone else also said samothing about the laser, that it should maybe be a continous line rather than a blinking one. That what you mean? I wasn't sure if it would look more goofy than the rather more subtle effect of showing the guide line every now and then. As now it's basically a single of the three Cerb beam effects with 0 dmg and no hit effect or sound.

As for taking a look on any of the scripts, be my guest. None of these would have been possible without taking peeks on other working units in game. That's the beauty of scientific work, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. The walking animations (pain in the *** as they were) were done anew, as importing the scas didn't really work 100%. I just used a walking model next to the Aeon one to guide the positions as those stick legs were easily kicking all around the place.

If you feel like adding these to a unit pack you have, then feel free to do so, as long as the credits show. If you need to change their numbers, again just keep credits and add edit lines in them.

Oh, I´ve finally downloaded the mod. Thanks for the attention.

Man, PERFECT unit mod! The best one that I saw. You done it very well.

This realy could be add to the official patches.

I was going to attempt a pathetic version for my own amusement, ie taking the T1 unit, and make it a little larger and buff them up.

But seeing as you went through and made models yourself, i'll give it a go

Has anyone playtested them in a MP game? I've read you playtested with your friends, but what I'm looking for is if these units could be the answer to the "Nerf ASF" and "we need T3 AA" threads over at FA general.

Something like "Case closed, solves the ASF issue, and looks awesome too". The downside is that GPG will probably not patch them in.

That's one awesome mod Kirvesnaama. Keep up the good work.

Well that's just the number one thing now; They have to meet enough real game situations to really see how they fit the bill and what needs to be changed. Me and my friends only get to play so many games a week, so with just us trying to do even some initial tuning, it could take too long. And I'm not saying we represent the real late game competitiveness either. That's why good feedback on their performance would be valuable from many different levels of play. I can only try to do empirical sandbox testing on my own.

But at least at the moment it looks like what I had in mind: a same mass of mobile flak will tear apart gunships many times better (gunships weren't active in this dps test), I'm not sure how a mix of both do, but these new units have the advantage of picking down whole units rather than weakening them all until they all die. And these should kill a strat bomber maybe a whole pass earlier than the same mass of flak, as then these don't suffer from their long reload time.

The Seraphim one is a bit different, with it's added ground weapon (less damage than it's AA lightning). I decided to try and keep that ground weapon with a bit higher range than the Siege tank's to maybe give something to the not most effective Sera T3 land choices.

well, nice looking everything. i wish it wasn't a mod that will certainly be undergoing into the underground after some days because noone will really play that mod. It just contains too few elements.

woooooooooo

Now all I need are mobile anti-nuke experimentals.

Amazing, GPG-quality stuff. These are the type of units that we should've expected to be in the weekly/monthly/yearly? unit downloads hinted upon.

Awesome! the uyanah is very much like the lightning spire from the TGC mod.... though thats just make it awesome



download TGC

Yeah, that experimental guardian is one of the best and most awesome ideas yet. Only little thing with TGC is that it's not really equal on the factions right now, hopefully though it gets something new for the less featured along the way...

I've to admit that I've had the same feeling sometimes. Although I do use to feel more concerned on T3 gunships than about Start Bombers (incase your opponent does not send a great number of them over your metal head, of course).

On balancing, what I'll check first is how tough they are against advanced air transports... how fast do they move and how much armored they wear on..

The Cybran model instantly catched my attention. Reminds me of an unit I was about to release at TA-Power. Hope it behaves as good as it looks in that scrrenshot/in-game. Although the Aeon unit might go with some other model.. basically 'cos it looks too "Sniperish", IMHO. You asked for opinion here, sorry. =)

BTW,
have you uploaded your mod to the GPGnet Vault?. Could you post more screenies of these units you made on here?


Thanks, and keep up the good work; man.

I love the models, and the idea of the mod. But it doesn't seem to work for me.

Maybe I'm not installing it right?

I tried dropping it in the FA/Mods folder in "My Documents" like various vault mods, but when I go to play, I find that all my land factories don't work any more. The interface that lets me produce things has vanished. I can see unit portraits, but the actual build UI has vanished, which means I can't actually scroll to build the T3AA in the first place.

Renaming the zip file to an SCD and dropping that in gamedata doesn't work at all, though I didn't expect it to.

Also, spawning the UEF T3AA via cheats works, but when I tell it to shoot at a handy Cybran Jester, it refuses to shoot and just sits there getting pecked to death. Haven't tried the others.

My modlist is basically TCG, Hawksmod, 5x Resources, Sorian AI, and TA Music. Is there some incompatibility here?

Hmm looks like I can't just upload it to vault, wonder how it's supposed to work. Sorry bout that. And screenies, well sure they can be taken, but isn't throwing the units into sandbox a better way to look at them? Pictures only show so much. I started making the Aeon unit with some concept in mind, I just knew I didn't want to make it too bulky, somehow I thought of a bot more than a tank... and in the end it actually works more like a sniper; it sends single powerful seeker missile on their merry way and reloads a while again, and it unpacks.

First I thought if the dome look on it was a bit weird, but in the end I was happy with the contrast it had with the form while it was firing. I still think the Aeon could play a bit more with their intriquing design of sleek smooth surfaces that pop open to sow death.