Diamond Patch Mod

[Vault54]

Diamond Patch Mod(aka Diamond V5 Final) has finally been released!
Description: Polishes Forged Alliance gameplay into everlasting Diamond. Supports GPGNet, 3599 and 3603 patch, Forged Alliance Forever and Steam FA

Diamond Patch Mod is designed for pro gaming purposes. It has tighter gameplay than original Forged Alliance so map control is more important. There are less shortcuts to victory so you have to really dominate your opponent to get a win. Fixes also most of the bugs found in game. You can now use every tactic, unit or acu upgrade found in game without being labeled as "insert method here" noob. Of course haxing and glitching is not allowed(offmapping etc.)
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Download from GPGNET Vault


Or download from here http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/supremecommanderforgedalliance/mod/42265.html

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Here is the structural changelog from 3599 to Diamond Patch Mod (aka Diamond V5 Final)

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General:

Made to patch like to ensure similar gameplay experience in all platforms

Fixed beamweapons not being able to hit strafing units

Is now compatible with current Forged Alliance Forever lobby system(FAF). thx to FunkOff for help

Seraphim torpedoes are no longer vulnerable to surface splash weapons

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Command:

Fixed sera commander OC miss hit issue
Fixed Sera scu being reclaimable
sera acu adv restofields buggy 10% health bonus removed
fixed sera scu nano repair upgrade wrong health bonus
Fixed sera acu's restoration field upgrade and advanced restoration field upgrade to not repair the ACU
All Units shooting at the Seraphim ACU now aim at the correct bones instead of the feet.
fixed sera acu t3 upgrade wrong health

Fixed UEF ACU friendly damage bug. Credits to FuryoftheStars
fixed an issue causing injured acu to drop energy, shields and intel when staying near engineer stations or assist ordered engineers

prevent ACU Upgrade to be acquired at a lower cost through cancelling --> prevents the using of the upgrade bug. 3603 fix. thx for help to Koecher

cybran ACU's stealth costs increased from 350M 5250E 35 seconds buildtime to 550M 8000E 50 seconds buildtime

Aeon and uef ACU's personal shields rebalanced. They now gives half amount of hp from their stage 2 heavy shield values.
aeon from 1500M 93750E 29000hp buildtime 1250 to 2200M 120000E 22000hp buildtime 2000
uef from 1500M 112500E 24000hp buildtime 1500 to 1800M 108000E 18000hp buildtime 1800

all commanders T3 upgrade wrong regen rates fixed
T3 upgrade costs increased from 2400M 50000E to 3000M 65000E. Buildtime stays original

Tactical missile upgrade for UEF and Sera ACU
mass cost raised from 1000 to 3600
BuildcostEnergy raised from 50000 to 150000
buildtime tripled

UEF ACU's Billy reload timeout increased to avoid rapid firing through assisting. can now shoot once every 30 seconds.

T3 Commanders and T3 engineers can no longer build T4 stuff. Use Support Commanders to build T4.

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Engineers:

fixed sera t1 engineer assist delay issue
T2 engineer buildrate increased from 10 to 15 (uef t2 sparky too)
T3 engineer buildrate increased from 15 to 30(buildrates on different techs are now closer together masswise)

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Buildings:

fixed mex upgrade bug
t1 energy storage now stores 6000E instead of 2000E
fixed an issue on t1 point defences causing acus to shoot through them and missing

T2 tactical missile launcher moved to T3 (reason: weapon with 5 km range too "Hi-tech" for T2. Use T2 Artillery instead)

Cybran and Seraphim T2 Point Defenses dps increased.
Cybran +20% damage (damage to 11 from 9)
Seraphim +10% damage

fixed uef t3 ravager damages friendly units bug

all factions static Tactical Missile Launchers costs increased 50%
Cybran Missile health normalized so that the parent missile has 1 health and the child missiles have 1 health each as well. fixed wrong maximum speed in child missiles.

Aeon T2 Tactical Missile Defense: lowered fire cycle to 1 projectile every 3.33 seconds (from 3.125 seconds)

T2 static antiair flak weapon gets +25% muzzle velocity
Fixed T2 static antiair cant shoot straight up issue

T2 Artillery Installation
Reduced mass cost by ~10%
Reduced build time by ~20%
Reduced energy cost by ~40%

Seraphim T2 Shield Generator hp lowered to 11500hp from 13000hp (still the best static t2 shield)

Cybran t2 shield stages rebalanced. It is still most expensive but not that bad. New prices and stats:
stage 1: 200m 2000E 4000hp (+40mass)
stage 2: 300m 3000E(=500m 5000E) 7000hp (no change)
stage 3: 600m 9000E(=1100m 14000E) 10000hp (-200mass -3000E)
stage 4: 1000m 16000E(=2100m 30000E) 13000hp (-200mass -8000E)
stage 5: 2100m 35000E(=4200m 65000E) 16000hp (-300mass -5000E +2000hp)

sera t2 sonar can now move(3 times slower than other factions t3 sonars) Increased cost from 180M 5400E to 240M 7200E and +33% buildtime. Increased MaintenanceConsumptionPerSecondEnergy from 100 to 180.

T2 static topredo launcher range increased from 60 to 85 and dps decreased to 60dps.

t3 harms increased range from 80 to 100. It is now immune to all spash damage. lowered dps to 150dps

cybran t3 sonar stealth range decreased from 90 to 35

T3 antiair SAMs costs decreased from 1400M 12000E to 1200M 10000E
Sera T3 antiair projectile now track targets like all other sams to fix the miss hit problem

T3 air factory costs raised to 4200M 84000E from 2520M 46200E
T3 land factory costs raised to 3780M 33600E from 3150M 28350E

T3 mass extractors mass income lowered from 18 (27 with mass storages) to 14 (21 with mass storages). This is to make map control more important over just ecoing in base

refixed the faulty 3603 bugfix in t1 t2 and t3 aeon cybran and sera naval factories so they can now be hit with both torpedoes and beamweapons(in 3603 u cant hit aeon and sera naval factories with beamweapons anymore)

fixed bugs in all factions t1 t2 and t3 naval factories that made ships behave like lunatics after build
(all of them had issues, sera was the worst, now every single naval factory has individually tailored rolloffpoint values)

T3 Static artillery buildcosts increased 25%

Fixed Aeon T3 Rapid-Fire Artillery Installation: Salvation's crazy rate of fire bonus from pgens
Fixed Aeon T3 Quantum Optics Facility: Eye of Rhianne wrong adjajency bonus

Land nuke launchers moved to T4. Use nuke subs or sera battleship if u want build nukes at T3 stage
Aeon Rapid-Fire Artillery Installation: Salvation moved to T4

Quantum Gates:
increased hp from 10000 to 30000 (to make sense to T1<T2<T3<T4 Land factories hp evolution)
It is now 3 times harder to assist a quantum gate than before(it still builds one subcom in 5 minutes. only assist is harder)
Increased masscost from 3000M to 6000M. Increased energycost from 30000E to 180000E. buildtime doubled

UEF Novax Center now correctly launches the satellite, when player is a unit cap
Added radar radius(45) to uef defence satellite to enhance its role as intel gathering unit. vision radius remains same(10)

Cybran Nuke correctly detonate at the impact altitude instead of 20 units above. thx for help to Koecher

Eye of rihanne lowered RemoteViewingRadius from 45 to 25(same as 3603)

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Aircrafts:

T1 airscouts lowered build costs 25% and doubled hp from around ~30hp to ~60hp

T1 Transports
BuildCostMass increased from 120 to 200
BuildCostEnergy increased from 4800 to 6000
buildtime increased from 40sec to 50 sec

Light assult bots cant fire from transports anymore (no ghetto gunships)

fixed sera t1 bombers bomb detonating in mid air bug on high altitude changing maps

Cybran t1 jester dps lowered from 48dps to 39dps

Bomb drop prediction corrected on all T1 T2 bombers to moving targets. 3603 fix
bomb drop fix to all T1 T2 bombers miss hits due high elevation changes. my fix
fixed sera T2 bomber not dropping its bomb
lowered cybran t2 corsair antiground weapon range from 45 to 35 to fix the stop abuse issue
increased cybran t2 corsair antiair dps from 53dps to 75dps(still the worst t2 dogfighter but not that bad)

Aeon T2 mercy
fuel increased from 70 to 110(same as 3603)
damage decreased from 2400 to 1700
maximum radius decreased from 25 to 22(the point where mercy turns into untargetable lighting bolt)
fixed fighters cant hit them reliably while they are landed bug. credits to Koecher
fixed wrong AirThreatLevel

T2 gunships
Increased health 25%
lowered speed from 12 to 10
Increased fuel time from 6mins 40secs to 9 minutes
raised flying elevation from 10 to 16 so they cant fly under enemy t2 shields
Increased area damage radius from 0 to 1
buildcosts normalized to 3599 values

fixed bug in cybran t2 gunship preventing it from firing without an attack command

fixes 5 different issues on t2 torpedo bombers(outrun, shallow water etc. sera was most bugged)

fixed issue on several t2 and t3 gunships that could not shoot straight down and miss consistently(missing code)

fixed many issues on aeon t3 torpedo bomber solace(cant drop on second pass, torpedo outrun probs etc.)

T3 bombers now hit their target even on high altitude changing maps and against moving targets but you can still evade bombs with your commander.
Because T3 bombers now actually hit their target with their bombs, damage of bombs are reduced 20%
Different factions T3 bombers area damage radius values are set closer together from 4-7 to 4-5.5(order remains same)
T3 bombers max speed lowered to 17 from 18

Restorers are rebalanced so you are allowed to use them in game
Max air speed lowered from 10 to 9
Health lowered from 7200 to 6600
Ground damage increased from 160dps to 180dps
Antiair damage lowered from 130dps to 90 dps

All t3 gunships now costs the same(Even restorer)
BuildCostMass 1680 BuildCostEnergy 50400 buildtime 2min 20sec
all t3 gunships gets area damage radius 1 to their ground weapons and flying elevation is raised from 10 to 16
t3 uef ja cybran gunships speed increased from 8 to 10 and they dont chase fast moving planes across the whole map anymore
t3 uef gunship Broadsword increased antiair dps from 3.08 to 12.32

Increased mass costs on some T3 air units. Energy costs are 3599 values if not told otherwise
Aeon T3 torp bomber Solace increased mass costs from 1650M to 1760M
All ASF's increased mass costs from 400M to 500M
All T3 bombers increased mass costs from 2100M to 2240M. Energy costs from 70000E to 80000E

UEF T3 Heavy Air Transport: Continental
lowered costs from 2000M 28125E 2min 5secs buildtime to 1400M 28000E 1min 40secs buildtime
bettered shield to block more flak projectiles from hurting the transport itself and cargo units
decreased Flayer SAM Anti Air dps to half to compensate the price drop
raised flying elevation from 10 to 16

Fixed no drop issue on sera T4 Bomber and added bomb loading indicator

Aeon T4 Czar pizza delivery damage lowered to 8000 from 15000(crash to land)
lowered costs from 45000M 731250E to 40000M 650000E

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Vehicles:

uef t1 arty lobo decreased hp from 205hp to 200hp(same as 3603)
t1 scouts are in 3603 values

fixed sera t1 mobile antiair 50 % shot at ground when moving bug

transferred 12 mass 60E and 60 buildtime from cybran t1 arty to cybran t1 mobile AA
this makes cybran t1 arty viable unit and fixes mobile aa spam abuse issue
cybran t1 mobile AA gets +25% dps to AA weapon to compensate this arrangement
cybran t1 arty gets +25% dps to compensate this arrangement
fixed cybran t1 mobile antiair cant hit high air units issue

T2 mobile antiair flak weapon gets +25% muzzle velocity
fixed Seraphim T2 Mobile Anti-Air cant shoot straight up issue

Made T2 land tanks slightly tougher. T2 land tanks have 20-25% more hitpoints. Cybran t2 tank got buffed more as it was too weak compared to the others. speed is not lowered like in 3603 patch. This makes t2 land more desirable and less likely just skipable.

Aeon T2 Assault Tank: Blaze range increased from 23 to 26. vision range increased from 15 to 20
Cybran T2 Amphibious Tank: Wagner speed increased from 3.7 to 4
UEF T2 Amphibious Tank: Riptide speed increased from 3.7 to 4

Sera T2 hover tank
BuildCostEnergy lowered from 1320 to 1200
BuildCostMass lowered form 220 to 200
BuildTime lowered from 22 sec to 20 sec
speed increased from 3.7 to 4
area damage radius raised to 1.5 (Cannon weapon)
(reason: to make this weak unit more usable atleast in some situations)

cybran T2 firebeetles: Increased damage to 1800 from 1200. DamageRadius increased from 5 to 6. healt lowered from 750hp to 400hp. does not inflict damage to friendly units anymore. improved acceleration, braking, cornering and detonation tolerancy(but not speed). use attack ground mode for maximum effiency

fixed wrong TransportClass of Cybran t2 firebeetle, Cybran T2 Rocket Bot: Hoplite and Aeon T3 Shield Disruptor: Absolver

Increased Cybran Deceiver (t2 mobile stealth generator) speed, acceleration and brake to match the values of other factions t2 mobile shields. same as in 3603 patch

UEF T2 Gatling Bot: Mongoose and Cybran T2 Rocket Bot: Hoplite
Heath normalized to 3599 levels(not lowered like in 3603)
speed lowered from 3.6 to 3.2

UEF T2 Mobile Shield Generator: Parashield and Aeon T2 Mobile Shield Generator: Asylum
shield hp normalized to 3599 levels(not lowered like in 3603)
increased buildcosts and buildtime to lessen the spam

all factions t2 mobile missiles launchers damage increased 50%(same as in 3603)

all factions t3 mobile artys can now shoot while moving. this is to fix major issue causing factories to halt unit production

UEF T3 Mobile Missile Platform: Spearhead
Increased range to 105 from 80. It now outranges t3 artillery(range 90)
increased damageradius to 1.5 from 0.5
increased builtime to 50secs from 40 secs
increased mass cost to 600 from 400
increased energycost to 4500 from 3000
damage normalized to 3599 values
reason: fits perfectly to uef's outranging philosophy. now spearhead has two advantages over t3 arty(better range and accuracy). t3 artys advantages are area damage, lead targeting to moving units and immunity to tac defs

Fixed Fatboy, Monkeylord, Megalith, Calactic Colossus, Percival and the brick being able to fire from shallow water, being unattackable from land while doing so bug. Thx for help to Koecher

fixed sera t3 tank and cybran scathis having difficulty to shoot while on slopes
Sera T3 Sniper bot now correctly shows both normal and sniper mode range rings

uef t3 titan range range increased from 20 to 23

Aeon T3 Harbinger: Transferred 2600hp from shield to health (now health 4600hp shield 1300hp)
decreased shields recharge time from 60 to 35(reason: weaker shield)
shield can now protect the unit from t2 pd splash damage

Land Experimentals cost increased to 3603 levels(=costs as much as in 3603)
Yothas deathweapon lowered from 110000 to 60000 total damage.
fixed monkeylord not showing its laser range radius ring

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Ships:

all factions t1 submarines health set to 600hp(this makes t1 subs viable on all factions not just uef)

Decreased Frigate & t1 submarine cost by 10%
Increase frigate anti-air dps to 15, attack boat anti-air dps to 35, and Battleship Antiair dps to 60

fixed uef T2 Cruiser not being able to fire with all weapons at the same time
sera t2 cruiser flak weapon gets +25% muzzle velocity
Increased antiair dps +25% in all factions t2 cruisers(same as 3603)
lowered cybran T2 cuiser Proton cannon dps from 230 to 160(same as 3603)

uef t2 torpedo boat + 30% health. torpedo defence lowered from once every 2.5secs to once every 3.8secs
aeon t2 submarine + 30% health. Increased watervision from 45 to 55.
cybran t2 submarine + 30% health
sera destroyer increased torpedo weapon +25% dps and fixed the antitorpedo not working bug

Increased Uef T2 destroyer Angler Torpedo range from 45 to 60 and dps from 30 to 40

Increased Aeon T2destroyer firerate from once every 5 secs to once every 2.5secs. Dps remains same

Uef shieldboat and cybran stealth boat speed decreased from 7 to 6 so they dont go ahead of frigates and submarines
Increased shielboat costs to 3603 values

SERA T3 Submarine Hunter
lowered maxspeed from 6 to 5

All submersible naval units(T1-T4) now dives deeper so they cant be damaged with ground fire of cruisers or battleships

UEF T3 BAttlecruiser:
BuildCostMass decreased from 7500 to 7140
lowered builtime from 8 min 20secs to 7 minutes
Angler Torpedo dps inreased from 20dps to 50dps

Fixed Sera Battleship nuke no warning sound and nuke fly high bugs(3603 patch fix)

All nuke subs have now the same range and area damage radius on their tactical missiles. 150 (2.93 km) area damage radius 4
fixed T3 nuke subs tactical missile range circle not showing(now shows nuke min and max radius too)
T3 Nuke subs and sera battleships nuke inner ring damage set to 60000 instead of 25000
T3 submarine nuke missile costs increased from 16800M 1764000E 7 minutes build time to 19200M 1920000E 8 minutes build time
Sera battleship nuke costs increased from 19200M 1920000E 8 minutes build time to 21600M 2160000E 9 minutes build time
T3 Nuke subs can dive up to -6 deep instead of -2
T3 Nuke subs and sera T3 Battleship energy cost raised to 200000. (reason: ability to build nuke)

Aeon T4 tempest lowered lowered mass cost from 28000M to 20000M and energy cost from 350000E to 250000E

plus some minor bugs fixed
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When running Diamond Patch Mod with 3603 patch, FAF or Steam FA

T1 tanks speeds are in 3599 values

T1 transports cant transport commanders anymore in 3603 and steam FA

OC system normalized. You can use OverCharge without having to build an energy storage just like in 3599.

energy storages costs, explosion damage, explosion radius and health normalized.

engineers and factories gives you energy storage(3599 values)

acu death nuke damage values normalized

t1 bombers costs normalized

T3 Air units energy costs normalized

t3 naval factories and ships costs normalized
(but ships buildtimes are lowered from 3599 values)

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Thanks to makers of CBFP, 3603 Patch, FAF, modders and gamers themselves for great ideas and inspiration and for Chris Taylor and his crew for making this awesome game.

Made in Finland

[TheStrategist]

Looks impressive, I definitely agree with some of the changes youve made, but some of them I don't like so much.
How much playtesting have you done?

Will this be available through FAF's official mods lobby?

[pip]

I have the same impression, some changes I don't understand, or don't like, but others can certainly give some clues to FAF about ways to solve balance issues (battleships hitting subs for instance) and bug fixes (sera Destroyer anti torp for instance, but there are many in the list that I don't thik FAF has fixed so far).

I'll check the mod out when I have spare time.

I doubt that it will become a supported mod in FAF lobby because FAF has its own balance, and if some changes on this list are approved, they will make it in to FAF itself. But in any case, you can use the mod as any other mod if you like it, wether in GPGnet, Steam or FAF.

[Ze_PilOt]

I'm interested to know what exactly the beamweapons fix is.
Vault : Do you will be interested to be part of the LUA contributors on FA ?

[Vault54]

TheStrategist: I have playtested it about 300-500 hours through development. Mostly alone but lots of games played with my betatesters too. I would personally like it to have an own 1v1 ladder but i dont know what Zep thinks of that.

pip: Some of the changes are done to hold diamonds own gameplay together and would not fit to normal forged alliance gameplay as is. Many bugfixes of the latest release thou could be straighly brought to faf aswell and some of the older versions fixes are already in faf since i have given FunkOff the rights to use whatever fixes he feels necessary to be added in FAF

Ze_Pilot: beamweapons fix is not done in lua files but adjusting CollisionOffsetZ and SizeZ on all units blueprints that have problems with beamweapons. I have done modding for now but of course if something useful is found from my mod it can be used.

[ToejamS]

Ive never done any modding so let me get this straight.

You adjusted some hit box thing on EVERY unit so as to make the beam work on a corrected target size?

Dude... we could sure do with some of your skillz here.

[pip]

I tested this Diamond a bit and it has many things FAF should take. All the bugfixes that are not in FAF yet, and some that are better (Seraphim t1 anti air has the correct animation while moving and shooting the two shots properly, Sera Destroyer anti torp bug is fixed, and a lot more). And overall, the polish, the balance seems better in many, many areas.

The main aspect of the mod is that only SCU can build Experimentals. This can be a good thing, but it also means the games will last longer on big maps. The good point is that it makes SCU and Quantum gate much more important than they currently are.

A few things I just don't understand (or like) though.
- Medusa: you move additional mass cost from the medusa to the skyslammer and at the same time you buffed the medusa weapon by 25%. So it's cheaper and much more powerful. This is an extreme buff for cybran. Medusa becomes the best arty by far in numbers. If it's the best, like the fobo, it should cost much. It cannot be the cheapest and the best at the same time.

-T3 arty 25% higher cost. If you don't want people to use it, just remove it from your mod. I understand it's probably because T4 comes later, but then, no change was needed, t3 static arties are already expensive enough, no one builds them wether in 3599 or 3603.

- Seraphim T3 battleship with 200 000 energy cost is a very bad idea. You may build 1 battleship especially for the nuke, but not 5. You're completely screwed against the other faction because they can spam battleships way earlier than you and it means you won't build a lot of battleships, just spam t3 sub and t2 destroyers. Seraphim has few naval units, it doesn't need to be gimped further.
If you want to reflect the cost of a nuke launcher, put the higher energy cost or drain into the nuke itself, when the player actually starts using the battleship as a nuke launcher without assuming he will build a nuke with every battleship he builds.

- Novax change is marginal, at this stage, you already have an omnisensor.

- I fear 3599 ASF spam is still in your mod, despite the mass increase. Higher energy cost works fine in 3603.

Besides these things, it looks very interesting and very elegant. It deserves full testing.

[Helcaraxe]

Agree with pip, the buxfixes look awesome.

Vault, it's really generous of you to offer their incorporation into FAF. Kudos and thanks for what must have been a hell of a lot of hard work.

[TheStrategist]

The main aspect of the mod is that only SCU can build Experimentals. This can be a good thing, but it also means the games will last longer on big maps. The good point is that it makes SCU and Quantum gate much more important than they currently are.

I really like the thought behind this change, but I think that big changes like this arent likely to be included in matchmaking anytime soon.

However, I do support this mod making it into the custom games section, where the community can evaluate it.

[FunkOff]

Ze_Pilot: beamweapons fix is not done in lua files but adjusting CollisionOffsetZ and SizeZ on all units blueprints that have problems with beamweapons. I have done modding for now but of course if something useful is found from my mod it can be used.

Does this fix impact the ability of small units, say Light Assault Bots, to dodge the fire from other units, such as those using projectile weapons?

The reason I didn't do this fix before in FAF is because it is considered desirable that LABs can dodge bullets, and your fix may impede on that.