Tactical Combat Overhaul (Beta1)

[wishihadaname]

EDIT: This is a beta so if you try it out and like it, or don't like it, please let me know why and what could be improved. Please focus on the fun factor or relative power compared to other republic units, I know the reps are overpowered compared to CIS right now and an overhaul for the CIS to match is in the works.

Hey all,

Here is a little something i've been working on for the last few months. This is a total unit re-design and combat balance overhaul meant to, above all else, make each unit in every faction unique and fun to play. So far i've only finished the republic but I thought i'de put this out there to see what you guys think.

Without further ado, here are the changes i've made:
[spoiler]
Faction wide changes
-Blasters use energy packs instead of ammo. Regenerate and overheat but no need to reload
-Republic troops do not carry ammo and hence never drop any
-Republic troops regenerate slowly after being wounded thanks to bacta packs in their suits
-Republic troops often drop bacta packs when killed, these do not heal droids but can
   be used by other republic troops.
-Blaster accuracy is best when not moving and firing in short bursts
-Overall dps is lower but accuracy (when still) is better than CIS


Units:
Clone Trooper:
Role- Point Defense
Weapons
   -Carbine: Decent rate of fire infantry weapon, accuracy becomes bad with sustained fire
      or when moving. Takes a long time to cool off, don't overheat!
   -EMP grenades: non-bouncy sticky grenades with a 2s explosion delay. Good against droids,
      deadly against shields, useless against everything else. Disable vehicles for 2s
      on stick.No concussive blast
   -Bacta Canister: Drop a high power bacta canister, +200 health (half of your health), doesn't
      refill except from ammo droids.

Arc Trooper
Role- Vehicle Defense + Fire Suppresion
Weapons
   -Particle Cannon: very inaccurate medium range weapon with medium damage and heavy kick. Builds up
      heat slowly but dissipates it even slower. 10s to cool off if you cook it so be careful
   -Charge Rounds: limited capacity anti-vehicle/shield rounds for the particle cannon. Knock
      targets around and deal with droidekas.Lethal vs turrets.
   -Landmines: 3X same as vanilla.
   -Detpacks: 10s cook time bombs. Triggered by stepping on them or shooting them or time runs out.
      Epic damage + big shockwave. Effective vs vehicles.
Marksman
Role- Long range fire + orbital artillery support
Weapons:
   -Rifle: Good damage, fast projectiles, fairly accurate. Hold down to fire a high explosive round
      that instantly kills weaker infantry and knocks others around. AOE. Cooks your rifle.
   -Pistol: slightly buffed compared to vanilla, can be overcharged for more powerful shot
      that is highly damaging to shields
   -EMP grenade: 3x
   -Orbital Stike Drone: once per minute deploy and take control of an orbital strike drone.
      Its main job is its secondary attack which calls down artillery on its position.
      Massive damage to everything.

Clone Pilot
Role- medic + mechanic + support
Weapons
   -Pistol: see marksman
   -Fussion cutter: same as vanilla
   -Shield drone: drop a shield drone on your position with a flickering shield that can
      be fired out from but not in to. Can be used once per minute and lasts 30 seconds.
      Shield is droideka strength and can be broken. Doesn't protect from grenades.
   -Bacta Packs: x5, see clone trooper
Jet Trooper
Role- attack, attack, attack, attack, and blow stuff up
Weapons
   -Carbine: see clone trooper
   -Pistol: see marksman
   -3X concussion greandes: super bouncy sticky grenades with a long cook time and big push
      effect. Force push, now available in grenade form. Very effective against turrets
      but not much else.
   -3x thermal grenades: short cook time, non bouncy non sticky. Anti-infantry
[/spoiler]

Download link:
http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=myfiles;u=7599

How to install:
-Unzip the downloaded file, it should contain a readme and rep.lvl
-navigate to your BF1 install directory/ (ex: Star Wars Battlefront\GameData\Data\_LVL_PC\SIDE)
-create a backup copy of the existing rep.lvl found here and then overwrite with my file
-load up a vanilla map and enjoy!

Credits for assets:
[spoiler]
Detpack mesh- republiquecmndr
Drop shield- MileHighGUy
ARC trooper particle cannon- RepublicCommando
Snub Pistol- Sereja
[/spoiler]

A few notes:
-The new mechanics i've added for the republic will be unique to the republic, the other factions will get their own tricks
-I used the droideka as the point of balance in this mod, everything in the republic is balanced 1v1 against the droideka and hence overpowered against the rest of the vanilla CIS. When I design the CIS I'll balance them to match the droideka in power as well though so the final product will be balanced.
-I know many of the weapons don't have names, I can't fix this because the localization tool doesn't work on my computer, sorry. If someone could help me out with that and make a localization file for me that would be great.

[Cdt Fox]

Looks promising! Good job man! Any pics? 

[wishihadaname]

There isn't much to see, I haven't done any re-skins nor made any new assets (plus I don't actually know how to take screenshots in this game).

[Ascertes]

There isn't much to see, I haven't done any re-skins nor made any new assets (plus I don't actually know how to take screenshots in this game).

The default key is P, I believe. You should have a folder designated screenshots in your SWBF files.

[{Alpha} Kiwi]

sounds good. Will give it a try when I can and tell you would I think. Only thing I can think of at the moment is that maybe the jet trooper should have a better close range weapon if it is meant to be an attacker (e.g some sort of shotgun, mortor launcher, rocket launcher etc, could even try removing pistol if you wanted it to be solely for close range)

[wishihadaname]

I've tested a lot of different weapons for the jet trooper and the carbine felt like the best fit. Unlike the clone trooper the jet trooper is fast enough to get in close and use it as a spray and pray weapon, at close range the aim penalties don't matter much for movement and sustained fire. When he overheats, or gets close, he can switch to the pistol and keep shooting. Combined with concussion grenades for a shock and awe entrance he can be very effective at clearing a room or taking a command post but he doesn't insta kill, which in my mind is bad design because there is not possible counter play.

[wishihadaname]

Sorry for double post, just wanted to ask if anyone has had time to try this out and has any feedback for me? I've started working on the CIS.

[Kit Fisto]

I tried it out and played it on Geonosis and these sides are pretty unique and fun. My favorite part by far was the inclusion of the pilots remote shield! Very cool and it makes his unit fun to play as.
I only did one play through but here's what I think about each unit.

Soldier: Well rounded except the lasers for his blaster seemed rather large relative to the size of the blaster. Just a visual thing. As far as the weapon values go it was pretty good! How it will fare against your CIS side I'll have to wait and see.

Heavy Trooper: This unit was pretty cool, I was a bit confused as to the function of the blaster that fires multiple EMP rounds as it did very little damage to infantry. It took me a while to figure out that was his vehicle weapon...whoops.
His time bombs seemed powerful but I didn't get many chances to use them.

Pilot: Great unit who's portable shield makes him a valuable asset on the battlefield. I thought the cool down time for it though was a bit too long, if it was shorter or maybe ammo based then players could set up defensive positions using the shields! Then that would balance out his relatively small arsenal. If theres a way you can get the AI to use the shields that would be absolutely amazing!

Sharpshooter(?): I'm not sure if this class is supposed to be a sniper class or a support soldier. His blaster that loads up felt like it would be useful at long range, except the range wasn't too long. His recon droid cool down time also felt a little long to me.

Jet Trooper: This jet trooper felt similar to Sleepkillers jet trooper in his mod with the carbine. His fast speed made him pretty maneuverable on the battlefront but his blaster kept overheating for me so I had to find cover. If this is part of the characters dynamic then good job cause that's exactly what I had to do!


Overall this mod is very promising! I can't wait to see your CIS sides and how they match up with your Republic sides. Some suggestions is to use the DN Bolt Caster or a weapon similar to that for one of your troopers. It's a unique weapon to the Republic in SWBFI and adds a different type of weapon in their arsenal besides blaster based weapons. I'd also like to see what changes you'd do to the various vehicles changes! I

A good mod doesn't neccesarliy need new models and I think this mod could stand well on it's own without them. If you do intend to add new models I'd do that at the end.

[wishihadaname]

Thanks for the feedback, i've done a bit more tweaking to the republic and am about half way through the CIS. Here is their design so far:

CIS faction wide changes:
-Droids have two versions of their primary weapon.
One weak but fairly accurate based off energy cells (overheating). This weapon is used on the move or for sustained combat and suffers no accuracy penalties for movement and sustained fire.
The second weapon is ammo based and has one relatively small clip (10-15s of fire). This is a much more powerful but less accurate weapon used for pushing an objective. CIS is an offensive based faction that doesn't care for losing its own troops (they are droids after all).
-Droids can all be rapidly repaired with a fussion cutter or by a health droid but health packs don't work for them.

Units:
Battle Droid: (still thinking about this one, may just end up being an inferior but agile infantry unit)

Super Battle Droid:
Health tank. Very poor acceleration makes him feel "drunk" but 2.5k hit points (compared to the clone troopers 400) make him an absolute beast. Designed to take massive amounts of fire and ignore it. Ideally he will be immune to knockdowns (still working on that part).
Weapons:
-Wrist blaster. Medium range medium accuracy medium damage. Can be sprayed all day but doesn't really get kills unless you are close to the target
-Wrist cannon. Bowcaster, battledroid edition. Fires between 1-10 shots depending on how long its charged in a moderately tight grouping but for only very short range (30 units compared to the standard 80-100). 60 rounds total. At full charge the rounds become explosive and knock targets around.
-Wrist rocket. Vanilla, x6.

Geonosian Engineer
Extremely annoying flying bug with a nasty gun and a knack for keeping SBD's alive much longer than they should be.
Very fragile unit, 200 health but rapid regen, recovers all health every 10s. Limited flight capability, very quick on the ground too.
Weapons:
-Geonosian sonic blaster: uses ammo, can be charged to fire concussive shots that take 3 ammo and knock their target down. DPS lower than that of carbines. 2x 30 round clips.
-Fussion Cutter: souped up and capable of fully repairing an SBD in 15s. Heals all other droids and vehicles too.
-Ammo packs x10. Extra ammo for CIS power weapons or own blaster.
(fourth weapon, maybe, haven't come up with it yet)

Sabotage Droid
Make things go boom at bad times, replaces the assassin droid as a long range unit didn't really fit the theme of the CIS.
-CIS carbine. Copy of the republic variant but with no accuracy debuffs for long fire or movement. Slightly less damage per shot and slightly poorer accuracy overall.
-Rocket Launcher. Vanilla damage but, shot goes wildly astray if fired without a lock, explosion radius is very small (means you can't really use it against infantry).
-Sabotage Charge x3. Similar to ARC troopers charge but thrown much further. Much smaller blast radius.
-Orbital Strike Drone x3. Similar to Clone marksman but with no cooldown.

Droideka:
-Same as vanilla but shield regens much faster when dropped and a little bit at a time while active. This is the unit vs which everything in the GCW era is balanced so I had to keep it more or less static.

[TheGangstarTY]

This is a great mod! I play a lot more as the Jet Trooper now since he actually has a GOOD weapon with unlimited ammo. This makes it feel a lot better and I explore more units rather than the same old Clone Trooper. Well done

[TheGangstarTY]

This is a great mod! I play a lot more as the Jet Trooper now since he actually has a GOOD weapon with unlimited ammo. This makes it feel a lot better and I explore more units rather than the same old Clone Trooper. Well done