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Rise of Nations: Extended Edition >  Workshop > MHLoppy's Workshop > Misc Fixes (Formerly Unit Fixes) | DO NOT USE - USE COMMUNITY PATCH (CBP) INSTEAD > Discussions
Misc Fixes (Formerly Unit Fixes) | DO NOT USE - USE COMMUNITY PATCH (CBP) INSTEAD
Description Discussions8 Comments31 Change Notes
 This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important
MHLoppy  [developer] 29 Sep, 2020 @ 1:38am
[Gameplay Fixes]
Brig, Fluyt, Clipper attacks (Dutch unique units)
  • The Brig was coded in unitrules.xml to fire in bursts of 3, but unit_graphics.xml (which spawns projectiles) only spawned a single projectile with each attack, causing it to deal ~1/3 damage per salvo.
  • The primary attack animations for the Fluyt and Clipper were longer than their reload timer, causing the animation to make the units deal reduced DPS.
  • All three units lacked appropriate modifiers in balance.xml, causing them to be awful against Fire ships, but far too strong against Fishermen (and oddly strong against helicopters).
  • The Fluyt and Clipper had no valid attack while moving (!).

All those issues have been resolved.
  • Having tested multiple options, the Brig now has a single-salvo attack similar to most ships that use side-facing cannons, and utilises the Sloop's attack animation (which animates fairly well on the ship). With these changes the Brig is now a slightly better version of the standard Caravel unit it replaces (as intended).
  • As of March 2021, the Fluyt and Clippers primary firing animations have been manually fixed up, and I've re-aligned the graphics and sound effects to match the updated animations. They now function as intended: as slightly better versions of the units they replace.*
  • Alternative copies of unit_graphics.xml and unitrules.xml have been included so that you can observe the considered (but rejected) fixes for the Dutch ships (excluding the change that was actually included in Misc Fixes "proper" pre-2021).

Bantu, Egyptians, and Nubians Main Battle Tank skin
  • For unclear (and likely unintentional) reasons, these factions are all coded in unitrules.xml to use three separate Main Battle Tank units, all of which are identical in stats. This has the effect of often locking these Nations out of their intended MBT skin, which has sand camo.
  • The two unneeded MBT clones have been made unavailable to these Nations, effectively restoring the intended MBT skin.

Takohs, Akweks, Okwari balance.xml modifiers (Iroquois unique units)
  • unitrules.xml refers to these units as the names listed (with typenames of the same names but in all lowercase), but balance.xml and typenames.xml uses the names "Pathfinder", "Pioneer", and "Ranger", causing balance.xml to not actually have any effect on any of the three units.
  • Changing the three files to all consistently use either of the two unit names resolves the issue, so I've changed the relevant files to use the names already known by players (Takohs, Akweks, and Okwari).
  • The three units will now take additional damage (as intended) from vehicular ranged cavalry units such as the Armored Car, Armored Scout Car, and Armored Cavalry.

Continental Marines (and some other units)
  • Musketeers and other unique units of this "type" have a 120% damage modifier in balance.xml against Heavy Infantry, which Continental Marines lack.
  • Additionally, in balance.xml the unit is incorrectly referred to as "Marines" instead of "Continental Marines", which means any modifiers don't apply (although they have none by default).
  • This is assumed to be an oversight, so has been added to Continental Marines. Note however, that this has no effect on EE; see Known Issues.
  • Other known balance.xml-related bugs have been fixed in CBP instead, where the object masks workaround is used.

Arquebus Immortal (projectile speed)
  • Due to what appears to be human error, Arquebus Immortals have a projectile speed lower than that of Slingers, and substantially lower than any other gun-equipped unit in the game. Even Tercios (Spanish UU equivalent with a gun) has the standard gun projectile speed of 350, instead of this unit's 100. I think this is simply a case of the unit's predecessor being used as the base for this unit's stats.
  • Projectile speed has been bumped up to the standard 350 used for most (all?) infantry guns of the pre-Industrial time period.

Arquebus Immortal (naming error)
  • Arquebus Immortal is (incorrectly?) listed as Arqimmortal in unit_rules.xml and is absent from balance.xml.
  • Since it doesn't appear to be missing any balance.xml modifiers, the main practical effect this has beyond further modding implications is that it's difficult or impossible to spawn the unit by its name. Renaming it to Arquebus Immortal resolves this issue.

Okwari too much damage taken
  • With the modifiers fixed for these units (due to the naming error - see previous fixes), the Okwari specifically takes roughly 10% too much damage from the Armored Car line, which I believe is due to human error when the modifiers were originally set.
  • The modifier has been changed, and the unit now takes as-expected damage from the Armored Car line.

Bark and Trireme wrong damage dealt/received
  • For reasons defying my understanding, I've discovered that the Bark and Trireme are hardcoded in EE to use damage modifiers as if they're Modern Age units, causing them to not receive enough damage when attacked by superior-age units, and to deal far too much damage when attacking low age units (except for other Barks and Triremes).
  • It's plausible that this is an issue that was fixed in Patch 3[web.archive.org] of vanilla RoN, but I'm unsure.
  • A series of "soft-coded" damage modifiers has been added into the balance.xml matrix to approximately resolve the issue. The result will be very close (within a few %) to the units dealing/receiving correct damage - the error is due to the game aggressively rounding while calculating modifiers.
  • UPDATE OCTOBER 2021: There was a lot more to this bug[mhloppy.com], and so the fix in Misc Fixes is unfortunately woefully incomplete, and it's not possible to fully address this in its current format. CBP (with a different mod format to what Misc Fixes is using) will be receiving the full fix in Alpha 7.
  • UPDATE #2 OCTOBER 2021: There was even more to this bug[mhloppy.com].

Carrack attack delay
  • Carracks have very strange values for their attacks, with a substantial delay between when an attack cycle commences, and when projectiles are actually launched. The delay looks to be longer than any other unit in the game by a reasonable margin. It also fires in unusual patterns, instead of grouping its shots together like other ships do.
  • Because the delay is so long, the unit often underperforms in "bursty" combat compared to other units with worse stats. For example, if fighting a damaged Dromon, a Galley (II) will often sink the target faster because it doesn't suffer from such an enormous delay, despite dealing >20% less damage.
  • I've reduced this delay by 800ms, although the strange firing patterns have been otherwise unaltered. This has no effect on the unit's long-term DPS, but reduces its underperformance in "burst" scenarios.

Ironclad
  • The Ironclad originally suffered from essentially every problem which the Fluyt did: it had a bugged attack animation, it didn't fire while moving, and had several missing damage modifiers. Additionally, it animated for 3 shots per salvo but only actually fired 1 (but unlike with the Brig, this had no DPS implication because it only declared an ammo count of 1 in unitrules.xml).
  • When fixing the Fluyt's attack animations, the Ironclad's DPS was also buffed due to that bugfix.
  • After significant contemplation over several months, I've decided that the unit was most likely not intended to have missing damage modifiers and no attack while moving, but that it most likely was balanced with its bugged animation in mind.
  • The Ironclad's attack recharge has been increased from 25 to 30 (its functional attack speed is still slightly higher than it was with 25 but bugged animations).
  • The Ironclad has been given a valid attack while moving.
  • The Ironclad now fires a 2-shot salvo on all attacks.
  • The Ironclad's effect animations (e.g. smoke) and attack sounds have been adjusted accordingly.
  • The missing damage modifiers have been applied, with the exception of air units attacking the Ironclad (since this is more difficult to do but is irrelevant during normal usage because the Ironclad is a pre-air campaign unit).
  • Although this has no gameplay effect, the L mask has been given to the Ironclad, since other similar ships have it as well.



Original notes relating to the Fluyt and Clipper animation fixes, valid for old versions of the mod from before 2021:
  • I tested multiple avenues of resolving the Fluyt and Clipper's DPS issues, but the only one that has as-expected gameplay effects (replacing the attack animation with a Sloop's attack animation) has slightly awkward graphical effects. When firing, the ships will now rock front-to-back instead of side-to-side. Additionally, the cannon flash for each shot will appear off-center on the side that it's firing from (instead of roughly centered). Functionally at least, the Fluyt and Clipper are now slightly better versions of the standard Corvette and Sloop units which they replace (as intended).
  • It's possible that modifying these firing animations directly (.bha files) would allow for more elegant resolutions for the Fluyt and Clipper, but I haven't pursued this more complex option.
Last edited by MHLoppy; 2 Nov, 2021 @ 4:42am