Ideas on nerfing the transport ships

**SamueleD** · September 17, 2013, 11:33 AM

I have been sticking my nose in the various db tables for some time now, trying to figure out how to effectively nerf transport ships in this game.

Now, as others have previously explained in other threads, there are three very important tables for unit modding in R2: land_units, naval_units and main_units.
land_units defines land units (meaning the soldiers), naval_units defines ships (meaning ships, not crews, only the ships), main_units puts the two together and creates the various units you use in the game, usually it puts together units with transport ships (those are land units in-game), but for those few land units lucky enough to also be the crew of a ship there is one or more additional entries that put together a land unit with a different type of ship, not transport (and those are your naval units in-game). Note that: a)the size of units is defined in main_units b)in-game ship crews and in-game land units are the same land_unit, there is no separate entry, in land_units, the separate entry is in main_units, in-game naval crews are weaker only because they have less men!

That said units have two things going for them: abilities (in-game active abilities, like testudo) and attributes (in-game passive abilities, like disciplined). Ships (naval_units) have abilities, soldiers and crews (land_units) have abilities and belong to an attribute group, which defines their attributes.

If we want to nerf transports by decreasing their hull integrity (hitpoints), mass and speed, we can do that pretty easily, by editing the transport ships in naval_units (transports would still be incredibly dangerous when boarding).
However, if we want to do something more, like making so that units on transport ships get maluses to melee attack, melee defence, accuracy, reload speed and morale, things get pretty hard. Ships don't have attributes, only soldiers do, so we can't give transport ships an attribute that lowers those stats to its crew (or simply the troops it's transporting)!

It would be possible to create a separate land_unit for ship crews, but that would not help us, because we need to have a malus that applies to units only when they are on transport ships.

The only thing that comes to my mind would be to create an entirely new table (not a re-sized version of an already present table, a totally new one, which does something that no existing table does) which would link ship classes (like the transport class) to attributes, create an attribute that lowers the stats I mentioned previously and link it to the transport ship class.

Problem is: I have no idea how to do it and even if it is possible.

Does anyone here have any idea if it can be done and how?

**zowrath** · September 17, 2013, 01:37 PM

Well, you can not create an entirely new table as Rome II would not know how to read it and what to do with it. All we can do is edit existing tables. You can make new entries in existing tables, like I did when I effectively nullified ramming transports in this thread here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-ad-hoc-method

What could possibly be done is to reduce the max units on transports, when the units are boarded. I am not sure if it can be done but there's a max_men_per_ship value in main_units that's worth checking out. So if you set this to, say, 120 instead of 160 it would offset the Transport quite a bit in terms of offensive power. If it works.

**SamueleD** · September 17, 2013, 02:12 PM

Disabling ramming for them is already a step forward

, even though I think that their greatest problem is how strong they are in boarding, simply because there seems to be no way to hinder it.

I don't think reducing max_men_per_ship would work, it would either create another transport ship to fit the soldiers or crash the game because it doesn't know where to put the other soldiers, and even if it works I think it would be a problem when disembarking, but I'll try and see what I get.
I think it will create other transport ships, as this seems to be what happens when you raise the unit multiplier beyond the max allowed by in-game options.

Could it be done with a script?

The game would not know how to read a completely new table, but if I add an attribute_group column to the naval_units table, like the one in the land_units table, could the game be able to read it?

After all, those two tables have many columns in common and often point to the same tables (like for abilities and classes). If it were possible we could give attributes to ships and the problem would be solved!

**zowrath** · September 17, 2013, 04:18 PM

Perhaps the way to go about it is not to nerf Transports but rather make normal navy ships more on par? Just increase the number and make them more or less equal. Ships are of the same size, so why can't the navy ships carry the same amount of soldiers that the transports can? Just a thought.

**SamueleD** · September 18, 2013, 01:09 AM

Originally Posted by zowrath

Perhaps the way to go about it is not to nerf Transports but rather make normal navy ships more on par? Just increase the number and make them more or less equal. Ships are of the same size, so why can't the navy ships carry the same amount of soldiers that the transports can? Just a thought.

Good thinking, rotate the problem. It's actually a very good idea!
And now that I think about it, it's probably the way it was intended to be. Remember that at a certain point, there were more ships per unit (for light and medium)? And some heavy ships actually carry more men than a transport. Probably they started out with both naval units and land units having around the same number of men, but since ships were two per unit they had an advantage in boarding, attacking from two sides and surrounding the enemy crew, later they ditched the two ships per unit thing, probably because of some pathfinding issues, and got to where we are now, but they didn't change the transports and so now the balance of power is tipped in their favour!
Luckily the game files allow for re-enabling the two ships in a unit, I should try that and then test them in-game and see if light and medium ships end up being more useful and combat more balanced, assuming it doesn't mess too much with pathfinding.

Edit: I'll make a mod for testing this afternoon, it will simply re-enable two ships per unit (and double the number of men), making so that the total number of men per naval unit is around the same as in land units, I'll upload it and ask people to test it, we should find out how it affects combat, pathfinding, boarding and disembarking, if it ends up working it can be included in other balance mods and suggested to CA.

**adrastea** · September 18, 2013, 02:14 AM

About the boarding issue: would it be possible to nerf the moral and stats of the troops on the transports ships? That would make sense from a realism point of view as well, since these are not dedicated marines trained to fight on sea.

**SamueleD** · September 18, 2013, 02:28 AM

Originally Posted by adrastea

About the boarding issue: would it be possible to nerf the moral and stats of the troops on the transports ships? That would make sense from a realism point of view as well, since these are not dedicated marines trained to fight on sea.

That is what I wanted to do initially, but, as I explained in the OP, it can't easily be done, ships cannot give passive abilities to units, only active abilities and so you can't link a passive effect (like lowered stats) to a ship or a ship class and make it so it applies only when on ships, so you can make the ship less powerful, but you can't nerf the crew (or transported unit), without also nerfing all the instances of that unit (so both the marine and the land version).
The crew of a ship and their land unit counterpart (like land hastati and the hastati you find on assault ships) are exactly the same unit, the only difference is the number of men and the type of ship they are on (and also a setting that defines them as in-game naval or land units).

However, if we can make in-game naval units more powerful (by adding more ships and men to the unit, as they were originally intended) the balance of power in boarding will shift in favour of real navies, rather than transports.

**kafrion** · September 18, 2013, 02:53 AM

Originally Posted by SamueleD

I have been sticking my nose in the various db tables for some time now, trying to figure out how to effectively nerf transport ships in this game.

Now, as others have previously explained in other threads, there are three very important tables for unit modding in R2: land_units, naval_units and main_units.
land_units defines land units (meaning the soldiers), naval_units defines ships (meaning ships, not crews, only the ships), main_units puts the two together and creates the various units you use in the game, usually it puts together units with transport ships (those are land units in-game), but for those few land units lucky enough to also be the crew of a ship there is one or more additional entries that put together a land unit with a different type of ship, not transport (and those are your naval units in-game). Note that: a)the size of units is defined in main_units b)in-game ship crews and in-game land units are the same land_unit, there is no separate entry, in land_units, the separate entry is in main_units, in-game naval crews are weaker only because they have less men!

That said units have two things going for them: abilities (in-game active abilities, like testudo) and attributes (in-game passive abilities, like disciplined). Ships (naval_units) have abilities, soldiers and crews (land_units) have abilities and belong to an attribute group, which defines their attributes.

If we want to nerf transports by decreasing their hull integrity (hitpoints), mass and speed, we can do that pretty easily, by editing the transport ships in naval_units (transports would still be incredibly dangerous when boarding).
However, if we want to do something more, like making so that units on transport ships get maluses to melee attack, melee defence, accuracy, reload speed and morale, things get pretty hard. Ships don't have attributes, only soldiers do, so we can't give transport ships an attribute that lowers those stats to its crew (or simply the troops it's transporting)!

It would be possible to create a separate land_unit for ship crews, but that would not help us, because we need to have a malus that applies to units only when they are on transport ships.

The only thing that comes to my mind would be to create an entirely new table (not a re-sized version of an already present table, a totally new one, which does something that no existing table does) which would link ship classes (like the transport class) to attributes, create an attribute that lowers the stats I mentioned previously and link it to the transport ship class.

Problem is: I have no idea how to do it and even if it is possible.

Does anyone here have any idea if it can be done and how?

A combination of those methods will serve better I think , nerfing the transport units sufficiently will make them more susceptible to ramming by small/medium vessels and creating some marine troops for the high tier warships which will be essentially buffed versions of the originals capable of beating the original units both on land and sea will fix the fact of them being extremely overpriced and at the same time create the need for fleet building to prevent the rise of new strategies such as the looting booze cruise of coastal cities

while at the same time limit itself because of the fact that naval units have 1.5 times the recruitment and 2+ times the upkeep cost of land units

**SamueleD** · September 18, 2013, 03:12 AM

Originally Posted by kafrion

A combination of those methods will serve better I think , nerfing the transport units sufficiently will make them more susceptible to ramming by small/medium vessels and creating some marine troops for the high tier warships which will be essentially buffed versions of the originals capable of beating the original units both on land and sea will fix the fact of them being extremely overpriced and at the same time create the need for fleet building to prevent the rise of new strategies such as the looting booze cruise of coastal cities

while at the same time limit itself because of the fact that naval units have 1.5 times the recruitment and 2+ times the upkeep cost of land units

Sure it would serve better, too bad I have no idea how to do it.
For now I'll just try and restore naval units to what they were supposed to be (two ship units for light and medium, single ship for heavy, with a total number of men close to land units), and see if it makes combat more balanced, and does not create excessive pathfinding issues.

**SamueleD** · September 18, 2013, 08:14 AM

I made the mod and uploaded it, test it out and give me your feedback, please, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...2#post13253552

**zowrath** · September 18, 2013, 10:21 AM

I haven't got the time to help you out, but others might. I have the first evening off, in a very very long time, where my wife is not at home and I am thoroughly just enjoying myself while it lasts.

One thing I thought of though, while it is problematic to make new land units and such it is easy to just make a new boat. You could just copy the Transport boat and call it something else and let all naval assault units use that one, and edit the stats and whatnot for it. Then its 1 on 1, boat-wise.

EDIT: Oh, and make notes during your process and make a tutorial for it. It's great to help new people understand how to make mods.

**SamueleD** · September 18, 2013, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by zowrath

I haven't got the time to help you out, but others might. I have the first evening off, in a very very long time, where my wife is not at home and I am thoroughly just enjoying myself while it lasts.

One thing I thought of though, while it is problematic to make new land units and such it is easy to just make a new boat. You could just copy the Transport boat and call it something else and let all naval assault units use that one, and edit the stats and whatnot for it. Then its 1 on 1, boat-wise.

EDIT: Oh, and make notes during your process and make a tutorial for it. It's great to help new people understand how to make mods.

Thank you, to be honest my impressions in testing the mod I made are not really good, I can see why CA went back to 1 ship units: it's a god damned mess! The two ships in the units always end up getting in each other way and since there is almost double the amount of ships in battles ships often get separated, go in opposite directions, try to get "back in formation", etc. I don't think it will go anywhere, but let's see what other people's impressions are on the matter.

Edit: It's probably just going to be up to CA to find a way to fix naval combat (I think giving transport ships an attribute that lower the stats of units on-board them by X% would be the cleanest way to do it for them), Jack said they are going to do it in the next patches, let's hope they will.

**zowrath** · September 18, 2013, 11:27 AM

That's why I suggested copying the Transport boat, give it a new name and edit stats then attach it to the assault units.

That is relatively easy to do, and you have a lot of control afterwards as you know that model can house a lot of units without issue.

**Brick_Top** · October 01, 2013, 02:53 AM

How about increasing the gap in ship speed? Pretty much all the ships I've seen so far fall into the category 'boat with soldiers on top to do the fighting'. As far as I know, an ancient trireme would typically be built for speed, i.e. long and slim hull, and a really small top deck for marines, making the ship itself the primary weapon. How about giving the small ships a more visible role as 'torpedoes', by increasing relative speed and ramming damage? Might also be an idea to increase their cost as well.

By the way, does anyone know if it would be difficult to implement something like the following later on when modding tools are released?
- Transport ships are recruited, but no unit appears on map. Instead, the faction recieves an increased Naval Transport Rating, which limits the total number of units that can be embarked simultaneously. This rating is decreased if transport ships are lost in battle.
- When an army embarks onto water, they spend all their movement points in the process. The reasoning behind this is that the imaginary transport ships would spend all their movement points on getting to the army's location.

**SamueleD** · October 01, 2013, 03:47 AM

Originally Posted by Brick_Top

How about increasing the gap in ship speed? Pretty much all the ships I've seen so far fall into the category 'boat with soldiers on top to do the fighting'. As far as I know, an ancient trireme would typically be built for speed, i.e. long and slim hull, and a really small top deck for marines, making the ship itself the primary weapon. How about giving the small ships a more visible role as 'torpedoes', by increasing relative speed and ramming damage? Might also be an idea to increase their cost as well.

What about barbarians? It's already ridiculous that they can ram you want to make them stronger so that they can take down transports?

Originally Posted by Brick_Top

By the way, does anyone know if it would be difficult to implement something like the following later on when modding tools are released?
- Transport ships are recruited, but no unit appears on map. Instead, the faction recieves an increased Naval Transport Rating, which limits the total number of units that can be embarked simultaneously. This rating is decreased if transport ships are lost in battle.

Very hard to do, maybe impossible.

Originally Posted by Brick_Top

- When an army embarks onto water, they spend all their movement points in the process. The reasoning behind this is that the imaginary transport ships would spend all their movement points on getting to the army's location.

Possible, if you find the right table.

Still, none of this solves the problem of transport ships being OP in boarding.

**Brick_Top** · October 01, 2013, 05:28 AM

Originally Posted by SamueleD

What about barbarians? It's already ridiculous that they can ram you want to make them stronger so that they can take down transports?

OK, perhaps small ships are a poor choice for this, hadn't considdered the barbarian ships. My point is that a full unit of ranged/melee units on a transport ship will be very efficient at shooting enemy crew/boarding, and seeing as this is more or less exactly what Navy ships do as well, they become very hard to deal with unless they can be outmaneuvered. What I was getting at earlier was that the game lacks navy ships that are built almost exclusively for ramming other ships, so picking out a few select ships to fill that role by increasing speed and reducing the number of marines could be a nice countermeasure to military transport boarding capabilities. More generally though, I think transport ships are too fast at any rate.

Thanks for the quick reply by the way.

**CoolDemon** · October 02, 2013, 09:03 AM

Simply reduce their speed and maneuverability and hitpoints by half should help a lot. That way you want use them for combat but they will be akward to use because non marine units are simply not used traveling over water.

**Jarvgrimr** · October 02, 2013, 11:58 PM

Is it possible to remove the "boarding" ability from transport ships? Thus they can only be boarded, which one would avoid, and their ramming is crap. Thus they are sufficiently weakened and unable to be an offensive unit.