Greetings fellow members of the FAF community,

as you are probably quite aware of, many users experienced several connectivity problems over the past couple of weeks. This was and still is due to only recently diagnosed issues, which made connections unstable for many FAF users. We will go over the event timeline and outline what would be required to get things back to normal.

First and foremost, we apologize for the lack of communication concerning these issues - the cause of problems was unknown initially, and we didn't want to share information we weren't sure was correct. We strongly hope that this rundown will give all users a good overview of what was and still is causing them.

The Disk Issues
The first problem detected and tackled by the DevOps team was the failure of a physical disk on the server that FAF services were hosted on, which occurred on 9th of April. This was a serious issue, so the members with the know-how took immediate action, and the servers were returned to their regular working state in quick order. The services returned to their normal functionality within an hour of the problem being detected.

A month later, on 6th of May, another disk had failed. This time, the disk that failed was the main disk that would allow the restart of services. Due to the type of failure, remote access was unable at the time members were on hand. The schedule of the DevOps team as well as the service provider made it hard to estimate how long it would take for the servers to get back into working order. The service was restored on 7th of May, less than 8 hours after the failure was detected.

In light of the outages, the DevOps team decided to use this chance to make a scheduled migration of service hosting on to a newer, substantially better server. To be exact, the new main server is a machine with doubled performances compared to the old one, which will make any non-game services work that much more smoothly. This was completed in short order on 28th of May with some residual problems that were resolved quickly after the migration.

Upgrading the main server actually didn't help with connection instability experienced by many. Some users were concerned that the issues were either caused by the game updated that happened on the 20th of May, or the most recent client update. We assure you this is not the case, and we hope the next game or client update, or balance patch will be awaited with anticipation, rather than dread. So what is the cause? Let us explain that, now that we actually know with certainty.

In-game connection problems
To understand why connection issues appeared, we need a short crash-course on how FAF servers work. First, there is the "main" server, the one we mentioned was migrated to a new machine, and is currently in pristine state. This server allows for players to connect to all non-game-related services - the forums, FAF website and the client. However, once a game is started, this main server no longer has anything to do with the game. For example, if you already were in the game, and the main server crashed, the game would still play normally.

When the game is started, the last thing the main server does is it establishes connections between players. First, it tries to make peer to peer connections - these are direct connections between players, that allow the most straightforward exchange of data. Sometimes, however, this type of connection can not be established for whatever reason, and that is where another type of server jumps in to help - the coturn servers. These servers effectively work like a middle-man, getting data from one player and sending it to another. Most issues players recently experienced concerning unstable connections had to do with problems on these servers.

Resolving the issues
Originally, there was only 1 cotourn server, but recently 4 more were added. DevOps team hoped that adding additional coturn servers would fix connection instability. While the good news is that additional coturn servers might improve connection health in general for the future games, this in itself did not actually serve to fix the problems people were having. After some investigation, the DevOps team concluded that the issues with both the old and the new coturn servers were caused by unwanted elevated traffic on these servers. In terms some people might be familiar with, the coturn servers are being DOS-ed - not an unheard of occurence in the business of server hosting, but one that FAF managed to avoid until recently.

These kinds of problems have established methods of fixing and prevention. The current issue the DevOps team is facing with implementing these is the amount of work that is required - they are unable to start work until their personal schedules allow for that. This means that, unfortunately, we are currently unable to give an estimate on when these issues will be resolved. We would like to use this opportunity to ask our fellow members of FAF for patience, and for help - if you have experience with Java/Kotlin and server maintenance, please contact us, either via the forums or the discord server.

AI-Swarm

This mod has been in development for about a Year, Now. My Goal was to create a well rounded AI, that would be able to do Navy, Land, and Air. I wanted it to be able to face any challenge from 1v1 to 1v8 Situation. My Goal was also to make an AI, that doesnt depend on Multipler to win the Game. I, Also wanted him to be good in all situations be that on a map with less mass or a map with more mass, and I wanted him to be able to adapt to any situation and be strong in T1 to T4 Stages.
Requires AI-Uveso For The AI Map Marker Generator in the Options

Installation - AI-Swarm is available on the FAF Vault. Search for 'AI-Swarm'.

Swarm plays very good on Open 10km Maps. It can play some 5km maps (Note: I havn't tested him very much on these maps). It, also can play a mean navy on 20km maps or 10km Maps. His land game isnt the best on 20km maps depending on the type of 20km map. He doesn't play very well on "Gap" Maps.

Special Thanks to
Sprouto, and Uveso: For Basically teaching me everything i know about AI, Especially Sprouto, who without him. I'd be not close to where I am today. Uveso, too for helping me fix many bugs, and proving the base for Swarm. Both of these kind fellas gave me motivation to never give up.

Relent0r: For Basically giving me the competitive motivation to improves Swarm 1v1 capability and Relent0r was a good sparring partner! He, also helped me with a few things

Evan and BullydozerNoob: For Being Some High Leveled Players, that 1v1'd Swarm many times and gave me VALUABLE Information and help!

Jammer, Mhad, DFViper, and Clarko: For being long time players and testers of Swarm

Everyone Else Who Made Swarm, what it is today 8-)

3 New Sub AI's:

-AI: Swarm Terror/AIx: Swarm Terror : This is your Standard Swarm AI.
-AIx: Swarm Eternal : This one cheats harder as the game goes on and Cheats harder when its losing. (mostly for Fun)
-AIx: Swarm Test : For Testing Purposes

Map Suggestions

10km:
Adaptive Wonder Open
Adaptive Hilly Platuea
Adaptive Diversity
Miracle
Crash Site
Crash Site - 1v1
Mavys Marsh
Abhor
Adaptive Pyramid
Adaptive Morning Prayer
Adaptive Hansen Gorge
Open Palms
Oracle
Cadmium Green
Hollow

20km:
Adaptive Metir
Adaptive Maridia (Only 1 AI)
Point of Reason
Adaptive Skadi
Seton's Clutch
Seraphim Glaciers
Chiron
Osiris

Updates will be Posted On This Forums and the AI Development Server!!

AI Development Discord Server
https://discord.gg/ChRfhB3

Hello, I am Kazuya more formerly known as Azraeelian Angel.

I am the new Community Manager and look forward to increasing engagement with the Community as well as creating more transparency with the development process.

I am extremely interested in receiving suggestions and feedback on both my ideas stated in my application and potential ideas that people may have.
That being said I am also looking for people willing to assist me in some of my goals! You can dm me at Azraeelian Angel#9240. If you havn't seen my application you can check it out here! https://forum.faforever.com/topic/6040/community-manager-candidates-2023/3

I mostly wanted to post this to get the conversation going and interaction going but also to break the silence since my election!

@FtXCommando said in The Last Thread about RAS SACU Balance:

They aren't "OP" in the sense of being a dominant strategy but they promote inherently toxic gameplay. The only thing that should combine mass + e + flexible BP is the ACU itself. When other units do it, you open up the ability to do things like protecting infinite eco in a single, condensed area. Lategame eco should be about factoring in the risk/reward of additional eco adjacency efficiency and additional risk of exploding mass fabs. Not make boys and forget.

They should just be nerfed into irrelevancy or even removed just for the sake of promoting a healthier game.

100% Agreed.

@thomashiatt said in Game Councilor:

@jip said in Factory models:

There is no 'we' here Thomas, there is just 'you'. Stating I abuse the privilege of being game lead is pretty disgusting when I announced that these were my intentions from the very start.

I think that your constant usage of the word 'immersion' and the changes you make for its sake are misguided. It's just a game industry buzzword. You do not need better graphics for immersion. You can be totally immersed in just a book, or any other simple activity. I assure you that my mind is entirely immersed in the game when I am playing it in its current state. Improvements to graphics, performance, or UI are not going to increase my level of immersion, its at 100% already. Games with horrible graphics are just as immersive as games with good graphics. Performance could actually have an impact on immersion, but 99% of 1v1 to 4v4 games I play never get slowed down, so performance is not at all an issue for me. It kinda feels like a joke to improve the performance of the game after so many years and hardware getting so much faster.

While i agree with your upper sentences. Your last sentence is just lost in ignorance of the game. You can only run so fast because the game is single core and not multi-core. People want to play bigger games. You ain't the only guy playing the game. You don't have performance issues because you dont play bigger games, ok? Cool?

What about the other people who do play 20k+ with AI or 20k+ with 6v6 etc. They have slowdown and thats what the patches are definitely aimed for. Again, you can only run so fast with a 3090 RTX and I9 13k, simple as that you will cap out. Jip's work increases that cap for EVERYONE! Not to mention that the game is slowed down to the slowest person's PC which improves everyone's game when Jip introduces more patches that improve performance.

Let's not get into the memory improvements that Jip has added which does so much for AI Developers on FAF, while you might not like the certain features. That are turned on by default. You could always turn them off it's definitely just a personal negative experience on your part which is fine but i wouldn't make that an arguing point.

Also freeing up performance allows more actual useful code to be running and mods to be slightly more intensive like Total Mayhem for example. It's all around a big improvement for not just gameplay but for modders, more CPU to work with and more Memory to work with.

The game is healthier then ever because of Jip and his ability to not only code this work but to gather an entire team and lead it to make the game better more beautiful more performant. Your arguments are opinions but the facts of his work lay in front of us, so i mean if he's the only guy really doing anything then he should have the most say in all things because hes the only one making the game better in all aspects and single handedly allowing bigger more awesome games which is what SUPCOM was designed for!

Jip not only contributes to the game but he literally makes features at request for example nav generator for AI. He works so hard to modernize the game for Professionals like yourself (I know cringe), Thomas. Thats what his UI work is for, it's too increase the ability to control the units and make everything less tedious. I'm pretty sure Jip's work is making FAF grow too, because FAF looks alive and worked on a lot. The developers are responsive as well.

Game has fundamentals issues and its hard to have retention unless you are dedicated to improving or you play purely for fun and eventually people who play purely for fun go away.

I think a lot of people also play pvp a few times then just quit because toxicity and just generally ass maps/players on global.

I don't think most play ladder Because it's not pushed enough to the front. If anything we need to start making matchmaker more of a focus and push global into a arcade type style like SC2 does.

So paying many to promote FAF is a huge waste of money when nobody is dedicated to actually dealing with core issues that just make players not want to come back.

Everything money wise for tournaments, promotion etc could be a lot more if we had a more dedicated fan base instead of people who just play with 0 interaction. I think that stems from a toxic mentality and an inability to actually change major components of the game and not only the game but how even the client is structured and etc.

Hello! It's nice to meet everyone. I'm not around as much as I used to be (Due to my Military Life). Although I'm looking to get back into the role of things and this is a big thing for me!

Some people may know me for things like

-> Founder of the AI Development Discord for Supreme Commander FA Globally. https://discord.gg/ChRfhB3
-> Creator of AI-Swarm https://github.com/Azraeel/AI-Swarm
-> Developer for the LOUD Project (AI Focused) https://github.com/LOUD-Project/Git-LOUD
-> Developer for FAF
-> Member of FAF Association

My goals are pretty straight forward and are focused on hopefully engaging the players with Content not only in the form of Game Development but also tournaments. I really want the community to be informed of most FAF on goings in the future. I hope as CM I can fulfil these things.

My biggest ideas currently are:

-> Dev Dairies either every month or 2 months to get an insight into the minds of Game Developers & Client Developers.
-> Dev Dairies either every month or 2 months to get an insight into the minds of Balance Developers.
-> Creating Tools & Stuff for Retention Rates & Seeing why players come back and why they dont come back.
-> Encourage the funding and support of more professional tournaments with completely fundraised money.
-> Encourage the funding and support of more game development with completely fundraised money.
-> Promoting Streamers & Casters, who contribute to the retention and gain of players.
-> Promote Personal Trainers to the global FAF Community, who seek to improve players for the future.

I hope some of these interest the community and of course these are not all my ideas and I still have so much thinking to do Especially as this is a new Position in the FAF Structure, it's obviously not cleared defined what the job fully entails and thats certainly something I'll have to adventure into!

Ideas, that are dumb ofc

1. The Othuum is a siege tank correct? Why does this "Siege Tank" have less health than both bricks and pervicals? The classific of this unit makes no sense really. A siege tank is supposed to be extremely beefy, but currently, balance shows this as a glass cannon with lots of DPS and no health.

2. Does anyone use Harbinger Reclaim Ability? (Just a Question)

3. Purposed reduction of Engineering Stations Buildpower to encourage more mobile engineer usage?

4. This is a restated purposal but the Reduction of t3 extractor income to a lower value, maybe 12 with ringed income being 18?

5. T2 Scout Planes? Since I saw a pull request on the GitHub to give Aeon and Seraphim; engineering stations before. I will propose the introduction of T2 Scout Planes.

6. Removal of Veterancy from all units except SACUs, Commanders, and Experimentals If you want the stats; this will increase sim speed by 2 - 4 sim speed. We have tested this in AI Development, many times. I will give data if wanted.

This is a topic of ideas so bring them on, criticism is welcomed

To key in on this performance and development large phase that faf is currently going through. I am working on really improving functionality and performance of ALL core AI code on faf so helpfully for you AI Players you'll get even more benefit once these patches come out.

Very exciting stuff that jip has allowed us to do

Making Reclain like 20% of the original unit cost or even lower will make gameplay 100x better honestly you'll get a lot more action, lot more risk, but overtime you can still lose from reclaim war. This also fights turtling and not only that you dont have to worry about losing the game so fast due to one battle, also slows the pace of the game especially late game where shit tons of reclaim that causes the game to slog.

@HoujouSatoko

Thomas has the right ideas so, i think clans should really be about getting new players into the game and right habits and such. Galactic War is pretty essential to that, and i think after TMM - GW was the plan? Atleast thats what i remember being said.

@TheWheelie

Late game should have options... Right now your kind of forced into this standoff late game where the middle of the map is a wasteland with tons of reclaim your just licking your lips at and I understand reclaim is very vital to the Game of course.

I'm not saying remove but it's so important to the game in some many aspects its hurting more then helping. Every T3 you lose is basically 1k mass on the enemy's doorstep which may look good but it's really not good, because you end up rewarding certain bad behaviors and punishing certain gameplay styles.

This is where stuff like turtling and being aggressive diverge Because reclaim will always lend in favor of the defender but late game it lends so hard into that said defenders favor your basically forced to play like him even if you have 80% of the map, you cant attack with your large useless army too risky too punishing especially if he has lots of pd and his own big base. You lose 20 pervicals there goes 20k mass to the enemy for example.

By late game theres so much reclaim you might as well not even have mexes. What I'm stressing is this is just one step towards creating a healthier playing environment. Where you can be proactive late game instead of it being almost a 100% chance of mass economical artillery/experimental spam.

If the game wasnt so stalematey you could play 20km more proactively, because you could actually attack, you could invest into these larger pushes without having to worrying if you lose this single reclaim field the game is just cooked. 20km is a prime example of economy being extremely out of hand. Most of the time theres simply too many mexes, too much early game reclaim which turns into a super quick stalemate because you reach t3 and t4 so quick that reclaim is pretty much out of control, everyone has these large bases full of ras coms, Sams, Pd, And Armie. That any push any proactive gameplay is immediately shut down because even if you gain ground it's done nothing to the enemy in fact you've probably done more dmg to yourself given the enemy more reclaim and demoralized yourself into this slog fest of a game.

@ftxcommando said in **Platinum question**:

Repair station for land units sounds like a pathfinding noobtrap

You can create an aura around such a station if you were to even consider adding that. The aura would essentially be a range in which it repairs and such like being attached to the actual staging fixes those clumping issues and such.

Battleships and shit hitting subs in the dumbest feature is the game and nobody can tell me otherwise. It should be removed 10/10 bad gameplay feature.

@casternumerouno imo TMM should be only random gen B)

@snagglefox said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:

I'm a little confused on the reclaim changes. Is there an explanation as to why it was done?

essentially promotes aggression as before attacks were way too punishing late game

I was wondering this isn't an official poll, but I wanted to generate some discussions on issues that plague FAF in your opinion, this could be anything from Toxicity, Lack of Content, Lack of Transparency, and more.

I understand Connection Issues are a big thing right now and Me and Promo Team (Thanks to Rowey & Fichom >:) will be delivering a post on this soon so Stay Tuned

Meanwhile, I want to see what type of discussions and issues are brought up from this post and I will potentially look into expanding the most talked about issues into forums post of their own and polls.

Galactic War

@axel12 said in Is FAF growing?:

Corona...

It spiked even before corona though tbh

Yes, Lets Buff Aeon... The Strongest Faction