Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Mods => Modding => Topic started by: Wriath on May 14, 2017, 11:11:12 AM

Title: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Wriath on May 14, 2017, 11:11:12 AM

Click the image below for download.

(http://i.imgur.com/Tydh5.png) (http://www.mediafire.com/file/8122iu7421urol2/Ifed_Legacy.rar)

This is the First version of Interstellar Federation Legacy mod. It's an update of the classic IF mod by Keptin that was discontinued a few years back. http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2012.0

So far I have converted all the ships, weapons, item descriptions, and ship systems. The ships and weapons have been added to the independent fleets and markets as part of a demo versison of the mod while I work on integrating them as their own faction. A lot of the lore doesn't really line up with that of starsector, and I'm not really planning on expanding on the 'Jardain' aliens mentioned in the lore and a few teaser images by Keptin. I'm still brainstorming the specifics of the lore, faction relations, etc.
The ships and equipment are still in an early state of balance, many of their stats were either nonexistant in previous versions of the game, or have completely changed, I've given things a once over but there are still a number of oddities. If people want to start trying the ships and gathering information on what's broken with that stuff I can focus more on the other work that's going on, and it would be appreciated.

Released under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ with permission from the original author.

Special thanks to
Keptin for creating all the content. None of this would have been possible without what must have been countless hours of work on his part, and he definitely goes at the top of the list
Tartiflette and Mshadowy for inspiring me to get into mod creation in this game and some tips along the way.
Alex for making Starfare... sector and giving us such a great, versatile platform to express ourselves on.
Many folks in the Discord who I bounced ideas off of, asked questions, and just in general were very welcoming.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Wriath on May 14, 2017, 11:14:06 AM

Reserved for bugs/to do list
Version in mod_info.json and mod description are wrong, doesn't affect gameplay.
Also if someone familiar with data/campaign stuff (faction creation/campaign integration) I could use some direction.
Fix naming conventions, remove ammo on ballistics.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: OzOnyx on May 14, 2017, 03:58:08 PM

First, I gotta say I am so glad you are picking up this mod.

The overabundance of ammo limited weapons doesn't really fit with current balance. The naming conventions for ship classes is all over the place (Gunship and Destroyer both being used for wildly different sizes of ships).

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: theSONY on May 14, 2017, 04:31:05 PM

Yeah, older must have mod is back ^^
kudos for necro this mod :D

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: cjuicy on May 14, 2017, 06:15:07 PM

Good to see this again. I've been missing my Scythes and Dakotas for too long.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: SierraTangoDelta on May 14, 2017, 11:08:27 PM

Where can I get an Orbital Fusion Cannon, and what the hell am I supposed to mount it on?

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Wriath on May 15, 2017, 04:54:42 AM

The Orbital Fusion cannon is a remnant from this http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=1979.0 Expect it in a mission maybe in a later version, it's not at all balanced so I hadn't really intended to bring it to campaign. (at least I'm pretty sure that's what it is, I didn't see it on any of the other variants)

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: SierraTangoDelta on May 15, 2017, 10:31:00 AM

Yeah I saw it pop up when I was refitting ships in the mission menu, I definitely can't see that being usable ever. It would be cool, but also insanely overpowered.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Surge on May 15, 2017, 05:07:08 PM

I would put a cleanup of the fighters on your to-do list. The Foxbat needs new weapons on top of the LMG, as at 0 OP it is competing with the Talon. Honestly you could probably copy paste code from the Talon onto the Foxbat to give it swarmers. Overall fighters work very differently now and a lot of stats need to be adjusted.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Zenobious on May 16, 2017, 02:19:54 AM

Disclaimer: I never played the original mod, so I can't say I have a "feel" for what the faction should have/did play like compared to vanilla balance back in the day. I'm just giving it my best go at it compared to how it plays with the game right now.

The vast majority of ballistics will need a substantial balance pass once their ammo restriction is removed -- right now most of (all?) the kinetic weapons all put out higher DPS than their flux cost, for example, which is not the norm for most vanilla weapons outside of some small mounts and the needlers. For example, the Mass Driver has the same range, accuracy, traverse etc as the Hypervelocity Driver -- but it does 208 DPS for 167 flux/s, while the HD does 138 DPS for 178 flux/s, *and* the Mass Driver has exceptional armor penetration with its 1,500 damage shot. This is all worth far more than 17 OP. Another big offender is the Cain, which beats out the Mjolnir in efficiency and the plasma cannon for raw energy damage. For starters, I'd suggest going through the medium/large ballistic weapons and inverting their DPS and flux/s where appropriate... that seems like it might be a good starting point.

Some of the missiles will need to be reworked too. Right now the medium MLRS mount is pretty much a strictly inferior Annihilator -- 800 vs. 1500 range is a cripplingly bad deficit, and it has few other features that justify a 50% OP cost increase. The large mount at least does substantially more damage, but the range is still incredibly restrictive. Even SRMs reach 1,000.

Like Surge mentioned, the fighters need a substantial balance pass as well. Both the Tracer and the Hornet are very slow at 100 and 125, barely capable of catching capitals with the zero-flux boost on, making them incredibly vulnerable to defensive fire... especially the Tracer, since it closes to a pretty short range to drop its torpedoes compared to the Atropos-equipped vanilla bombers. Even the Warthog goes 130, and the Piranha 150. The Foxbat has an acceptable speed of 200, but even that is only comparable to heavy fighters, and far lower than most other fighters classified as "interceptors," a number of which exceed 300.

Also, I believe the Hornet should get the *single* Sabot launchers like the Longbow uses. It's not necessarily imbalanced if it has 2 Sabots instead of the 1 the Longbow has, but right now it's using a pair of the standard Small Missile Mount Sabots, not the Longbow's single-shot fighter version, which makes it ludicrously overpowered as a single 8-OP wing of them is dumping 12 Sabots in a pass! With higher speeds, they'll also need higher OP costs; the Tracer is only 12 OP compared to the 20/28 for the Dagger/Trident; and the Tracer is 4 less than the Longbow, which has half the Sabots.

The Antares and Zephyr are still using point-defense drones as their ship systems; and the Mercury has sensor drones. The standard now is to have drones as a built-in fighter bay, with something else as a ship system, so that's something to consider an alternative for. Also, the Antares just sucks in general: too few weapons mounts, flux stats no better than a cruiser, *and* slower than either of the vanilla battlecruisers... despite a 40-supply deployment cost like the Conquest.

I can't really comment on the balance of anything but the capitals, as they're all I've experimented with in the simulator so far. As mentioned, the Antares sucks. The Auria and Titan feel like they're in a pretty good place, and the Yukon feels balanced for its deployment cost -- but its stats are more those of a cruiser than a capital, so it might stand to be reclassified. EDIT: the Titan might be a bit *too* good actually; the teleporter is incredibly powerful. Perhaps should get a higher flux cost, or fewer uses/longer recharge. /EDIT

More minor quibbles, but worth noting: missing ship, ship system, and item descriptions all over the place. Various typos in some others ("Hedgemony" instead of "Hegemony" in the Antares description, for example). Lack of Autofit options for the ships. CR costs on deployment are very low (about 1/2 vanilla numbers) across the board -- not sure if that was an intentional balance point for the mod, or just a different standard for an older version of the game.

Hope that helps!  :)

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Kreuzberger on May 17, 2017, 10:09:01 AM

My two cents after playing awhile with this mod:

Rethink the ordnance points of most of the ships. They are not enough. For example the interceptor (frigate)....even with +10 percent ordnance points I can barely put in hardened subsystems, blast doors, stabilized shields and two standart small weapons plus points on vents. This in a ship with four weapon slots. 38 points, that´s it! Some more hull mods? How? Maybe with an officer, that has vents and capacitors skills, which free some ordnance points, but even then I predict only one more cheap hull mod. Short said, at the moment the configuration range of the ships is very very limited. Can´t be compared with vanilla equivalents....

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Maelstrom on June 16, 2017, 08:08:49 PM

So will they have a station? Or is this it?

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: PyroFuzz on June 21, 2017, 09:46:55 AM

It said that he was developing the actual faction. So as it said they are found in independent stations.

Also.. I need this mod.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: c0nr4d1c4l on June 21, 2017, 05:02:11 PM

(http://i.imgur.com/hJSh35O.jpg)

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Far3288 on October 07, 2017, 12:29:36 AM

It feels like the ships (that I've seen) in this mod are grossly underpowered, but the weapons are fun. I've never seen anything other than Shoguns, some of the frigates, and that's it, but maybe I had/have some weird mod incompatibility.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: NITROtbomb on December 12, 2017, 03:27:42 AM

So excited for this !

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: cjuicy on January 01, 2018, 11:56:34 PM

I've been playing around with the mod for some time and as such I have identified several key balance points to be addressed. While not an exhaustive list by far, I hope this will be a helpful starting point.

-Boost OP of nearly all ships, especially the frigates and carriers.
-Boost hull of most ships smaller than a capital
-Reduce the range of the Titan's teleport system
-Increase the cost of Tracers
-Replace the Hornet's Sabot racks with the single shot versions and the HMG with a Dual LMG
-Give the Echo class Frigate the High Resolution Sensors hullmod.
-Possibly replace the mines on the Montana and/or give it a salvage gantry

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: gun&drink on March 17, 2018, 07:40:06 AM

Hi, just wanted to drop by to say that I really enjoy the ships and weapons of this mod. there isn't nearly enough high payload missiles out there, and this mod fills that role so nicely with the Omega device and the Lancer Torpedo racks, plus the ships have really nice appearance.
Also giving a few balance tips after testing it for a while, both with vanilla and pretty much every big mod out there:
-Auria-class takes way too little points to deploy. if you boost it to 25 or even 35 I think it would make it more fair, right now I can just spam them with some sweet missile-specialized outfitting and destroy pretty much anything
-limited ammo ballistic weapons aren't really worth it at the moment. either boosting them up so the limitation is worth it or removing said limitation would be ideal
-as others have said some of the ships have too little OP points
-as they are not a faction at this moment, only the player can make full use of these weapons at the moment, which can be a little unfair for the AI sometimes

these last two aren't really a balance issue, I'm just not sure if you are aware of them
- Lancer Torpedo racks tend to not ignite when the target they are aiming at isn't lined up, not sure if intentional
-Omega devices tend to just overload everything that has a shield on, while not destroying it. not sure if this is intentional

finally I have a small suggestion: if you added a Auria-class variant with missile forge I would orgasm on the spot. Having so many missile racks makes you really wish for it

in any case thanks for updating this mod to 0.8, there's nothing like hitting something from across the map with several Lancer Torpedo x4 racks

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: gun&drink on March 30, 2018, 07:05:04 AM

another bug I have found: the AI seems completely unable to use the Hardon accelerator. there some kind of hardcap on how much weapons should be loaded, and the loading period for the hardon accelerator seems to double it. any AI equipped with it will simply load it for about 2 seconds only to interrupt the shot , over and over. this has several solutions:
-change the AI behavior with the hardon acceletator in particular (don't know how hard that is, but it's probably the best one)
-change the AI behavior in general (sounds like it *could* *** something up in the grand scheme of things, but it would solve it)
-modify and balance the Hardon accelerator to load in less time (kinda a shame because the weapon itself has a very unique role and I would enjoy it both by using it myself and by encountering enemy fleets using it)
also someone else has commented that the weapons are way too efficient and that if they had limited ammo they would be overpowered. I agree, but the idea of amazing ballistic weapons that have limited usage could be really interesting, and the faction itself could play around that: short engagements would be really favorable for them, while long ones would become their aquilles heel.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Lopunny Zen on December 14, 2018, 10:49:59 PM

are there going to be improvements to the ships sprites like the ones that were improved already that was shown in the last forums?

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Takion Kasukedo on December 15, 2018, 04:59:09 PM

Unsure about that, currently me and stormbringer hold permissions, but we haven't really gotten around to anything just yet. I'll have to contact him, see what ideas he feels like sharing, and i'll see if I could work on the sprites.

Worst-case-scenario for the sprites would be that they have to be kitbashed from Vanilla parts, but vanilla's a beauty anyway.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Vandermeer on September 08, 2019, 02:43:36 AM

*cybernetic implant necromancy used*

In the past years I have always been playing Starsector with this (inter)stellar good ship mod, because I just adore these sprites and their clean futuristic design and glows. With 0.9.1a out, I am thinking of starting a new game once again, but will this 0.8a mod still work in the newer version?

If it is just a matter of tweaking some variables, I could do that on my own, as I have heavily modified the game and downloaded mods for my private use before, but if I had to add certain new effects or shenanigans for the economic system, it would probably be too much.

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Morathar on September 08, 2019, 08:16:08 AM

Unfortunately, getting any faction mod designed for Starsector 0.8a to work in 0.9.1a can be quite a bit of effort. Just to give you a rough idea of how much work's involved, here's a link to the conversion guide on the wiki: https://starsector.fandom.com/wiki/0.9a_Compatibility (https://starsector.fandom.com/wiki/0.9a_Compatibility).

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Vandermeer on September 08, 2019, 09:32:21 AM

Thank you for the link. I read through it, and despite the thing about weapon energy consumption now being per shot than per salvo (easily edited though), all the rest is either about marketplace stuff, optional(?) blueprints, edited vanilla ships, or changes in the .faction file.
Interstellar Federation seems to use none of those however. I remember the last time I played with them, the mod was already so dated, that I had to spawn the ships in via console and then reduce my money accordingly, because they didn't have an actual faction from which I could have bought them.
...Now I wonder what would happen however, if I would found my own nation in the game from a colony. If they wanted to use the ships, the game had to know somehow how they organize I guess, mhmm.

I guess I will look into how to build a fresh faction file, but am I otherwise missing something about the mod update tips from the link?

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: MaysaChan on June 05, 2020, 05:08:29 AM

Plan to update? or no

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Griffinhart on June 16, 2020, 11:42:00 PM

Would love to see this mod updated. It's one of my long-time favorites.

-- Griffinhart

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: FireBlitz8404 on December 12, 2020, 09:39:34 PM

This mod is one of the first and best experiences I've had with this game. Would love to see it updated!

Title: Re: [0.8a] Interstellar Federation Legacy (V 0.5)
Post by: Feralcus on February 02, 2021, 11:48:58 AM

I remember playing this mod way back. Freaking loved it.

In relation to balance; Personally I almost never used ships smaller than the cruisers as HP across the board was kind of terrible. Not complaining, per-se, they had a niche... They had Really good small turret coverage and the super wide angle larger centerline turret mounts were a joy.

I always used this mods ships as glass cannons basically. (Couldn't trust the ai with them hardly at all. Too fragile.) But I just used'em flagship style, loaded them up with range increasing hull mods and used'em as Snipers/Long-range support or smaller ship hunters. They worked great for that. Just send out like one of these ships (Maybe with a tanky escort if you're feeling paranoid) so the AI don't retreat and snipe it out the sky before it reached you. Cause if they did reach you, your ass was grass XD (These guys had basically no answer to swarm attacks lol)

Here's hoping this gets a 0.9.1 update someday...  :/