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Mods / Re: [0.96a] Yuri Expedition v.3.0 || Faction Pack || Update 12/25 [YRXP]
« on: December 24, 2023, 10:03:23 PM »
What is YRXP 3.0?
YRXP 3.0 is a comprehensive revision over all aspects of the mod. Everything has been changed, adjusted or fiddled with to some extent, though the feel of it ought to have remained familiar. The most obvious instance of this are the mod's new sprites, which is the result of my attempts at giving the faction a more unified look.
New ships
The entire roster of ships has been updated, with only a couple that I quite liked remaining somewhat the same (though they still received at least minor changes). Frigates remain the backbone of the faction, and can be relied on for most of the game. Nonetheless, the faction has gained a lot of larger ships, even in the Capital category, in which it had historically very limited selection.
Hammer and Anvil Doctrine
This has become the new Yuri Void Warfare doctrine. It refers to the two different design philosophies from which Yuri ships are designed. Hammer refers to the classic fast, high firepower missile boats that the faction has always fielded. Anvil refers to a new class of ship - unshielded, but with an extremely tough armored hide, particularly in the front. They can be a menace if your side lacks the ability to punch through a Yuri fleet's flank and get around to striking these in their vulnerable rear.
New Weapons
YRXP 3.0 introduces a couple new lines of weapons for Caparice Trade Co. The Gun-Missile concept has been fleshed out with the addition of the Spica-line Gun-Missile Systems and the large Vapor Mist Gun-Missile System. An all-new series of weapons, the Konpeito and Onsoku Gunpod Launchers will allow your ships to lay down sustained fire while keeping a safe distance. Great for pressure plays, but the gunpods aren't accurate enough to consistently dish out their maximum potential (on paper) damage.
New sizes for existing weapon types: The Sticker-HV kinetic missiles now come in a medium mount, and the Aurora Crown, now a cruise missile with foldable wings, now comes in a large mount.
Reworked homing lasers: they are now extremely fast and almost perfectly accurate, but their range has been reduced, and PD no longer reacts to them (to which they have always been immune to anyway!).
There are a few more new weapons and weapon types, but I'll let you discover them in-game!
Optimizations and Particle Engine
One of the bigger initiatives for this update is a full rework of the Missile AIs and the integration of the mod, Particle Engine to improve the mod's performance in battle. The results were okay I guess. Rather than the usual 4-5 fps from before, my late game battles have now reached a balmy 13-15 fps. I guess your mileage may vary depending on the strength of your computer, particularly your GPU in the case of particle engine. But hopefully it makes battles with or against YRXP more fun.
UI Rework
This update introduces new weapon sprites, particularly for the VLS-type missiles ought to help distinguish each missile system from each nother now, as well as an updated Hullmod tooltip, which neatly summarizes what it does.
New Portraits
With the advent of easily accessible AI image generation, I am now able to generate custom portraits for YRXP! The Yuri are now depicted more accurately to lore, in particular the fact that all of them have red-hued hair due to their bodies' composition of Scarlet Ice. Speaking AI image generation, I was also able to finish the new Shine Ray and Pancake capital ships thanks to its help! Amazing tool!
Still to come!
YRXP 3.0 is not yet, so to say, complete. It is merely an attempt on my part to release YRXP in its current form for 0.96, since I felt like playing Starsector again and had managed to update it and its subsidiary mods for the campaign. As such there are still many things that this update has NOT touched upon, but will be in the future:
- Old HVBs are still there and most are obsolete. I keep them there for you to continue to enjoy them though they are likely to receive revisions in the future.
- Most of the old missions have been removed temporarily - because they all used obsolete variants that caused the game to crash, and I have not yet revisited them to implement a fix.
- The Caparice Trade Co. campaign itself has not yet received any changes (in terms of quests or any other campaign-layer items)
- The promised market for obsolete YRXP gear is not yet functional! Most are still there, just tucked away in a dark corner, out ot sight. I'll get to it eventually!
- Custom officer skills: I actually tried my hand in adding one for this release, but errors prevented them from reaching releasable state before today, so maybe next time!
Special Thanks
I would like to thank those who helped out on YRXP 3.0 by directly contributing their art and modding expertise, Amazigh who resprited the Last Smile, Mayu who provided hullmod icons for the new Extension Pods and the banner for Caparice Trade Co.'s Nexerelin start, and the code references I used to display the said banner, as well as the as-of-yet in development unique officer skills.
Also, I would like to thank those who were kind enough to create unofficial updates for YRXP and my other mods. Thank you for keeping them alive through these past couple of years!
Lastly I'd again like to thank Alex for always being available to answer the tough modding questions!
i look forward to yrxp 3.0!