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1021

Suggestions / Re: An Option For Integrated Point Defense AI

« on: April 20, 2020, 09:13:34 PM »

The PD_ONLY tag does this. How you'd add it dynamically with a hullmod, I'm not sure, but the behavior you want does exist.

I'm not sure this is currently possible in the API. There is a WeaponAPI.setPD() and a WeaponAPI.setPDAlso() but no such method to set PDOnly(), for instance. It might be useful to suggest this in the API requests thread.

You also can't edit hints themselves using the API (to my knowledge, at least, and I'm not even sure if that would be useful anyway), you can check for them, though.

1022

Modding / Re: Loading Error

« on: April 20, 2020, 08:15:05 PM »

I believe this also happens if you don't have the required library mods installed. Do you have lazylib enabled?

1023

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20

« on: April 20, 2020, 08:09:10 PM »

What kind of big buff? I thought it's already the strongest in the game. Not cruel enough, are you? I think remnant unique weapons drop would be nice addition.

10,000 more max flux and higher armor (iirc) but doubled the cooldown between teleports.  I am a cruel lord indeed. Regarding unique weapon drops: I like this idea! I'll keep this in mind for future updates. This one is already getting massive and with the recent feedback continues to grow.

Faction ships review time!!

Nice, thanks! 

Remnant: Holy crap fleet. Good thing they can't burn. Actually lost against everyone in auto resolve. Radient has sucide tendency to teleport into battle immediately and of course die. When will I be able to capture one, hurry up dev.

The wait is worth it for the quality that comes with updates, trust me. The suicide tendency might be partially helped by the above buff. A teleport into a bad situation is less likely as the ship is now monstrous in battle. But retreating teleports are less likely too- so a trade off there which mostly benefits player convenience at the expense of additional difficulty when encountering that ship.

I'll take a look at autoresolve, though, that shouldn't be happening so I probably forgot to change the FP values.

Archean Order: Revenant ship is pretty bad, lacking a lot of weapon mounts, also a very serious matter to all energy base ship is that the weapons flux/damage ratio are the most inefficient. It's usually self suicide all the time by firing till no enough flux for shield. Mine got killed by a Legion(XIV) with no crafts, so bad I don't want to recover it. I think Archean needs one more frontline capital ship or repurpose that Revenant. Megalith is pretty bad in AI fleet as it's so slow, the front line are all gone before it arrive. OP Phase bomber.

Everything mentioned here except the energy weapons flux/damage ratio has had some changes. Notably, the Megalith is no longer a combat carrier to the AI and the speed limiting and replacement increase hullmod has been removed. This will make it get to the battle far more quickly.

Additionally, I'm (right now actually) coding a hullmod to hopefully reduce the cooldown of it's ship system to replace the carrier hullmod. So the Megalith is a special ship that still replaces fighters quickly due to its system- but without the carrier limitations. It will be a true dreadnought indeed and very difficult to take down. It's deployment cost is substantially more as well.

Adamantine: Overall OPnessly balance. Hivemind Orb is OP, projectile speed wise, can't be countered with PD. Widow is your best Anti-craft support but usually, shoot ship instead. Great fighters loadout. Has the strongest star fortress of all with so many Reapers. AD>High Tech>AO.

Hivemind is meant to be relatively uncounterable and force an engagement by the player. The downside? AI can't determine this and so in the player's hands it's practically an "I win" button in large amounts. It's meant to be really rare as a result. To be fair, most legendary weapons feel that way, though.

Psi-Corp: Why are you even here? Has the weakest fleet of all. Could make do as a minor faction. Apogee is weaker than vanilla. Odyssey is Odyssily weak.

They are supposed to be a little weak (they are the underdog you root for) but I'll take a look if they are too much so. Other feedback has also been given related to those, so lot's to go on/look at there.

Tri-Tac: Paragon speed is just superb than vanilla, the second best ship after Tyrant. Astral missing one small mount texture. Harbinger is pretty cheap this time. Auto resolve may never be in their favor.

I'll take a look at the Astral texture thanks for that find! Why is autoresolve not good for them, I wonder? Their FP are just as high as Hegemony ships. I wonder if it is their fleet size... hmm.

Hegemony: Strongest fleet below Remnant. Devastator + Boltter is great. Onslaught(XIV), apart from the ability and terminator beams, is very strong for 30+5 points (not sure but look like it’s bug at 30 instead of 35). Terminator is actually a very crappy beam. Can't it be thicker to look more imposing? Normal Onslaught might actually be stronger with more ballistic? Legion(XIV) ability is so good, a very strong fire support ship as well. Dominator with Reaper is scary and can fire guns indefinitely with so little flux cost for some ballistic weapons. Eagle and Falcon (all models except AD) are not so great, easy to kill, can't kill anything maybe due to gun arc.

Onslaught(XIV) is 30+9 now (iirc) (nope checked and still 30+5) and it's Terminator Beams are longer ranged now and represent a cost efficient alternative and higher OP opportunities. This really improved the AI's use of them, specifically.

As far as looks and Terminator balance, should do doable. I never thought of the Terminator as bad though. It strikes with such speed it is really easy to sneak shots in while the shields are down. If it's used on shields its bad, though, definitely.

Persean: A little love for midline ship? Executor and Conquest Feel great but a bit squishy. Has good balance weapons. I do feel that there are too many high tech ships and would like to have more midline for Persean, Diktat, and Independence.

Noted. I have another faction in mind, too, that will mostly use midline ships so that will expand the roster as well.

Prate/Ludd: Practice targets. Very threatening early game. Pillager is too squishy. I think the smallest fleet is still too large for starters. Can there be an additional smaller size fleet like a picket roaming out of the system like Luddic mini fleet for pirate? It could also be paired with a mini trader fleet for the would be pirate starter.

Pillager is probably squishy on the pirate side since I think it has D-mods. In general, though, it's speed and firepower are it's main attributes so it needs to be a tiny bit squishy. Fleet sizes are being adjusted in the next official update.

Overall Frigates: Too slow to survive. Have no meaning endgame. I think frigate should be half as fast as the average bomber/gunship, at least 120-150 in speed without boost. It should be balanced so that even with navrelay it will still be lower than fighter speed. Frigate should be an annoying ship that is hard to kill. I do imagine frigates as the Millenium Falcon fast but cannot shake away TIE fighters but also won't get swarm by it either. Also, peak performance time is not enough.

Made some notes here. It will likely also help the collision issue to do this, so I will definitely do something here. Maybe this update, maybe the next. It's a pretty substantial change to make that could break a lot of things easily so I will need to test a lot.
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After more testing,  the consortium start is very doable even with the 1 frigate agent start.   Just worked my way up from that start to getting a doom AD in iron man.  The night reaver start isn't too hard once you buy a freighter,  which only takes a couple months of commission salary.  I haven't tested the doom yet,  but if the harbinger and the stats are any guide I will probably be soloing small fleets with it.   The flux dissipation is higher than a battleship, so phasing between massive damage bursts to reload and dissipate flux is likely an extremely powerful tactic with the mod changes.

If you want to make the consortium fleets extra scary,  I suggest making the default loadouts include insulated engines.   The players wouldn't see them until they are quite close.

Edit: the Doom AD is less OP than I expected from using the harbinger.   The triple plasma cannon harbinger is somewhat uniquely OP.

Thanks for the tests. I'll take a look at the harbinger. Sounds like some reduced dissipation is in order.
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I noticed that when I had 2 Apogees in my fleet, whenever I equipped them with any fighters they were waaay too timid and never used any of their guns offensively, only using their fighters to attack which really squanders their amazing flux potential to be more aggressive. Only when I got rid of all fighters they had during refit, then they behaved normally.

I dug into the ship_data.csv in the hulls folder in your mod and noticed that under the hints column, the Apogee was labeled as 'CARRIER, COMBAT'. I'm assuming that this is telling it to act as a combat carrier? In any case, it never moved within range to use its energy weapons.

once I got rid of that tag, my Apogees behaved much better and closed in to attack with all of its weapons. Could this be the reason why Apogees feel a lot weaker in this mod?

Fixed for the next update, good catch! Forgot I did this because of the large number of bays before I made the carrier changes. Even not considering the AI issues, it isn't really an apt description now.

Been having a lot of fun with your mod though, having a blast on my second playthrough of the game!

  Glad to hear it!

*EDIT*

I'll take a look at autoresolve, though, that shouldn't be happening so I probably forgot to change the FP values.

Well, no they should be good. Not sure why this would happen to be honest. It appears like they should autoresolve at a higher win rate according to FP stats.

Additionally, I'm (right now actually) coding a hullmod to hopefully reduce the cooldown of it's ship system to replace the carrier hullmod. So the Megalith is a special ship that still replaces fighters quickly due to its system- but without the carrier limitations. It will be a true dreadnought indeed and very difficult to take down. It's deployment cost is substantially more as well.

Actually I did this in a new ship system for the Megalith that does the same thing. The new built-in hullmod is just to make it raise it's shields faster for AI purposes (I removed the built-in accelerated shields in favor of this- they will stack).

1024

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20

« on: April 19, 2020, 08:54:01 PM »

The flavor for the faction is pretty nice.

Thanks, it was the most fun to write for sure.

As far as early income sources, I think that system and faction bounties feel the most appropriate.  But I haven't seen AC place many (or any?) of those.  So I've mostly been making my money off of a long-running Archean - Tri-Tach war, since the Archeans keep a system bounty up most of the time.  It feels right to just be hunting down fleets.  Maybe increasing the rate that the consortium places system/faction bounties against their enemies would help. 

I was thinking about a Consortium specific mission to attack certain fleets or raid certain worlds near their systems. There are a couple things that would be cool to do.

As far as System Bounties, is there nothing around Galar or Hikmah? (in Isirah and Zagan, respectively) I would especially think Galar would post a bounty on Sci-Corps but maybe it didn't spawn. Bounties generally spawn (iirc) when commodity fleets are taken out. After I put in a couple extra systems with enemies in between, these should happen more frequently.

Currently at least, faction bounties only occur once a player completes a certain amount of pirate bounties, so that is why you aren't seeing those.

I adapted to the hostile independents by just stopping trying to go to neutral stations, at first.  Now that I have a battleship I can deal with them, but early on it was too dangerous.  Maybe if I'd chosen a different starting fleet that would have been different: a smuggling start with.  As such, the only procurement missions I did succesfully were within Mordreath itself or going to an Archean Order station. 

I'm glad there are still some procurement missions in Mordreath. Is that independent and pirate mostly, or still some from the Consortium?

It's worth noting that I think the agent supership start I used might be one of the more difficult ones for the faction early on.  The other options for starting fleet have better logistics, so could run exploration missions and potentially even get the neutrals to stop hating you.  Starting off as special agent and buying a freighter immediately also would have made things much easier.  Smuggling to the lone independent outpost in Mordreath is also a good income stream.  It honestly might be tuned to a good difficulty given it is supposed to be the very hard option, but more missions that you can do would certainly be nice.  Worst case scenario, since you start with a commission you can just bum around Mordreath until you can afford a fleet to go hunting with.  It takes about $250k to upgrade to a fleet that can take out merchant convoys and snipe small patrol fleets.  You just need a freighter, a couple frigates,  and some better weapons, fighters, and mods.

That ship is pretty powerful, but maybe throwing in a Consortium freighter might help with early options.

I could go on about how strong the Malevolent is: it will make a great late- game reward. I haven't had an opportunity to inspect the other capitals, but it seems to be in a league of its own.  It rapidly snipes enemy escorts, wins every fighter war,  andrapidly cripples enemy capitals.

Ha ha. (In case this was perceived as sarcastic) The Tyrant might give the Malevolent a run for it's money in the player's hands, but otherwise it's only real competition is the Megalith and the Radiant (in the upcoming update the Radiant got a big buff). I think it's a pretty cool ship, overall.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's good to hear there's plans for more ship rarity. I think the salvage reduction built-in already helps, but imo it could stand to be even harsher. You still get a lot of Consortium ships just by fighting them even if it's low intensity small fleets. And they're amazingly strong obviously.

Agreed, that's why at one time that built-in reduced the recovery chance by 100%. It doesn't solve derelicts though, and as another player suggested it can be confusing to players why they never seem to be able to recover one. With the new mechanics around remnant accessibility that are being developed in vanilla, it seems like the perfect solution alongside the built in to really prevent these ships from being easy to get. And hopefully end game mechanics will give their usage a little more challenge as well.

1025

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20

« on: April 19, 2020, 12:54:32 PM »

thanks for the answer
I understand that putting everything out without copywriting was not very correct, so I will wait for the author's response.

Much appreciated. 

I will immediately apologize for possible errors in the language and get down to business
Let me explain why I did this and why and you yourself decide whether such ideas are balanced or not

Sounds good, let us dig in.

At first in one way or another, obliterators shooting at fighters do not succeed either in AA or in an attacking role
and very scary to watch how havy obliterators shoot full clips in 1 fighter right before engages it seems to me that the group of obliterators combined with anything is not showing itself very well, or more specifically to say it has big losses and instability in dealing damage for a strike weapon

Yeah 100% agree there and made the change last night. I think I originally thought it would be better against things like bombers, but wasting the charges/flux on interceptors makes it feel a lot worse than it could be.

I really like your mod  and I wanted to make a "filler" weapon more unique

Thanks.

for example iridiums  that cost less flux and can shoot at rockets become not good PD but only available kinetic PD in kinetic slots
icers with same tweaks become far worse PD because of their turn rate but they are an attacking weapon anyway and now i have opportunity not to add PD on ship's bow but install group of icers if I have other weapons of the appropriate radius that increasing the ability of small ships to attack without being too vulnerable as it be without PD at all.

You are referring to using these with Integrated Point Defense AI, correct? That is supposed to be viable and those weapons are supposed to be good candidates, so I'll experiment with less flux. I think I increased it within the last couple updates because I also increased those weapons range a bit.

changes with Avalanche mostly done to have choice in comparison to Photon Cannon but with default flux cost I did not see that someone chose avalanches(but how do they sound!:))

Photon Cannon won't be a competitor in role in the next update. Its damage type has been changed to energy. Energy based ballistics are now part of the Persean League's tactical niche. Not saying some flux reduction isn't warranted, though, I'll take a look.

about sabots -  all i want a little increase their speed,but i cant(don't knowing java or programmings stuff at all and thats why recompilation is too hard for 1 tweak) i did not  want change your idea that  they should check enemy PD but in current reality high explosive harpoons or anything else better as artillery rockets on shields dmg rockets  - 4 heavy sabots have a chance to hit 4 medium also sometimes can hit with 1 rocket enemy with 2 PD if you unload full clip.Compare to AA Widows harpoons Shockwaves and ofc Thunderbolt they are never an option.So, I just increased their hp to 125 - a cheap solution

Like the Thunderbolt, this one is tricky to balance. The difference here is the relatively high armor penetration in comparison to other kinetic missiles. Making it able to get through PD more easily can turn it into a siege missile that can kill everything. I will increase it's speed a bit like you originally wanted and see how it goes. I definitely get the concern that the higher tier missiles might outclass this one and make it obsolete. That's not intended.

gatlings(small) have a really too high recharge for a small weapon  - i understand that they should be "hit and run"\strike weapon but they can do this only at 1 fullclip charge. I try to make them with same "strike" idea but with faster recharges - fullclip unload still strong but without fullcharges it become sustain armor breaker with lower dps than assault autocanons(they are still much better in this role) this tweak also looks unexpectedly synergistic - gatlings make armor weaker another energy weapon hits a weak point. Heavy Gatlings very cool and strong but still slow to reload - I'm just a little reduced damage to compensate for the increased recharge.In fleets battles neither the ai nor the player has time to charge at least half the clip and as sustain weapon it will be irrelevant.

Fair. I haven't looked at the specifics yet, but this change is very likely to be made.

I think it’s also necessary to touch a little the Artillery Blaster because  it looks cool but its role doesn't fit anywhere - you need a long-range weapon - Phase Cannon, Burst Siege Beam both cheaper on flux with actually more dmg. Yes you have additional 100 range but for what price? Maybe add them more emp dmg?or range? I don't think significantly reducing flux will be good - artillery should be artillery

I think more range is probably the answer. I generally dislike messing with OP because it requires so many variant edits, but that could potentially be another thing I could do.

and at last I would like to talk about our lord and savior Atlas MK2 - i understand that increase O.P. points and make safety override not inbuid but always installed mod  - cheap solution but giving player opportunity to use atlas2  not only as start variants(actually  i dont know people who use it) by simply removing safety overrides(1100 range cap too limited in the choice of ship roles). And also  in the late game, you can repair it and use it on the roles of artillery or support artillery ship.

Ah right the range cap. Good point in regards to limiting player use. That being built in is more of a Luddic Path theme anyway. Another very likely change.

I hope to read this tongue-tied message was not too difficult and I hope this will help in your work
and again thank you for such a quick response.
Ps if you still need weapons stats I will send them to you in PM or I can write them here.

It seems clear and is helpful. I have the stat mod available as a reference and I'll ask if anything needs more clarity. Thanks again for taking the time to write out your thoughts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am playing through your mod, and enjoying it.  I want to give some feedback on playing as the Adamantine Order.  I started with the Night Reaver super-ship, which make for an amazing flagship.  But even with that ship, the start is still extremely hard and I think I had to restart about a dozen times before figuring out how to get my fleet built up enough to survive.  The night-reaver can't handle being outnumbered with the  starting loadout, and needs some upgrades and escorts to efficiently take on enemy fleets.   The Adamantine Order starting system is really cool: I love that it is hidden in a warp storm, and that it is also a haven for pirates. 

One of the hardest parts is that there are very few options to make any money early on.  I think it would have been easier had I started out as a smuggler with some freighters and just smuggled at the beginning, but the night-reaver ship is ill-suited to most missions.  It doesn't have the logistics for exploration missions, and isn't fast enough to survive well in enemy systems.  And pirate bounties are off the table, as you cannot afford to *** off the pirates when they have massive fleets roaming your 1 friendly system.  Being hostile with independents is really rough, as it isn't safe to approach even friendly stations because you will frequently be attacked by random mercs.

Salvaging more ships helps, but too many random ships cancels out one of the greatest advantages of the admantium ships: tiny sensor profiles.  I spent the first 6 months in the starting system doing minor jobs, salvaging, and waiting for enough commission checks to buy a very expensive freighter and a couple destroyers, and shopping for mod specs (I can't live with a speed 7 ship without augmented drives).  After several hours of playing, I managed to form a nice group of stealthy destroyers and freighters, and am having fun sneaking into enemy systems and hunting down their smaller fleets.  Has the feeling of running a submarine wolfpack.

The combat is definitely an improvement over vanilla, with a lot more viable options.  Filling the night reaver with heavy fighters to take down enemy ships' engines and shields, then finishing them with phase beams seems to be an effective strategy for me.  The fighter phase shield system seems very effective at keeping tough attack fighters alive while they kill things. Later I filled it with interceptors and PD to escort my dreadcarrier, and it is very good in that role.

 A lucky exploration haul got me enough to buy a malevolent dreadcarrier, which is is a blast to take into battles.  It is even slower than a paragon, which is probably needed to balance it.  It is set up to single-handedly win air wars: it was able to beat 2 astrals and an array of smaller ships with just the night reaver and a few destroyer escorts.  It plays very distinctly from the Astral, with it being more optimized for fighters as opposed to the bomber waves that the astral system incentivizes.  The phase shield system ensure that the heavy fighters and gunships survive long enough to deal some damage, and it almost never seems to run out of fighter replacement rate.  The front shield emitter is probably a little overpowered on this ship, as it gives 360 coverage and cuts 525 flux cost.  That plus stabilized shields means the dread-carrier can keep up shields constantly except to bleed hard flux.  It supports 2 tachyon beams fairly nicely while keeping shields up, which are incredibly strong at killing off smaller ships at extreme range.

The Harbinger AD is pretty OP, with its 1000 base flux dissipation and phase shift which only cost 300.  With something like an anti-matter blaster, it can phase shift in, pump out 12k damage in 3 seconds and then phase shift away while regenning the soft flux for the next burst.  It's rather expensive for a destroyer, but it will take down most cruisers in a single burst.

Thanks a lot for the feedback on your playthrough. 

Some initial thoughts:

The Adamantine Consortium start is the hardest starting option- since they generally have the best ships of any faction. The AI can sometimes struggle to make effective use of the phase ships, but players can dominate with them. The Malevolent is strong all the way around and competes with the Megalith in power and deployment cost. There are some tweaks to that in the next update. Though these ships are meant to be OP to be scary to the player as an enemy faction, that is because they will not be salvageable/recoverable later. They are more available now mostly for testing purposes so players can get their hands on them. Once I develop a mission to allow players to get the blueprints, they will be made unboardable and the only way to get them will be to play as the Adamantine Consortium or sneak into Brelter in the Mordreath Triangle to buy them- which is not easy with all the dreadfleets and pirates that swarm there and I don't think that market often sells capitals so those will be especially difficult to get unless you get a commission- which will also be difficult. It will hopefully be a really neat way to make use of the upcoming story point system. 

Archean Order will probably go the same way. You can kind of think of these factions as on par with Remnants- though Archean Order a bit less so and their ships will be slightly more accessible - well possibly. I haven't fully decided how I am going to go about that faction, yet.

Another thing I am hoping to address (not sure if it will be this update but it was originally planned to be) is the lack of mission availability when playing as the Consortium. I want to add another system for them that will help introduce more procurement opportunities and give access to some less stable markets. Hopefully that will help out the early game money making opportunities. Ideally, I would want to eventually make another mission system specifically when starting as the Consortium. Something that provides combat opportunities similar to pirate bounties since those, as you said, will be hard to do when it alienates your one ally.

Independents are hostile because Adamantine Consortium is notoriously cruel and predatory to their worlds. Most factions don't like the Consortium and some outright seek to wipe them out. Independents are one of the latter category. It certainly is difficult when a merc fleet spawns on top of you though. I think about ways of reducing the chance of that, but I'm not sure how possible it will be.

1026

Modding / Re: adaptation of "Interstellar Imperium" to "Archean Order"

« on: April 18, 2020, 09:55:52 PM »

I wanted to share this here as well for those who are following this thread but not the Archean Order thread: *Edits are for explanation considering separate threads*

Hi.I made rebalance of "Interstellar Imperium" to your mod mechanics and stats. I don’t know if you have time, but if you have, could you take a look at it.Does it suit you or not.
here's the link
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0

First off, I'm very flattered you have taken the time to do this work and that you and your friends like AO. 

As Thaago mentioned on *this* thread, however, Interstellar Imperium is Dark.Revenant's work so I will need his permission to give any feedback there. I know you are doing this for yourself and a couple of friends and that's perfectly fine as long as you don't publicly release anything without the author's permission.

If you are just looking for balance tips, send me a PM. (I think this should be ok since it's personal use, but if for some reason it's not- moderators please let me know!)

As far as the AO balance changes:

Spoiler

improved not so relevant weapons such as
Avalanche Cannon(less flux generation), Iridium Cannon(less flux generation + opportunity to be mediocre Point defense) , Icer Gun(same as Iridium), Gatling Laser (lower dmg, faster charges,lower flux), Sabots(increase hp a little), Heavy Gatling (a little lower dmg but faster sharges ), Obliterators(both) now don't shoot at fighters, Tachyon Lance ( a little lesser flux generation and lesser cooldown(now ai paragons can do something and you have opportunity to use this "ultimate" weapon as weapon not just fun laser)
 change  Atlas mkII - safety overrides mod now not inbuild but installed anyway on all pirates Atlas. This allow you to make  this ship more useful without changing the balance of pirates

[close]

Just a note: You can always feel free to give feedback on *the Archean Order* thread for those types of things. You can certainly make changes yourself, don't get me wrong, but reporting them allows me to make changes that will be more accessible to everyone else too (in that they wouldn't have to search for other balance modules). I generally don't mind anyone releasing stuff like this, but reporting it and having it changed *on the main mod thread* will make bug-fixing easier in the long run. Still, thanks again for the time you have taken and I will take the above feedback into consideration.

*EDIT*

I already made an edit based off your suggestions. I wanted to also give more explanation of the above comment to ensure that you don't think I'm discouraging you and I am really trying to help you and everyone that uses *the Archean Order mod*.

To give an example of what I was talking about as far as potentially causing things that can be perceived as bugs without a way for me to easily trace the problem:

In the AO balance tweaks mod, you changed the Obliterator Cannon and Heavy Obliterator Cannon to a strike weapon to prevent it from auto targeting fighters. This makes sense and I agree with the change and have implemented it for the next release. Thanks for the feedback!

However, this negatively effects ~4 variants split between the Justicar and Revenant. How? A strike weapon designation prevents the entire weapon group the weapon is in from being placed on autofire when the ship is under AI control. So for variants (which could have been many more but luckily it was a relatively small impact in this case) that had Obliterators alongside Phase Cannons, for instance, the Phase Cannons would no longer autofire with this change. When those Phase Cannons that otherwise would target fighters never fire in some instances, or when multiple faster ships are targeting the affected vessel and it's Phase Cannons either don't fire or have firing delays (AI doesn't switch strike groups fast enough in some situations when surrounded) some players might think of it as a bug and report it *on the Archean Order thread*. If they don't say they've installed those changes from *this* thread, (you override the changes rather than it being present on a mod list, so even the mod list wouldn't tell me this) then when I check and can't reproduce this in my version it looks like a "ghost in the machine" kind of issue (won't translate well and won't make sense) situation where the *Archean Order* mod seems to be doing things of its own mind rather than following the code present for evaluation. I hope that makes sense.

I fixed these variants to not use the Obliterators in mixed weapon groups, so that will be addressed for the change in the next release *of Archean Order* as well. I'll keep looking through what you posted as I make a few more changes before the update.

1027

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20

« on: April 18, 2020, 01:42:24 PM »

Hi.I made rebalance of "Interstellar Imperium" to your mod mechanics and stats. I don’t know if you have time, but if you have, could you take a look at it.Does it suit you or not.
here's the link
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18394.0

First off, I'm very flattered you have taken the time to do this work and that you and your friends like AO. 

As Thaago mentioned on the linked thread, however, Interstellar Imperium is Dark.Revenant's work so I will need his permission to give any feedback there. I know you are doing this for yourself and a couple of friends and that's perfectly fine as long as you don't publicly release anything without the author's permission.

If you are just looking for balance tips, send me a PM. (I think this should be ok since it's personal use, but if for some reason it's not- moderators please let me know!)

As far as the AO balance changes:

Spoiler

improved not so relevant weapons such as
Avalanche Cannon(less flux generation), Iridium Cannon(less flux generation + opportunity to be mediocre Point defense) , Icer Gun(same as Iridium), Gatling Laser (lower dmg, faster charges,lower flux), Sabots(increase hp a little), Heavy Gatling (a little lower dmg but faster sharges ), Obliterators(both) now don't shoot at fighters, Tachyon Lance ( a little lesser flux generation and lesser cooldown(now ai paragons can do something and you have opportunity to use this "ultimate" weapon as weapon not just fun laser)
 change  Atlas mkII - safety overrides mod now not inbuild but installed anyway on all pirates Atlas. This allow you to make  this ship more useful without changing the balance of pirates

[close]

Just a note: You can always feel free to give feedback on this thread for those types of things. You can certainly make changes yourself, don't get me wrong, but reporting them allows me to make changes that will be more accessible to everyone else too (in that they wouldn't have to search for other balance modules). I generally don't mind anyone releasing stuff like this, but reporting it and having it changed here will make bug-fixing easier in the long run. Still, thanks again for the time you have taken and I will take the above feedback into consideration.

*EDIT*

I already made an edit based off your suggestions. I wanted to also give more explanation of the above comment to ensure that you don't think I'm discouraging you and I am really trying to help you and everyone that uses this mod.

To give an example of what I was talking about as far as potentially causing things that can be perceived as bugs without a way for me to easily trace the problem:

In the AO balance tweaks mod, you changed the Obliterator Cannon and Heavy Obliterator Cannon to a strike weapon to prevent it from auto targeting fighters. This makes sense and I agree with the change and have implemented it for the next release. Thanks for the feedback!

However, this negatively effects ~4 variants split between the Justicar and Revenant. How? A strike weapon designation prevents the entire weapon group the weapon is in from being placed on autofire when the ship is under AI control. So for variants (which could have been many more but luckily it was a relatively small impact in this case) that had Obliterators alongside Phase Cannons, for instance, the Phase Cannons would no longer autofire with this change. When those Phase Cannons that otherwise would target fighters never fire in some instances, or when multiple faster ships are targeting the affected vessel and it's Phase Cannons either don't fire or have firing delays (AI doesn't switch strike groups fast enough in some situations when surrounded) some players might think of it as a bug and report it here. If they don't say they've installed those changes from your thread, (you override the changes rather than it being present on a mod list, so even the mod list wouldn't tell me this) then when I check and can't reproduce this in my version it looks like a "ghost in the machine" kind of issue (won't translate well and won't make sense) situation where the mod seems to be doing things of its own mind rather than following the code present for evaluation. I hope that makes sense.

I fixed these variants to not use the Obliterators in mixed weapon groups, so that will be addressed for the change in the next release as well. I'll keep looking through what you posted as I make a few more changes before the update.

1028

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20

« on: April 17, 2020, 11:12:33 PM »

The designs I can manufacture on shipyard. I have almost all recipes. Usually they are pretty well, and some changes will not influence the cost much. Also all comparison I make is from my own experience of using different ships in my fleet. And testing their effectiveness in similar simulations.

As always I have a little dissapointment that the size matters the same as in vanilla game. So the fleet consits from Megalith or Astrals only will perform better in every situation. The problem here is the deployment cost for each ship. Right now Megalith is cheaper than 2 Odysey class to compare. By the way, is it possible to increase the deployment points for each size hull already deployed?

Also the new ships of Archean and Consortium are way better than other nations. But this is logical and can be explayned by lore, same as remnants good ships. It is ok when we have bad and good ships in the same class, and usually access to that ships differs in early and mid game.

The issue I only really struggled were missing roles for some ammount of ships and the light carriers are number 1 in this list. So basically you don't need them on every stage of the game, as the whole class.

This will probably take more time than the next update to address, but I wanted to briefly respond to say that it is under consideration- especially the light carrier part! Deployment costs have already changed slightly so for now I want to see how that plays out.

1029

Suggestions / Re: Escort AI for fighters

« on: April 17, 2020, 08:02:42 PM »

Maybe a hull mod or officer skill that prioritizes defensive fighter use (and maybe reduces fighter roam distance and/or grants some bonuses when fighters are close to their mothership?)

It would be great to have an AI hint or tag for the wing or the fighter hull itself so this can be largely customized wing-wing. A Hullmod could definitely do the job though. Officers, idk, because the random pick nature of NPC officers might lead to a lot of player confusion and look like a bug under the right circumstances.

1030

Suggestions / Re: Combat buff ships for solo playstyle

« on: April 17, 2020, 06:20:19 PM »

I can't say I agree as I think losing ships should be a standard thing and salvage already gives a 100% effective way to regain them- but it should feel worth it to do so too.

To recover your ships, you either need officers (since Fleet Logistics is a given) or Reinforced Bulkheads.  Reinforced Bulkheads is a significant price for OP-starved ships.  Even if you recover your ships, they will gain (D) mods.  That may be fine for disposable ships, but for your best ships, I do not want them damaged since restoration costs way too much.  Currently in endgame, player can build more on demand with Orbital Works and still have income to spare.  Next release, building new ships to replace modified ships probably will not cut it because of the story point cost to add built-in hullmods to new ships (and I bet endgame fleets will have two or three built-in mods for every last ship in the fleet).

If it is harder to replace what is lost than it is to reload, I will reload games.  Currently, some losses are not punishing enough to warrant a reload, which is good.  I fear that the story point cost to optimal ships in next release will devalue ship production, and put more importance in Restoration.  If it still costs too much to restore ships, I may reload games after every casualty like in older versions, when ships and weapons were too rare to be lost.

Yeah, some good points there. Overall I don't mind how recovery currently works, but Reinforced Hullmods could reasonably stand a reduction in OP. Couldn't hurt I suppose.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe you should actually read the thread *snip*

Fair point. Only read some of it.

I simply want late-game combat gameplay that doesn't involve the AI doing most of the work. That's it. I don't like games that play themselves, and the farther you get in SS, the more it becomes that kind of game.

Ah gotcha. Agree to disagree there. That's not my experience though I'm less experienced in late game campaign layer mechanics (colonies/raids, etc). As far as max battles are concerned, though, I feel like I influence them quite a bit when I fly and don't feel obligated to only fly capitals- even if it's optimal to do so. It's not my playstyle, exactly, but I've done it and still occasionally "take the reigns" so to speak.

1031

Suggestions / Re: Combat buff ships for solo playstyle

« on: April 17, 2020, 04:05:54 PM »

In the context of SS you're talking about transitioning from a space shooter with AI allies to a 4X strategy, a complete switch of genre.

The appeal of this game (for me at least) is specifically the combination of the two. I find that either of those genres in their pure form tend to be boring. In that sense, this thread (I didn't read all of it to be fair, but I *think* I get the main points) is wanting a design direction that, while I certainly respect the OP's opinion here, wouldn't be that fun to me if I'm honest.

If I could take on a radiant in a frigate and win (unless its a really rare, really expensive super frigate and I've skill specialized heavily and I am a very skilled pilot), I'd consider the game's balance to be very off (again, to me. I get some are more into the arcade shooter aspect than the strategic level and combat is certainly the number one selling point here, so that's very fair.). Same thing would apply if I could kite without consequence while the AI doesn't because it's forced not to. That would make the AI feel much less intelligent than me as the player. It's never going to be perfect, but imo this would make it feel worse.

I would agree that the AI could stand to be more aggressive and phase AI probably needs a bit of attention, but that is, in part, because another player preference is coming into play here- a lot of people really don't like to lose ships. I can't say I agree as I think losing ships should be a standard thing and salvage already gives a 100% effective way to regain them- but it should feel worth it to do so too.

I agree with more use of frigates even in late game, though. Small fleets need a role in the late game though they still need to remain optional rather than a requirement- in general. Personally, I'd understand *some* activities requiring specific ship/fleet sizes or types, for instance. That's part of the reason I don't think you should be able to take a Lasher out solo and kill a Nexus. (Not saying you are saying that, btw, just using it as an extreme example to emphasize my point)

1032

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20

« on: April 17, 2020, 03:28:25 PM »

Though the torpedo strike crafts need to have little more impact in my mind.

As well as a strike sortie range increase (they release torpedoes from farther away to avoid taking ship fire) I reset the damage of the torpedoes and annihilator rockets to their standard amounts for bombers, and I am buffing their defenses a bit. That should help carriers be a little more competitive in the early game since low tier bombers should perform more reliably and, also, require interceptors and fighters to truly counter. Ideally, PD will mitigate the projectiles but not often kill the bombers so it's not useless in that sense.

I have some kind of misunerstanding on the start of the game where you have just bought five ships destroyer or cruiser base and your weapons are old garbage. You have limited money and need to make choice of what ship to buy.  What is the role of a carrier here? what is the place for destroyer base carrier in the game?

What I am tying to say you can replace it with any other ship and it will perfor better in smaller battle. The impact of one single carrier is too low.

And if we are talking about big battles there also no need of them, as the capital carrier costs far more less in comand points comparing to its perfomance.

Also for example have you ever used condor / coverted carrier? It's price is around the same as hammerhead destroyer. I can't imagine the situation where
I will choose condor instead of hammerhead.

The bomber changes might help make this feel better- hopefully without breaking assault fighters. As far as carrier choice considerations in late game, Astral is definitely a high tier option. One thing to consider here, however, is that you are then concentrating all your strike craft. Sometimes that is good, and sometimes than can limit how many targets you can effectively hit or support (can't forget about supporting smaller ships that get themselves in trouble from large bomber attacks. Command points are a factor though, as you've said, but that might in turn make skills or hullmods that improve the amount of those you get more attractive. I kind of ignore them otherwise.

Definitely something I will think about. How much more cost efficient do you feel capital carriers are than smaller ones? Is it a "no contest" kind of feeling, or just that they are suboptimal?

The condor might be priced a little too high for its value over a hammerhead. Depends upon if its a faction variant or not, though. Are we talking about the standard one in this case?

1033

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20

« on: April 17, 2020, 03:18:31 AM »

Still hoping for late tonight-early morning tomorrow, but we'll see.

Nope. Going to need to look at a few more things. Lots of changes have been made:

Spoiler

Campaign Content Additions and Balance Changes
-------------

 - Overall Campaign Changes:
-------------
    - Revamped most new factions colonies to better follow industry count rules per colony size and size standards within vanilla factions.
    - Reworked mod economy to be more even in market share and resource spread between factions (in general) while hopefully still nurturing trade opportunities for the player through the simulation environment.
   -NEX Changes
      - Adjusted vanilla factions' starting relationships, diplomacy chance, and max relationships for all new factions.
      - Adjusted some extremes within new factions' starting relations and diplomacy chances. (Trying to stick to lore intentions here, but still learning Nex to a large degree. A first pass.)
      - Added base raiding behavior and increased invasion power of Adamantine Consortium. (should have no allies and needs this to remain a threat to the player/sector is the idea, but feedback welcome)
                - Removed pirate behavior features for Nex with Adamantine Consortium and reduced colonization chance overall. (Still happens occasionally)

 --- Colony Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced Archean Order colony size for several colonies.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Xolydunne so it can be more easily raided.
    - Reduced the resource deposit quality for Ilyss and Arkmaros in some areas.
    - Reduced industry counts on many Adamantine Consortium colonies.
    - Added remote Luddic Church colony with refining, heavy industry and an additional military base with a large hazard rating.
    - Added two additional Sci-Corps colonies to better separate out industries and resources.
    - Removed Orbital Station from Yama and reduced the station at Nachiketa to an Orbital Station (down from a Battlestation).
    - Added Fuel Production and High Command to Gilead (based in the star fortress instead of the surface from a lore perspective)
    - Added Orbital Works to Tartesseus (again not on the surface- see above).
    - Increased size of Traveler's Triumph Station to 5 and added Heavy Industry.
    - Upgraded Traveler's Triumph Station to a Battlestation (up from an Orbital Station).
    - Removed Orbital Station from Salamanca to allow more raiding opportunities there.
    - Changed Kazeron's Military Base to a High Command.
    - Added a standard independent orbital station to Derinkuyu Mining Station to add to its defenses.
    - Removed patrol hq from Yesod and Ilm.
    - Changed ground defenses to heavy batteries on Yesod. Reduced heavy batteries to ground defenses on Mazalot.

 --- Fleet Composition Changes:
-------------
    - Reduced number of dedicated carriers in Hegemony fleets. (partly for vanilla lore adherence and also to create more faction variety in battle tactics between factions)

-----

Combat Balance Changes
-------------
 - Reduced sustained DPS of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Revamped ballistic weapon FX under these principles:
   - Yellow-Orange-Red color indication of assault-heavy assault-strike weaponry.
   - Bullet size now scales by tier to facilitate an intuitive learning of combat threats to armor and better teach a player when to raise shields.
 - Doubled cooldown of Phase Teleporter.
 - Added weapon slots and increased OP (if necessary) to most civillian ships to help prevent them from being overly vulnerable against fighters and missiles during retreat battles.
 - Added additional weapon slots and increased OP of some pirate and luddic conversion vessels (they are too weak).
 - Added a rear-facing small weapon to the Valkyrie and Valkyrie MkII to help give minor protection to its engines against interdiction-class missiles and upgraded the Valkyrie's central missile weapon size to medium to better combat fighters.
 - Added a built-in beam range increase to the Onslaught XIV hull to support it's built in foward weapons. (The AI uses them as a cost effective alternative more often now - even when equipping Devastators)
 - Added 3 additional small weapons (rear-facing) to Buffalo MkII and reworked variants for better synergy in attack builds.
 - Reduced per shot damage of Excaliber Cannon and Apocalypse Cannon line of weapons. Increased recharge/fire rate for those as well.
 - Made some ballistic weapons Energy damage instead of High Explosive damage.
 - Increased Revenant, Paragon and Megalith armor.
 - Increased Megalith dissipation. (And deployment cost)
 - Decreased Revenant max flux and dissipation.
 - Increased armor and hullpoints for:
    - Pirate Atlas and Prometheus conversions
 - Rebalanced high tier vessel deployment costs. (FP cost slightly adjusted in a couple cases but mostly the same from before)
 - Increased speed of missile projectiles from bombers.
 - Increased attack range for missile projectile bombers.
 - Reduced hitpoints of missile projectiles changed above.
 - Reduced speed of phase orbs from Phantom bombers. Reduced their hit points. Doubled their turn rate.
 - Increased flight time of Hivemind orbs.
-----


Bug Fixes
-------------
 - Updated Salvage Rig and Ox sprites and hullmods. (That slipped through the cracks apparently between my update from .8 and .9)
 - Fixed another rare yet likely possible occurance of the Hegemony Legion not being found while starting a new campaign and causing a crash. (I never encountered a crash, but I caught an outlier in the faction file that used the old id)
 - Fixed the cost of a couple buffalo variants.
 - Fixed some of the buffalo variants' weapon mounts. (they were supposed to be ballistic)
 - Corrected tech name and font color of the XIV Battlegroup vessels.
 - Added tech type to drones.
 - Removed Light Ion Cannon as a base blueprint in favor of it as a Sci-Corps weapon.
 - Removed duplicate industries and diplomacy traits for vanilla factions when running the TC with Nex.
 - Doubled turn rate of Hivemind Orb and Phase Orb to help prevent timeout from maneuverable targets which may cause friendly fire.
-----


Misc
-------------
 - Reduced sound of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Reduced bullet size of Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater.
 - Removed override behavior of the mod on fighter wings, ships, ship systems, and weapons.
 - Reworked the pirate falcon sprite.
 - Removed all non-essential sprites from the graphics folder. (May improve load performance as lots of duplicates from vanilla were kept there as a refence when spriting)
 - Cleaned up a few more descriptions and encounter flavor dialogue. (I try to do this as often as I can but I always find more typos and awkard wording. I'll keep trying to clean this up as I go and as I notice things)
 - Updated descriptions based upon market changes in the campaign.
-----

[close]

1034

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20

« on: April 17, 2020, 02:04:20 AM »

Thank you for detailed answer.

If you don't mind I will coment just one part right now.

I appreciate the dialogue. 

Exactly! If armored close range units outnumber shielded long range units, there is an actual fight instead of a kiting to victory scenario where numbers don't even matter. Numbers should always matter here.

(Btw kiting glass cannons are always super OP in the players hands and cause the game to be much easier for skilled pilots. The AI can't compare to a skilled pilot. So in that sense to increase the difficulty while keeping a larger variety of viable ships- this is intended- at least in part)

But!- that being said... remember that escort mentality I was talking about? Try equipping some speedier ships with flux free weapons and defense mods, then have those escort those glass cannons. Suddenly I think you will find that they perform much better when they dart in- unleash hell- then safely retreat behind their escorts.

So if we are talking about large numbers. The maximum number you can have is 30 ships + probably not all of them will perfom in battle.

I think the fleet size of enemies might change as a minor caveat to this, but large numbers in battles will likely still be desirable and so I appreciate that the player has limited numbers to work with. Definitely a good point.

And right now fitting a fast and long range vessel is not vitable at all. There is no need in it. It will occupie a slot of an armored close range/more damage unit, wich will perform better in every situation. Also according to the flux free weapons. There are too many of them wich perform better than flux cost one, with the difference like 100 range or 1 point of ordnance, with comparable dmg/sec, this seems strange a little. Also all energy type flux free has 100% type damage to everything. For example compare small size heavy blaster with heavy pulse. Heavy pulse is better in everything though costs less. Actually for myself I have found no better weapon for small energy. Heavy pulse in every slot + void driver for point defence.What is the point in range if we are talking about mass fight. So as I noticed the most long range cannons either have very little damage like beams, (by the way I have found no use of them) or have a very big flux cost / ordnance cost and really good dmg. The second option is OK, because you can have a ship wich deals massive damage from afar guarded by allies. Usually it generates flux more than he can dissipate. I found a good use of them. But what is the point of so called support ships and weapons? wich have big range / flux cost / and not a big dmg compared to everything. In vanilla game you can use a pack of same vessel to kite enemy pack. Here because we can't kite is there any point in such weapon? I mean if we assume that we have a limit of 30 ships and for example that we also have a limited amount of money (so this 30 won't be all capital) Is there a place for a fast long range ship taking in to consideration it will replace someone.

This answer is awesome! I want to get more feedback on specifics, if you don't mind, (I know I ask a lot of questions but in my mind I want to better understand the mindset going in and the specifics of the problem gives me more details/things to work on/adjust) so in this case:

[long range vessels] will occupie a slot of an armored close range/more damage unit, wich will perform better in every situation.

If you look at the cost effectiveness of combat deployment: screen + support + strike is far more cost efficient than any one of the same categories of units massed because of the synergy between the tactics of each type of unit. So in that sense, if you feel that assault ships are more cost efficient in large numbers, why do you feel this way? This is not intended to be sure, but specifics will help me make changes. Sure, they are faster and deal continuous damage- but they can't spike damage like strike vessels- which don't sacrifice as much health as fire support vessels to do massive damage all at once and have a larger window to retreat behind better defended vessels. The upfront spike can mean the difference between retreating effectively and regaining shields or, well- not. That is kind of a big difference when assault ships trying to close and do the same thing won't deal the damage as quickly- and so can't perform the same role.

with the difference like 100 range or 1 point of ordnance, with comparable dmg/sec, this seems strange a little.

I'll look at this, thanks! Do you have examples? Are you reading the tooltips correctly to understand the spike damage? It's not always about dmg/sec, for instance. Damage per salvo is important too- due to the above explanation. Blasting all your damage at once is a large benefit.

For example compare small size heavy blaster with heavy pulse. Heavy pulse is better in everything though costs less.

What is the point in range if we are talking about mass fight.

Well, Heavy Pulse Cannon seems better at efficiency and has a lot longer range, but Heavy Blaster has better strike damage but shorter range. These two comments seem to contradict one another based upon your description, so could you clarify? I'm having a bit of trouble understanding what you mean, sorry!

But what is the point of so called support ships and weapons? wich have big range / flux cost / and not a big dmg compared to everything.

Their range is key. If supported, they contribute damage without any risk. Unsupported, they are subpar. Even on a large map with huge numbers, force concentration is limited to ship collision size and weapon range. The fire support ships (especially missiles) can add extra force concentration with smaller spacial considerations. That is the benefit they bring.

Here because we can't kite is there any point in such weapon? I mean if we assume that we have a limit of 30 ships and for example that we also have a limited amount of money (so this 30 won't be all capital) Is there a place for a fast long range ship taking in to consideration it will replace someone.

I hope so! It is about fleet synergy increasing cost effectiveness though, rather than any one type of vessel feeling too powerful.

I need to notice if we are talking about kite - player can. But AI can't.

Agreed, at least not as well- though some! I want to remove this from being possible in favor of diverse tactics due to fleet synergy. It's not that I want flying a ship personally to be less important rather than reducing the impact of what I consider OP player strategies that are too attractive and provide too much power creep over other options.

Also I haven't found carriers deal sugnifficant damage espessially to heavy ships. There are too few efficent bombers especcialy low/mid grade. Plenty of good gunships and interceptors -+ yes, they can deal with small ships but with large one it is more like suppressive fire generating flux to the enemy. Torbedo bombers peformance is quite strange, they shoot torpedo from a distance closer than point defence work. And if it is pirate crafts for example sometime they can't even shot their torpedo dying earlier. We have a lot slots to fill with PD. So even if assume that we will remove the bonus of speed there is no way the cruiser/destroyer carrier fitted by you, will destroy the capital ship also fitted by you. It is my experience of course.

Nice details! This will help and I will reference this later. I already have some changes for bombers in the update, but this detail is great. 

What I mean right now I can't see stone paper scissor system.

To simplify armored/slow beats fast close range, but loose to long range / medium speed. While the last loose to the second.

The first quote makes me want to know why you feel this way.
The second quote sort of indicates a rock-paper-scissors aspect, and so I'm a little confused.

So for example a well balanced fleet made by you can beat the same fleet consisting of one type ship also made by you if we assume both fleets have the same value and cost of equipment in total. If it is so it is great.

That's the goal at least.

1035

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Lore update 1/20

« on: April 16, 2020, 11:41:53 PM »

I see, thank you for answer. But this looks strange, for example when reatreating, the Onslaught has far better chance to survive than little fast carier. Because it is faster... Also about protection  - escort comand here in the game works rather strange. As the escorted ship faces the main threat upfront while ecort ships are preventing enemies from flank attacks. None of this options are good for CV, so usually I make a group from them only and send on their own, as the ai uses the max distance in this case. According to the balance, I don't think it is bad when destroyer base carrier can kite cruiser. Or cruiser kite battelship it seems logical. Also it won't be able to kite multiple enemies, as it usually attack only one target at once. Maybe the solution is to reduce the boost for all ships to that 20 points.

For example we have a destroyer on the one side, running from slightly faster, but weaker destroyer and battleship on the other. So it will never run away as once he was tagged by enemy destroyer, the battleship will finish him.

About how am I trying to use the carriers. I never played this game with direct control of the ship. So I always rely on AI, Playing as a strategy. This boost makes my capital ships, especially battlecruiser ram the enemy, while my carriers are so far away that they never reach the battle in time. If the enemy is strong it is bad because they can't give adequate fire support on time. And as the combat map is not so big the delay with occuping enough territory can result in being cornered. And if the enemy is weak they are also useless as everithing is done before they arrive.

So in general with the speed boost armored close range units are much more efficient than shield users with high range. For example Pillager is outstanding in terms of combat balance. I have tried thousands of Odissey variants in simulations but none of them was as much effective. When we are talking about 1 on 1 it is ok, the long ranged unit has a chance. But in real it loose all advantage in speed and range while having more enemies. So all speed glass cannon designs have bad performance.

And I say again can't say anything about direct controll as I never use it.

Sorry for poor grammar and chaotic thoughts.

I love all the detail! It makes me take another pass at the design balance and that is always useful. Not saying anything is set in stone, but, responding to key points with my overall thoughts:

None of this options are good for CV, so usually I make a group from them only and send on their own, as the ai uses the max distance in this case. According to the balance, I don't think it is bad when destroyer base carrier can kite cruiser. Or cruiser kite battelship it seems logical. Also it won't be able to kite multiple enemies, as it usually attack only one target at once. Maybe the solution is to reduce the boost for all ships to that 20 points.

I get what you are saying here, definitely. I think this might be due to coming from vanilla combat where escorting larger ships with smaller carriers is a good idea. Here, it is not recommended due to the speed differential (where escorts are typically supposed to be faster than the escorted ship). Here, carriers as a designation are your force projection using bombers/gunships, or the defense against those bombers/gunships/missiles by using interceptors/fighters. (Hybrids and specialists exist even within those roles)

So, you have to think of them as support ships that need babying either by you or the AI escorts you give them. They aren't escorts themselves unless you need their wings to support your allied ship directly in the moment. In that sense, it is situational, but overall they are the ones that should be escorted.

When mass selecting them and issuing a strike on a target they can effectively deal damage without taking any in return. As far as combat balance is concerned, this is a really big deal. They need to be weak when engaged (unless the ship is a hybrid) to make their strengths not feel overwhelming (remember practically everything has access to strike craft in this mod but dedicated carriers can send wave after wave in some situations)

If you think about vanilla, though- this still applies. If you try and escort a really fast capital with slow destroyers- same thing happens. Here, this is more common because the difference between types is more accentuated so it is easier to do.

my carriers are so far away that they never reach the battle in time

As in the ships themselves or their wings? The wings should. Maybe I have miscalculated range/speed of the wings if not. The carriers should ideally stay away and let their wings/missiles do their work. Their close range weapons are purely to defend against swarm/interdiction tactics from frigates that are maneuverable enough to catch them when isolated. (That's the idea, anyway)

For example we have a destroyer on the one side, running from slightly faster,

The slightly faster part is the issue for me. That requirement makes the fastest destroyer arguably the most attractive (unless poorly armed) to accommodate and stop all kiting ships of that hullsize (in principle) rather than promote combat tactics within the hull size through designation variances which create a rock-paper-scissors effect. The actual complexity of the design comes from the fact that rock is so good against scissors that it transcends hull size (in that it can fight +1 hull size up when it counters the designation)

When I say "designation" btw, there is even more nuance there. A bomber carrier is different from a gunship carrier and is different from a missile heavy carrier, etc. And on that note, PD frigates are designed to beat bomber carriers, but not necessarily gunship carriers. It depends. Interceptor carriers beat bomber carriers, but not fighter carriers specializing in anti-interceptor fighters.

That's just a couple examples, but overall:

Range is everything in vanilla, and carriers have much larger range and sustainability than anything else except glass cannon range builds. In this mod, tactics are more important through countering what your enemy is bringing against you. The idea is that the variables are random enough that these tactics can never truly be predicted, but require in the moment evaluation during mid-battle.

So in general with the speed boost armored close range units are much more efficient than shield users with high range. For example Pillager is outstanding in terms of combat balance. I have tried thousands of Odissey variants in simulations but none of them was as much effective. When we are talking about 1 on 1 it is ok, the long ranged unit has a chance. But in real it loose all advantage in speed and range while having more enemies. So all speed glass cannon designs have bad performance.

Exactly! If armored close range units outnumber shielded long range units, there is an actual fight instead of a kiting to victory scenario where numbers don't even matter. Numbers should always matter here.

(Btw kiting glass cannons are always super OP in the players hands and cause the game to be much easier for skilled pilots. The AI can't compare to a skilled pilot. So in that sense to increase the difficulty while keeping a larger variety of viable ships- this is intended- at least in part)

But!- that being said... remember that escort mentality I was talking about? Try equipping some speedier ships with flux free weapons and defense mods, then have those escort those glass cannons. Suddenly I think you will find that they perform much better when they dart in- unleash hell- then safely retreat behind their escorts.

At the end of the day, imo, part of this comes down to not making this information apparent and available upfront. After this release, I will update the tactics manual with more detail while I fix the inevitable bugs that will crop up.

Usually, these guys put on either unstable injector or safety override which boosts speed massively, more intense than vanilla. I also advise you to put on an unstable injector yourself. Once tab, the ship will rotate to fight back unless you order them direct retreat.

This mod installed gives from 20/25 boost speed, while no flux gives 80, so it didn't help. Also the direction of the ship does not affect the speed, even they face the enemy the speed they go to the edge of the map stays the same. Usually they rotate facing the enemy because of the weapons installed. The ship without weapon will not rotate.

If unstable injector made the carriers able to kite, it would be a "must have" hullmod for them. It is already very attractive since the reduction in weapon range typically doesn't impact carriers much. If the reduced vulnerability to engines is still a thing (I think it is iirc, but not sure) then that is something that would affect them. Otherwise? The only thing competing with that hullmod would be better strike craft. (At a first glance)

*EDIT*

Forgot this one:

According to the balance, I don't think it is bad when destroyer base carrier can kite cruiser. Or cruiser kite battelship it seems logical.

It is definitely logical, I agree. The problem for me, is that then masses of cruiser-sized carriers annihilate battleships because they can infinitely kite without retribution of any kind- even in a fleet scenario. In the mod, if a commander knows what is going on they can actually chase down and kill the carriers piecemeal- or in the best case scenario all at once. Unless, that is, the carriers have escorts to provide a screen to the carriers and delay the assault push long enough for the strikes to weaken the battleship.

The high zero flux boost makes this possible. It allows for assault ships to reinforce an area of the battle map in a short amount of time and fill the gaps of the combat line. In vanilla, it makes it possible for the player to catch most ships depending upon size (since most AI ships use weapons- which in turn costs flux- so AI ships are constantly slowed down - even carriers since they engage fighters which negates the zero flux boost) but here it allows for diverse tactical combinations where assault ships are fast, tanky, and provide pressure. Strike vessels are fast until they strike with huge damage- then vulnerable without escorts. Carriers are slow, typically weak in defense, but can strike or provide anti-strike or assault support (so really all roles) from really, really far away.
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I have observed another strange thing weather this is intended. The number of fleets in an invasion seems to exceed the initial report prediction. I found that, at the destination of invasion that predict to have 3 fleets, it's turn out to be 7 fleets which more than double the number.

I'm able to loot 100 Spark Fighters from 3 big Remnant fleets I think the drop rate might be a bit silly here. Also, an evident how OP their fighter capacity is.

Might be fixed already since I've removed Nex config duplicates. Not 100% sure.

*EDIT*

Re: Spark drop rate: Thanks! That is a little extreme. Due to the strike-craft-heavy nature of the mod, they need access to a large amount of them. But the drop rate should definitely be reduced. I'll try and squeeze that in.

Also, my save file.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=107Yk0T2HYceKBou2cBcUotpMfxMdg94D

Mods
- Archean Order
- Nexerelin + LazyzLib
- Active Gates
- Resist Inspections
- SpeedUp

Quick Description: I have a lot of gates activated for convenience. One directly in Jahannam Where the high danger sector situated, this save will start off here. All my stuff is stored on Surganna planet in Karkara which also has a gate. Trantor, another settlement, also has a gate as well as multiple places in the core sector but not all of them.

Thanks! Won't be tonight, but I'll take a look to see if I can get additional insight for the release after this one! I appreciate the effort you have taken here!

You should check out Directorship Headquarters with 7 industries.

Already fixed for the release.