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616

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20

« on: December 10, 2020, 10:09:41 PM »

Got 2 hours-ish of run in, and so far it seems to work very well. The initial meeting between two decent sized fleets is brutal on account of the strikecraft waves meeting, but it levels off quickly when they start to get whittled down and replacement slows. Fire support weapons work properly for the first time because of the passthrough, and it's great.

Haven't managed to test a full-on PD ship build with the new pass-through PD, but looking at some of it, I suspect the range might be too short for the pass-through to matter. But even if that's the case, nothing changes and it's just the same (decently balanced) PD situation AO had before that change.

I'm glad the pass-through helps fire support weapons in a fleet setting. It was tough to not have them also dominate the 1v1 game and therefore be the primary role at first. So they had to be really inefficient. That solved 1v1 but made them look weak in a large fight when comparing them to other builds.

As for PD-passthrough builds, that's how I'm thinking it will work too. The pass-through was more to protect frigates when equipping PD weapons in medium and large slots on destroyers or cruisers. It basically matters only in a fairly niche situation where your allies are very clumped up. Normally that's not a good place to be but it can happen. When it does, it makes the larger PD weapons shine a little more and feel a little more valuable. If that ends up not feeling like enough, increasing the range is an option to make them even stronger. It does make that slider go to "broken" more easily though so hopefully that won't end up biting me later. I'm kind of feeling it out and seeing what can be done with the concept now that it exists. The new ways to build stat cards really make it easier to do this sort of thing and not have the concept obscured from newer players until they see it in action.

Also, thank you for giving the test update a try! I'm glad it has been enjoyable thus far.

Whoa, new stuff!! I didn't come back for two days and miss the update. Does anything have to be lookup specifically?

At least, I don't play Cyberpunk. So, I'm free.

Thanks for testing it out as well. I'm not used to test updates but it gets the information cycle going a lot faster since I can get additional info while I'm also testing/polishing.

Fire support weapon builds, and carriers (especially smaller carriers) are the main things that I'm curious about. Some secondary considerations would be strike craft OP-to-performance analysis in a fleet setting, and the new REDACTED encounter difficulty (spoilers in the spoiler). I think some other campaign stuff has changed but it was minor overall in comparison iirc. Some Nex balance was attempted through a FP rework and a couple other things but that's hard to test without a long campaign.

Finally, I've also changed the stats on a lot of weapons, so if something stands out let me know. Same goes for new things. Some I've tested more than others, but all received at least one or two passes iirc. The descriptions for some weapons are in serious need of a rewrite but that is far down on the list atm.

REDACTED content I was referring to:

Spoiler

Derelict Mothership battle and Guardian battle.

[close]

What I currently think along the above mentioned carrier mechanics:
 - Carriers should stand out more because they can more easily equip gunships and bombers due to weapon discounts and even free small weapons. Warships have more limited options without direct combat sacrifice - though they can field low OP craft in those roles at about the same cost most of the time.
 - Strike craft in each role should scale better by OP costs. Upgrading is more expensive, and similarly more effective in combat. Large fleet testing has been more limited as I've been focusing on individual variants - both for a little optimization especially with all the weapon changes and as a control to test wing effectiveness.

Some questions I still have:
 - Are medium and large weapons attractive on carrier builds even though they aren't free?
 - Is the upgraded wing tier always the better option with the OP pool? Do some hullmods or weapon upgrades at least give the build a nearly equivalent effectiveness overall?
 - Considering their discount to equip on warships, are interceptor and fighter carrier builds still viable - even if less priority? (This will help me determine whether or not to reduce replacement time for wings in those roles since that scales to help carriers more.)
 - Is the Heron's ship system too strong now considering the increased bomber and gunship effectiveness?

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

I received some advice on the discord and I've changed the falcon's look and even added an additional medium missile slot. This isn't in the test update since I just did this today. Overall I think it is an improvement on the design and quality. I try and update ship graphic quality now and again though it's too time consuming to do everything at once at this point.

Pics:

Spoiler

Standard version:

Hegemony version:

[close]

617

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20

« on: December 09, 2020, 05:38:59 PM »

^ A bug was found and reported on the Discord. It is now fixed for the download, but if you downloaded the beta prior to this message you can fix it by going to data/variants/derelict and deleting:

archean_derelict_mothership_dronebay_leftD_Sentry and archean_derelict_mothership_dronebay_leftD_Picket

Sorry for the inconvenience!

618

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20

« on: December 09, 2020, 03:23:02 PM »

Here you go! I also posted this on the Modder Corner thread on the discord, so feel free to discuss there too. Keep in mind I'm still learning how to navigate and do stuff there. 

Balance test update:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cxbrz5xcftwn8m/AAAaOPS8xMh6uIN5Pd1mwrbta?dl=1

Note: Highly unpolished at this time as testing is still occurring.

Known issues:
 - incomplete support for Commissioned Crews mod. Only one effect working and the graphic is a placeholder.
 - variants over or under OP limits for the hull.
 - hull designation hullmods need consolidation for easier clarity of what each designation does.

619

Suggestions / Re: Why is Restore Expensive?

« on: December 08, 2020, 06:28:50 PM »

Also I'm not super clear, does faulty power grid reduce the effectiveness of vents/caps, or just decrease the base stats of the ship? Also faulty power grid hits dissipation, capacity and sensor profile according to the wiki, which is actually terrible.

I believe it does. At least the hullmod implementation looks mostly the same as a hullmod I made and that hullmod effects the value of adding caps and vents as well as the max.

620

Suggestions / Re: Why is Restore Expensive?

« on: December 08, 2020, 03:04:28 PM »

Military markets and all of that stuff is early-game or mid-game drama.

*snip*

Salvaging ships after a battle becomes the primary way to obtain ships

For me, it already is.  I make do with clunkers until I get a nanoforge and build Orbital Works to produce what I want.

P.S.  How much ships should cost?  Do we use Open/Military market as the baseline?  Or Black Market or colony production?  Me, I never use military market (no commission), Open Market only to buy a freighter or tanker in a pinch.  Most purchases are Black Market or colony production, which is significantly cheaper than Open Market plus tariff.

I think making do with clunkers until late game is supposed to be a valid playstyle that can be complemented with the industry skill line. At least this version pre-skill rework. But, either way that's fine. The thing is that you at least have to wait until late game with that strategy to get pristine ships.

What I was talking about was that if restoration costs are lowered to be in line with production/market costs, you wouldn't have to wait until late game. You could use this strategy to have pristine ships rather than make do with clunkers. I think that would likely invalidate ever using the market for ship purchase for most players rather than simply being a playstyle. You could skip a big portion of not only the game's progression if you get a capital derelict salvage, but a sizeable portion of the overall campaign system as well. However, if that's a design goal (Example: a player sets up a small unnoticed colony fairly early just for supplies and fuel and then salvages everything else they need and never even needs to be in the core other than raiding) then that certainly is one way to do it.

And that's before you get into the can of worms with new players and all these mechanics. If the game is being built around iron mode, new player traps will be present depending on the playstyle. If they're looking to salvage ships, they need to understand that higher costs are involved for each ship or they live with D-mods. Alternatively, if restoration is cheaper and a player wants to purchase ships off the market, they need to understand that higher costs are involved there unless they risk black market activity to avoid the tariff.

Neither scenario is bad design imo, but each has different considerations and potential traps and effects the natural flow of progression for the average player. Are you tied to the core or are you not? How much do you need markets? What is the value of a commission and military market? If military markets are a mid-game benefit of a commission, what is the early and late game benefits, if any? Similarly, what are the roadblocks to hullsize acquisition: Purely credits? Luck/RNG? Linked to progression in other features like rep or raiding? Story progression?

I look at these questions like an intricately linked web. Answering one definitely will effect what the answer needs to be for others. And if the needed answer differs from the actual answer, changes need to be made.

621

Suggestions / Re: Why is Restore Expensive?

« on: December 07, 2020, 07:24:09 PM »

I agree that reducing restoration costs would also require a rarity adjustment on recovering ships. Otherwise there really isn't much of a point to things like a commission for military market access. Salvaging ships after a battle becomes the primary way to obtain ships. Market purchases would likely become secondary or even unattractive. That actually makes sense lore-wise and wouldn't be a bad thing gameplay-wise imo (the noob trap part of the current system is a bit problematic), but there would have to be other adjustments in certain areas of the campaign system. Otherwise they might just get ignored by most players.

One idea is to leverage the contacts system kind of like how early access to blueprints is supposed to work. Want to restore a battleship? You are going to have to be really good friends with a high ranking official to do that. Lore reason: Average restoration shops don't have the manpower or equipment and so you need access to military-grade restoration facilities, etc. Something like that could mitigate having to do things like increase ship costs between hullsizes or possibly even having to adjust recovery rarity.

I also could definitely imagine a scenario where a player could use story points to "buy" that relationship for a one-time restore - with the number of points needed scaling by the number of D-mods on the ship and its hullsize.

*EDIT* Just brainstorming based upon the above for complementing the idea with a player colonies mechanic:

 Industry Building: Restoration Facilities
 - Gives X more credits per month for restoration services to general colony traffic. (Behind the scenes and not actually removing anything from nearby npc fleets.)
 - Grants small X bonus to player faction Ship Quality. (So npc player fleets theoretically have access.)
 - Grants the player the ability to restore frigate and destroyer hulls and remove up to 2 D-mods at this colony (Restoration price is deducted from the colony's monthly income.)

Upgrades to:

 Industry Building: Orbital Restoration Shipyard
 - Requires X colony size or some other requirement?
 - Gives original + X more credits per month for restoration services to general colony traffic. (Maybe gets more attention to the player from other factions whether good or bad?)
 - Grants original + small X bonus to Ship Quality. (Representing the idea that cruisers and capitals can now also use this and smaller hullsizes can remove more D-mods.)
 - Grants the player the ability to fully restore any hull at this colony at the cost of the restoration price being deducted from the colony's monthly income.
 - Building this at the cost of an Industry slot combined with Corrupted Nanoforge get's a sizeable Ship Quality bonus? It could increase that item's usefulness in a niche way over pristine ones.

As far as an endgame timer...I'm all for it. Though, I hope that in the sandbox play, there are missions/events that trigger such endgame happenings (with giant disclaimers that say "POINT OF NO RETURN" or some such). Knowing you're living on borrowed time does...motivate...certain playstyles and strategies. As long as it's an option, and not mandatory, I see no downside.

I generally like this method more than a "global timer until DOOM" sort of thing. Global timers can be really stressful in a RNG-filled sandbox. Then again, its optional so its less likely to matter overall.

Xcom did compartmentalization of difficulty pretty well. It was explicit when an action would noticeably increase either the campaign or average battle difficulty. I appreciated it because I could hold off until I got the new research I was working on or one of my soldiers recovered, etc. That was even despite a global timer on top of it, so maybe combining the two implementations like that would be interesting.

622

Suggestions / Re: Ban flag for weapons,hulls and fighters for fleet doctrine

« on: December 04, 2020, 05:25:39 PM »

Then there's the edge case of banning every hulls belonging to a role and there's no fallback anymore...

Definitely a valid edge case. But what if the logic just checked the Frequency array/map/w.e for non-zero values and kept an active count in memory per each ship role? That way whenever the "disable" button is pressed it can assess whether this would violate the "count must be greater than 0" rule and deny the hull from being disabled if so? Unless the iterations would cause noticeable lag between click and action that could work.

*Player presses disable on the hull*

Pseudo code:

Object emptyRole = noRolesEmpty(hullId);
if (frequencyMap.get(hullId) != 0 && emptyRole.validateNoEmptyRoles() {
          allowHullDisabled(hullId);
} else if (frequencyMap.get(hullId) == 0) {
          displayMessageHullAlreadyDisabled(hullId);
} else {
          displayMessageEmptyRoleViolation(emptyRole.getEmptyRoleString());
}

Of course, that would mean more UI work and eventually there would be some desire for role status to be explicitly shown in the UI so the player can keep track of how many potential hulls are in each particular role.


Alternatively, an intel report could be generated only if a role is empty and a fleet would have otherwise spawned one but doesn't have a fallback. That would probably be easier to do with the existing code base since intel reports are already a thing and the additional logic would just have to check that the role in question has a non-zero value in the map during fleet creation or it spawns a report for that role.

The way to remove the report would be to activate a hull in the corresponding role. To prevent UI work to show role-hull candidacy in the management screen, the report could list all the available hulls for the empty role so the player knows what their options are.

To prevent spam, reports aren't duplicated. As long as a report exists for that role, no new reports are generated until the player resolves the first one by enabling a valid hull.

Idk, just some random brainstorming. I agree that more player faction fleet management would be really nice.

623

Modding / Re: Misc modding questions that are too minor to warrant their own thread

« on: December 03, 2020, 07:57:59 PM »

Can anyone who has worked with modules tell me if they automatically die if the parent ship dies? Or do they need a hullmod or something for that?

Nvm, it showed a blue circle even without a designated png sprite so I know the module died when the parent ship died. I can just make it never detach to avoid the circles causing confusion. So now the question is what does vast_bulk actually do? Just make the module invincible?

624

Modding / Re: how to make projectiles pierce through things?

« on: December 02, 2020, 08:55:32 PM »

It is hardcoded to the PLASMA type iirc.

So the weapon has to be a PLASMA weapon to have passthrough which will limit how the projectile can look. Granted I didn't mess with this that much and other mods probably use scripts to get around this I'd imagine.

But as far as your question is concerned, that is the only way to do it afaik.

625

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20

« on: December 02, 2020, 05:11:36 PM »

Once I finish up this work on the REDACTED stuff I will likely release a test version of the new balance as an early Christmas present.

The variants will be off of course as I think I'm only about 1/3 of the way done with them, but from what I can tell they won't be super imbalanced or anything and may even provide a reference for the changes over the old one since the unadjusted ones will be the same stock variant as before. Just be a little skeptical when you see a bunch of gunships or bombers on a non-carrier cruiser. Those builds aren't very viable - unless a lot of other things are sacrificed to the point that one of the questions I'm asking is: "Is it ever worth it to use them at all?"

Even if the answer is no, that might be ok as long as they are really useful on a carrier. I'm hoping carriers like the Condor seem like an equal option when compared to something like an Enforcer now. Obviously 1v1's are almost always in the Enforcer's favor, but from a fleet standpoint I'm hoping a well-defended Condor makes its presence felt. I have to be honest, though, I tested more large-scale than small-scale so far.

Re: Your analysis/Pillager

I actually lowered the low-tech cruisers' DP by 1 - putting them at 16 instead of 17. The idea behind this is large scale battles will allow an additional destroyer or even an additional cruiser at the highest end of standard DP limits. So eventually low tech gets a small to moderate 2v1 advantage in one engagement that can snowball into a win. I tested this concept out extensively using the Wolf and the Lasher. It seems sound and what's more is that it is not always predictable. Either side can win, but the tactics differentiation is more clear cut. Trend-wise: the higher the DP the more likely the victory since these ships tend to be a lot more expensive to even purchase in the first place.

From the tests I've done so far, I think high tech should mostly be ok now that the new weapons allow for some additional key roles. It is really hard to tune them so that they are beatable in a skirmish but not wet noodles in a full-scale battle because they get boxed in too easily. I'm hoping I'm at least closer in that regard.

Carrier-wise, high-tech definitely has a decisive advantage now. For stock variants they always did, but even for the player the extra OP is a big deal. The performance difference and OP costs between low and high tier is more noticeable - though I'm still smoothing out the edges and I'm sure there are still some imbalances.

The Pillager is one of my favorites both in look and design. It is a serious cruiser-killer but will struggle against a battleship or battlecarrier. Just like the Conquest, its speed can give it an edge over other capitals - including carriers - since its PD is still numerous and large options are available. I will say, however, that the build you listed will perform slightly worse this update. For one, Photon Cannons and the Excalibur went from 0-flux to ~0.4 efficiency. So the Pillager can't keep the low-flux boost up nearly as often. All capitals also had their low-flux boost cut down to 40 instead of the standard 80. Smaller ships didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against a very flux-efficient build with it at 80 lol.

The decision to lower battlecruiser DP was a bit of a knee jerk reaction. I think I tweaked the numbers a while back, but I'm not finalized on whether or not to raise it a little more. I don't want it to be the obvious choice over the Dominator or Onslaught - though I don't think it necessarily is now.

I 100% agree that the AI can be frustrating specifically in the case of beams. It seems to operate better with projectile weapons. I spoke with Alex to see if anything can be done but it looks like that particular issue is really difficult to fix without causing the AI to suicide too much. On the brighter side, that is one of the reasons why beams are demonstrably more effective than projectile weapons when they do hit. They also take advantage of the AI by sneaking past the shields far easier than most projectiles - well, outside of something like the Gatling Laser anyway. To give an example, I tested the Terminator Beam using a Guardian build and it killed ships far faster than a Mark IX or even a Heavy Fissure Cannon or Punisher. Where they fail is when they hit shields, and that is why I will eventually have them cause hard flux.

EDIT: P.S *Spoilers*

Spoiler

I'm not done, but the Guardian can now solo 100 DP worth of ships - tested with all Hegemony variants including the Assault Onslaught. It will definitely not be a pushover in the next update. Similarly, I'm making the Mothership battle more difficult/interesting.

[close]

626

Suggestions / Re: Limit High Commands to one and use it to denote a capital world, rename others

« on: December 01, 2020, 08:17:41 PM »

Player will be limited to size 6 for his colonies.  Currently, my endgame colonies are size 7 or 8.  Also, since player will not freely select skills, he may not have whatever passes for Fleet Logistics for his colonies.

In other words, player might get his fleets scaled back more than the NPCs.

If so, then the caveat of limiting High Command to one would be that FP values for patrols would have to be adjusted so that standard issues a player deals with pre-High Command can be mitigated by the combination of a Military Base and a station. Ideally, High Command should only be required for "High Command problems" and those problems should probably only target the High Command market the majority of the time.

Then again, I'm not completely against events forcing a player's action either, I just think they need to be rare enough to not feel like constant babysitting is necessary to start a colony. Judging from all the gamers I knew growing up, even that feeling is widely subjective though so it can be tough to find a sweet spot.

One thing that I've found that always seems to help is avoiding repetition as much as possible. The more diverse and unique the related events are, the less they feel like a chore and the more emergent they become as the centerpiece to colony mechanics. Then it is just a matter of making sure the player knows what they are getting into before taking that step - similar to Commission mechanics, etc.

627

Suggestions / Re: Limit High Commands to one and use it to denote a capital world, rename others

« on: December 01, 2020, 04:05:02 PM »

Well, Sindria has a High Command and before the colony update also had the now unused Regional Capital condition. That kind of implies that High Commands were originally designed to be located on capital worlds. It doesn't necessarily mean that factions couldn't have more than one capital world, however, since the Sindrian Diktat is a relatively small faction. "Regional" kind of implies more than one for larger factions.

My opinion, though, would be that the player should be limited to one High Command and the rest of the colonies get Military Bases or Patrol HQs if they are short on industry slots. I think this could be possible without additional babysitting since the fleet sizes are being scaled down a bit.

Besides the connotation thing, I think a single High Command limit could be interesting from a gameplay perspective because it could then be used to cause additional problems for the player to solve that are not also tied to Military Bases or market share, etc. Invasions against the player only being a thing if the player has one is the obvious choice here - but there are lots of things that could happen to warrant needing or, conversely, holding off on building a High Command.

In other words, it is a late game structure for late game considerations in my mind. Military Base would be the "standard" colony defense industry alongside stations until then.

628

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20

« on: November 28, 2020, 12:29:44 AM »

Battle 3: Those look kind of Ok to me apart from Onslaught's slightly low performance. I think you could experiment with some unsymmetrical loadout on Dominators such as ballistic on the left and explosive on the right. The one with dual Devastators didn't perform well.

Good analysis and yes this is intended.

For clarification: The deck is slightly stacked in Tri-Tachyon's favor in this test simulation because the original goal was to test the difference between strike beam builds, projectile strike builds and, at the capital level, fire support beam builds vs low-flux defense builds within the energy weapon type range.

In order to adequately do that considering the test parameters, I was using a standard Assault Onslaught that emphasized kinetic over explosive (since that generally matters more for energy weapon ships) and a "balanced" cruiser set that included two ships that were good vs kinetics (Dominator Support and Dominator Assault - Heavy Iridium Guns) with two that were more anti-armor oriented (Dominator Assault - Mark IXs and Dominator Elite - Devastators) in order to see how each category of the opposing end dealt with beams vs projectile energy weapons and HE torpedoes.

Originally, I was using a more kinetic heavy Onslaught variant, one less kinetic Dominator (Heavy Iridium Guns), and one more anti-armor Dominator (Mark IXs). You then suggested better flux management for the Onslaught. I thought that was reasonable since it would matter for the defense Paragon more - both in terms of better PD and a better punishing timeframe before the AI retreats. Therefore, I replaced the rear Heavy Railguns with better torpedo defense (Heavy Vulcan PD Cannons) since that benefited the armor-reliant fleet overall. I agree with both of those suggested changes as a better test example FWIW. What you are describing in the Dominator Elite's performance should be relatively consistent unless it is a 2v1 in the Dominator's favor. Then the strike potential can speed up the encounter drastically under the right circumstances - a.ka. overload - overfluxed, etc. Evens so, a kinetic assault variant should be more reliable in the case of a 1v1 vs a heavily shielded ship and it's not like it would perform all that worse in a 2v1 scenario in comparison. The speed up of any engagement does come into play in a spread out battle because it can provide better reinforcement time to more evenly contested fights - which sometimes creates a rapid snowball-effect to the overall battle.

Re: the Onslaught - while I think builds like this are certainly viable and possibly optimal for a generalist kind of approach, this was meant to be a kinetic-heavy counter to the Paragon to test the performance difference between a defensive build and a FS build. Also, from a fleet standpoint: when you have a greater swath of firing arcs for "line-based" confrontation in larger ships - it is important to not cause the AI to twist and turn too much. It lowers accuracy and gets harder for the AI to deal with in the case that one essential side is armor-stripped. For these reasons, I have found it is better to have mostly "equal dps" on either side of the 0-90 degree firing arcs from either side of the center rather than try an right/left-side-preferred build. It doesn't help that doing this also reduces the ability of the Terminator Beams to get their dps in. What these restrictions essentially mean is that it is necessary to, for the most part, mirror the damage capabilities along the side mounts. The large mounts can be an exception if they are strike weapons - depending upon the weapon.

TLDR: It was never about the opposing fleet being equal (though it should be fairly close and some random is involved) but rather it was designed to test the performance difference between builds with different roles and weapon types while under specific parameters for each test.

Capital Pulse projectiles also look unassuming to me. I think you should add some glow effect to it. Anything that hit hard should be more noticeable. Some FS weapons can also have a bullet trail effect to make it obvious which ship is dangerous.

Noted. I also want a unique sound effect for the Ragnarok Beam. So some polish is still pending most likely.

Re autofit: Eh, I mean the auto setting for weapon groups not the actual autofit of weapons. I believe the manually crafted loadouts will fit in with the lore better anyway.

Ah gotcha. My current method is to set each variant in the JSON files themselves (using the in-game editor as a reference for data points) and then test the AI's performance at utilizing all the weapon groups efficiently. It takes a bit more time but I think this will be better at both understanding how to build variants overall and to be honest: it helps me practice using/troubleshooting JSON syntax.

629

Modding / Re: giving art to modders

« on: November 27, 2020, 08:52:33 PM »

Hi! I always love to see new art for modders and I'm glad this is continuing.

One thing: The 3rd image is a recolor of my Arkmaros Fortress illustration seen here from the Archean Order mod:

Spoiler

[close]

I don't mind you using it especially since it looks different enough from the Archean Order version. However, it is not my original work and I want to credit the author.

The work is an edit of an existing work by Andreas Rocha that I received permission to use in the mod several years ago. So it would be really awesome if you would give credit and encourage anyone who decides to use this edit to give proper credit as well!

Here is a link to the site:

Andreas Rocha - http://www.andreasrocha.com/

630

Mods / Re: [0.9.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - Update preview 6/24/20

« on: November 27, 2020, 02:29:11 PM »

^ Oh ok that makes sense. I'd agree that is a pretty accurate pros and cons list. For me at least, the cons outweigh the pros but it a close enough thing that I think it is likely playstyle related. The ability to return fire efficiently under high flux pressure is more important to me that the meet and greet benefits of having 0-flux weapons in the same group as flux-using weapons - well... I should say I feel that way most of the time as it really depends upon the build. Mixed damage types in one group is fairly important as you say, however this specific build doesn't have any 0-flux kinetic weapons and that is what I base the decision on whether or not I include them in the 0-flux group. The "will fire when not in range" part also bugs me, but not only could that be fixed in the next release but it impacts the grand scheme of things very little. I think when the AI turns off flux-free weapons because it turns the autofire off is the most damaging to the overall battle performance. That being said, it all depends upon how often that would actually be a factor. As far as meet and greet burst damage, that should be improved in the next release without weapons being in a single group as well because it will waste shots on fighters less - particularly in the last couple of seconds before a battle starts.

But I would prefer stock variants to use Alex auto setting. This will be kind of a high end optimize and I prefer others to experiment with it themself.

I will likely never make stock variants autofit as the default mod behavior. Autofit tends to sometimes create really weird builds in this mod even at the frigate level. Don't get me wrong sometimes it works very well, but the times it doesn't could heavily impact faction balance in a live battle scenario that isn't being autoresolved. Similarly, the goal isn't to optimize all the variants but rather optimize *some* of them or otherwise include builds that provide unique challenges or concerns to the player for each faction. It is one of the reasons I widened the gap between the gunship and the bomber roles - so that both can't be hard countered in quite the same way but can be soft countered by a balanced fleet in either case. It is a difficult thing to do but that is the goal.

But! Coming back to autofit, it won't in the next update but likely in the following one I'm going to have a settings option to enable autofit at the player's choice. It will be set to off by default. I will probably have a setting for each hullsize.

As for your new videos, I think Dominators could use a Resistance Flux Conduit for a better active vent.

Hmm ok I'll try it out a couple of times and see if it performs better.

*EDIT* (Made each Dominator variant have Resistant Flux Conduits instead of either flux caps or Expanded Magazines/Missile Racks)

Battle 3 Defense Paragon:

Spoiler

[close]

Battle 3 Beam Paragon:

Spoiler

[close]