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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22  (Read 722410 times)

A Random Jolteon

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Spoiler
Wait...so Talon span on my 4 falcons and 1 eagle would be useful? (evil thoughts) So the MG's and Talons are no longer useless! BULLET SPAM HERE I COME!!!

Anyway, got a...decent fight. Gonna use the Spoiler thing to make this a smaller reply.
Onslaught
Spoiler
Glad to see the Onslaught can still delete most cruisers...Though I still prefer my TPL's, the Term beams are better for me since I have bad projectile aim. Still need to edit my build, but to do that I need a large kinetic weapon that doesn't have a range of 800 meters. Curse my luck!
Besides that, putting a MG and PD mix into all the small slots, and FLAK in all the medium slots is extremely strong and gives a defense that requires 4 squadrons to last more than 10 seconds against. Who needs a Paragon level shield when you have a stupid amount of armor, a stupid amount of HP, and a stupid amount of guns! I do think I would prefer to have the Burn drive over the AAF however, 90 is okay for speed, but it takes a while to get anywhere. Pretty much have to bring it in first, or not at all.
[close]

PD weapons
Spoiler
I did some testing, and they seem...pretty bloody balanced,
but seem to have a hard time actually hitting targets that are strafing. This may be a Vanilla problem, but thought I'd say it just in case. Either way, glad to see they are pretty much worthless against anything larger than a bomber.
[close]

Missiles
Spoiler
Once again fairly balanced. However, it seems that when they are countered, they are countered hard. It is almost impossible to get even large swarms of harpoons through a even larger swarm of...every fighter that has ever been made? Cut me some slack darn it, they look like tiny bloody dots!
[close]

Fighters
Spoiler
I'm gonna sum this one up easily, and quickly.

(in refit screen)
"I have some pretty good PD across my entire fleet! This should be easy!"
(in battle)
"HOLY F***ING MOTHER OF GOD THAT IS A LOT OF DOT SHAPED FIGHTERS!"
[close]


That's all I will say for now. I need to play more in order to give more feedback, but everything I have faced so far has been very balanced...
Spoiler
I just don't want to have my entire ship lose all of its PD because the enemy wave of fighters decided to do a bloody flyby of my ship with guns blazing!!!
[close]
...At least the mod is darn fun...GIVE ME YOUR DROID CONTROL SHIP/MEGALITH DARN YOU AI!

**Edit**
DHDBUS FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT HOW MANY SHIPS YOU CAN BRING IN!!!...And the number of fighters you can get in a battle.

Number of ships you can bring in
Spoiler
THAT IS A LOT OF POTENTIAL ONSLAUGHTS I COULD SEND INTO BATTLE...DO YOU KNOW HOW OP THAT CAN BE!? And not just the Onslaught,
Cap ships in general.  The Paragon is be far the strongest ship in Vanilla, and my testing showed it carried into here among the Vanilla ships.
I doubt the AI will do Cap Spam, but the player almost certainly will. I recommend keeping the cruisers the same in Deployment Cost, but make the Deployment Cost of the Cap ships more around that of Vanilla...or maybe just double what it is now. That should keep Cap Spam from being AS viable, as the player should face about 4 cruisers per cap ship, with escort. Though that one should be debated a little, as I do go more for effect.
[close]

Fighter Numbers
Spoiler
My computer is an absolute potato and should never be used to play starsector, but the number of fighters the Falcons can put out is ridiculously overpowered when you think about fleet battles. A Hegemony fleet could have maybe 5 cruisers with around 2 bays each,
totalling 10...Combined with Caps, and other carriers. That is around a Vanilla size fleet...The fleets in this mod have the potential to be bigger, and can easily lag out major computers. I suggest not having any bays for Light cruisers, one for Heavy cruisers, and whatever for Cap ships.
[close]
[close]
I'm glad it feels balanced so far! It was the largest and hardest part of development, along with sprite editing. I pretty much had to re-invent the wheel with load-outs.

**EDIT** As to Harpoons, I'll keep track to see if an increase in hit-points is necessary. It is a finisher weapon for overloaded ships, so ideally it only excels with minimal PD- hence its speed, low maneuverability.

I think I tried to make it more durable and it makes the weapon ridiculously OP due to its speed. A couple hit points can be the difference between it always getting through frigates and destroyer PD... and that makes those ships worthless to large spam of the missile since it hits like a truck.

Advice: try combining it with missiles like the Locust, torpedoes or a couple pd frigates to create some pandemonium first.

Always try and avoid firing into heavy interceptor swarms, however. They actually will suicide into the missile as a last resort to protect their carrier, so even if it get's through the pd sometimes it can be frustratingly denied. Happened to me too many times for it not to be a thing, and the faster ones are shockingly good at it.  :-X

I consider it a necessary evil considering all missiles have infinite ammo.


I also definitely get some of your concerns regarding performance due to fighter spam. I have gone back and forth on how many I want per battle a couple times now, and some tweaking and pruning may be in order here and there. I'll look a little more into it, but to be fair, I AM going for:  ;D ;)

https://youtu.be/xPZigWFyK2o?t=2m3s

https://youtu.be/hlecG3nYaLw?t=32s


All jokes aside, though, perhaps a little higher deployment cost for capitals and a reduction in battle size? I don't want to go chopping away at fighter bays just yet, because ships actually are balanced around them. For what it costs to deploy a Falcon, two bays isn't all that much when you consider ships like... the Osprey, for example. The pirate version of that is less than a supply to deploy and its pretty much just a flying, broken, sad flight deck.  :P

The reason for the deployment costs being low is actually more to do with economy than wanting a ton of ships per battle. It's super difficult tricky to mess with the price of- say- supplies, so if I want a certain feel to both progression speed as well as the "punishment feeling" of suddenly needing more supplies due to defensive deployments or E-burns, I have to reduce those costs another way.

That was one of the reasons I felt Vanilla really needed a way to requisition aid and resources from NPC fleets. As a newbie I often found myself adrift- or went for a bounty, got  stranded or lost a fight and had to flee, and lost everything. It seemed a little unforgiving for new players, even with the tutorial giving you a foot-hold. That was something I intended to address both with lower deployments costs in general (especially to start) and the fleet dialogue features.

Every time, I thought: "Hey look, there's a Hegemony trade fleet, loaded with supplies... but, I'm a nice guy, loyal and all that... so I can't just take them. Why is not a single soul within this organization that I've been fighting pirates for for cycles now friendly enough to help me out or even just sell me some emergency supplies at a mark-up?"

So, I built a system to do just that. Speaking of which... ok, ok, I'll stoop to fishing: Anyone try that out yet? I know Cease-fire is still a little buggy. It's surprisingly hard to get hostile/vengeful fleets to not want to blast you away.
I understand not firing into interceptor swarms (Though that explains the suicidal Talons). Problem is, the number of fighters on the field make it hard to see if it is safe to fire or not...That actually bring an idea to mind. Why not make it fire 4 harpoons that individually do less damage, but combined do the same? There is a missile weapon (not sure if Vanilla or not) that fires 4 missiles very quickly, but each one constantly twists and turns to make it more difficult to block/intercept. It does less damage, but I VASTLY prefer it to literally every other missile out there.

Cap ship deployment increase definitely, but a decrease in battle size isn't AS necessary as you can put a hard limit to it in the Game options. I don't normally play long enough to deal with the Economy aspect (Command Console FTW!), but I can see what you mean.

I will immediately test to see if the cease fire thingamajig works for me!
Logged
Hi. I exist. Bye.

Ranakastrasz

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Considering Fighters are less Valuable than the ships they are protecting, I can entirely justifying them suiciding.

-----
I've liked the mod so far, however, some issues/comments/suggestions

having trouble telling weapon sizes at a glance. Presumably the icon size scales the same as they do in the refit screen and game screen, but I currently have trouble distinguishing medium from small. I'll get used to it eventually. I also don't recognize half the icons, so yea...

There are only a few small strike weapons. Probably ought to be more. (Found burst lasers early on, quite impressive)
There don't seem to be any small support weapons. I thought the support weapons were the longer ranged, low damage ones. Quite a few, like railgun, were what I expected in this group.
The "Photon Cannon" probably was supposed to be a support weapon, given the tooltip and that it wasn't in vanilla, but costs no flux.

Ammunition limits with regeneration added back in are great. I immediately started using extended magazines again. 24 burst-laser shots are quite nasty. Do most strike weapons use ammo?
Regenerating missiles are also cool. Small clips of 1-3 missiles, holding 1-6 of them is interesting. Given the increase in point defense in general, missiles are a lot more common.

If they don't, ship systems like Flares should also regenerate (and maybe have a cap of 2 instead of 5)

Had fun with a few new weapon types. The shotgun missile is cool, not really sure if it gives anything over alternates.

Zero-flux assault weapons. Interesting approach. However, given that 90% of the weapons I have been able to use seem to be zero-flux, it means that flux is pretty much shield until you have medium weapons, or get lucky and find burst lasers, mortar, etc. Not sure if this is intended. Either way, at least it makes shields stronger in general.

Some frigates, like the hound and wolf seem to have lost their medium weapon slot, which is kind of disappointing. The idea here is to have more, smaller, weapon slots however, so that makes sense. The wolf has more slots in general, and the wolf has those crappy PD drones. Shame that I have trouble finding ships that can carry all the medium weapons around now though, and the lack of support/strike small weapons hurts that.

Found the mining laser. Its medium instead of small now (kinda sensible) and does way more damage. Thought it was a small weapon looking at it (because of the rescale)

Some of the tooltips are wrong as to where they weight their power, I think. Would have to open the game and minimize to get the correct stats, but a doublecheck might be warented.

I'll reread the front page, but I think some of the weapons are too powerful for their assault role.

Assault - Short-Mid range, no flux, low-med damage. (In their face, using all flux for shields)
Support - mid-long range, low flux, low-med damage. (Pressure from a distance, also long-range missiles)
Strike - Short-mid range, mid-high flux, high damage. (Break heavy armor/shielding, requires external power supply from ship)

PD - Short-mid range, no flux, low damage, high accuracy/speed (Deal with missiles/fighters)

As least that was what I got from it when I read it last time.

Shield flux alterations. Not sure I understand it. Do shields not allow dissipating any flux? I didn't observe that. How exactly did the flux stats change to make weapon flux a problem if you have shields up vs vanilla?
I see. Shield upkeep is, for every ship, exactly equal to it's base flux dissipation. So, flux vents provide shield dissipation. If you have none, you can't dissipate at all.
More importantly, Stabilized shields are now significantly more powerful, given they have way more to work with. Interesting.

If you are screwing with weapon range, make sure you check Safety overrides base range. It might need to be adjusted, depending.
-----
Overall, having fun thus far.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2018, 02:12:09 PM by Ranakastrasz »
Logged
I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Morrokain

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^ Wanted to quickly get on here and say I've seen these above posts and will respond to them soon- taking in feedback and I have several things in the works to address them, but also balancing work/career priorities!  ;)

More soon! ETA: by the end of the weekend?
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Ranakastrasz

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Guardian PD laser doesn't seem to be willing to fire unless you do it manually, which defeats the purpose. Not sure why.

----

I think the changes to the Flux system were the most interesting out of everything, honestly.
It seriously alters how you run a ship, and build it, for that matter.

In vanilla, while you try and get as many powerful weapons as you can, you also try and keep enough OP left over to get as many vents as you can, such that you, hopefully, have a surplus of dissipation so you can run your shields and fire all weapons.
Capacity helps, but is insignificant compared to dissipation in almost all cases.

Not so here. I actually sometimes go for capacity over vents entirely.

The flux-heavy weapons tend to use a LARGE chunk of flux in a short period of time, and getting capacity lets you unleash a very large attack. This comes at the cost of your shields being weakened. This is normal for starsector, but here, flux is more of a shield meter than a weapons meter.

Flux is far more linked to powerful weapons and shields than vanilla.

Being able to just hold shields up without worrying about it cutting into your normal weapons changes things. On the other hand, the, effectively, massive upkeep for shields forces you to drop them a lot more often. Increased armor stats helps with that as well.

The effect is Exaggerated if you have a flux weapon. Shield goes up, you fire off a powerful attack, your shields will only recover very slowly unless you drop them. In vanilla it can generally recover if you stop firing, or slow down at least. Here, not so much. Forces you to backoff after throwing a powerful blow, moreso than vanilla.
Oh, and run away from the swarm of fighters that jumps on you for daring to attack their charge.

Plus, the distinction between hard and soft flux is significantly reduced.

I would note that some ships have no shields, and since small weapons that use flux are currently very rare, it is quite possible to have a ship that doesn't use flux at all.
I've seen that in other mods, but here it is much more common.

Not really sure how to resolve that part, aside from adding more strike/support weapons, or converting existing ones.

-----

Missiles are a lot more fun, and feel like an active part of the game instead of trump cards. Being able to sustain missile fire, while it not being silly OP is quite fun.
Hunters are very nice support weapons, throwing missiles at massive flux cost. (Got a pair onto a Kite, which it can only just support)
A lot of missiles go for engines, which I suppose makes sense. Even non-EMP missiles.

-----
Magazines.
Strike, missile, support weapons seem to have magazines most of the time. If you have the flux to support them, grabbing the expanded ammo hull mods works great.
Missiles just being part of this category makes them less exotic, and being able to burst-fire followed by reloading changes the flow of combat.

I was surprised to learn that the Tachyon Lance now has a 60 second cooldown. Given it's power, I can't exactly disagree, given what firing 4 of them at an onslaught does (in the forlorn hope mission)

-----
Scaled weapons
I understand how this works better now.
In effect, you reclassified weapons. Small weapons either stayed small and got weaker/smaller, or were reclassified as medium. same as medium to large. And then you added in more extra-small weapons.
Now that I understand that it makes more sense.
-----
Intimidate
Not sure if intended, but trying to intimidate pirates tends to not work sometimes, because your reputation is bad. As in, hated. They refuse to help you. I'm not asking for help. I am threatening to kill them if they don't give up their cargo. A negative reputation should help there.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2018, 08:43:48 AM by Ranakastrasz »
Logged
I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Morrokain

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Ok, so here's what's currently planned for the next release.  ;D

Next Patch Changes:

    Content Additions
    • Faction colonies are now seeded into the Core Worlds.
    • Faction colonies now have unique descriptions.
    • Adding more small 'strike' and 'fire support' (flux hungry) weapons - especially in the ballistic category.

    Bug Fixes and Design Improvements
    • Fixed crash on clicking "Show Info" on planets while in the Intel tab.
    • Captain personality will now properly reduce or improve the amount of credits requisitioned or demanded from fleets as intended.
    • "Safety Overrides" description will now properly display what it does.
    • Fixed more scenarios where bribery failed to get the enemy to disengage.
    • Updated Bribe description to include information previously obscured to the player when bribing a fleet captain.
    • Changed "Max and Min Battle Slider" settings to more accurately reflect standard Performance Requirements. (100 - 300 with default at 150)
    • Slightly increasing Capital Ship deployment costs.
    • Fixed several description typos and outdated references.

    Performance Improvements and Misc
    • Improved performance of starting a new game and loading the mod by ~33% (**Early indications - this could change once Core Worlds are fully seeded).
    • EZFaction utility tool is no longer required to play the mod.



    The good news: After creating a control and clicking on every planet in the universe sector, I'm about 99% sure have isolated this error:
    I've been getting crashes when selecting some systems from the intel screen map.


    Pretty sure the code below is the crash log.
    Spoiler
    28316 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
    java.lang.NullPointerException
       at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.o0OO.void.return$new(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.o0OO.afterSizeFirstChanged(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.sizeChanged(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO0O.set(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.thisnew.super(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.j.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO00.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.O0oO.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.OO00.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.B.advanceImpl(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.advance(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.intel.B.Ò00000(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.if$7.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.newui.if.setCurrentTab(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.showCoreUITab(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.map.A.super(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.coreui.map.Objectsuper.processInputImpl(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.Q.processInput(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.ui.V.o00000(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
       at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
       at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
    [close]

    I have removed the EZFaction utility from being necessary to support the mod. As long as I don't add any markets myself, I don't get any crashes- and I've checked thoroughly. So the data in the mod itself is stable. It is something about adding markets (my educated hunch is adding them to planets in particular) that causes it.

    Now for the bad news: I am still getting the crash when I add my own markets, so it's pretty easy to cause.  :P

    So, I still need to isolate exactly what's causing it so I can safely avoid it when seeding the Core Worlds.

    Putting individual feedback replies in spoilers to keep the post readable:

    A Random Jolteon
    Spoiler

    I understand not firing into interceptor swarms (Though that explains the suicidal Talons). Problem is, the number of fighters on the field make it hard to see if it is safe to fire or not...That actually bring an idea to mind. Why not make it fire 4 harpoons that individually do less damage, but combined do the same? There is a missile weapon (not sure if Vanilla or not) that fires 4 missiles very quickly, but each one constantly twists and turns to make it more difficult to block/intercept. It does less damage, but I VASTLY prefer it to literally every other missile out there.

    Cap ship deployment increase definitely, but a decrease in battle size isn't AS necessary as you can put a hard limit to it in the Game options. I don't normally play long enough to deal with the Economy aspect (Command Console FTW!), but I can see what you mean.

    I will immediately test to see if the cease fire thingamajig works for me!

    Going to increase cap deployment costs slightly, but also reduced max battle size to 300 and put the default on 150. This makes this run much smoother and honestly I'm not sure a PC is out there that would support a 500 battle size with the deployment costs and fighter changes. If I'm wrong, and a battle of that size is actually fun, let me know and I'll at least change the max back. I am lowering it for now to give what I can only assume are realistic expectations for what the mod can actually handle.

    On Harpoon, still feeling this out. That is a good suggestion for the PD issue, and it could make the missile slightly more reliable to hit, but it would also severely weaken it's armor penetration. The Harpoon is meant to be the closest thing to a long range torpedo available and that would really hurt that role. So I'm not quite convinced that's a good trade-off yet, but then again some damage is better than no damage... hm idk we'll see I can't decide.  ::) Thanks for the input!
    [close]

    Ranakastrasz
    Spoiler
    Spoiler
    Considering Fighters are less Valuable than the ships they are protecting, I can entirely justifying them suiciding.

    -----
    I've liked the mod so far, however, some issues/comments/suggestions

    having trouble telling weapon sizes at a glance. Presumably the icon size scales the same as they do in the refit screen and game screen, but I currently have trouble distinguishing medium from small. I'll get used to it eventually. I also don't recognize half the icons, so yea...

    There are only a few small strike weapons. Probably ought to be more. (Found burst lasers early on, quite impressive)
    There don't seem to be any small support weapons. I thought the support weapons were the longer ranged, low damage ones. Quite a few, like railgun, were what I expected in this group.
    The "Photon Cannon" probably was supposed to be a support weapon, given the tooltip and that it wasn't in vanilla, but costs no flux.

    Ammunition limits with regeneration added back in are great. I immediately started using extended magazines again. 24 burst-laser shots are quite nasty. Do most strike weapons use ammo?
    Regenerating missiles are also cool. Small clips of 1-3 missiles, holding 1-6 of them is interesting. Given the increase in point defense in general, missiles are a lot more common.

    If they don't, ship systems like Flares should also regenerate (and maybe have a cap of 2 instead of 5)

    Had fun with a few new weapon types. The shotgun missile is cool, not really sure if it gives anything over alternates.

    Zero-flux assault weapons. Interesting approach. However, given that 90% of the weapons I have been able to use seem to be zero-flux, it means that flux is pretty much shield until you have medium weapons, or get lucky and find burst lasers, mortar, etc. Not sure if this is intended. Either way, at least it makes shields stronger in general.

    Some frigates, like the hound and wolf seem to have lost their medium weapon slot, which is kind of disappointing. The idea here is to have more, smaller, weapon slots however, so that makes sense. The wolf has more slots in general, and the wolf has those crappy PD drones. Shame that I have trouble finding ships that can carry all the medium weapons around now though, and the lack of support/strike small weapons hurts that.

    Found the mining laser. Its medium instead of small now (kinda sensible) and does way more damage. Thought it was a small weapon looking at it (because of the rescale)

    Some of the tooltips are wrong as to where they weight their power, I think. Would have to open the game and minimize to get the correct stats, but a doublecheck might be warented.

    I'll reread the front page, but I think some of the weapons are too powerful for their assault role.

    Assault - Short-Mid range, no flux, low-med damage. (In their face, using all flux for shields)
    Support - mid-long range, low flux, low-med damage. (Pressure from a distance, also long-range missiles)
    Strike - Short-mid range, mid-high flux, high damage. (Break heavy armor/shielding, requires external power supply from ship)

    PD - Short-mid range, no flux, low damage, high accuracy/speed (Deal with missiles/fighters)

    As least that was what I got from it when I read it last time.

    Shield flux alterations. Not sure I understand it. Do shields not allow dissipating any flux? I didn't observe that. How exactly did the flux stats change to make weapon flux a problem if you have shields up vs vanilla?
    I see. Shield upkeep is, for every ship, exactly equal to it's base flux dissipation. So, flux vents provide shield dissipation. If you have none, you can't dissipate at all.
    More importantly, Stabilized shields are now significantly more powerful, given they have way more to work with. Interesting.

    If you are screwing with weapon range, make sure you check Safety overrides base range. It might need to be adjusted, depending.
    -----
    Overall, having fun thus far.
    [close]
    Spoiler
    Guardian PD laser doesn't seem to be willing to fire unless you do it manually, which defeats the purpose. Not sure why.

    ----

    I think the changes to the Flux system were the most interesting out of everything, honestly.
    It seriously alters how you run a ship, and build it, for that matter.

    In vanilla, while you try and get as many powerful weapons as you can, you also try and keep enough OP left over to get as many vents as you can, such that you, hopefully, have a surplus of dissipation so you can run your shields and fire all weapons.
    Capacity helps, but is insignificant compared to dissipation in almost all cases.

    Not so here. I actually sometimes go for capacity over vents entirely.

    The flux-heavy weapons tend to use a LARGE chunk of flux in a short period of time, and getting capacity lets you unleash a very large attack. This comes at the cost of your shields being weakened. This is normal for starsector, but here, flux is more of a shield meter than a weapons meter.

    Flux is far more linked to powerful weapons and shields than vanilla.

    Being able to just hold shields up without worrying about it cutting into your normal weapons changes things. On the other hand, the, effectively, massive upkeep for shields forces you to drop them a lot more often. Increased armor stats helps with that as well.

    The effect is Exaggerated if you have a flux weapon. Shield goes up, you fire off a powerful attack, your shields will only recover very slowly unless you drop them. In vanilla it can generally recover if you stop firing, or slow down at least. Here, not so much. Forces you to backoff after throwing a powerful blow, moreso than vanilla.
    Oh, and run away from the swarm of fighters that jumps on you for daring to attack their charge.

    Plus, the distinction between hard and soft flux is significantly reduced.

    I would note that some ships have no shields, and since small weapons that use flux are currently very rare, it is quite possible to have a ship that doesn't use flux at all.
    I've seen that in other mods, but here it is much more common.

    Not really sure how to resolve that part, aside from adding more strike/support weapons, or converting existing ones.

    -----

    Missiles are a lot more fun, and feel like an active part of the game instead of trump cards. Being able to sustain missile fire, while it not being silly OP is quite fun.
    Hunters are very nice support weapons, throwing missiles at massive flux cost. (Got a pair onto a Kite, which it can only just support)
    A lot of missiles go for engines, which I suppose makes sense. Even non-EMP missiles.

    -----
    Magazines.
    Strike, missile, support weapons seem to have magazines most of the time. If you have the flux to support them, grabbing the expanded ammo hull mods works great.
    Missiles just being part of this category makes them less exotic, and being able to burst-fire followed by reloading changes the flow of combat.

    I was surprised to learn that the Tachyon Lance now has a 60 second cooldown. Given it's power, I can't exactly disagree, given what firing 4 of them at an onslaught does (in the forlorn hope mission)

    -----
    Scaled weapons
    I understand how this works better now.
    In effect, you reclassified weapons. Small weapons either stayed small and got weaker/smaller, or were reclassified as medium. same as medium to large. And then you added in more extra-small weapons.
    Now that I understand that it makes more sense.
    -----
    Intimidate
    Not sure if intended, but trying to intimidate pirates tends to not work sometimes, because your reputation is bad. As in, hated. They refuse to help you. I'm not asking for help. I am threatening to kill them if they don't give up their cargo. A negative reputation should help there.
    [close]

    That's a ton of detailed feedback thank you for taking the time to write all of that!

    To summarize a response:

    - On combat, thank you for your descriptions and I'm really happy the system seems to be working as designed! I was definitely going for a tactical "Charge, strike, retreat, cover retreat, reload, strike again" feel. The strike weapons give emphasis to the "Eliminate" command too. Seeing multiple bomber wings, long range missiles and close-range strikes converge on single target is intended to have a visceral satisfaction attached to it. And with total fighter strength meaning more, the loss of a carrier or support ship providing long range pressure can immediately shift the balance of power during a battle.

    - I would say you are absolutely right on the lack of small strike options. I feel that this is made worse by the fact that the one's that do exist are mostly restricted to hi-tech missiles and energy weapons, so especially in the early game where ballistics are more accessible it is a lot more noticeable. I will design and add a few more to help close that gap! Thanks!

    - I am planning on adding a new sound effect to the Tachyon Lance to audibly reflect its... capabilities.  ;D

    - Guardian PD laser is flagged as "Missile Only" - I think I put a blurb in the description about it, but not sure so sorry if I didn't. It should only fire at missiles. It would be way, way too strong if it targeted fighters and other ships automatically. It has higher DPS than most other weapons, for 0-flux, with pinpoint accuracy that, with hullmods, can be extended to 600-700 range. Now, that being said, if some hot-shot pilot decided to manually override the weapon's targeting protocols and unleash hell on some unsuspecting pirate foolish enough to try and attack their defense-oriented Venture... who am I to judge such an ad-hoc strategy?

    - Intimidating factions that are "Vengeful" to you will often, or always, fail depending on the faction. This is intentional, both in an immersion sense (they hate you at this point, so even death isn't enough of a reason for them to willingly aid you in attacking their buddies in the future) and because otherwise you could go around harvesting weaker fleets of hostile factions AND any fleets you have higher rep with.

    You would never spend a credit on supplies or fuel in markets that way. You can probably almost do this as it is, eventually, but the system was more meant to be a supplement to market based resupply, with the added risk of lowered reputation or irritating allies if you are too pesky with it- or oftentimes having to pay, with a mark-up for the goods with neutral, cautious, or stingy factions/commanders. Trading rep for supplies/fuel instead of credits, as it were. Demanding those goods, similarly, is for pirate/intimidation-minded players to have a way to better pursue that role- balanced by measured use of it. Don't force compliance too much/often or you will pass the threshold where it will be effective anymore. Or, if you take their goods then keep attacking their fleets anyway, eventually they will no longer be willing to comply.

    **EDIT** An issue with this could be that the dialogue describing what is going on in this particular interaction is confusing. It doesn't really adequately tell you why you are being refused. I'll look into that, thanks!

    - On:
    I think the changes to the Flux system were the most interesting out of everything, honestly.

    Aw, really, not evil, tribute-demanding vampire barons?!   ;)

    I joke, I basically built this around combat to start. The factions honestly just kind of happened as a natural extension of it once the weapons were in place. The story and lore were last.  

    Again thank you for all the feedback!
    [close]
    [/list]
    « Last Edit: January 07, 2018, 01:41:51 PM by Morrokain »
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    Ranakastrasz

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    Ah. Vanilla lacks any missile-only weapons, and I kinda assume PD means anti-missile + Anti-fighter.

    I think you need to screw with how reputation works for the intimidation to work as such. The whole, Must kill large fleets to get past -60 rep type things, or w.e.
    Just killing pirates initially gets you to vengeful. Now, naturally intimidating, taking loot, and THEN killing them too probably ought to have more of a rep cost.


    Good to have more strike varients. A large number of weapons with impressive range seem to be assault, while some weapons, like the medium artillery, while technically they have long range, have such crappy accuracy I have to treat them as strike, even vs a capital ship.


    Quote
    "Aw, really, not evil, tribute-demanding vampire barons?!   Wink"
    Uhm, What?
    Is that a reference?
    Or did I not find that part of the mod yet?

    Oh, had some fun with Ordeer. Fighting the [Data Expunged] in a full war given they shared a sector. Some *** captain was offended, and I had to run away since bribing wasn't and option, and intimidation, naturally, failed. And then a [Data Expunged] got in on the action, tearing the chasing fleet apart with 6 tachyon lances, while I did a full retreat. And the entire attacking force died. Did... Not expect that. I guess they REALLY hate each other?

    -----
    How do I update this mod? I mean, it still says V1.0
    Are you actually updating the version number? Cuz it doesn't look like it.
    « Last Edit: January 07, 2018, 03:35:49 PM by Ranakastrasz »
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    I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

    Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

    Morrokain

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    Ah. Vanilla lacks any missile-only weapons, and I kinda assume PD means anti-missile + Anti-fighter.

    I think you need to screw with how reputation works for the intimidation to work as such. The whole, Must kill large fleets to get past -60 rep type things, or w.e.
    Just killing pirates initially gets you to vengeful. Now, naturally intimidating, taking loot, and THEN killing them too probably ought to have more of a rep cost.


    Good to have more strike varients. A large number of weapons with impressive range seem to be assault, while some weapons, like the medium artillery, while technically they have long range, have such crappy accuracy I have to treat them as strike, even vs a capital ship.


    Quote
    "Aw, really, not evil, tribute-demanding vampire barons?!   Wink"
    Uhm, What?
    Is that a reference?
    Or did I not find that part of the mod yet?

    Oh, had some fun with Ordeer. Fighting the [Data Expunged] in a full war given they shared a sector. Some *** captain was offended, and I had to run away since bribing wasn't and option, and intimidation, naturally, failed. And then a [Data Expunged] got in on the action, tearing the chasing fleet apart with 6 tachyon lances, while I did a full retreat. And the entire attacking force died. Did... Not expect that. I guess they REALLY hate each other?

    -----
    How do I update this mod? I mean, it still says V1.0
    Are you actually updating the version number? Cuz it doesn't look like it.

    Thanks for the feedback on intimidation. I'll see about the potential for adding some additional nuance to it, I already have several things along those lines planned. Matter of time and priority though.

    Ha yeah if it was who I think it was, negotiating will rarely work and offending them is quite easy.  :P They are one of the "Big Bads" of the factions. It takes you a while to get to them because of that and I'm hoping to keep it that way even when they are in the Core Words:

    **Is an actual Spoiler**
    Spoiler
    Archean Order and Adamantine Consortium (Vampire Barons) will have their own systems on the frontier that have their strongholds. These will be very challenging systems for their enemies and will be part of the endgame challenge more than likely.
    [close]

    On the version and Update, it  isn't live yet. Sorry :(

    There will be a download link and update to the main post when that happens. This was a preview to show a response on feedback.

    Short version. - I need to seed the Core Worlds first. I'm not sure exactly how long everything will take, but I will keep everyone posted on progress. I'm hoping within a few days, but it depends on how easy this bug is to really nail down.
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    Morbo513

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    I've been playing SS with this on for the past couple days, I gotta say I really like it. I love how you changed up the weapon mounts and sizes, it makes each ship feel a bit more versatile. I especially like how different variants of each ship (Eg Wolf - Standard, Pirate and XIV) have different characteristics, and that D-hull Wolves have a degraded phase jumper. Speaking of the Wolf, the phase jump feels a lot less overpowered now, it won't necessarily save you from that huge slug flying towards you because your ship hangs around for a split second and might eat it before the jump is complete.
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    Morrokain

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    I've been playing SS with this on for the past couple days, I gotta say I really like it. I love how you changed up the weapon mounts and sizes, it makes each ship feel a bit more versatile. I especially like how different variants of each ship (Eg Wolf - Standard, Pirate and XIV) have different characteristics, and that D-hull Wolves have a degraded phase jumper. Speaking of the Wolf, the phase jump feels a lot less overpowered now, it won't necessarily save you from that huge slug flying towards you because your ship hangs around for a split second and might eat it before the jump is complete.


    Thanks glad to hear it!  :)

    That little ship was one of the harder things to get feeling right- because of the drastic changes that had to be made thematically between factions. I had to make several built-in hullmods and tinker quite a bit to get it balanced, so good to know that effort paid off!



    Couple side notes for everyone:

    - Pretty confident (with help from Alex and AxleMC131, thanks!) at this point that I squashed the "Show Planet Info" bug, so I will hopefully have the Core Worlds seeded by the end of today if my schedule goes according to plan.

    - Anyone try out the Pirate Start? You get a couple more starting options and two officers with that route, but your reputation is, of course, worse than a normal trader or mercenary. Reason I ask: I'm thinking of sneaking in the Mercenary Start option to this next patch as well. Anyone have thoughts?

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    Ranakastrasz

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    I kinda despise the phase jumper that the lower tech wolfs have now. Not because its not useful, or less mobile or w.e, but because with a lack of landmarks, it can be hard to tell which direction you will teleport in in some cases.

    ----

    The pirate buffalo, I think, seems to be considered a combat vessel for autodeploy.
    Quite a few ships with different ship systems have charges and a cooldown, which happens to be longer than it takes to recharge one charge..... Can't point any examples from here atm tho, can't access game at this time.
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    I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

    Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

    Morrokain

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    I kinda despise the phase jumper that the lower tech wolfs have now. Not because its not useful, or less mobile or w.e, but because with a lack of landmarks, it can be hard to tell which direction you will teleport in in some cases.

    ----

    The pirate buffalo, I think, seems to be considered a combat vessel for autodeploy.
    Quite a few ships with different ship systems have charges and a cooldown, which happens to be longer than it takes to recharge one charge..... Can't point any examples from here atm tho, can't access game at this time.


    Ha! I empathize more than you know on this. The number of times I've jumped the wrong way and left my engines directly exposed to hammers is frankly just silly  :P

    On pirate buffalo: It is. "Everyone fights" in pirate fleets.  ;) (Its so the AI will deploy it in the campaign)

    Thanks for the info on the systems. Corrected (or at least another pass at them) for this next update.



    Speaking of which! The Core Worlds are seeded and everything seems stable in the dev-build so release may even happen tonight if I get time away from Java courses to actually write the ~12 or so descriptions for the custom strongholds. EZFaction or LazyLib utility mods are no longer required to run the mod. They will, however, still be compatible if you want to use them (Have to write your own EZFaction text files to do so). The only exceptions to this are the capitals for the Archean Order and Adamantine Consortium. Making new seeded systems for those, and I don't want to push my luck bug-testing that without a stable release as a control to test prior errors.

    But, no more crashes on Show Info from what I can tell, improved performance and now my factions will also have food shortages, system bounties and that related stuff.

    Today's update on all of your feedback:

    - I've added ~7-8 small weapons in the "Strike" and "Fire Support" category spread across missile and ballistic weapon types. I'm hoping this will make frigates closer in "load-out variety" to the larger ships and increase the overall fun of personally piloting them. These weapons will surely test your flux management skills!

    - Starting variants have been adjusted to account for the new weapons, and I've added new variants or modified existing ones across many factions (especially pirates) so you will have access to the new weapons pretty early on. This also ensures they are spread out among faction markets.

    - On the Hound: I've decided to give this ship some love! I gave it another small weapon (composite!) to make it a more attractive ship to pilot (As it should be!) and customize n general with now having access to a whole new weapon type! Load-outs of all variants have been adjusted and this ship is a lot more dangerous and fun now.  ;) Increased deployment cost to 2 supplies (up from 1) to account for the increase in power. This has an intended side-effect of reducing the number of PD drone deployments in max fleets- to further help to continue to improve battle performance.

    Thank you for everyone's patience! Just a little bit more polish and I'll have the download link updated!!
    « Last Edit: January 09, 2018, 02:03:14 PM by Morrokain »
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    Ranakastrasz

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    Can't Wait :D

    -----

    About the pirate buffalos. Suggest adding that to the tooltip for pirate modded ships, that they autodeploy. Optionally, make it a result of a custom hullmod that the player can remove or something.
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    I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

    Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

    Morrokain

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    Can't Wait :D

    -----

    About the pirate buffalos. Suggest adding that to the tooltip for pirate modded ships, that they autodeploy. Optionally, make it a result of a custom hullmod that the player can remove or something.


    Oh ok that's a good idea I'll look into it.  :)


    Update is live!!  ;D  It will most certainly break saves, however! I put in the mercenary start to give a few good ships and a new start location to relieve that pain a bit.  ;)

    Current Patch Changes: Update v1.1 1/10/2018
    Spoiler

    Content Additions
    • Faction colonies are now seeded directly into the Core Worlds.
    • Faction colonies now have unique descriptions describing their place in the sector and their respective owners' goals and culture.
    • Added ~7-8 small weapons in the "Strike" and "Fire Support" category spread across missile and ballistic weapon types.
    • Starting variants have been adjusted to account for the new weapons.
    • Added new variants or modified existing ones across many factions (especially pirates).

    Bug Fixes and Design Improvements
    • Fixed crash on clicking "Show Info" on planets while in the Intel tab.
    • All new factions now generate system bounties, food shortages, survey missions, etc.
    • Added a small composite weapon slot to the Hound All variants have been adjusted to reflect this - deployment cost increased to 2 supplies.
    • Captain personality will now properly reduce or improve the amount of credits requisitioned or demanded from fleets as intended.
    • "Safety Overrides" description will now properly display what it does.
    • Fixed more scenarios where bribery failed to get the enemy to disengage.
    • Updated Bribe description to include information previously obscured to the player when bribing a fleet captain.
    • Changed "Max and Min Battle Slider" settings to more accurately reflect standard Performance Requirements. (100 - 300 with default at 150)
    • Slightly increased Capital Ship deployment costs.
    • Balance pass through ship systems - generally increasing time to regenerate charges substantially.
    • Flares have been reworked to regenerate.
    • Fixed several description typos and outdated references.

    Performance Improvements and Misc
    • Improved performance of starting a new game and loading the mod by ~33%.
    • EZFaction and LazyLib utility tools are no longer required to play the mod.
    [close]
    « Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 03:08:21 AM by Morrokain »
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    Morrokain

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    Whoops corrected the download link to not include the "out" directory and take you to a main folder as opposed to all the data.

    Sorry about that! 
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    Ranakastrasz

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    Nice update.

    I think those new weapons have too high a rarity, balistic-wise anyhow. I haven't actually run into them, even if the codex makes them look reasonable enough.
    Admittedly, It took me a while to find my first energy Strike weapon (Gatling Laser) but I can still find them. Haven't seen any of the new Balistics yet in a shop.

    Actually, I think they are hidden behind commissions to a large extent. There needs to be a lower quality example without that trait I think.

    -----

    Had my first near-disaster with bombers. Caught me with my shield facing the wrong direction in a mule (pirate) Engines exploded, took nearly 60% hull damage. Nasty.

    Bad start overall, need to restart the game again. Was trying to figure out how to finish a black-market quest. After a few attempts, A hegenomy fleet decided it wanted to kill me without hating me first, and kept chasing me and disrupting my CR.
    ----
    The medium balistic "Artillery Cannon" has far too low accuracy for it's range. It needs either more accurate shots, or else be stated to be specifically intended to be able to hit capitals or cruisers (with a bit of luck)

    The spread on it is kinda excessive for the range, so it is far shorter range than stated.

    -----

    The Guardian PD system tooltip still doesn't say anything about missiles vs Fighters
    Burst PD laser doesn't work vs Fighters either.

    I really don't agree with this change. I really, really think PD should always work vs Fighters.


    Also, when I say tooltip, I mean the in-game, Refit screen text, not the codex text.
    ----
    The Atrepos Single Torpedo does not regenerate.
    ----
    I love the Locust SRM. Tears fighters apart pretty well.Extra racks are great on it. Best Anti-fighter weapon I've found.
    A couple of them can takes down an entire wing almost instantly.
    Heavy, shielded, or gunships get pounded to scrap taking a whole volly or a volly and a half with them, but they die anyway, and dodging only delays the inevitible. The missiles have massive effective range if manually fired (~2-3x their stated range) if you don't need the manuvering as much, so you can prempt bombers if you are paying attention. They also move fast enough that they only rarely get shot down.


    ----

    Anyhow, having fun still.
    « Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 07:04:42 PM by Ranakastrasz »
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    I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

    Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire
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