Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 125

Author Topic: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22  (Read 722263 times)

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

Spoiler
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.
[close]
I'll try to touch on everything:

- Yeah I noticed the new strike weapons are still fairly rare (no rarity limits in the weapons file at least :(  )- in early markets. I may add the low-tech ones to markets manually and add maybe one or two more tier 0 small ballistic strike/support weapons to give better odds of finding one in the next patch.

- Definitely adding at least one tier 0 energy strike weapons that will be widely available instead of locked behind salvage and commissions, maybe more- have to make them interesting and not just copy-pastes.

- Played around with the Artillery Cannon and reduced the spread by about 20%- it's still pretty inaccurate, but I can use forward firing ones to fairly consistently hit an enforcer while flying another enforcer.

- I'm still testing, but considering changing the PD Burst Laser, Heavy PD Burst Laser and Guardian PD Laser to attack fighters and ships. A trip to the 'balance lab' indicates that the PD_ONLY flag was set back when fighters used supplies to respawn and so is no longer as necessary. Still, the thing with beams is that if you make them too good, fighters and missiles become irrelevant. They don't ever miss- whereas everything else hits at best like 1/3 of the time. It ends up being a huge difference.

- That being said- the only caveat will be a slight reduction in charge regeneration for the small PD Burst Laser as well as the addition of charges (8 to be exact) with regen for the Guardian. All 3 still do not cost flux, however.

- The Atropos (single) originally had regen, but that makes the Dagger never go back to the carrier and re-arm. Still, pretty much all the other fighters have built-in versions separating their strike weapons from the equippable ones, so I don't see why I can't add that back in and solve both problems. Done, updated for next release.

- There is a new small missile, the Hornet, rather similar to the Locust. The stinger is the less effective version, as well, but both are kind of rare in markets. Working on that.  :)

Glad this update helped things, though!
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 10:49:53 PM by Morrokain »
Logged

AxleMC131

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1722
  • Amateur World-Builder
    • View Profile

...
- There is a new small missile, the Hornet, rather similar to the Locust. The stinger is the less effective version, as well, but both are kind of rare in markets. Working on that.  :)
...

I know this is a Total Conversion and therefore mutually exclusive from other mainstream mods, but you're aware the Ship&Weapons Pack also has a Hornet missile?
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

I know this is a Total Conversion and therefore mutually exclusive from other mainstream mods, but you're aware the Ship&Weapons Pack also has a Hornet missile?

Shoot, I did not!  :( I'll try and think of something else. It gets a little rough with so many names already taken (honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was the only one). I will do the best that I can in that regard, though.
Logged

Ranakastrasz

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 702
  • Prince Corwin of Amber
    • View Profile


I'll try to touch on everything:

- Yeah I noticed the new strike weapons are still fairly rare (no rarity limits in the weapons file at least :(  )- in early markets. I may add the low-tech ones to markets manually and add maybe one or two more tier 0 small ballistic strike/support weapons to give better odds of finding one in the next patch.
Not really sure if correct. The idea of the strike weapons was to have them be alongside the assault weapons, costing flux to make them more powerful. That said, given they ARE more powerful, I suppose they ought to be a little bit rare-er
Quote
- Definitely adding at least one tier 0 energy strike weapons that will be widely available instead of locked behind salvage and commissions, maybe more- have to make them interesting and not just copy-pastes.
Good to know. Same for Ballistics as well (unless thats the tiny morter, in which case, uhm, I think thats more support than strike)
Quote
- Played around with the Artillery Cannon and reduced the spread by about 20%- it's still pretty inaccurate, but I can use forward firing ones to fairly consistently hit an enforcer while flying another enforcer.
Awesome. That was what I was hoping for. At least a bit of accuracy. Seriously, the spread was enough to reliably miss a Destroyer. I dropped it and replaced it since I hadn't started fighting cruisers yet.
That said, Given it's power and range, I could see 3-4 destroyers bombarding a Cruiser with it without taking any serious return fire (Excluding, naturally, the BEES). With accuracy to somewhat better match it's range, I am pretty happy.
Quote
- I'm still testing, but considering changing the PD Burst Laser, Heavy PD Burst Laser and Guardian PD Laser to attack fighters and ships. A trip to the 'balance lab' indicates that the PD_ONLY flag was set back when fighters used supplies to respawn and so is no longer as necessary. Still, the thing with beams is that if you make them too good, fighters and missiles become irrelevant. They don't ever miss- whereas everything else hits at best like 1/3 of the time. It ends up being a huge difference.
What? Do you mean older versions of this mod before you published it? its not like that in vanilla.

Yea, Beam weapons trade, generally damage or flux stats, for perfect or near perfect accuracy.
In vanilla, Vulcan cannon vs PD Laser damage is insane. Its Still quite a bit higher if you factor out the frag damage.
Quote
- That being said- the only caveat will be a slight reduction in charge regeneration for the small PD Burst Laser as well as the addition of charges (8 to be exact) with regen for the Guardian. All 3 still do not cost flux, however.
That is fine by me. The whole point of putting powerful PD lasers on your ship is to keep those darn fighters off of you. More-so now than in vanilla, where it was also largely for missiles.
If you are spending a Large energy slot for PD, I would hope the damage is similar.

Adding charge limits is a reasonable tradeoff. Maybe make it frag damage as well, despite being a beam. That way, its still stronger vs Missiles than fighters, and doesn't need to have the raww power to overwelm shields, tear through armor, and vaporize hull.
I don't mind it having less damage, I just want it to shoot at fighters because PD system.
Quote
- The Atropos (single) originally had regen, but that makes the Dagger never go back to the carrier and re-arm. Still, pretty much all the other fighters have built-in versions separating their strike weapons from the equippable ones, so I don't see why I can't add that back in and solve both problems. Done, updated for next release.
If that Fighter hullmod disables Missile Regen (Is that even possible? Is ammo regen mutable?) Do fighters stick around or go back to reload?
Quote
- There is a new small missile, the Hornet, rather similar to the Locust. The stinger is the less effective version, as well, but both are kind of rare in markets. Working on that.  :)
Hornet is already taken by another mod. Kinda a sidewinder missile (which is probably the wrong word) that moves in a sinusoidal pattern to throw off non-laser PD. I think you got 8 missiles instead of 3 as well, but less damage.
Glad to have more anti-fighter missiles. Locust is still my Favorite Missile thus far.
Quote
Glad this update helped things, though!
Indeed.

------
I think the Fighter Tooltips need a bit more information.
Before the Fighters became weapons instead of ships, they had various stats visible. While you can read the tooltips and get a general idea, A few things might be nice.
Make them in different colors if it supports some form of markup, or at the top at least.
-Shielded/Bubble Shield/Armored/Unarmored
-Fast/Slow
-Short/Medium/Long intercept Range
-PD/Intercepter/Bomber/Special

Just for a quick summery of functionality, Given there are like 5x as many fighter types and I don't know even most of them yet.
Generally I try for shielded ones because they tend to last a lot longer, but that requires me to skim the tooltips and its somewhat irritating. /#FirstWorldProblems

-----
Stabilized shield is GREAT. I almost always go for it over flux dissipation, because 10 flux vs 180 flux for 3 OP is kinda a large difference, and being able to hold your shield up is quite nice. Its almost like allowing a small amount of hard flux disspation (but not really)
The Frontal/Omni conversion changes are also pretty nifty, although I can't recall the exact effects at the moment.
Makes them both more tempting to use at least. (I generally used frontal to get bubble shields in vanilla. Here, sometimes no need to bother)
-----
It took me a while to figure out why my shields deactivated when I used accelerated Ammo feed. Not sure if vanilla or not, but yea....
Don't suppose that can also make Ballistic weapons charge faster? I suppose its feeding into the weapon instead of into the clips, but still.
-----
Went through many of the "Missions". Fighters are BRUTAL.
I really, really wish Guardian PD worked. XD
-----
I still love Tachyon lances. The changes make them very support weapons.
Tachyon lances tend to get stuck instantly vaporizing fighters and then stretching back out.
Managed to sweep one through a few wings when they got in my way. Kinda amusing, if infficient.
The long cooldown, high flux impulse, and massive damage is awesome. Reminds me of Energy Projectors from Halo (at least the books)
And, naturally, strains, tears through shields, breaks armor, EMPS everything, and causes it's target to explode in general.
the increased cooldown and Alpha power (I think) makes it more useful to tearing apart supporting vessels while actively ignoring heavier targets.

I tear apart Carriers first, because fighters. Then Frigates with a single beam (minus wolfs because teleport, they disjunction half the time) to keep them off of the rest of the fleet/myself. (Paragon)
(Always alternating because long recharge time) After that, I work my way up, and leave capitals for last. Because they have shields and generally I need all 4 beams to break the shield. Killing it's support leaves it surrounded, lets allies drain the shield, and once the shield is overworked, THEN I hit it with the horrible death beams of EMP and death.

Heh. I wonder if putting one on the Venture would work. I am pretty sure it has a Large energy slot. Not sure about flux stats, but wow.... (Maybe I should take a commision with TriTachyon?)
------
The mining Laser and Mining blaster tooltips, given how powerful they are now, Might need an update.

Mining Laser: Something about how it's massive power consumption requires a dedicated power feed, and while not optimized for combat, carving up armor and carving up asteroids have a lot in common.
Blast is similar, except its more blasting things apart.

Both are way more powerful than vanilla. To the point that I used mining lasers in med energy slots over other medium energy because sustained high damage.
Tooltips don't really communicate their surprising power. They used to be like third-rate weapons. Here, no so much...
-----

Some of your default layouts seem to violate weapon rules. I've seen energy in ballistic only slots, and so on.
(Might be campaign specific though)
-----

Saddens me that the hound lacks a medium slot. And for that matter many ships that used to have medium slots. I understand why to an extent, but still....
Trying to find Frigates and destroyers with medium slots is somewhat difficult.
Less a problem now that, hopefully, more small-Strike/Support weapons exist.

Also Love the significantly increased usage of hybrid slots.
haven't seen any omni-slots yet, but I'm sure i will.
-----
Blah, Blah, Card games Blah.
-----
Dedicated point defence is already nasty enough vs missiles WITHOUT guardian PD lasers. I've sent massive vollies before, and saw them all get torn apart by flak or fighter screens. Not sure that Guardian really needs to be THAT powerful to work vs missiles AND fighters.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2018, 08:29:57 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

Death_Silence_66

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 258
    • View Profile

The reserve deployment on the Conquest is kinda useless considering how much flux it generates and that it only has 2 bays.
Logged

Ranakastrasz

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 702
  • Prince Corwin of Amber
    • View Profile

The reserve deployment on the Conquest is kinda useless considering how much flux it generates and that it only has 2 bays.

I agree. Only notable thing is that it respawns the fighters instantly, but its not really optimized as a carrier, so the system seems weird.
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

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

You may want to take notes from this then:

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9550.0

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TezjLhhemFYX6Dzn6HAQay2CzBCQ-0Rqo7AyxDjpvyg/edit#gid=1857351268

 8)

Thank you! Will cross-reference!

I have a meeting soon, so I cannot comment on everyone's feedback quite yet, but I will do so tonight! Thank you for your continued commitment to helping make this mod better for everyone!

I did however specifically want to comment on this, since I took the time to go through the list (well at least about 33% of it, there are at least 3000 entries in this thing  :o ).



Annnd that brings me to something I want to only touch on very, very delicately, if I can. 

So, I completely get the reasoning behind doing this. It is a good thing- both from the perspective of modders keeping a sense of identity for their individual mods- and for those of us who love playing with multiple mods at once and don't want to see the same name repeated 4 times across 3 ships, one weapon and two factions.   :)

It just makes sense when looking at it that way.

So while I would love to keep this trend going, looking through it, pretty much every name in the mod conflicts with something. Like I said, 3000 entries. It is not like the naming pool for sci-fi combat vessels is infinite, and I can't even begin to imagine how long it would take me to put stuff in my mod if every new name has to be cross-referenced with every mod, new and listed here. As an example, even Gila-Monster is taken. Gila-Monster. So things like "Retribution" are a non-starter, and I thought "Revenant", "Vanguard" and "Acolyte" would also be a fairly safe bet when designing the mod. Nope.

That's not even considering the effort it would take to rename (and think of not-currently-taken new names) for every existing conflict. I actually did go through the most active mods several times (over the course of development) and look for name conflicts, so even doing that I apparently missed things.

Now, I know not all of these mods are active, and some names are spread across weapons and such instead of ships, but the sheer logistical complications and time commitment to do this are a little beyond the scope of what I can realistically support. I am truly sorry if this may disappoint some people, and if for whatever reason you are modder who really, really wants to keep a unique name where a duplicate exists here, let me know and I'll see what I can do.  :)

Short answer:
Due to the nature of this being a Total Conversion, and therefore necessarily separate from the rest of the general mod base, and do to the considerable work it would require and delays to future support of the mod it would cause in order to maintain an active upkeep of this standard, I am choosing to forgo this- at least when it comes to what currently exists in the mod. I'm not saying I am making 0 effort in this department, merely giving everyone my "Mea Culpa" as to why conflicts probably will exist.


I will still change the Hornet, though. I said I would, and I honestly wasn't quite sold on that being the name for the weapon anyway. I was trying to make 8 weapons from scratch in a day, and it probably came to mind quickly due to having seen it in that mod once upon a time. (Haven't played any mods since .65, been quite busy and any free time has been devoted to X-Com 2 or working on this)
Logged

A Random Jolteon

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 156
    • View Profile

I know this is a Total Conversion and therefore mutually exclusive from other mainstream mods, but you're aware the Ship&Weapons Pack also has a Hornet missile?

Shoot, I did not!  :( I'll try and think of something else. It gets a little rough with so many names already taken (honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was the only one). I will do the best that I can in that regard, though.
THAT WAS THE MISSILE I WAS THINKING OF IN A PAST POST!!!

Anyway, if you decide to keep the bee related theme, why not "Vespid"? It's a type of Wasp...I was going to say "Wasp", but there is already a drone called that.  Darn you for taking the perfect name Axle!
Logged
Hi. I exist. Bye.

AxleMC131

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1722
  • Amateur World-Builder
    • View Profile

If it helps, Meso reminded me that since this is a Total Conversion it isn't strictly as necessary to worry about name clashes. So @Morrokain I apologize for bringing that up without proper explanation there, and in all honesty it's fully up to you what you name things here.

The important bit in this case therefore is whether the name clashes bother you, not anyone else. If it does (or you work on another non-TC mod in future), then that thread and Google doc exist, and if it doesn't then no sweat.  ;)
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

A little later than advertised. Apologies!

Ranakastrasz
Spoiler
- I'm still testing, but considering changing the PD Burst Laser, Heavy PD Burst Laser and Guardian PD Laser to attack fighters and ships. A trip to the 'balance lab' indicates that the PD_ONLY flag was set back when fighters used supplies to respawn and so is no longer as necessary. Still, the thing with beams is that if you make them too good, fighters and missiles become irrelevant. They don't ever miss- whereas everything else hits at best like 1/3 of the time. It ends up being a huge difference.
What? Do you mean older versions of this mod before you published it? its not like that in vanilla.

Yea, Beam weapons trade, generally damage or flux stats, for perfect or near perfect accuracy.
In vanilla, Vulcan cannon vs PD Laser damage is insane. Its Still quite a bit higher if you factor out the frag damage.

If you're asking what I think you are, and you mean when did fighters cost supplies to re-launch, that was a couple versions of Vanilla ago, when the PD burst lasers were originally designed (not balanced, that came much later) That was what I meant.

Yes, Vulcan damage is powerful, even more so than I remember! I will also say that PD in Vanilla is a bit too powerful, imo, (again, mostly from a .7ish? perspective) from back when missile spam was an issue. Ugh, I really need to update my frame of reference for the wonderful post .8 changes, but.. time.  ::)

Regardless, this mod runs on a separate balance at this point. But I may have a teeny tiny bias towards keeping fighters in the fight for prolonged periods of time because I find their combat to be very fun and flashy! PD weapons were tuned more for missile defense than fighter defense, because main guns, though far, far less accurate against fighters, do still hit on occasion- for devastating damage. Star Destroyer heavy turbolasers still got an X Wing Fighter every once in a while, after all.

Beams just wipe fighters from the battle. Even more so than the locust, though if you are equipping more than one with extended missile racks then... yeah doubt much gets through your shields anyway lol.

The other reasoning was that for me, personally, knowing the power of the Atropos and Reaper combined with a very nasty and devious AI that will wait for reinforcements- then swarm and mass-fire those guided torps with a Full Assault + Eliminate command, I wanted one weapon I knew would be more of a guarantee against that type of heavy strike weapon. Flak was not as good at this itself because its aoe component requires it to fire very slowly (~1/3 the firing speed of vanilla), or again fighters and missiles are irrelevant. The Dual Flak Cannon is somewhat of an exception, maybe.

So, I'm curious. Before this change goes live, I don't know if you've fought the Persean League yet, but if you feel up for it they tend to favor the Atropos and will show you what I mean.  ;) Would you really feel safer fighting those kinds of strike ships knowing your really powerful single target PD is wasting its precious charges on passing Talons or PD Light Drones?

- That being said- the only caveat will be a slight reduction in charge regeneration for the small PD Burst Laser as well as the addition of charges (8 to be exact) with regen for the Guardian. All 3 still do not cost flux, however.
That is fine by me. The whole point of putting powerful PD lasers on your ship is to keep those darn fighters off of you. More-so now than in vanilla, where it was also largely for missiles.
If you are spending a Large energy slot for PD, I would hope the damage is similar.

Adding charge limits is a reasonable tradeoff. Maybe make it frag damage as well, despite being a beam. That way, its still stronger vs Missiles than fighters, and doesn't need to have the raww power to overwelm shields, tear through armor, and vaporize hull.
I don't mind it having less damage, I just want it to shoot at fighters because PD system.

I don't think frag damage would be necessary here more than likely. I'm not worried about its effectiveness vs frigates considering its large mount requirement, OP cost and poor range. Adding charges to reduce total DPS to be lower than a standard assault energy weapon is probably enough.

- The Atropos (single) originally had regen, but that makes the Dagger never go back to the carrier and re-arm. Still, pretty much all the other fighters have built-in versions separating their strike weapons from the equippable ones, so I don't see why I can't add that back in and solve both problems. Done, updated for next release.
If that Fighter hullmod disables Missile Regen (Is that even possible? Is ammo regen mutable?) Do fighters stick around or go back to reload?

Actually, curiously, that is one of the only things not in the API. I have made suggestion in the relevant forum thread. This is an easy way around it though, so at this point I'm not sure it's even as necessary as I thought. (For me, at least)

I think the Fighter Tooltips need a bit more information.
Before the Fighters became weapons instead of ships, they had various stats visible. While you can read the tooltips and get a general idea, A few things might be nice.
Make them in different colors if it supports some form of markup, or at the top at least.
-Shielded/Bubble Shield/Armored/Unarmored
-Fast/Slow
-Short/Medium/Long intercept Range
-PD/Intercepter/Bomber/Special

Just for a quick summery of functionality, Given there are like 5x as many fighter types and I don't know even most of them yet.
Generally I try for shielded ones because they tend to last a lot longer, but that requires me to skim the tooltips and its somewhat irritating. /#FirstWorldProblems

Excellent suggestion! I really like this and will attempt to implement this in the next release. Also planning on adding a few new fighter wings.  :)


Stabilized shield is GREAT. I almost always go for it over flux dissipation, because 10 flux vs 180 flux for 3 OP is kinda a large difference, and being able to hold your shield up is quite nice. Its almost like allowing a small amount of hard flux disspation (but not really)
The Frontal/Omni conversion changes are also pretty nifty, although I can't recall the exact effects at the moment.
Makes them both more tempting to use at least. (I generally used frontal to get bubble shields in vanilla. Here, sometimes no need to bother)

Hey, good, glad someone noticed those changes! I am a little worried stabilized shields may be too "must have" at this point for its cost, however. Some adjustments may unfortunately be in order with that one.

It took me a while to figure out why my shields deactivated when I used accelerated Ammo feed. Not sure if vanilla or not, but yea....
Don't suppose that can also make Ballistic weapons charge faster? I suppose its feeding into the weapon instead of into the clips, but still.
Thanks for the tooltip feedback. Also, another good suggestion on making strike weapons better for ships with this. Made a note!

Went through many of the "Missions". Fighters are BRUTAL.
I really, really wish Guardian PD worked. XD

I think this one has the highest likelihood to also hit fighters out of the ones mentioned above. If a better torpedo defense is needed, either the two lower level beams will handle that niche (Tooltips will reflect this) or, if its possible and I have time, I'll make a new hullmod that changes the PD Beam AI to only hit missiles while this is equipped, similar to PD defense AI for small weapons.

I still love Tachyon lances. The changes make them very support weapons.
Tachyon lances tend to get stuck instantly vaporizing fighters and then stretching back out.
Managed to sweep one through a few wings when they got in my way. Kinda amusing, if infficient.
The long cooldown, high flux impulse, and massive damage is awesome. Reminds me of Energy Projectors from Halo (at least the books)
And, naturally, strains, tears through shields, breaks armor, EMPS everything, and causes it's target to explode in general.
the increased cooldown and Alpha power (I think) makes it more useful to tearing apart supporting vessels while actively ignoring heavier targets.

I tear apart Carriers first, because fighters. Then Frigates with a single beam (minus wolfs because teleport, they disjunction half the time) to keep them off of the rest of the fleet/myself. (Paragon)
(Always alternating because long recharge time) After that, I work my way up, and leave capitals for last. Because they have shields and generally I need all 4 beams to break the shield. Killing it's support leaves it surrounded, lets allies drain the shield, and once the shield is overworked, THEN I hit it with the horrible death beams of EMP and death.

Heh. I wonder if putting one on the Venture would work. I am pretty sure it has a Large energy slot. Not sure about flux stats, but wow.... (Maybe I should take a commision with TriTachyon?)

Haha I love this description and that is pretty much what I intended for the Death Star Tachyon Lance. Still working on that new sound effect to match it and maaaybe a tiny polish of its graphic, idk.

The mining Laser and Mining blaster tooltips, given how powerful they are now, Might need an update.

Mining Laser: Something about how it's massive power consumption requires a dedicated power feed, and while not optimized for combat, carving up armor and carving up asteroids have a lot in common.
Blast is similar, except its more blasting things apart.

Both are way more powerful than vanilla. To the point that I used mining lasers in med energy slots over other medium energy because sustained high damage.
Tooltips don't really communicate their surprising power. They used to be like third-rate weapons. Here, no so much...

Ah, good call. I did make them better because I wanted all weapons to feel useful on some ships/loadouts and the mining variants are actively used in Independent convoys and they need to at least hold their own against pirates, pathers, and early pirate players.  :)

Some of your default layouts seem to violate weapon rules. I've seen energy in ballistic only slots, and so on.
(Might be campaign specific though)

Hm, I'll do a quick sweep and see if I missed anything. It's more than possible since .8 broke the variant editor in dev mode for me. Ive been forced to rely on text editing to change/add variants with skins since the ship editor currently doesn't support them. (Last I checked anyway)

Saddens me that the hound lacks a medium slot. And for that matter many ships that used to have medium slots. I understand why to an extent, but still....
Trying to find Frigates and destroyers with medium slots is somewhat difficult.
Less a problem now that, hopefully, more small-Strike/Support weapons exist.

Also Love the significantly increased usage of hybrid slots.
haven't seen any omni-slots yet, but I'm sure i will.

 :( But... but... Brawler, Cerberus, Tempest, Monitor, Enforcer, Buffalo MkII, Hammerhead, Medusa? lol jk- Allllllriight I'll add a couple more frigates with medium mounts. Got some ideas there.  8)
[close]
Death_Silence_66
Spoiler
The reserve deployment on the Conquest is kinda useless considering how much flux it generates and that it only has 2 bays.
I agree. Only notable thing is that it respawns the fighters instantly, but its not really optimized as a carrier, so the system seems weird.
Yeah, you're right. This was a place holder. I need to think of a good midtech system to implement here. Thanks for the feedback! Any suggestions?
[close]
« Last Edit: January 12, 2018, 05:38:07 PM by Morrokain »
Logged

Death_Silence_66

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 258
    • View Profile

I think giving it maneuvering jets again would be fine.
Logged

Death_Silence_66

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 258
    • View Profile

Reserve deployment is wasted on a few other ships (Eagle, Falcon, and Medusa). When these ships spot the enemy they automatically activate it, building flux and slowing their advance. It seems to actually make them less combat effective. Additionally, AI captains are far too eager to use the engage order, meaning their 0-flux boost goes unused.

Also, the medusa seems to hang back and behave like a carrier rather than a destroyer.
Logged

Morrokain

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2143
  • Megalith Dreadnought - Archean Order
    • View Profile

If it helps, Meso reminded me that since this is a Total Conversion it isn't strictly as necessary to worry about name clashes. So @Morrokain I apologize for bringing that up without proper explanation there, and in all honesty it's fully up to you what you name things here.

The important bit in this case therefore is whether the name clashes bother you, not anyone else. If it does (or you work on another non-TC mod in future), then that thread and Google doc exist, and if it doesn't then no sweat.  ;)
I know this is a Total Conversion and therefore mutually exclusive from other mainstream mods, but you're aware the Ship&Weapons Pack also has a Hornet missile?

Shoot, I did not!  :( I'll try and think of something else. It gets a little rough with so many names already taken (honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was the only one). I will do the best that I can in that regard, though.
THAT WAS THE MISSILE I WAS THINKING OF IN A PAST POST!!!

Anyway, if you decide to keep the bee related theme, why not "Vespid"? It's a type of Wasp...I was going to say "Wasp", but there is already a drone called that.  Darn you for taking the perfect name Axle!

@AxleMC131: No apology necessary and I am still glad this was brought to my attention!  :)

@A Random Joltean: I think that has also been taken, not 100% sure, but it sounds familiar. It's a good name, though.



I think giving it maneuvering jets again would be fine.

Hm. That could work. I generally don't like that on capitals because it doesn't make them feel like caps, but I think that was when it gave a straight increase to max speed and caps were more maneuverable than they currently are. Actually made a change on that right before release. Now it just essentially allows you the 0-flux boost while you have flux (and increases maneuverability of course). The earlier version was too strong.

Reserve deployment is wasted on a few other ships (Eagle, Falcon, and Medusa). When these ships spot the enemy they automatically activate it, building flux and slowing their advance. It seems to actually make them less combat effective. Additionally, AI captains are far too eager to use the engage order, meaning their 0-flux boost goes unused.

Also, the medusa seems to hang back and behave like a carrier rather than a destroyer.

I'll agree for Eagle and Falcon, they are primarily combat vessels and those were placeholders for them as well, but... even then, I don't actually think extra fighters are ever a waste considering relative fighter strength in a battle, even one on one, means more missiles get through, less disabled weapons/engines in anything less than high tech vessels with shields raised. The problem with this is the flux slowing down the attack ship. I think fiddling around with the charges and regen of the system could allow it to not cost flux at all, therefore not slow these vessels down. Otherwise, Maneuvering Jets might be ok for them as well, but I would have to test out the feel and balance. It could break those ships in the opposite direction.

Medusa is the high tech Condor, so it is a carrier. One open bay, one built in set of very powerful Terminator Drones. Probably needs to be a battle carrier though since it can also equip a medium energy weapon.

Engage AI... I'm not sure I can do anything about that, to be honest. Maybe. I'm not sure how easy it is to get into and change that code, or even where it would be. A possible solution to this problem could be a built in hullmod that does something similar to the player skill that allows flux boosting at 1% flux (so allows engage and boosting simultaneously- I'd imagine.) I could put that on cruisers that are not dedicated carriers. Idk that might be tricky to balance as well, however.
Logged
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 125