thanks again for the swift reply
this is fantastic to hear!
then i guess i will happily and patiently await these changes, thank you again for this information, it makes me smile greatly.
i feel there will indeed be a place for all versions within the community, freedom of choice is always happily received
i hope you achieve your plans with this, i am enjoying them greatly so far.
thank you.
I figured out the issue with the Archean Order overrunning the entire sector like Genghis Khan and it has nothing to do with their ships being OP per se, but rather their entire faction being OP. I noticed then when checking some industry output comparisons on the colony screen and found, to my horror, that Archean Order planets outproduce the rest of the entire sector combined. Their capitol is a size 12 planet, which I found amusing because the game caps planets at size 10. There was literally no category of commodity type that the AO did not own all the top five slots in, which is particularly amusing because this included food, despite most of their worlds orbiting a black hole.
And being that all of their worlds come with star fortresses, military bases and orbital foundries, there is basically zero chance for anyone else to actually take one of their worlds without direct player intervention to cripple them first, and even that doesn't do much good because the base defense strength of a size 12 planet - even without any functional ground defenses - is higher than the invasion strength that any other faction could ever hope to muster.
In other words, if Star Sector vanilla factions are like Gas Town, Bullet Farm and the Citadel, then the Achean Order are Clan Jade Falcon.
To emphasize this I started a new map with "Enable Random Core Worlds" turned on and lo & behold, the AO became just as weak as everyone else. Their fleets actually fail at invasions and their planets actually got captured in return once in a while. Without an economic base that could churn out five Death Stars before their rivals could build a single TIE Fighter it turns out that they are actually (gasp) fairly & decently balanced against everyone else.
In summary, if anyone is using this mod alongside Nexerlin, I strongly suggest taking the random core worlds option. Otherwise your campaign will be just watching the entire sector getting gobbled up like a steamroller over a community of ant hills.
As far as ships go... the AO stock ships aren't OP, but a devious player can make them OP pretty darn easy. For starters, the first thing I learned was that there's a lot of weapons out there with zero flux, and I soon set out to design my ships around the principle of "flux free living" when it came to weapon selection. This was also handy when paired with the focusing hullmod that adds 500 range to all beam weapon, because +60% penalty to a flux of zero is still zero.
From there it was just a matter of "how many pulse lasers and phase cannons can I stick on a ship?" and making sure that all my officers took Defense Systems to level 3. Why that particular skill? Because at level 3 they can (slowly) dissipate even hard flux with their shields still up. Since none of my ships were producing any flux of their own, and the zero-flux weapons tended to have a low point cost, this meant that they could tank anything short of a space station with near impunity.
But interestingly enough it wasn't the AO ships that I turned into OP monsters, it was the Adamntine ships. Specifically, their version of the Eagle with all energy mounts, 360 shields and the haste spell built right in. I found that if I just covered it in pulse cannon 2s in all the small mounts, then stuck thermal cannons in the mediums and added the weapon range booster, egads, they were unstoppable. Those weapons might look weapon on paper but when you've got literally a dozen guns all firing at once at double speed they can turn battleships from pristine to scrap metal in under ten seconds. Even stations could not withstand the onslaught of half a dozen of these things working together and taking turns.
Meanwhile, as for those oversized Hegemony mega-ships... I found a whole new purpose for them and it had nothing to do with guns. With all those hybrid mounts I realized that the true calling of that giant carrier was to not carry fighters at all (in fact I deliberately avoid using fighters with this mod, because maxing flux vents pays off a lot more - see above). There's two missile systems here with a range of 10,000 - one hits armor, the other hits shields (and causes EMP). So I just crammed eight of these things onto there instead and let them hang out all the way in the back, unleashing a steady stream of MIRV pain non-stop. Get about five of these things kitted out like that and you can take down starbases without ever coming into range of enemy weapons or even their fighters.
And my final act of cheese is this: With enough vents and a good officer, it is possible to kit out phases ships that can stay phased permanently. In fact, they can actually lose flux while remaining phased. Needless to say, this turns them into doom-snipers from hell. This is the one place where I flip my usual policy and go for maximum flux weapons (like Tachyon Cannons). Move up, fire once at absurd range, watch enemy instantly explode from one volley, then phase out and laugh as the enemy swarms around helplessly and my flux slowly fades away for the next fatal blow. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Thanks for all the detail from your experiences! I especially appreciate your take on missiles vs fighters- on carriers- and how you feel about flux free weapons vs flux causing weapons in different builds- both what makes them seem attractive based upon your hull choices, and your detail as to why you feel that way in each instance. You describe lots of builds across multiple factions- which is awesome!
Did you try strike weapon builds to measure the effectiveness of upfront damage vs continuous damage? In my experience, at least, and I am not claiming to be an expert here- the upfront spike damage is usually worth the cost your ship incurs in flux. This is especially true in the case of damage spike overloads leading to more missile vulnerability.
Most of what I will call "end tier" vessels like what you are describing are meant to feel powerful both in sense of while under AI control and especially powerful in the player's hands. Player powercreep due to officers and skills is already a pretty large factor in and of itself, so it's not really surprising to me that you feel like you can easily beat fleets by those specialized strategies.
The concern I have at the moment is more in line with their availability- (lockdown protocol will serve to do this once derelicts are not an issue and other missions are in place to get these powerful blueprints)- rather than their strength in the players hands. This is partly because I have end game plans that will require powerful tools to overcome. These tools are not meant to encourage a certain faction to be commissioned with, because the idea here is that all factions have powerful tools unlocked by high reputation/commission- and exploration can in rare cases also give you the blueprint for these tools. (As a side note would I will say the Luddic Church could still use some love in that sense. Another good capital, I'd say. Onslaught seems like a good choice, but maybe make it rarer to spawn and more in line with a Dreadnought class... hrm.)
Thanks for the input on industries regarding Nex! It helps to know that in random mode it seems more balanced. The Archean capitol is size 10 and so is the Adamantine Consortium capital. I didn't think you could go above 10 to be honest, so unless Nex allows factions to upgrade levels it should be 10.
Without Nex, this just makes it harder for the player to assault - which was the original intent. I will have to think about ways of potentially balancing out Nex's - non random core worlds' campaigns.
As far as your station concerns go, that is intended. Most factions have been modified to have stations at the majority of their colonies and, unlike core factions, the Archean Order colonies outside their capital system are more heavily spaced out among hostile foes and therefore more easily harassed.
Their colony size may need some adjustments. I was thinking about this anyway to prevent things like the Megalith from occasionally being sold on the open market. (Availability concerns like stated above, etc.)
Anyway, keep the details coming as you play.
It helps balance things out better when I have lots of information.
*EDIT*
For some testing while I fix other things, I started a new game on the current version to check out the faction colonies' market share. At least without Nex, I'm not experiencing what you are reporting as far as market domination goes.
Ilyss is size 10 and Lilith is size 9. The Adamantine Consortium seems to dominate market share far more than the Archean Order, and the Hegemony dominates ship production by double that of the Temple of the Dark Stars. The only thing that the Archean Order seems to have a large percent of market share (at 10% to tie with Lilith in first place) is domestic goods and food at 12% market share respectively.
I'll keep my eye on this and add Nex to see how that changes things.
There was literally no category of commodity type that the AO did not own all the top five slots in, which is particularly amusing because this included food, despite most of their worlds orbiting a black hole.
Yeah, I'll have to install Nex and see if this happens. I'm not seeing that otherwise when just running the mod. How far into the campaign were you when this was happening? Food production is probably a little too high for sure. (If you read the description of Ilyss and Xolydunne it kind of describes some details on how they maintain food production.)
Don't get
too caught up in realism. Starsector isn't really about that because it would be boring if it was. In that sense you are going to have to take things with a grain of salt as far as that is concerned. There could be lots of valid reasons why this could theoretically be possible with the "right technology"
Spoiler:
Spoiler
No its not old Domain tech. It's something more mysterious.