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[SCC]

As far as the Diktat, I'll just say we've got some specific and fairly expansive plans for that, but as to the details, I'm afraid it's a 

It's stuff along the "Andrada was actually a player character" vibe, isn't it?

Jeez. Thanks for trying to invalidate my entire sum of experience with mods over my entire life. Anyway, I've already looked through all the pages of the ship/weapon pack for any quips about balance. There are very few; barely any. Ships that were mentioned include names like Aurora, LC's Cathedral and Excelsior. Some people voiced concerns over the latter but such SPOOKY negative feedback was promptly (and unsurprisingly) denied. Where's this "discussion thread"? I honestly can't find any such thing.

This would be better answered in SWP thread, but: Aurora is a strong, but not broken cruiser (not to mention it's from the base game), Cathedral is basically a flying station with a fitting price tag and it can't really focus all of its guns at a single target, and Excelsior is theoretically very strong, so fragile and hard to fly, you better be bloody breaking the game in half, after you finally get good at using it.

[lethargie]

I have played quite a lot with SWP and it is incredible how well integrated it is into the game. On all my playthrought I have not found any outlier that really stood out by being overpowered. If anything I often hesitate between ship from vanilla and ship from SWP.

The purposeful outlier are IBB ship, special ship rewarded from bar initiated missions. You do not need to interact with those if they bother you, and you cannot get a blueprint fro these ships anyway. There is also the Excelsior has you mention, but its a very situational outlier that I don't recall seeing in any of my games. In those case where it does shine, it require incredible practice to ultimately do something you could do more naturally.

The mod has its own, obvious discussion thread. "negative feedback that was denied" if there was any are in these thread absurd and baseless accusation by person who have no business arguing balance, the discussion of which would simply bog down everyone.

[SapphireSage]

While I would like to argue that the faction mods are in-fact well balanced; however, I'm going to take the side that disagrees with it but more on that in a bit.

With regards to SWP, I will say that since 0.7 or so it is the mod that has the honor of having content that's most often confused of being from vanilla, along with some oft less remembered features of Nex even from some of the more frequent players. I will vouch that most of the content in the mod is indeed well-balanced with vanilla aside from the (unique) IBB bounty mod-ships.

The Excelsior had some people talking about it on the SWP topic directly after HELMUT made this topic here. To its credit, if there were ever a ship that had almost no skill ceiling, it would be the excelsior and while it seems fairly damning that he was able to tackle those stations with it alone we should keep in mind a couple other things with regards to the game proper.

• Nobody is lying when they say that the excelsior takes a very high degree of skill simply to use in combat. Its high skill ceiling comes at the cost of a high skill floor. Even if you're not a fan of mods, I believe the SWP contains a standalone mission wherein you use the excelsior to fight off other "experimental/prototype" frigates in a sun's corona that can be done just to try out how difficult it really is to use. You can use the simulator in the mission refit screen too to try it out in less extreme conditions.
• Following off that, In his topic HELMUT himself does state that those recordings took more than a few tries of practice before he was able to pull it off. So, while someone can eventually save scum his way through it. I would not expect anyone to make use of this in their iron man runs.
• The Excelsior costs about as much as a cruiser to deploy and loses 40% CR from a single combat with the PPT of a frigate. While it was possible to solo lower armored battlestations, its not likely that the same could be done to a moderately sized, more mobile fleet in the time required, and while you do get a fair amount of power from it, a cruiser can give you about as much as well as the ability to take a good hit or two while being much easier to reach its nominal DP effectiveness.

Now, about the general mod balance. While it is true that the general ship and fleet balance is well reigned in, I cannot agree with regards to the campaign and economic layer. In this aspect almost every faction is overtuned with a couple outliers being wildly overpowered.

For reference, my faction mod list includes:

• Blackrock Drive Yards
• Dassault-Mikoyan Engineering
• Diable Avionics
• Interstellar Imperium
• Junk Pirates (includes ASP, PACK, and Junk Pirates)
• Neutrino
• ORA
• SCY Nation
• Shadowyards Reconstruction Authority
• Sylphon RnD
• Tyrador Safeguard Coalition

Now, my brief glance over what each of these faction have is by no means extensive, I mostly just cruised over some planets and looked in their markets as well as running through the global list to look for nanoforges and synchrotrons. I discovered however that mods have a major issue with pristine nanoforge spam.

Of the mods I had listed above Only Tyrador, Sylphon, ORA, PACK, and Junk Pirates do not have a pristine nanoforge. This means out of 13 factions, 8 of them have a pristine nanoforge(with DME possessing 2). In contrast, 2 out of vanilla's 6 factions (8 if including pathers and pirates) have a pristine nanoforge on their worlds. This tilts things out of vanilla's favor with regards to simulated combat due to D-mods having a hand in the combat calculations, so the mod factions will be more likely to win their fights over time, which matters more with Nexerelin. It also makes things more difficult for a player that's building up his colonies as their raids will contain stronger ships with no cost to their officer power or quantity due to not requiring doctrine to cover the gap in quality for no d-mods.

In terms of corrupted nanoforge, the coalition, ORA (has 2), DME, and Shadowyards each have one. Some mods also add a corrupted nanoforge for the pirates as well. In contrast with vanilla, nanoforges belong to any faction that does not have a pristine forge (excepting pathers/pirates though pirates do have an orbital works). The other factions don't need a corrupted forge since they're (ab)using pristine nanoforges.

Surprisingly though, Sylphon doesn't have any forges even though as far as I know, it's an established faction. Meanwhile, PACK and Junk Pirates keep the trend of pirates not having any forges.

Meanwhile, synchrotrons, which don't affect ships at all, is kept much more reigned in with only Diable Avionics and Imperium(On the independent world, Traian) adding one.

AIs are something that are either not touched, or implemented with what seems to be wild abandon. As far as I saw Sylphon RnD was the tamest with its AI usage using a total of 5 alphas, 7 betas, and 7 gamma cores in its markets. DA goes a bit gamma happy using 4 alphas, 2 betas, and 22 gammas in its faction markets. Imperium is the most market damaging with its cores with its usage of 15 Alpha cores(3 as admins).

Lastly, as far as I could tell, Interstellar Imperium was the only faction in my list that made use of the Planetary Shield generator by having it on its homeworld (with alpha core). This basically makes it immune to most anything unless you happen to be using the shield generator changes mod.

As you can see from above, many mods do have an issue with being overtuned at the very least on the campaign layer with a few more having issues with regards to AI usage in the marketplace. I do request that most of the mods that make use of a pristine forge to downgrade to a corrupted forge to better match vanilla sensibilities.

As an aside, I've noticed when playing with mods that I haven't really done any exploration at all. It makes sense then after learning about this from a friend as it turns out I was able to simply raid for everything that I've needed rather then needing to go out to the fringes for the rare and powerful equipment when I can guarantee what I need in the sector with a few marines.

PS. Simply ignoring parts of a mod that could be OP (such as IBB) isn't a great answer if the person playing was a min-maxer as if something OP exists or is perceived to exist then they will use it or perform it regardless of how boring or how much real world time cost there is to doing it. There's a reason Alex is wary about such things and frequently goes on to quote that "players will optimize fun out of a game, if given the chance" from the article. Sure, that might not affect you or many others, but ignoring that issue would mean that there will be a very decent size group that will not be able to have fun playing the game, which could lead to their non min-maxing friends not playing either on their recommendation. To a min-maxer the act of being sub-optimal intentionally is unenjoyable.

[Megas]

@ SapphireSage:  Player does not need mods to get most he needs from raiding.  He can already get a good set from raiding New Maxios alone.  Asher in Gilead is nearby and is often left unprotected.  Both have corrupted nanoforge.  Good to grab few things the Church has that Independents do not.  Then there is Rasevalg in Valhalla.  Sometimes guarded, sometimes not.  One of two places to get (XIV) blueprints.  The tricky one is Culann, with lots of exclusive blueprints, but often heavily guarded.  I now bring a pure phase fleet to sneak past Tri-Tachyon patrols and raid for those exclusive blueprints!

However, there is a price to pay for raiding instead of exploring early.  The price is you often get junk common blueprints for things normally found in a pack.  If you get sick of seeing blueprints for Harpoon racks, Lashers, and Hammerheads, then either you save-scum like crazy until rare stuff drops or explore and find those packs first then raid when only rare stuff is left.  This is important for things only found at heavily guarded worlds like Culann or worlds with stability problems like K. Starworks.

Pirates have Heavy Industry (I do not remember if they have nanoforge), but Pathers do not (no way to raid for Prometheus 2).

About mods...

Unless most ship hulls were radically changed since late 0.7.2 or early 0.8, about half of the Blackrock hulls are mildly overpowered for being green high-tech ships that can use ballistics.  NPCs are supposed to be balanced by using their faction weapons that are generally somewhat worse alternatives of standard weapons, but player can mount standard weapons instead and have stronger ships.  The others, I have not played recently.

I have no problem with mod factions having their pristine nanoforge.  After all, player will probably find at least one in the sector.  Ditto for synchrotron.

As for cores, if they are not perma-hostile with Hegemony, they should not have cores at all.  The only standard faction that uses cores is Tri-Tachyon, and you see a human for the portrait (but Pathers do not lie).

PS. Simply ignoring parts of a mod that could be OP (such as IBB) isn't a great answer if the person playing was a min-maxer as if something OP exists or is perceived to exist then they will use it or perform it regardless of how boring or how much real world time cost there is to doing it. There's a reason Alex is wary about such things and frequently goes on to quote that "players will optimize fun out of a game, if given the chance" from the article. Sure, that might not affect you or many others, but ignoring that issue would mean that there will be a very decent size group that will not be able to have fun playing the game, which could lead to their non min-maxing friends not playing either on their recommendation. To a min-maxer the act of being sub-optimal intentionally is unenjoyable.

I am an unapologetic classic example of that "min-maxer", and will optimize the fun out of the game.  The power of power compels!

[lethargie]

While I would like to argue that the faction mods are in-fact well balanced; however, I'm going to take the side that disagrees with it but more on that in a bit.

While your in depth analysis is nice, your main point is irrelevant. The only mod discussed is SWP for added variety.

In fact the only other comment I found who alluded to other faction mods agree with you.

You're just wrong. The starsector modding scene is WAY more advanced than you seem to think. The linked S&W pack is considered vanilla balanced. MANY MANY MANY mods are considered to be NOT balanced, but tons of people have posted about it. Things like borken/neutrino are seen in some ways as "boss factions" now that knight's aren't a choice anymore. Additionally things like DME/DA/shadowyard/brdy are seen as a bit overpowered (at least imo, others might disagree). Sometimes mod factions are seen as potentially underpowered, but also they're sometimes underpowered on purpose (junk/pack/kadur).

The OP as made baseless accusation about the balance and the receptivity of people involved in the SWP, which understandably can annoy people that worked a lot to read/analyse/implement/test it. The general established point, that is a close to objective as possible, is that installing the SWP add a lot of "personality" to different faction at no cost to balance. I would add that it is also extremely stable and therefore a perfect solution to spice up the sector.

[Thaago]

The main issue of balance with SWP, and it is unavoidable, is the "perfect tool" syndrome. Because it adds a lot of ships in roles that vanilla lacks - and because those ships are competitive, balanced options - a player with SWP can more often find the 'perfect' ship for whatever job they need done, rather than having to settle for the closest approximation. The net effect is that with SWP a player can have a more powerful fleet, if they are willing to hunt around and fine tune.

This isn't anything unique to SWP, and it can't be helped: any mod that adds lots of balanced options will cause the same thing.

The minor issue with all mod balance is that they are constantly being refined and tuned, and their balance target (the base game) changes every version. So yes, there probably ARE unbalanced aspects of every mod. However, if you find some and give a reasonable post about them, the authors are usually very happy to make a change and bring things in line. (And luckily no one has copied the new Assault Chaingun as a balance point.... yet. )

All that said, I have noticed a trend towards power creep lately in the modding community. Not in factions that are designed to be vanilla balanced, but in 'boss' factions, unique vanilla+ ships, etc that has then encouraged the NOT vanilla balanced factions to up their numbers.

[Megas]

The main issue of balance with SWP, and it is unavoidable, is the "perfect tool" syndrome. Because it adds a lot of ships in roles that vanilla lacks - and because those ships are competitive, balanced options - a player with SWP can more often find the 'perfect' ship for whatever job they need done, rather than having to settle for the closest approximation. The net effect is that with SWP a player can have a more powerful fleet, if they are willing to hunt around and fine tune.

This is something I recently realized about a mod I made for another game, and in the middle of updating it, I am considering culling out the less interesting stuff.  For example, that blue laser weapon can go, but the flashy and unusual rainbow laser may stay.

And yes, having more "balanced" gap fillers can increase power level a bit.

Another possible problem with more perfect tools is they can dilute the item pool if much of the loot is randomly generated.  It can be a problem if it becomes harder to acquire basic, workhorse items.

[Midnight Kitsune]

The main issue of balance with SWP, and it is unavoidable, is the "perfect tool" syndrome. Because it adds a lot of ships in roles that vanilla lacks - and because those ships are competitive, balanced options - a player with SWP can more often find the 'perfect' ship for whatever job they need done, rather than having to settle for the closest approximation. The net effect is that with SWP a player can have a more powerful fleet, if they are willing to hunt around and fine tune.

This isn't anything unique to SWP, and it can't be helped: any mod that adds lots of balanced options will cause the same thing.

The minor issue with all mod balance is that they are constantly being refined and tuned, and their balance target (the base game) changes every version. So yes, there probably ARE unbalanced aspects of every mod. However, if you find some and give a reasonable post about them, the authors are usually very happy to make a change and bring things in line. (And luckily no one has copied the new Assault Chaingun as a balance point.... yet. )

All that said, I have noticed a trend towards power creep lately in the modding community. Not in factions that are designed to be vanilla balanced, but in 'boss' factions, unique vanilla+ ships, etc that has then encouraged the NOT vanilla balanced factions to up their numbers.

I'm pretty sure that is the goal/ point of many mods: To fill in gaps in ship roles that vanilla misses. Otherwise you get multiple flavors of the same ship or weapon.