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[MesoTroniK]

- Changes to many combat scripts so that Exigency weapons / ship systems are compliant with Scy ships and any future mods that use TwigLib.

That requires the latest version of TwigLib, but only if you are running Scy in which case end users should have the latest version anyways. I thought about mentioning this in the OP but decided not to, if you folks think I should add it please let me know but honestly I consider this not my problem heh

[HELMUT]

I played a Nexerelin campaign with Exigency and reach level 42. Early game is, as expected, incredibly painful for Exigency ships. Even a bunch of Hounds can be a serious threat to a lone Yria as the repulsor isn't a reliable defense system.

I tried at first to farm pirate bounties like i do with any factions but it didn't really worked. Yrias and Elhiurs are defenseless alone. A Zephos can work as it can constantly teleport in the enemy's back but only if it's 1v1, it also get shredded when outnumbered.

So i decided to trade food to earn enough money to afford my first Nasir with two fighter wings. Things went much better after this. I think it's actually impossible to play without fighters as they can act as a meatshield for the rest of your fleet. I would have liked to find more Kaivor as their ability to spam Mx missiles and their repulsor was all an Exigency fleet could dream of. Alas, a bunch of Glynado will do for now. I didn't really wanted to go full carrier, so i also bought some standard ships and glued them around the Nasir to form a protective deathball.

The Zephos have been my flagship for nearly the whole campaign. Mounting a dual Typhoon on that thing was very tempting but i decided to only use Exi weapons. I went first with a modified Brawler variant with two Vindictive arrays which worked pretty well. 500 DPS for 100 flux/sec and the price of an Arbalest AC was quite beastly, especially since i could teleport in the back of enemy ships with frontal shields. The only problem was that the VA is a PD and had the bad habit to track missiles rather than DPSing the enemy ship but it's more because i was too lazy to control them manually.

This loadout worked wonder until late game when i couldn't approach the overleveled enemies flagships, even from behind. I tried to switch for a dual repulsor blaster to try those. While i was able to perform some cool tricks (threw a Kurmaraja wreckage at a Gemini, which ended up crushed between the derelict and the enemy Victory flagship) it was otherwise a very meh weapon. Extremely expensive, nearly no damage... "Repulsing" enemy shots was very difficult (and risky) on top of that.

I switched to a dual Flail. While it wasn't incredibly flashy, at least i could bombard the enemy at a safe distance.

For the cruiser, i was convinced i would love the Pergon. A bucketload of Mxs, a big, long range gun, twice the hull points as a Nasir. An artillery anchor that would have been perfect for my deathball strategy.

Problem, it can't aim for crap.

Either i was monumentally bad at aiming with that thing (the AI wasn't exactly better) or the enemy was making absurd efforts to dodge every single CIGEN shells i threw at them. Thanks god for the Mx40 it wasn't completely worthless but i swear its main gun was cursed. I think it would really benefit from a projectile speed increase to make it less supernaturally inaccurate.

And then i got the big one. And at more than 400.000 credits, it took me a while to grind but it was worth it.

The Irithia is absolutely necessary for every Exigency fleets. Very tanky (for an Exi ship), a gazillion Mx missiles, 6 regenerating torpedoes and 2 launch bays for your swarm of fighters, the other mounts almost feel superfluous on it. And most importantly, the Tethys drive, which teleport enemy ships right next to you. And because i was deathballing all my ships around my Irithia, that enemy ship life expectancy was usually very, very short.

And they lived happily ever after and killed a lot of pirates.

And i got very wealthy and i thought: "wow, one Irithia is very good, why not getting another Irithia?"

And it was a very stupid decision.

When the player target an enemy ship, the Irithia teleport it to your fleet, which is good. But when you have two Irithia, they BOTH try to teleport the enemy ship next to it, which end up in a massive clusterfrack where your two Irithia are playing ball with the enemy Paragon, IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR FLEET.

And because the Paragon was constantly being teleported around, my bombers couldn't quite catch it. When they did and dropped their bombs, it could be teleported to another place at any second. The bombs however, would keep going where the Paragon was, in this case, my own ship.

And that's how i lost the Irithia i just bought.

So yeah, only one of those per fleet.

Other than this, Exigency felt pretty fun and balanced. Of course they are still incredibly vulnerable to beam weaponry, which i learned the hard way when i encountered a "Tachyon-lance party" themed fleet (1 Paragon, 1 Odyssey and 1 Apogee for 7 Tachyon lances, i didn't knew SS+ could do that kind of things)  which butchered all my ships with terrifying ease.

Just another little issue i noted, Kaivors are considered as bombers (they follow rally strike forces orders) which isn't wanted as they are much better on the frontline to soak up damage with the rest of the fleet.

There's quite a lot of stuffs i haven't tried. No Indra for sale, no Naithyr, no Naxos either, which sadly would have worked very well with my strategy. My stations were determined to only sell me Glynados, more Glynados and then even more Glynados. Same thing for guns, lot of guns to try but not enough ships with medium mounts.

Aaaand i think that's all.

[Zudgemud]

For the cruiser, i was convinced i would love the Pergon. A bucketload of Mxs, a big, long range gun, twice the hull points as a Nasir. An artillery anchor that would have been perfect for my deathball strategy.

Problem, it can't aim for crap.

Either i was monumentally bad at aiming with that thing (the AI wasn't exactly better) or the enemy was making absurd efforts to dodge every single CIGEN shells i threw at them. Thanks god for the Mx40 it wasn't completely worthless but i swear its main gun was cursed. I think it would really benefit from a projectile speed increase to make it less supernaturally inaccurate.

Btw, this was my experience too, it was simply not a very fun ship to use due to the slow projectile, as combined with the slow reload and not spectacular damage you just got annoyed when lighter enemy ships dodged your shots, it felt like I could hardly ever use it to pick off those numerous damaged but sheilded light ships. I think it would be more fun to use with a faster projectile. If you made the projectile slow to require careful aiming you could always add a chargeup time or something instead.

Also, while the indra is probably the most fun ship to use in the game, it itches my sense of symmetry that the gun is sidemounted!

[MesoTroniK]

This is a great write-up, lets see if I can address each concern.

I played a Nexerelin campaign with Exigency and reach level 42. Early game is, as expected, incredibly painful for Exigency ships. Even a bunch of Hounds can be a serious threat to a lone Yria as the repulsor isn't a reliable defense system.

Yea the Repulsor is not that amazing on smaller ships, but combined with the Reactive Hull right-click system the Yria should be fairly durable

This loadout worked wonder until late game when i couldn't approach the overleveled enemies flagships, even from behind. I tried to switch for a dual repulsor blaster to try those. While i was able to perform some cool tricks (threw a Kurmaraja wreckage at a Gemini, which ended up crushed between the derelict and the enemy Victory flagship) it was otherwise a very meh weapon. Extremely expensive, nearly no damage... "Repulsing" enemy shots was very difficult (and risky) on top of that.

Well, the point of the Repulsor Blaster is not to use as a primary weapon as you tried but instead to layer it with other weapons in large fleet engagements. Firing salvos of them from multiple ships can essentially completely block missile swarms and deny portions of the battlefield to the enemy. It is a gimmick "tactical option" weapon, but situationally it can create more destruction than anything else I have ever seen!

For the cruiser, i was convinced i would love the Pergon. A bucketload of Mxs, a big, long range gun, twice the hull points as a Nasir. An artillery anchor that would have been perfect for my deathball strategy.

Problem, it can't aim for crap.

Either i was monumentally bad at aiming with that thing (the AI wasn't exactly better) or the enemy was making absurd efforts to dodge every single CIGEN shells i threw at them. Thanks god for the Mx40 it wasn't completely worthless but i swear its main gun was cursed. I think it would really benefit from a projectile speed increase to make it less supernaturally inaccurate.

Btw, this was my experience too, it was simply not a very fun ship to use due to the slow projectile, as combined with the slow reload and not spectacular damage you just got annoyed when lighter enemy ships dodged your shots, it felt like I could hardly ever use it to pick off those numerous damaged but sheilded light ships. I think it would be more fun to use with a faster projectile. If you made the projectile slow to require careful aiming you could always add a chargeup time or something instead.

Well shield piercing weapons are a tricky thing to balance, the only defense is either to not get hit or to tank it on the armor. If the projectiles are too strong or fast then high tech ships and frigates just get murdered. The alternate fire mode for the Pergon does substantially increase the muzzle velocity and helps against agile targets, but in the end the ship is meant for bombarding things larger than itself generally.

And then i got the big one. And at more than 400.000 credits, it took me a while to grind but it was worth it.

The Irithia is absolutely necessary for every Exigency fleets. Very tanky (for an Exi ship), a gazillion Mx missiles, 6 regenerating torpedoes and 2 launch bays for your swarm of fighters, the other mounts almost feel superfluous on it. And most importantly, the Tethys drive, which teleport enemy ships right next to you. And because i was deathballing all my ships around my Irithia, that enemy ship life expectancy was usually very, very short.

And they lived happily ever after and killed a lot of pirates.

And i got very wealthy and i thought: "wow, one Irithia is very good, why not getting another Irithia?"

And it was a very stupid decision.

When the player target an enemy ship, the Irithia teleport it to your fleet, which is good. But when you have two Irithia, they BOTH try to teleport the enemy ship next to it, which end up in a massive clusterfrack where your two Irithia are playing ball with the enemy Paragon, IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR FLEET.

And because the Paragon was constantly being teleported around, my bombers couldn't quite catch it. When they did and dropped their bombs, it could be teleported to another place at any second. The bombs however, would keep going where the Paragon was, in this case, my own ship.

And that's how i lost the Irithia i just bought.

So yeah, only one of those per fleet.

The problem you encountered would be exceedingly difficult to solve as it already is a very complex AI and adding logic to account for that issue would be amazingly hard... Hmmm.

Other than this, Exigency felt pretty fun and balanced. Of course they are still incredibly vulnerable to beam weaponry, which i learned the hard way when i encountered a "Tachyon-lance party" themed fleet (1 Paragon, 1 Odyssey and 1 Apogee for 7 Tachyon lances, i didn't knew SS+ could do that kind of things)  which butchered all my ships with terrifying ease.

Well, the built in 50% beam resist and 30% EMP resist is pretty substantial and generally gives Exi ships enough durability against beams to last long enough to return fire but against massed Tachyon Lances... There really is not a solution to this and just consider it part of the design.

Just another little issue i noted, Kaivors are considered as bombers (they follow rally strike forces orders) which isn't wanted as they are much better on the frontline to soak up damage with the rest of the fleet.

Right now all three variants of Kaivor are considered support fighters so they stay at their maximum effective gun range which helps them a lot as any other behavior would be less desirable but does produce that side effect of how they respond to orders.

There's quite a lot of stuffs i haven't tried. No Indra for sale, no Naithyr, no Naxos either, which sadly would have worked very well with my strategy. My stations were determined to only sell me Glynados, more Glynados and then even more Glynados. Same thing for guns, lot of guns to try but not enough ships with medium mounts.

Well not much I can do about ship availability in Nexerelin, but for the masses of medium weapons for sale and lack of ships that have many medium mounts there is but one solution which also will mostly solve every issue with the mod. More ships, you have to only look at the top of the thread to get a vague idea of what is on the list but to elaborate on it slightly. Think of all the future Exi ships as being more generalized in their usage profile, less built-ins, more weapon slots, less fragile, still having dual ship systems, but they would all mostly be reliable fleet ships to anchor the more fragile existing specialists vessels and I will make sure both types remain relevant in combat.

Anyways thank you very much for the review and I think everyone will be satisfied with upcoming additions to the mod

[sotanaht]

So why is it that the Repulsers on Exigency ships are their primary (f key) system, while the ships unique system is always right click?  Shouldn't it be the other way around?  Repulsers are the shield-equivalent defensive system, so it would only make sense for them to be on the shield key.  The other systems are all unique and could benefit from the individualized descriptions for f-key primary systems.

I'm guessing this is all about showing the cooldown for the repulser.

[MesoTroniK]

That is a very good question, the reasons are mostly for internal consistency and ease of control.

Now to explain that in detail you have to look at the mod as a whole. Way back in the day right-click ship systems were actually impossible so this became the basis for the Repulsor being a normal ship system on both Exigency and Association ships. When it became possible to do dual ship systems through admittedly very hacky methods some issues with how they can be used were realized. So for internal consistency reasons if the Repulsor was the right-click system on Exigency ships then that would be inverse of Association vessels! On top of this some ships just control better with things on right-click. For example the Indra's mobility system is literally impossible to use if it was activated with the F key, I don't care how good your hand eye coordination is nobody could actually do it.

So in the end the entire rig is a compromise to make everything as usable as possible and this is the only way it can be. But adding a UI widget, visuals on the ships, and sounds all to show the status of the right-click systems during a battle is a pretty comprehensive way to represent them. In addition the ship systems are described in a short hand manner in the codex entry for each ship inside the description writing, and if you want more details you can read about each right-click system just like normal ones in the pertinent codex tab.

[sotanaht]

Since you requested I say something...

The Kestros MIRV right now feels like it would be overpowered for a large slot.  Each salvo does 3750 damage to shields/armor in spite of the fragmentation type, which is torpedo-level, and it's virtually unavoidable.  To compare, a Templar's Clarent missile, which is designed to be overpowered, does 2k damage with about the same avoidability, at only 2k range.  Their Roland system is a large slot that fires 4 of them, it has more raw power but the Kestros has more utility due to it's incredible 10k range.

I believe the design intent is for them to provide a distraction while more powerful missiles do the real damage, but I don't think that's likely to work because you would need to time your secondary missile shots perfectly AND hope that the random (and probably AoE) PD systems don't target them anyway.  I do however really enjoy the feel and aesthetic of having 50+ mini missiles surrounding my target, it just looks awesome. 

I don't really know what to do with it though.  Reducing the damage would push it more towards it's official distraction role, but I just don't see that as a strong enough role.  The ammo regen might be the first thing to remove.

[MesoTroniK]

Aye thank you for dropping by, well I'll admit it is too powerful but only when massed. If you have only a small number of launchers it does not feel nearly as strong but due to how the missiles synergize when fired in volleys they can be extremely overpowering.

Each salvo does 3750 damage to shields/armor in spite of the fragmentation type, which is torpedo-level, and it's virtually unavoidable.

While that is true on paper in practice it is a bit less since a fair number of the total submunitions completely miss their target due to the three pronged flight path and this is regardless of the size of the vessel they are attacking, this can even be observed in your video... And on top of this this damage is spread all across the ship instead of concentrated in an armor busting manner, but they are still too powerful.

I don't really know what to do with it though.  Reducing the damage would push it more towards it's official distraction role, but I just don't see that as a strong enough role.  The ammo regen might be the first thing to remove.

This is actually an extremely difficult weapon to balance correctly, it is nearly impossible to make good enough to work on its own and at the same time nearly impossible to make it not overpowered in mass quantities. While all LRM type weapons get absurdly powerful when fired in large numbers this one scales up too effectively.

I am trying a rather heavy rebalance of the weapon as we speak. A summary of the changes which may or may not be final: Range reduced to 3000 from 10000, flight time to 30 from 86 seconds, leading accuracy of the MIRV reduced, ammunition count reduced to 6 from 14, fire rate and ammo regeneration rate changes are still being decided upon. The most interesting tweak is the targeting system for the submunitions so that they will always choose their targets based on proximity and this can include multiple ships. Currently they have different priorities based on what you are locked onto with several different possible behavior profiles. These change will make them more useful for attacking clusters of nearby ships rather than it be so easy to use them to focus down a single target. The final goal is to change them from the LRM from hell to a nasty medium range missile with a significantly reduced overall and sustained DPM and much less of a benefit from Fast Missile Racks and Expanded Missile Racks.

Thank you for pointing out these issues to me, it is always useful to see balance from the perspective of others and see situations that they may not have been tested in by the mod author

[sotanaht]

Seeing them swat fighter swarms would be fun.

Looking at my video, I can see that the furthest submuntions are still able to reverse direction and hit the Archbishop no problem.  There are actually some that start close up though that seem to want to go around in a circle AWAY from the archbishop, but that might be because they are targeting its drones, at least a few hit and eventually kill those.

[MesoTroniK]

Well they do now, just don't lock onto a target and only mouse over one when you fire and see what happens

This is basically what the behavior will be all the time regardless of what you are locked onto in the next version.

[tchan]

I'm not sure if I should post this here or in general discussion, but I'll try here first.

The Avesta Station disappeared.

I've been visiting it for a while and one day....it's just gone.

Does it hyperspace somewhere else?  I still see Food Shortage reports of it, but when I click on the news post in the Intel screen, it doesn't do that crosshair location.  And attempts from neighboring systems trying to deliver food to the station had failed.

Bug? o.o;



And...as you can see...theres no thick crosshairs showing the station when I click on the food shortage news post.




edit.......

er nevermind I found it.  The station moved!  Not sure if it was supposed to do that, but well...here it is:


 

[Midnight Kitsune]

The station moves around in an orbit, just so you know

[MesoTroniK]

Yep it does move by design, this is mentioned in the flavor text for the station when you visit it also

[tchan]

Oh ya I just thought the flavor text was just to add some lore.  I didn't expect it to actually move.  This is so awesome.  I love your mod!

[MesoTroniK]

Evening everyone, it is that time again. This update actually contains no new content at all but had a serious balance pass done on several things, a few bugs fixed, the Zephos destroyer AI now uses its teleporting system much more intelligently, a slight optimization pass, little random quality of life changes here and there, and some retouched visuals and sounds on several things.

This version is 100% save compatible with the last and will drop right in without requiring the use of the Save Transfer mod and all the changes added together made some serious improvements to this mod as a whole.

So go ahead and grab the new version from original post and if you have any comments or suggestions please let me know.

Fancy new multi-target lock system for the Kestros MIRV


Changelog

Spoiler

0.7.1b

Balance changes / bug fixes / other random tweaks:
- Tasserus black hole texture was reduced in resolution to decrease VRAM usage and resolve possible compatibility issues on very old hardware.
- Repulsor ship system was optimised some as it now only creates particle effects if you would be able to observe them.
- Zephos class destroyer Thalassa Drive right-click system rebalanced in the following manners, max teleport range reduced to 900 from 1250, flux cost reduced by 20%, cooldown period reduced to 4 from 5 seconds, AI was improved and should suicide less often and in general use it more wisely, and should no longer fail to return to normal space in some rare edge case scenarios.
- Pergon class cruiser designation changed to Gunboat from Artillery Cruiser.
- Kestros MIRV Pod was rebalanced in the following manners, range reduced to 5000 from 10000, missile lifetime reduced to 43 from 86 seconds, leading accuracy reduced, reloads 2 missiles at a time instead of 1, ammo regeneration rate increased to 3 from 1.5 per minute, ammo capacity reduced to 6 from 16, shots per minute (twin missile linked salvo) reduced to 3 from 3.5, total submunition count reduced to 20 from 25, and the submunitions will now track multiple targets.
- Avenger missile (same missile fired from several different weapons) was rebalanced in the following manners, self destructs at 2 instead of 3 seconds past engine fizzle out, second stage activates at 1000 range instead of 750 and now scatters out in a semi-randomized fan spread that tends to hit the frontal aspect instead of spreading out and then converging to attack the flanks of the target.
- All CIGEN weapon projectiles have improved hit detection.
- Big Bang Torpedo reloading mechanic was adjusted for clarity, no balance change.
- Improved descriptions for various things.
- The Ahriman Association had some vanilla portraits added to their possible captain choices.
- Probably some things I don't recall.

New / changed visuals and audio:
- Big Bang Torpedo has new and improved on hit visuals and the launch sound volume was lowered.
- Bolo Mini Torpedo has new and improved on hit visuals and the on hit sound effect volume was lowered.
- Repulsor Blaster projectile loop sound now fades out more smoothly and the on hit sound effect was adjusted slightly.
- Slight improvement to the CIGEN Cannon projectile sprite.
- Mx missile trails were made slightly more obvious.

[close]

--

Now this update is likely the last polish one that will be created for a while, expect some serious content to start showing up soon