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[Radicaljack]

After spending so much time on it the only way to see any flaws will be releasing it, since it sounds like you've really gone in deep on this version I'd say go with what you have, sand the edges down, and wait for things to break for everyone else. Starsector iscomplex in its variations of what the AI will do with different ships, weapons, and captains. Add in another person's playstyle and desires and you get a very complicated set of variables dictating if it feels fun. It's not like there aren't hundreds of other really amazing modders for Starsector, but AO is really the sole TC for a reason, it's a complete rework of combat and that's by far the most intensive thing. Alex spends so much time tweaking and re-tweaking the base game every patch, having that to sort thru plust your own versions of battle is gonna be a fun time to go thru. March is the last truly *** month in my area so it'd be a good time to test this beast out. Good luck!

[Morrokain]

Thanks and that is my plan. I want to finish Orbital Stations and try and squash some lingering bugs first, but releasing the patch to the larger player base will help me identify how this could break faction variants and the general feel of the campaign rig - especially when using Nex.

I can work on the remaining things while I wait for feedback.

[Sythion]

I've noticed a bug, after integrating an AI core (Alpha in this case) into a ship and going to change the skills I realized 2 of the 8 were already selected despite nothing being highlighted. Turns out, it already had vanilla Field Modulation and Combat Endurance which leads to this:

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EDIT: Also noticed something is off with the skill. I only have a single ship which is 50 DP and yet this can be seen:

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[Morrokain]

I've noticed a bug, after integrating an AI core (Alpha in this case) into a ship and going to change the skills I realized 2 of the 8 were already selected despite nothing being highlighted. Turns out, it already had vanilla Field Modulation and Combat Endurance which leads to this:

Spoiler

[close]

EDIT: Also noticed something is off with the skill. I only have a single ship which is 50 DP and yet this can be seen:

Spoiler

[close]

Thanks! The second thing is probably a code oversight. The first one is more difficult to troubleshoot how its happening but I havent really dug into it yet. To confirm: this is different behavior than vanilla and how certain are you that this isn't being caused by another mod?

[Sythion]

For clarification, the single 50 DP ship had an Alpha Core. Presumably forgot to set multiplier to 1 or meant to mention the value in skill description.

Unsure in regards to vanilla, sorry. This was definitely my mod list at the time, so I think it's an AO issue as none of the others  edit skills.

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I was also wondering, is Effulgence currently obtainable? Haven't encountered it in the "wild" and the crafting cost is more the maximum availability.

[Morrokain]

For clarification, the single 50 DP ship had an Alpha Core. Presumably forgot to set multiplier to 1 or meant to mention the value in skill description.

Unsure in regards to vanilla, sorry. This was definitely my mod list at the time, so I think it's an AO issue as none of the others  edit skills.

Spoiler

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I was also wondering, is Effulgence currently obtainable? Haven't encountered it in the "wild" and the crafting cost is more the maximum availability.

Ah yeah the mod list looks like it shouldn't be a factor afaik. I must have missed a change from 0.95.1a or something.

The Effulgence is set as a REDACTED large carrier as its ship role. REDACTED fleets technically have carriers available in their fleet doctrine as a whole, but it is possible that since REDACTED don't really operate like a normal faction in the campaign and there isn't a vanilla definition for a large carrier for them, that it isn't spawning.

It could also be bad luck though. REDACTED fleets spawn large capitals over large carriers at a ratio of 2:1 I think.

I added the Effulgence variants as large capitals as well in the ship roles file since it is technically sort of a mini-boss ship. If it IS a problem with that, it will be corrected in the next update.

Thanks again for the reports!

[Morrokain]

Minor Progress Update.

I have fixed a bug with Shield Shunt where you couldn't apply it to an unshielded ship with the mod version of Makeshift Shield Generator. It is also too powerful for the mod just in general. I am trying it out on Luddic Stations to add more unique flavor that fits the lore, and it made them easily 3 times stronger than the other stations.

Simply put, percentage armor increases don't work well for the TC. I have therefore replaced the vanilla version with my own that increases armor by 300/500/700/800 by hullsize as a starting point. Since it lost some appeal and makes taking the skill that unlocks it a tiny bit less attractive, I've added a secondary bonus that reduces EMP damage by 50%. This means that there is now multiple ways to get 100% reduced EMP damage through skill combinations. I'll keep an eye on that as far as balance is concerned.

Ah, and also:

Also noticed something is off with the skill. I only have a single ship which is 50 DP and yet this can be seen:

Spoiler

[close]

For clarification, the single 50 DP ship had an Alpha Core. Presumably forgot to set multiplier to 1 or meant to mention the value in skill description.

You must have edited the config settings for skill caps or something else is affecting the description. I'm not sure how to proceed with troubleshooting this. Here is my dev version:

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 - So, your math at least makes sense as far as the total deployment percentage affecting the bonus with a 50 dp base deployment at a 4x multiplier from the alpha core... but the description is really buggy looking and the cap is probably a config edit or someone else is attempting to override skills descriptions in one of your mods - which idk I'm not going to go through every one but it seems unlikely but technically possible? The only other thing I can think of is that it's your local setup somehow (outside of the config edits the mod allows - but it doesn't allow the multipliers to be changed iirc), but it's really weird that something would cause that specific of an issue and not simply crash everything else. I'm sorry that this isn't particularly helpful, but this is all the information I have atm from spending some time looking into this.

As far as the built in skills from the core itself, I do vaguely remember reading a blog post that cores do something like this now from 0.95.1a with the skill changes, so it's probably that. I'm not sure if that is overridable or not as of yet.

[Sythion]

You must have edited the config settings for skill caps or something else is affecting the description. I'm not sure how to proceed with troubleshooting this. Here is my dev version:

Spoiler

[close]

I didn't mess with any settings, although I did update some mods mid-save (only later realizing doing such can risk save unless clearly mentioned to be safe) which I'm guessing was the issue.

[moosekin16]

I've noticed that the black hole in the AO home system consistently pulls in their own fleets and they get stuck. Is that by design? It seems sort of silly that the faction dedicated to weird tech doesn't know how to avoid the black hole at the center of their civilization.


There's like five AO fleets in there right now.

[Morrokain]

I've noticed that the black hole in the AO home system consistently pulls in their own fleets and they get stuck. Is that by design? It seems sort of silly that the faction dedicated to weird tech doesn't know how to avoid the black hole at the center of their civilization.


There's like five AO fleets in there right now.

Welcome to the forums!

Yeah vanilla fleet behavior doesn't avoid hazards like that and I don't override that behavior at all. While I agree that it is immersion breaking, I'm not sure it's worth the effort of overriding unless there is something else I'm doing to fleet behavior on top of that for a mod feature. I may eventually do it though it just depends. I will probably wait until the game is stable at 1.0 to tackle things like that so I dont waste my effort if it changes.

[Morrokain]

Polishing a few things up and planning on releasing the update at some point today. It will NOT be save compatible and be sure to delete the mod folder before updating.

I took a look at the Doom and Tyrant mine systems and made some adjustments. I still think they overuse the mines on fighters - which can cause them to take mine hits if they flux out. That is a problem but I'm not sure if I have a solution other than making my own AI for it. The mines themselves have a larger hit radius and a lot more hitpoints. To balance this out, their damage was also reduced by 25%. On top of that, the Tyrant's mine system has been upgraded with double capacity and quadruple the regeneration rate. It can also deploy mines three times as quickly. Despite this massive buff, 3 Executors still beat 3 Tyrants so I think it will be fine balance wise. The Tyrant may get buffs in other areas now that phase ships seem more balanced in their behavior. I like the phase changes in the most recent vanilla update. They are now more designed to strike and spend less time retreating and never attacking. They are a lot less annoying to fight but are still dangerous.

Orbital Stations and Battlestations seem pretty well balanced at this point. Star Fortresses didn't get nearly as much test time however, so I'll be monitoring feedback on them in case they are actually impossible to destroy.

I also added a new weapon: Dual Pulse Laser. This is a buffed version of the Pulse Laser for higher OP that is exclusive to the Sci-Corps. I'm not sure that I will get around to adding it to their variants this update, but they should at least have it available in their larger markets and on their higher tier stations.

To summarize other items included in the update:
 - Far more dangerous SUPER REDACTED.
 - Stations are a lot more powerful both on the campaign map and in combat. (Not sure if Nex uses the same system so I will keep an eye out for feedback there.)
 - Revamped most of the Archean Order ships' flux dynamic.
 - More variants for the new ships from the last vanilla update.
 - Stronger carriers with two distinct roles: Missile and fighter interdiction/defense and Anti-ship strike/offense.
 - General weapon balancing pass.
 - A rework of missiles that make them stronger with a new ship role to counter them using skills and hullmods. (Not implemented across all factions for the moment, but some variants exist.)
 - Rebalance of strike weapons to make them less capable of instantly bursting down ships while still retaining the unique ship role they provide.
 - Further fleshed out skills from the original skill rework. Some have been removed and replaced with new ones.

There may be additional things I don't remember off the top of my head.

Known issues still unaddressed at the moment:
 - Ship Quality is still ignored for now. I haven't yet been able to investigate the cause but if I can't get to it before this update it will be priority for the next one.
 - Guardian fights still do not spawn drones as intended. This has been a very elusive bug that I've sunk hours into. I will likely facepalm when I finally figure it out because its probably something simple, ugh.

[Morrokain]

The update is now available on Nexus Mods and I've added a mirror download via Google Drive for those who would rather download the mod through the forums. Again this update is NOT save compatible. The last version can still be downloaded from Nexus Mods.

I wanted to add the cool new Terminator Sequence to the Scarab, but I'm not sure its modifiable without creating a custom AI and that would take too long for this update. I'll look into it for the next one.

The roadmap for the next update is:

 - Bugs or issues known or reported from this update.
 - Separating portraits into portrait packs.
 - Fleshing out the new roles within the campaign.
 - An ambitious campaign feature.
 - Fleet Dialogue release (not part of this mod but part of the priority roadmap).

[Adalbert]

MAJOR BUG: When I play missions, it is impossible to install a shield shunt on any ship. You can click it, but nothing happens. Please fix it.

[Morrokain]

MAJOR BUG: When I play missions, it is impossible to install a shield shunt on any ship. You can click it, but nothing happens. Please fix it.

Welcome to the forums and thanks for the report! Looks like I overcomplicated the applicable to ship portion of the code and there wasn't actually a state it could be equipped.

This has been hotfixed so a redownload should solve the problem. The hotfix should also be save compatible.

[Adalbert]

Thanks for the quick fix. You are really a good mod dev of my favourite mod for Starsector. I have another quick question though. Don't you think shield shunt is a little overpowered now? I haven't played with it now, obviously, but in your 0.95a release, I made an Artillery Legion 14 build with shield shunt and heavy armor, armored weapon mounts etc. and it was already incredibly powerful. But now +800 armor might be a little bit, too much, I think.

Also, will there be codex descriptions for remnant and Adamantine Consortium Ships in the future? Thanks